Sergey Korolyov
Encyclopedia
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev ' onMouseout='HidePop("9838")' href="/topics/Zhytomyr">Zhytomyr
, Russian Empire
(now Ukraine
); died 14 January 1966 in Moscow
, Russia
) was the lead Soviet
rocket
engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race
between the United States and the Soviet Union
during the 1950s and 1960s. He is considered by many as the father of practical astronautics.
Although Korolev was trained as an aircraft designer, his greatest strengths proved to be in design integration, organization and strategic planning. Arrested for alleged mismanagement of funds (he spent the money on yet unsuccessful experiments with rocket devices), he was imprisoned in 1938 for almost six years, including some months in a Kolyma
labour camp. Following his release, he became a recognized rocket designer and a key figure in the development of the Soviet ICBM program. He was then appointed to lead the Soviet space program, made Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences
, overseeing the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects. By the time he died unexpectedly in 1966, his plans to compete with the United States
to be the first nation to land a man on the Moon had begun to be implemented.
Before his death he was often referred to only as "Chief Designer", because his name and his pivotal role in the Soviet space program had been held to be a state secret by the Politburo
. Only many years later was he publicly acknowledged as the lead man behind Soviet success in space.
, a small provincial center in the Volhynian Governorate
of the Russian Empire
(now Ukraine
). His father, Pavel Yakovlevich Korolev, was a Russian migrant
and his mother, Maria Mykolayivna Moskalenko, was Ukrainian
. His father had originally moved to Zhytomyr to be a teacher of Russian language
. Three years after his birth the couple separated due to financial difficulties. At the time, Korolev was informed by his mother that his father had died, and only later learned that Pavel had lived until 1929. The two never met after the family break-up, although Pavel later wrote to Maria requesting a meeting with his son.
Korolev grew up in Nizhyn
(Nezhin), under the care of his grandparents. His mother had wanted an advanced education, and so she was frequently away taking courses in Kiev
. He grew up a lonely child with few friends, but he proved a good student, especially in mathematics
. In 1916 his mother married Grigory Mikhailovich Balanin, an electrical engineer, and Grigory proved a good influence on the child. Grigory moved the family to Odessa
in 1917, after getting a job with the regional railway.
The year 1918 was tumultuous in Russia, with the close of the World War
and the ongoing Russian Revolution
. The internecine struggles continued until the Bolshevikss assumed unchallenged power in 1920. During this period the local schools were closed and young Korolev had to continue his studies at home. In 1919 there were severe food shortages, and Korolev suffered from a bout of typhus
. Even after this the family suffered through hard times, as did much of the remainder of the nation.
and in various academics. However his primary interest was in aeronautical engineering, perhaps due to the influence of an air show he had enjoyed back in 1913. He made an independent study of flight theory, and also worked in the local glider
club. A detachment of military seaplanes had been stationed in Odessa, and Korolev took a keen interest in their operations.
In 1923 he joined the Society of Aviation and Aerial Navigation of Ukraine and the Crimea (OAVUK). By joining the Odessa hydroplane squadron he had his first flying lesson, and also had many opportunities to fly as a passenger. In 1924 he personally designed a glider called the K-5, which was accepted by the OAVUK as a construction project. At about the same time he also trained to become accomplished as a gymnast, but his academic work began to suffer from his distractions with these other interests. To pursue his interests, he decided in 1924 to attend the Kiev Polytechnic Institute
as they had an aviation branch. In Kiev he lived with his uncle Yuri, and he earned money to pay for his courses by performing odd jobs. His curriculum was technically-oriented, and included various engineering, physics and mathematics classes.
In 1925 he was accepted into a limited class on glider construction. He was allowed to fly the training glider on which he worked, but ended up with two broken ribs. He continued with his courses, completing his second year in 1926. In July of that year he was accepted into the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MVTU, BMSTU).
Until 1929, Korolev studied specialized topics in aviation at the school. He lived with his family, who had moved to Moscow
, in what were typical but crowded conditions. In addition to his studies, Korolev had more opportunities to fly gliders and powered aircraft, and he revelled in the experience. He also designed a glider in 1928, and flew it in a competition the next year. During 1929 the Communist Party had decreed that the education of engineers be accelerated to meet the country's urgent need for their skills. Korolev could obtain a diploma by producing a practical aircraft design, and had the design completed and approved by the end of the year. His advisor was none other than Andrei Tupolev
.
Having graduated, Korolev began work at an aircraft design bureau designated OPO-4, or 4th Experimental Section. It was headed up by a Frenchman
named who emigrated to USSR in the 1920s and included a number of the Soviet Union's best designers. He did not stand out in this group, but while so employed he also worked privately on a pair of personal design projects. One of these was a glider design that was capable of performing aerobatics. By 1930 he became a lead engineer on the Tupolev TB-3
heavy bomber.
In 1930, Korolev finally earned his pilot's license. The next year, on 6 August, he was wed to Xenia Vincentini, a woman he had been courting since 1924. He had proposed marriage to her back then, but she declined as she wanted a higher education. It was during 1930 that Korolev became interested in the possibilities of liquid-fueled rocket engines. As his interest was primarily in aircraft, he saw the potential for use of these engines to propel airplanes. In 1931, together with Friedrich Zander
, a space travel
enthusiast, he participated in the creation of the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (GIRD), one of the earliest state-sponsored centers for rocket development in the USSR. In May 1932 Korolev was appointed chief of the group.
During the following years, GIRD developed three different propulsion systems, each more successful than the last. In 1932, the military became interested in the efforts of this group, and began providing some funding. In 1933, the group accomplished their first launch of a liquid-fueled rocket, which was called GIRD-X (not GIRD-09 as often cited; hybrid GIRD-09 used solid gasoline and liquid oxygen). This was just seventeen years after colonel Ivan Platonovich Grave
's first launch in 1916 (patent in 1924). In 1934, Korolev published the work "Rocket Flight in Stratosphere".
With growing military interest in this new technology, it was decided by the government in 1933 to merge GIRD with the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) in Leningrad
. The merger created the Jet Propulsion Research Institute (RNII), headed up by the military engineer Ivan Kleimenov and containing a number of enthusiastic proponents of space travel, including Valentin Glushko
. Korolev became the Deputy Chief of the institute. He led the development of cruise missile
s and a manned rocket-powered glider
.
On 10 April 1935, Korolev's wife gave birth to their daughter, Natasha. In 1936 they were able to move out of his parents' home and into their own apartment. Both Korolev and his wife had careers, and Sergey always spent long hours at his design office. By now he was chief engineer at RNII. The RNII team continued their development work on rocketry, with particular focus on the area of stability and control. They developed automated gyroscope
stabilization systems that allowed stable flight along a programmed trajectory. Korolev was a charismatic leader who served primarily as an engineering project manager. He was a demanding, hard-working man, with a disciplinary style of management. Korolev personally monitored all key stages of the programs and paid meticulous attention to detail.
