In the 1960's Vassili Moroz was the first in our country and one of the first in the world, who began to use the infrared spectral range which is very important in astronomy. In these years he has obtained a number of great scientific results: he has discovered ice on the surface of Jupiter's satellites and water in Martian soil; he has determined the pressure of Martian atmosphere and the CO concentration in Venus' atmosphere.

Since 1967 Vassili Moroz became an active participant of planetary research programs. He was a head of numerous experiments onboard of Sovjet spacecrafts in the projects "Mars 3", "Mars 5", "Venera 5" - "Venera 16", "VEGA" and "Phobos". Moroz has obtained pioneering results about properties and structure of Martian atmosphere and surface, about properties of atmospheres of Venus and Halley's Comet, about composition of the Phobos' surface.

Vassili Moroz was a deputy scientific head of the "Mars-96" project and a participant of spectroscopy experiments "PFS", "OMEGA" and "SPICAM" in the European project "Mars-Express". These experiments are in progress now.

Professor Moroz was an active teacher, giving lectures to students of the Moscow State University during the period of 25 years. He is an author of more than 260 publications in scientific magazines, monographs "Physics of the planet Mars" and "Physics of planets". He was a co-author of the manual "The course of general astronomy" translated to many languages. Vassili Moroz has created the school of planetary space research and governed a group of persons sharing his ideas. This group was playing a leading role in all Sovjet planetary missions. Now this group is involved into international programs of Mars and Venus research and composes a center of planetary research which is well-known in the world.

For his outstanding services Vassili Moroz was awarded with numerous prestigious rewards and prizes including the USSR State Prize and the Order of Labor Red Banner. According to the resolution of the COSPAR Presidium, Vassili Moroz was awarded with the COSPAR Prize in 2004. He was a member of the International Astronautic Academy and a honored member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.

People like Vassili Moroz - wise, honest, living for the Science and giving it all their forces, - are the national property. They leave, and nobody can replace them. Vassili always had time, heart and soul for all of us. We shall hold Vassili Moroz in our hearts forewer.