, Korolev was arrested by the NKVD
after being denounced by Ivan Kleymenov
, Georgy Langemak
, and Valentin Glushko
. He was accused of deliberately slowing the work of the research institute, and following torture in the Lubyanka
prison to extract a confession, was tried and sentenced to ten years in a labor camp. Korolev later learned that he had been denounced by Glushko, and this may have been the cause of the life long animosity between the two men. Glushko and Korolev had reportedly been denounced by Andrei Kostikov, who became the head of RNII after its leadership was arrested (Kostikov was ousted a few years later over accusations of budget irregularities).
Believing that his arrest was a mistake, Korolev wrote many appeals to the authorities, including Stalin himself. Following the fall of the NKVD head, Nikolai Yezhov
, the new chief Lavrenti Beria chose to retry Korolev on reduced charges in 1939, but by that time Korolev was on his way from prison to a gulag camp in the far east of Siberia, where he spent several months in a gold mine in the Kolyma
area before word reached him of his retrial. Towards the end of 1939 he was sent back to Moscow, but he had already sustained injuries and had lost most of his teeth due to the labor camp's brutal conditions. When he reached Moscow, Korolev's sentence was reduced to eight years, which he did not have to serve in a labor camp.
Other members of the RNII had also been arrested. Kleymenov and Langemak were executed, leaving Korolev very fortunate to have even survived. The rocket program was set back for years and fell far behind the rapid progress taking place in Germany.
Korolev was assigned to a "sharashka
", a penitentiary for intellectuals and the educated. These were effectively slave-labor camps where scientists and engineers worked on projects assigned by the Communist party leadership. The Central Design Bureau 29 (CKB-29, ЦКБ-29) of the NKVD, served as Tupolev's engineering facility, and Korolev was brought here to work for his old mentor. During World War II
, this sharashka designed both the Tupolev Tu-2
bomber and the Petlyakov Pe-2
dive bomber. The group was moved several times during the war, the first time to avoid capture by advancing German forces.
In 1942 Korolev managed to be moved to another "sharashka" under Valentin Glushko, which designed rocket-assisted take off boosters for aircraft. Korolev was kept in the sharashka and isolated from his family until 1944. He lived under constant fear of being executed for the military secrets he possessed, and was deeply affected by his time in the gulag, becoming reserved and cautious. On 27 June 1944, Korolev – along with Tupolev, Glushko and others – was finally discharged by special government decree, although the charges against him were not dropped until 1957. The design bureau was handed over from NKVD control to the government's aviation industry commission. Korolev continued working with the bureau for another year, serving as deputy designer under Glushko and studying various rocket designs. In 1944, Korolev and Glushko designed the RD-1 kHz auxiliary rocket motor tested in an unsuccessful fast-climb Lavochkin La-7R.
, with a rank of colonel
. Along with other experts, he flew to Germany
to recover the technology of the German V-2 rocket
. The Soviets placed a priority on reproducing lost documentation on the V-2, and studying the various parts and captured manufacturing facilities. That work continued in East Germany until late 1946, when the Soviet experts and some 150 German scientists and engineers were sent to Russia. Most of the German experts, with the exception of Helmut Gröttrup
, were those involved in wartime mass-production of V-2, and they had never worked directly with Wernher von Braun
. The leading German rocket scientists, including Dr. von Braun himself, surrendered to Americans and were transported to the United States
as part of Operation Paperclip
.
Stalin had decided to make rocket & missile development a national priority, and a new institute was created for the purpose, the NII-88
in the suburbs of Moscow. For the German engineers, Branch 1 of NII-88 was set up on Gorodomlya Island
in the Lake Seliger
some 200 kilometres (124.3 mi) from Moscow. The facility was surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, although Boris Chertok
, chief designer of guidance and control systems, notes in his book Rockets and People,
Development of ballistic missile
s was put under the military control of Dmitriy Ustinov
, with Korolev serving as a chief designer of long-range missiles at the Special Design Bureau 1 (OKB-1) of NII-88. Korolev demonstrated his organizational abilities in this new facility, keeping a dysfunctional and highly-compartmentalized organization operating.
With the blueprints reproduced, thanks in part to disassembled V-2 rockets, the team now began producing a working replica of the rocket. This was designated the R-1, and was first tested in October 1947. A total of eleven were launched, five hitting the target. This was comparable to the German hit ratio, and demonstrated the unreliability of the rocket. The Soviets continued to utilize the expertise of the Germans on V-2 technology for some time; however, in the regime of secrecy surrounding the ballistic missile program, Gröttrup and his team had no access to classified work of their Russian colleagues on new rocket technology as well as adequate production and testing facilities. This made any meaningful development impossible and negatively affected the morale of the German team. In 1950, the Ministry of Defence made an official decision to dissolve the German team and repatriate the German engineers and their families. The first group was sent to Germany in December 1951, and the last in November 1953.
In 1947, Korolev's group began working on more advanced designs, with improvements in range and throw weight. The R-2 doubled the range of the V-2, and was the first design to utilize a separate warhead. This was followed by the R-3, which had a range of 3000 kilometres (1,864.1 mi), and thus could target England
. However, Glushko couldn't get the engines to develop the required thrust, and the project was canceled in 1952.
Later in the same year work began on the R-5, which had a more modest 1200 kilometres (745.6 mi) range. It completed a first successful flight by 1953. The first true intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM), not only in USSR but in the whole world, was the R-7 Semyorka
. This was a two-stage rocket with a maximum payload of 5.4 tons, sufficient to carry the Soviet's bulky nuclear bomb
on a impressive distance of 7 megametres (4,349.6 mi). After several test failures, the R-7 successfully launched on August 1957, sending a dummy payload to Kamchatka Peninsula
.
It was in 1952 that Korolev joined the Soviet Communist Party
, a tactical necessity if he was to request money from the government for his future projects. It was only 19 April 1957, however, when he would be fully "rehabilitated", as the government acknowledged that his sentence was unjust.
Korolev was rarely known to drink vodka or other alcoholic beverages, and chose to live a fairly austere lifestyle. He remained a handsome and solidly-built man, and he was as fond of women as they were of him.
About 1946, the marriage of Korolev and Vincentini began to break up. Vincentini was heavily occupied with her own career, and at about this time Korolev had an affair with a younger woman named Nina Ivanovna Kotenkova. Vincentini, who still loved Korolev and was angry over the infidelity, divorced him in 1948. Korolev and Kotenkova next were married in 1949, but he is known to have had affairs even after his marriage to Kotenkova.
In spite of the Soviet progress on ICBM technology, Korolev was preoccupied with the use of rockets for space travel. In 1953 he first proposed the use of the R-7 design for launching a satellite into orbit. He pushed his ideas with the Academy of Sciences of the USSR
, including a concept for sending a dog into space. He also had to overcome resistance in the military and among party members.
In 1957, during the International Geophysical Year
, the concept of launching a satellite began to appear in the American press. The US government was not well disposed toward the idea of spending millions of dollars on this concept, and so it was effectively frozen for a period. However, Korolev's group followed the Western press, and they thought it was possible to beat the US to the punch. He was finally able to win over support because of competition with the United States by suggesting that the USSR should try to be the first country to launch a satellite.
The actual development of Sputnik was performed in less than a month. This was a very simple design, consisting of little more than a polished metal sphere, a transmitter, thermal measuring instruments, and batteries. Korolev personally managed the assembly, and the work was very hectic. Finally on 4 October 1957, launched on a rocket that had only successfully launched once, the satellite was placed in orbit.
The effect of this launch was electric, and produced many political ramifications for the future. Nikita Khrushchev
was pleased with this success, and decided that it should be followed up by a new achievement in time for the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution
. This was less than a month away, on 3 November. The result was Sputnik 2
.
This new spacecraft would have six times the mass of the Sputnik 1, and would include as a payload the dog Laika
. The entire vehicle was designed from scratch within four weeks, with no time for testing or quality checks. It was successfully launched on 3 November and the dog was placed in orbit. There was no mechanism designed in this vehicle to bring the dog back to earth and so she died after roughly 6 hours in space succumbing to heat exhaustion.
This string of successes ran out with the launch of Sputnik 3
. This instrument-laden spacecraft was sent into orbit on 15 May the following year. However, the tape recorder that was to store the data failed after launch. As a result, the discovery and mapping of the Van Allen radiation belt
s were left to the United States' Explorer 4
in July. What Sputnik 3 did do, however, was to leave little doubt with the American government about the Soviets' pending ICBM capability.
. A modified version of the R-7 launch vehicle would be used, with a new upper stage. The engine for this final stage was the first designed to be fired in outer space. The first three probes sent to the Moon in 1958 failed. The Luna 1
mission in 1959 was intended to impact the surface, but missed by about 6000 kilometres (3,728.2 mi). Another probe failed, and then the Luna 2
successfully impacted the surface, giving the Soviets another first. This was followed by an even greater success with Luna 3
. It was launched only two years after Sputnik 1, and was the first spacecraft to photograph the far side of the Moon.
Korolev's group was also working on ambitious programs for missions to Mars
and Venus
, putting a man in orbit, launching communication, spy and weather satellites, and making a soft-landing on the Moon. A radio communication center needed to be built in the Crimea
to control the spacecraft.
. It was to hold a single passenger in a space suit
, and be fully automated. The capsule had an escape mechanism for problems prior to launch, and a soft-landing and ejection system during the recovery.
On 15 May 1960 an unpiloted prototype performed 64 orbits of the Earth, but failed to return. Four tests were then sent into orbit carrying dogs, of which the last two were fully successful. After gaining approval from the government, a modified version of the R-7 was used to launch Yuri Alexeevich Gagarin
into orbit on 12 April 1961, the first human in Earth orbit. He returned to Earth via a parachute after ejecting at an altitude of 7 kilometres (4.3 mi).
This was followed up by additional Vostok flights, culminating with 81 orbits completed with Vostok 5
and the launch of the first woman cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova
, on Vostok 6
.
Following Vostok, Korolev planned to move forward with Soyuz
craft that would be able to dock with other craft in orbit and exchange crews. However, he was directed by Khrushchev to cheaply produce more 'firsts' for the piloted program. Korolev was reported to have resisted the idea, since he currently lacked a rocket of sufficient capability to lift a three-person capsule into space. However, Khrushchev was not interested in technical excuses and let it be known that if Korolev could not do it, he would give the work to his rival, Vladimir Chelomei
.
Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov describes the authority Korolev commanded at this time.
Leonov recalls the first meeting between Korolev and the cosmonauts.
To complete this task his group designed the Voskhod
, an incremental improvement on the Vostok. One of the difficulties in the design of the Voskhod was the need to land it via parachute. The three-person
crew could not bail out and land by parachute, since the altitude would not be survivable. So the craft would need much larger parachutes in order to land safely. However, some tests with the craft resulted in failures, causing the death of some test animals. This gave Korolev pause, but the problem was solved through the use of new parachute material.
The resulting Voskhod was a stripped-down vehicle from which any excess weight had been removed. Another modification was the addition of a backup retrofire engine, since the more powerful Voskhod rocket
used to launch the craft would send it to a higher orbit than the Vostok, thus eliminating the possibility of a natural decay of the orbit and reentry in case of primary retrorocket failure. This spacecraft made one unmanned test flight, then on 12 October 1964 a crew of three cosmonauts, Komarov, Yegorov and Feoktistov, was launched into space and made sixteen orbits. This craft was designed to perform a soft landing, thus eliminating a need for the ejection system. The crew was also sent into orbit without space suits, another risky move.
With the Americans planning a space walk with their Gemini program, the Soviets decided to trump them again by performing a space walk on the second Voskhod launch. After rapidly adding an airlock, the Voskhod 2
was launched on March 18, 1965, and Alexei Leonov performed the world's first space walk. The flight very nearly ended in disaster and plans for further Voskhod missions were shelved. In the meantime the change of Soviet leadership with the fall of Khrushchev meant that Korolev was back in favor and given charge of beating the US to landing a man on the Moon.
For the Moon race, Korolev's staff started to design the immense N1 rocket
in 1961, using the highly effecient NK-33
liquid fuel rocket engine. He also had in work the design for the Soyuz
manned spacecraft (which many years later went on to carry the first space tourists), as well as the Luna vehicles that would soft-land on the Moon and make unmanned missions to Mars and Venus. But, unexpectedly, he was to die before he could see his various plans brought to fruition.
On 3 December 1960, Korolev suffered his first heart attack
. During his convalescence, it was also discovered that he was suffering from a kidney disorder, a condition brought on by his detention in the Soviet prison camps. He was warned by the doctors that if he continued to work as intensely as he had, he would not live long. However Korolev reasoned that once the Soviets lost their leadership in space, the capricious Khrushchev would likely cut off the funding for his programs. So he continued to work - now even more intensely than before.
By 1962 Sergei Korolev's health problems were beginning to accumulate and he was suffering from numerous ailments. He had a bout of intestinal bleeding that led to him being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. In 1964 doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrhythmia. In February he spent ten days in the hospital after a heart problem. Shortly after he was suffering from inflammation of his gallbladder
. The mounting pressure of his workload was also taking a heavy toll, and he was suffering from a lot of fatigue. Korolev was also growing deaf, perhaps due to much exposure to noise from rocket engine tests.
The actual circumstances of Korolev's death remain somewhat uncertain. In December 1965, he was supposedly diagnosed with a bleeding polyp
in his large intestine
. He entered the hospital on 5 January 1966 for somewhat routine surgery. Nine days later he died. It was stated by the government that he had what turned out to be a large, cancerous tumor
in his abdomen. But Glushko later reported that he actually died due to a poorly performed operation for hemorrhoid
s. According to Harford, Korolev's family confirmed the cancer story. His weak heart next contributed to his demise—Korolev never regained consciousness after the operation. When doctors tried to insert a tube into his lungs to assist his breathing, they found they could not do so due to the heavy damage done to his jaw by the beatings he had taken in the gulag.
Under a policy initiated by Stalin and continued by his successors, the identity of Korolev was never revealed until after his death. The purported reason was to protect him from foreign agents from the United States. As a result, the Soviet people didn't become aware of his accomplishments until after his death. His obituary
was published in the Pravda
newspaper on 16 January 1966, showing a photograph of Korolev with all his medals. Korolev's ashes were interred with state honors in the Kremlin Wall
.
Korolev is often compared to Wernher von Braun
as the leading architect of the Space Race
. Unlike von Braun, Korolev had to compete continually with rivals, such as Vladimir Chelomei
, who had their own plans for flights to the Moon. He also had to work with technology that in many aspects was less advanced than what was available in the United States, particularly in electronics and computers.
Korolev's successor in the Soviet space program was Vasily Mishin
. Mishin was a quite competent engineer who had served as Korolev's deputy and right-hand man. After Korolev died, Mishin became the Chief Designer, and he inherited what turned out to be a flawed N1 rocket
program. In 1972, Mishin was fired and then replaced by a rival, Valentin Glushko
, after all four N-1 test launches failed. By that time, the rival Americans had already made it to the Moon, and so the program was canceled by CPSU General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev
.
in 1956 and 1961. He was also a Lenin Prize
winner in 1971, and was awarded the Order of Lenin
three times, the Order of the Badge of Honour and the medal "For Labour Valour".
In 1958 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1969 and 1986, the USSR issued 10 kopek
postage stamps honoring Korolev.. In addition he was made an Honorary Citizen of Korolyov and received the 800th Anniversary of Moscow Medal
.
, 6th Ostankinsky Lane,2/28). In 1976 he was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame.
The town of Kaliningrad (formerly Podlipki, Moscow region) is the home of RSC Energia
, the largest space company in Russia. In 1996, Boris Yeltsin
renamed the town to Korolyov. There is now an oversized statue of S.P. Korolev located in the town square. RSC Energia was also renamed to S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia
.
Astronomical features named
after Korolev include the crater Korolev
on the far side of the Moon, a crater
on Mars
, and the asteroid
1855 Korolyov.
, in which Korolev was played by renowned Russian actor Kirill Lavrov
. He was played by Steve Nicolson
in the 2005 BBC
co-produced docu-drama Space Race
. In 2011 the British writer Rona Munro
produced the play Little Eagles on Korolev's life – its premiere was from 16 April to 7 May 2011, in an RSC
production at the Hampstead Theatre
, with Korolev played by Darrel D'Silva
and Yuri Gagarin
by Dyfan Dwyfor
.
A science fiction novel by Paolo Aresi, entitled Korolev, was published in the Italian series Urania
in April 2011.
A Space Vessel the RFS Korolev was name in his honor in the Science-Fiction series Stargate SG-1
on the 9th season.
Zhytomyr
Zhytomyr is a city in the North of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zhytomyr Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr Raion...
, Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(now Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
); died 14 January 1966 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
) was the lead Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
rocket
Rocket
A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle which obtains thrust from a rocket engine. In all rockets, the exhaust is formed entirely from propellants carried within the rocket before use. Rocket engines work by action and reaction...
engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
between the United States and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
during the 1950s and 1960s. He is considered by many as the father of practical astronautics.
Although Korolev was trained as an aircraft designer, his greatest strengths proved to be in design integration, organization and strategic planning. Arrested for alleged mismanagement of funds (he spent the money on yet unsuccessful experiments with rocket devices), he was imprisoned in 1938 for almost six years, including some months in a Kolyma
Kolyma
The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south...
labour camp. Following his release, he became a recognized rocket designer and a key figure in the development of the Soviet ICBM program. He was then appointed to lead the Soviet space program, made Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
, overseeing the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects. By the time he died unexpectedly in 1966, his plans to compete with the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
to be the first nation to land a man on the Moon had begun to be implemented.
Before his death he was often referred to only as "Chief Designer", because his name and his pivotal role in the Soviet space program had been held to be a state secret by the Politburo
Politburo
Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...
. Only many years later was he publicly acknowledged as the lead man behind Soviet success in space.
Early life
Korolev was born in ZhytomyrZhytomyr
Zhytomyr is a city in the North of the western half of Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Zhytomyr Oblast , as well as the administrative center of the surrounding Zhytomyr Raion...
, a small provincial center in the Volhynian Governorate
Volhynian Governorate
Volhynian Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit initially of the Russian Empire, created in 1792 after the Second Partition of Poland from the territory of the Kiev Voivodeship and Wołyń Voivodeship...
of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(now Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
). His father, Pavel Yakovlevich Korolev, was a Russian migrant
Russians in Ukraine
Russians in Ukraine form the largest ethnic minority in the country, and the community forms the largest single Russian diaspora in the world. In the 2001 Ukrainian census, 8,334,100 identified themselves as ethnic Russians ....
and his mother, Maria Mykolayivna Moskalenko, was Ukrainian
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...
. His father had originally moved to Zhytomyr to be a teacher of Russian language
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
. Three years after his birth the couple separated due to financial difficulties. At the time, Korolev was informed by his mother that his father had died, and only later learned that Pavel had lived until 1929. The two never met after the family break-up, although Pavel later wrote to Maria requesting a meeting with his son.
Korolev grew up in Nizhyn
Nizhyn
Nizhyn is a city located in the Chernihiv Oblast of northern Ukraine, along the Oster River, north-east of the nation's capital, Kiev. It is the administrative center of the Nizhynsky Raion, though the city itself is also designated as a district in the oblast...
(Nezhin), under the care of his grandparents. His mother had wanted an advanced education, and so she was frequently away taking courses in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
. He grew up a lonely child with few friends, but he proved a good student, especially in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
. In 1916 his mother married Grigory Mikhailovich Balanin, an electrical engineer, and Grigory proved a good influence on the child. Grigory moved the family to Odessa
Odessa
Odessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the northwest shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .The predecessor of Odessa, a small Tatar settlement,...
in 1917, after getting a job with the regional railway.
The year 1918 was tumultuous in Russia, with the close of the World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and the ongoing Russian Revolution
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
. The internecine struggles continued until the Bolshevikss assumed unchallenged power in 1920. During this period the local schools were closed and young Korolev had to continue his studies at home. In 1919 there were severe food shortages, and Korolev suffered from a bout of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
. Even after this the family suffered through hard times, as did much of the remainder of the nation.
Education
Korolev continued his schooling at the Odessa Building Trades School (Stroyprofshkola No. 1) where he received vocational training in carpentryCarpentry
A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....
and in various academics. However his primary interest was in aeronautical engineering, perhaps due to the influence of an air show he had enjoyed back in 1913. He made an independent study of flight theory, and also worked in the local glider
Glider aircraft
Glider aircraft are heavier-than-air craft that are supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against their lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Mostly these types of aircraft are intended for routine operation without engines, though engine failure can...
club. A detachment of military seaplanes had been stationed in Odessa, and Korolev took a keen interest in their operations.
In 1923 he joined the Society of Aviation and Aerial Navigation of Ukraine and the Crimea (OAVUK). By joining the Odessa hydroplane squadron he had his first flying lesson, and also had many opportunities to fly as a passenger. In 1924 he personally designed a glider called the K-5, which was accepted by the OAVUK as a construction project. At about the same time he also trained to become accomplished as a gymnast, but his academic work began to suffer from his distractions with these other interests. To pursue his interests, he decided in 1924 to attend the Kiev Polytechnic Institute
Kiev Polytechnic Institute
The National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” is a major university in Kiev, Ukraine.-History:The institute was founded in 1898. At that time it had four departments: Mechanical, Chemical, Agricultural, and Civil Engineering. The first enrolment constituted 360 students...
as they had an aviation branch. In Kiev he lived with his uncle Yuri, and he earned money to pay for his courses by performing odd jobs. His curriculum was technically-oriented, and included various engineering, physics and mathematics classes.
In 1925 he was accepted into a limited class on glider construction. He was allowed to fly the training glider on which he worked, but ended up with two broken ribs. He continued with his courses, completing his second year in 1926. In July of that year he was accepted into the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MVTU, BMSTU).
Until 1929, Korolev studied specialized topics in aviation at the school. He lived with his family, who had moved to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, in what were typical but crowded conditions. In addition to his studies, Korolev had more opportunities to fly gliders and powered aircraft, and he revelled in the experience. He also designed a glider in 1928, and flew it in a competition the next year. During 1929 the Communist Party had decreed that the education of engineers be accelerated to meet the country's urgent need for their skills. Korolev could obtain a diploma by producing a practical aircraft design, and had the design completed and approved by the end of the year. His advisor was none other than Andrei Tupolev
Andrei Tupolev
Andrei Nikolayevich Tupolev was a pioneering Soviet aircraft designer.During his career, he designed and oversaw the design of more than 100 types of aircraft, some of which set 78 world records...
.
Early career
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
named who emigrated to USSR in the 1920s and included a number of the Soviet Union's best designers. He did not stand out in this group, but while so employed he also worked privately on a pair of personal design projects. One of these was a glider design that was capable of performing aerobatics. By 1930 he became a lead engineer on the Tupolev TB-3
Tupolev TB-3
The Tupolev TB-3 was a heavy bomber aircraft which was deployed by the Soviet Air Force in the 1930s and during World War II. It was the world's first cantilever wing four-engine heavy bomber. Despite obsolescence and being officially withdrawn from service in 1939, TB-3 performed bomber and...
heavy bomber.
In 1930, Korolev finally earned his pilot's license. The next year, on 6 August, he was wed to Xenia Vincentini, a woman he had been courting since 1924. He had proposed marriage to her back then, but she declined as she wanted a higher education. It was during 1930 that Korolev became interested in the possibilities of liquid-fueled rocket engines. As his interest was primarily in aircraft, he saw the potential for use of these engines to propel airplanes. In 1931, together with Friedrich Zander
Friedrich Zander
Friedrich Zander , often transliterated Fridrikh Arturovich Tsander, was a pioneer of rocketry and spaceflight in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union...
, a space travel
Spaceflight
Spaceflight is the act of travelling into or through outer space. Spaceflight can occur with spacecraft which may, or may not, have humans on board. Examples of human spaceflight include the Russian Soyuz program, the U.S. Space shuttle program, as well as the ongoing International Space Station...
enthusiast, he participated in the creation of the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (GIRD), one of the earliest state-sponsored centers for rocket development in the USSR. In May 1932 Korolev was appointed chief of the group.
During the following years, GIRD developed three different propulsion systems, each more successful than the last. In 1932, the military became interested in the efforts of this group, and began providing some funding. In 1933, the group accomplished their first launch of a liquid-fueled rocket, which was called GIRD-X (not GIRD-09 as often cited; hybrid GIRD-09 used solid gasoline and liquid oxygen). This was just seventeen years after colonel Ivan Platonovich Grave
Ivan Grave
Ivan Platonovich Grave was a Russian and Soviet scientist in the field of artillery, Doctor of Technical Sciences , professor , member of the Academy of Artillery Sciences , Major General of the Engineer Corps .Ivan Grave graduated from the Mikhailovskoye Artillery School...
's first launch in 1916 (patent in 1924). In 1934, Korolev published the work "Rocket Flight in Stratosphere".
With growing military interest in this new technology, it was decided by the government in 1933 to merge GIRD with the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) in Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. The merger created the Jet Propulsion Research Institute (RNII), headed up by the military engineer Ivan Kleimenov and containing a number of enthusiastic proponents of space travel, including Valentin Glushko
Valentin Glushko
Valentin Petrovich Glushko or Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko was a Soviet engineer, and the principal Soviet designer of rocket engines during the Soviet/American Space Race.-Biography:...
. Korolev became the Deputy Chief of the institute. He led the development of cruise missile
Cruise missile
A cruise missile is a guided missile that carries an explosive payload and is propelled, usually by a jet engine, towards a land-based or sea-based target. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a large warhead over long distances with high accuracy...
s and a manned rocket-powered glider
Glider aircraft
Glider aircraft are heavier-than-air craft that are supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against their lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Mostly these types of aircraft are intended for routine operation without engines, though engine failure can...
.
On 10 April 1935, Korolev's wife gave birth to their daughter, Natasha. In 1936 they were able to move out of his parents' home and into their own apartment. Both Korolev and his wife had careers, and Sergey always spent long hours at his design office. By now he was chief engineer at RNII. The RNII team continued their development work on rocketry, with particular focus on the area of stability and control. They developed automated gyroscope
Gyroscope
A gyroscope is a device for measuring or maintaining orientation, based on the principles of angular momentum. In essence, a mechanical gyroscope is a spinning wheel or disk whose axle is free to take any orientation...
stabilization systems that allowed stable flight along a programmed trajectory. Korolev was a charismatic leader who served primarily as an engineering project manager. He was a demanding, hard-working man, with a disciplinary style of management. Korolev personally monitored all key stages of the programs and paid meticulous attention to detail.
Imprisonment
On 22 June 1938, during the Great PurgeGreat Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
, Korolev was arrested by the NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
after being denounced by Ivan Kleymenov
Ivan Kleymenov
Ivan Terentyevich Kleymyonov , last name also spelled Kleymenov, was a Soviet scientist and one of the founders of the Soviet rocketry.Ivan Kleymyonov graduated from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in 1928...
, Georgy Langemak
Georgy Langemak
Georgy Erikhovich Langemak was a Soviet rocket designer of German/Swiss background.Beginning in 1928, he worked at the Soviet Gas Dynamics Laboratory along with several other notable Soviet rocket scientists, and they developed rocket projectiles that used smokeless powder...
, and Valentin Glushko
Valentin Glushko
Valentin Petrovich Glushko or Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko was a Soviet engineer, and the principal Soviet designer of rocket engines during the Soviet/American Space Race.-Biography:...
. He was accused of deliberately slowing the work of the research institute, and following torture in the Lubyanka
Lubyanka
Lubyanka or Lubianka may refer to:*Lubyanka Square, Moscow*Bolshaya Lubyanka Street, Moscow*Lubyanka Building, former KGB headquarters and prison at Lubyanka Square, Moscow*Lubyanka , a metro station in MoscowPlaces in Poland called Lubianka...
prison to extract a confession, was tried and sentenced to ten years in a labor camp. Korolev later learned that he had been denounced by Glushko, and this may have been the cause of the life long animosity between the two men. Glushko and Korolev had reportedly been denounced by Andrei Kostikov, who became the head of RNII after its leadership was arrested (Kostikov was ousted a few years later over accusations of budget irregularities).
Believing that his arrest was a mistake, Korolev wrote many appeals to the authorities, including Stalin himself. Following the fall of the NKVD head, Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Yezhov
Nikolai Ivanovich Yezhov or Ezhov was a senior figure in the NKVD under Joseph Stalin during the period of the Great Purge. His reign is sometimes known as the "Yezhovshchina" , "the Yezhov era", a term that began to be used during the de-Stalinization campaign of the 1950s...
, the new chief Lavrenti Beria chose to retry Korolev on reduced charges in 1939, but by that time Korolev was on his way from prison to a gulag camp in the far east of Siberia, where he spent several months in a gold mine in the Kolyma
Kolyma
The Kolyma region is located in the far north-eastern area of Russia in what is commonly known as Siberia but is actually part of the Russian Far East. It is bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Sea of Okhotsk to the south...
area before word reached him of his retrial. Towards the end of 1939 he was sent back to Moscow, but he had already sustained injuries and had lost most of his teeth due to the labor camp's brutal conditions. When he reached Moscow, Korolev's sentence was reduced to eight years, which he did not have to serve in a labor camp.
Other members of the RNII had also been arrested. Kleymenov and Langemak were executed, leaving Korolev very fortunate to have even survived. The rocket program was set back for years and fell far behind the rapid progress taking place in Germany.
Korolev was assigned to a "sharashka
Sharashka
Sharashka was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system...
", a penitentiary for intellectuals and the educated. These were effectively slave-labor camps where scientists and engineers worked on projects assigned by the Communist party leadership. The Central Design Bureau 29 (CKB-29, ЦКБ-29) of the NKVD, served as Tupolev's engineering facility, and Korolev was brought here to work for his old mentor. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, this sharashka designed both the Tupolev Tu-2
Tupolev Tu-2
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Bishop, Chris. The Encyclopedia of Weapons of WWII: The Comprehensive Guide to Over 1,500 Weapons Systems, Including Tanks, Small Arms, Warplanes, Artillery, Ships, and Submarines. New York: Sterling, 2002. ISBN 1-58663-762-2.* Ethell, Jeffrey L. Aircraft...
bomber and the Petlyakov Pe-2
Petlyakov Pe-2
The Petlyakov Pe-2 was a Soviet dive bomber aircraft used during World War II. It was regarded as one of the best ground attack aircraft of the war and it was extremely successful in the roles of heavy fighter, reconnaissance and night fighter...
dive bomber. The group was moved several times during the war, the first time to avoid capture by advancing German forces.
In 1942 Korolev managed to be moved to another "sharashka" under Valentin Glushko, which designed rocket-assisted take off boosters for aircraft. Korolev was kept in the sharashka and isolated from his family until 1944. He lived under constant fear of being executed for the military secrets he possessed, and was deeply affected by his time in the gulag, becoming reserved and cautious. On 27 June 1944, Korolev – along with Tupolev, Glushko and others – was finally discharged by special government decree, although the charges against him were not dropped until 1957. The design bureau was handed over from NKVD control to the government's aviation industry commission. Korolev continued working with the bureau for another year, serving as deputy designer under Glushko and studying various rocket designs. In 1944, Korolev and Glushko designed the RD-1 kHz auxiliary rocket motor tested in an unsuccessful fast-climb Lavochkin La-7R.
Ballistic missiles
In 1945, Korolev was awarded the Badge of Honor, his first decoration, for his work on the development of rocket motors for military aircraft. The same year he was commissioned into the Red ArmyRed Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
, with a rank of colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
. Along with other experts, he flew to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
to recover the technology of the German V-2 rocket
V-2 rocket
The V-2 rocket , technical name Aggregat-4 , was a ballistic missile that was developed at the beginning of the Second World War in Germany, specifically targeted at London and later Antwerp. The liquid-propellant rocket was the world's first long-range combat-ballistic missile and first known...
. The Soviets placed a priority on reproducing lost documentation on the V-2, and studying the various parts and captured manufacturing facilities. That work continued in East Germany until late 1946, when the Soviet experts and some 150 German scientists and engineers were sent to Russia. Most of the German experts, with the exception of Helmut Gröttrup
Helmut Gröttrup
Helmut Gröttrup was a German electrical engineer and assistant of Wernher von Braun in the V-2 rocket-project. Gröttrup was responsible for the guidance system....
, were those involved in wartime mass-production of V-2, and they had never worked directly with Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
. The leading German rocket scientists, including Dr. von Braun himself, surrendered to Americans and were transported to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as part of Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip
Operation Paperclip was the Office of Strategic Services program used to recruit the scientists of Nazi Germany for employment by the United States in the aftermath of World War II...
.
Stalin had decided to make rocket & missile development a national priority, and a new institute was created for the purpose, the NII-88
NII-88
NII-88 was a research bureau for the Soviet space program. The bureau was established on May 13, 1946 and was located at Podlipki, northeast of Moscow. Based on his Plant No...
in the suburbs of Moscow. For the German engineers, Branch 1 of NII-88 was set up on Gorodomlya Island
Gorodomlya Island
Gorodomlya Island is located on the Seliger Lake in the Tver Oblast of Russia. It is 200 miles northwest of Moscow.The Soviet government established a biological research center at Gorodomlya Island in 1928...
in the Lake Seliger
Lake Seliger
Seliger is a lake in Tver Oblast and, in the extreme northern part, Novgorod Oblast of Russia, in the northwest of the Valdai Hills, a part of the Volga basin. Absolute height: 205 m, area 212 km², average depth 5.8 m....
some 200 kilometres (124.3 mi) from Moscow. The facility was surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, although Boris Chertok
Boris Chertok
Boris Evseyevich Chertok is a prominent Soviet and Russian rocket designer, responsible for control systems of a number of ballistic missiles and spacecraft. Author of a four-volume book Rockets and People, the definitive source of information about the history of the Soviet space program.-Books...
, chief designer of guidance and control systems, notes in his book Rockets and People,
All structures on Gorodomlya island were renovated and living conditions were quite decent for those times. At least married specialists received separate two- or three-room apartments. Visiting the island, I could only envy them, because I and my family lived in Moscow in a shared four-room apartment, where we had two rooms of 24 square metres (28.7 sq yd) combined. Many of our specialists and workers lived in barracks without most elementary necessities. [...] This is why life on the island behind barbed wire could not compare at all to prisoner of war conditions.
Development of ballistic missile
Ballistic missile
A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
s was put under the military control of Dmitriy Ustinov
Dmitriy Ustinov
Dmitriy Feodorovich Ustinov was Minister of Defense of the Soviet Union from 1976 until his death.-Early life:Dimitry Feodorovich Ustinov was born in a working-class family in Samara. During the civil war, when hunger became intolerable, his sick father went to Samarkand, leaving Dimitry as head...
, with Korolev serving as a chief designer of long-range missiles at the Special Design Bureau 1 (OKB-1) of NII-88. Korolev demonstrated his organizational abilities in this new facility, keeping a dysfunctional and highly-compartmentalized organization operating.
With the blueprints reproduced, thanks in part to disassembled V-2 rockets, the team now began producing a working replica of the rocket. This was designated the R-1, and was first tested in October 1947. A total of eleven were launched, five hitting the target. This was comparable to the German hit ratio, and demonstrated the unreliability of the rocket. The Soviets continued to utilize the expertise of the Germans on V-2 technology for some time; however, in the regime of secrecy surrounding the ballistic missile program, Gröttrup and his team had no access to classified work of their Russian colleagues on new rocket technology as well as adequate production and testing facilities. This made any meaningful development impossible and negatively affected the morale of the German team. In 1950, the Ministry of Defence made an official decision to dissolve the German team and repatriate the German engineers and their families. The first group was sent to Germany in December 1951, and the last in November 1953.
In 1947, Korolev's group began working on more advanced designs, with improvements in range and throw weight. The R-2 doubled the range of the V-2, and was the first design to utilize a separate warhead. This was followed by the R-3, which had a range of 3000 kilometres (1,864.1 mi), and thus could target England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. However, Glushko couldn't get the engines to develop the required thrust, and the project was canceled in 1952.
Later in the same year work began on the R-5, which had a more modest 1200 kilometres (745.6 mi) range. It completed a first successful flight by 1953. The first true intercontinental ballistic missile
Intercontinental ballistic missile
An intercontinental ballistic missile is a ballistic missile with a long range typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery...
(ICBM), not only in USSR but in the whole world, was the R-7 Semyorka
R-7 Semyorka
The R-7 was a Soviet missile developed during the Cold War, and the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile. The R-7 made 28 launches between 1957 and 1961, but was never deployed operationally. A derivative, the R-7A, was deployed from 1960 to 1968...
. This was a two-stage rocket with a maximum payload of 5.4 tons, sufficient to carry the Soviet's bulky nuclear bomb
Nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
on a impressive distance of 7 megametres (4,349.6 mi). After several test failures, the R-7 successfully launched on August 1957, sending a dummy payload to Kamchatka Peninsula
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
.
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
, a tactical necessity if he was to request money from the government for his future projects. It was only 19 April 1957, however, when he would be fully "rehabilitated", as the government acknowledged that his sentence was unjust.
Personal life
The Soviet émigré Leonid Vladimirov related the following description of Korolev by Glushko at about this time:- "Short of stature, heavily built, with head sitting awkwardly on his body, with brown eyes glistening with intelligence, he was a skeptic, a cynic and a pessimist who took the gloomiest view of the future. 'We will all vanish without a trace' was his favorite expression." (Mistranslated quotation of "Хлопнут без некролога", cf. russian version.)
Korolev was rarely known to drink vodka or other alcoholic beverages, and chose to live a fairly austere lifestyle. He remained a handsome and solidly-built man, and he was as fond of women as they were of him.
About 1946, the marriage of Korolev and Vincentini began to break up. Vincentini was heavily occupied with her own career, and at about this time Korolev had an affair with a younger woman named Nina Ivanovna Kotenkova. Vincentini, who still loved Korolev and was angry over the infidelity, divorced him in 1948. Korolev and Kotenkova next were married in 1949, but he is known to have had affairs even after his marriage to Kotenkova.
Space program
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
, including a concept for sending a dog into space. He also had to overcome resistance in the military and among party members.
In 1957, during the International Geophysical Year
International Geophysical Year
The International Geophysical Year was an international scientific project that lasted from July 1, 1957, to December 31, 1958. It marked the end of a long period during the Cold War when scientific interchange between East and West was seriously interrupted...
, the concept of launching a satellite began to appear in the American press. The US government was not well disposed toward the idea of spending millions of dollars on this concept, and so it was effectively frozen for a period. However, Korolev's group followed the Western press, and they thought it was possible to beat the US to the punch. He was finally able to win over support because of competition with the United States by suggesting that the USSR should try to be the first country to launch a satellite.
The actual development of Sputnik was performed in less than a month. This was a very simple design, consisting of little more than a polished metal sphere, a transmitter, thermal measuring instruments, and batteries. Korolev personally managed the assembly, and the work was very hectic. Finally on 4 October 1957, launched on a rocket that had only successfully launched once, the satellite was placed in orbit.
The effect of this launch was electric, and produced many political ramifications for the future. Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
was pleased with this success, and decided that it should be followed up by a new achievement in time for the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
. This was less than a month away, on 3 November. The result was Sputnik 2
Sputnik 2
Sputnik 2 , or Prosteyshiy Sputnik 2 ), was the second spacecraft launched into Earth orbit, on November 3, 1957, and the first to carry a living animal, a dog named Laika. Sputnik 2 was a 4-meter high cone-shaped capsule with a base diameter of 2 meters...
.
This new spacecraft would have six times the mass of the Sputnik 1, and would include as a payload the dog Laika
Laika
Laika was a Soviet space dog that became the first animal to orbit the Earth – as well as the first animal to die in orbit.As little was known about the impact of spaceflight on living creatures at the time of Laika's mission, and the technology to de-orbit had not yet been developed, there...
. The entire vehicle was designed from scratch within four weeks, with no time for testing or quality checks. It was successfully launched on 3 November and the dog was placed in orbit. There was no mechanism designed in this vehicle to bring the dog back to earth and so she died after roughly 6 hours in space succumbing to heat exhaustion.
This string of successes ran out with the launch of Sputnik 3
Sputnik 3
Sputnik 3 was a Soviet satellite launched on May 15, 1958 from Baikonur cosmodrome by a modified R-7/SS-6 ICBM. It was a research satellite to explore the upper atmosphere and the near space, and carried a large array of instruments for geophysical research....
. This instrument-laden spacecraft was sent into orbit on 15 May the following year. However, the tape recorder that was to store the data failed after launch. As a result, the discovery and mapping of the Van Allen radiation belt
Van Allen radiation belt
The Van Allen radiation belt is a torus of energetic charged particles around Earth, which is held in place by Earth's magnetic field. It is believed that most of the particles that form the belts come from solar wind, and other particles by cosmic rays. It is named after its discoverer, James...
s were left to the United States' Explorer 4
Explorer 4
Explorer 4 was a US satellite launched on July 26, 1958. It was instrumented by Dr. James van Allen's group. The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency had initially planned two satellites for the purposes of studying the Van Allen radiation belts and the effects of nuclear...
in July. What Sputnik 3 did do, however, was to leave little doubt with the American government about the Soviets' pending ICBM capability.
The Moon
Korolev now turned his attention to reaching the MoonMoon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
. A modified version of the R-7 launch vehicle would be used, with a new upper stage. The engine for this final stage was the first designed to be fired in outer space. The first three probes sent to the Moon in 1958 failed. The Luna 1
Luna 1
Luna 1 , first known as First Cosmic Ship, then known as Mechta was the first spacecraft to reach the vicinity of the Moon and the first of the Luna program of Soviet automatic interplanetary stations successfully launched in the direction of the Moon.While traveling through the outer Van Allen...
mission in 1959 was intended to impact the surface, but missed by about 6000 kilometres (3,728.2 mi). Another probe failed, and then the Luna 2
Luna 2
Luna 2 was the second of the Soviet Union's Luna programme spacecraft launched to the Moon. It was the first spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon...
successfully impacted the surface, giving the Soviets another first. This was followed by an even greater success with Luna 3
Luna 3
The Soviet space probe Luna 3 of 1959 was the third space probe to be sent to the neighborhood of the Moon, and this mission was an early feat in the spaceborne exploration of outer space...
. It was launched only two years after Sputnik 1, and was the first spacecraft to photograph the far side of the Moon.
Korolev's group was also working on ambitious programs for missions to Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
and Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
, putting a man in orbit, launching communication, spy and weather satellites, and making a soft-landing on the Moon. A radio communication center needed to be built in the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
to control the spacecraft.
Human spaceflight
Korolev's planning for the piloted mission had begun back in 1958, when design studies were made on the future Vostok spacecraftVostok spacecraft
The Vostok was a type of spacecraft built by the Soviet Union. The first human spaceflight in history was accomplished on this spacecraft on April 12, 1961, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin....
. It was to hold a single passenger in a space suit
Space suit
A space suit is a garment worn to keep an astronaut alive in the harsh environment of outer space. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, and are necessary for extra-vehicular activity , work done outside spacecraft...
, and be fully automated. The capsule had an escape mechanism for problems prior to launch, and a soft-landing and ejection system during the recovery.
On 15 May 1960 an unpiloted prototype performed 64 orbits of the Earth, but failed to return. Four tests were then sent into orbit carrying dogs, of which the last two were fully successful. After gaining approval from the government, a modified version of the R-7 was used to launch Yuri Alexeevich Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
into orbit on 12 April 1961, the first human in Earth orbit. He returned to Earth via a parachute after ejecting at an altitude of 7 kilometres (4.3 mi).
This was followed up by additional Vostok flights, culminating with 81 orbits completed with Vostok 5
Vostok 5
-Backup crew:-Reserve crew:-Mission parameters:*Mass *Apogee: *Perigee: *Inclination: 64.9°*Period: 88.4 minutes...
and the launch of the first woman cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Tereshkova
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova is a retired Soviet cosmonaut, and was the first woman in space. She was selected out of more than four hundred applicants, and then out of five finalists, to pilot Vostok 6 on the 16 June, 1963, becoming both the first woman and the first civilian to fly in...
, on Vostok 6
Vostok 6
-Backup crew:-Reserve crew:Vostok VI-Mission parameters:*Mass: *Apogee: *Perigee: *Inclination: 64.9°*Period: 87.8 minutes9090...
.
Following Vostok, Korolev planned to move forward with Soyuz
Soyuz spacecraft
Soyuz , Union) is a series of spacecraft initially designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau in the 1960s, and still in service today...
craft that would be able to dock with other craft in orbit and exchange crews. However, he was directed by Khrushchev to cheaply produce more 'firsts' for the piloted program. Korolev was reported to have resisted the idea, since he currently lacked a rocket of sufficient capability to lift a three-person capsule into space. However, Khrushchev was not interested in technical excuses and let it be known that if Korolev could not do it, he would give the work to his rival, Vladimir Chelomei
Vladimir Chelomei
Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey was a Soviet mechanics scientist and rocket engineer from Ukraine.-Early life:Chelomey was born in Siedlce, Russian Empire into a Ukrainian family...
.
Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov describes the authority Korolev commanded at this time.
Long before we met him, one man dominated much of our conversation in the early days of our training;
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, the mastermind behind the Soviet space program.
He was only ever referred to by the initials of his first two names, SP, or
by the mysterious title of "Chief Designer", or simply "Chief".
For those on the space program there was no authority higher.
Korolev had the reputation of being a man of the highest integrity,
but also of being extremely demanding.
Everyone around him was on tenterhooks, afraid of making a wrong move and
invoking his wrath. He was treated like a god.
Leonov recalls the first meeting between Korolev and the cosmonauts.
I was looking out of the window when he arrived, stepping out of a black Zis 110ZIS-110ZIS-110 was a limousine from ZIL introduced in 1946. The 110 was developed from the reverse engineering of a 1942 Packard Super Eight during 1944. The first 5 prototypes were completed by August 1945. It was powered by a 6 litre, 8 cylinder engine producing and giving a top speed of over...
limousine.
He was taller than average;
I could not see his face, but he had a short neck and large head.
He wore the collar of his dark-blue overcoat turned up and the brim of his hat pulled down.
"Sit down, my little eagles," he said as he strode into the room where we were waiting.
He glanced down a list of our names and
called on us in alphabetical order to introduce ourselves briefly and
talk about our flying careers.
To complete this task his group designed the Voskhod
Voskhod spacecraft
The Voskhod was a spacecraft built by the Soviet Union's space program for human spaceflight as part of the Voskhod programme. It was a development of and a follow-on to the Vostok spacecraft...
, an incremental improvement on the Vostok. One of the difficulties in the design of the Voskhod was the need to land it via parachute. The three-person
crew could not bail out and land by parachute, since the altitude would not be survivable. So the craft would need much larger parachutes in order to land safely. However, some tests with the craft resulted in failures, causing the death of some test animals. This gave Korolev pause, but the problem was solved through the use of new parachute material.
The resulting Voskhod was a stripped-down vehicle from which any excess weight had been removed. Another modification was the addition of a backup retrofire engine, since the more powerful Voskhod rocket
Voskhod rocket
The Voskhod rocket was a derivative of the Soviet R-7 ICBM designed for the human spaceflight programme but later used for launching Zenit reconnaissance satellites. It combined the R-7 with an upper stage that had been originally designed to launch interplanetary probes.There was only one main...
used to launch the craft would send it to a higher orbit than the Vostok, thus eliminating the possibility of a natural decay of the orbit and reentry in case of primary retrorocket failure. This spacecraft made one unmanned test flight, then on 12 October 1964 a crew of three cosmonauts, Komarov, Yegorov and Feoktistov, was launched into space and made sixteen orbits. This craft was designed to perform a soft landing, thus eliminating a need for the ejection system. The crew was also sent into orbit without space suits, another risky move.
With the Americans planning a space walk with their Gemini program, the Soviets decided to trump them again by performing a space walk on the second Voskhod launch. After rapidly adding an airlock, the Voskhod 2
Voskhod 2
Voskhod 2 was a Soviet manned space mission in March 1965. Vostok-based Voskhod 3KD spacecraft with two crew members on board, Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov, was equipped with an inflatable airlock...
was launched on March 18, 1965, and Alexei Leonov performed the world's first space walk. The flight very nearly ended in disaster and plans for further Voskhod missions were shelved. In the meantime the change of Soviet leadership with the fall of Khrushchev meant that Korolev was back in favor and given charge of beating the US to landing a man on the Moon.
For the Moon race, Korolev's staff started to design the immense N1 rocket
N1 rocket
N-1 was a heavy lift rocket intended to deliver payloads beyond low Earth orbit, acting as the Soviet counterpart to the NASA Saturn V rocket. This heavy lift booster had the capability of lifting very heavy loads into orbit, designed with manned extra-orbital travel in mind...
in 1961, using the highly effecient NK-33
NK-33
The NK-33 and NK-43 are rocket engines designed and built in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau. They were intended for the ill-fated Soviet N-1 rocket moon shot. The NK-33 engine achieves the highest thrust-to-weight ratio of any Earth-launchable rocket engine, whilst...
liquid fuel rocket engine. He also had in work the design for the Soyuz
Soyuz programme
The Soyuz programme is a human spaceflight programme that was initiated by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, originally part of a Moon landing project intended to put a Soviet cosmonaut on the Moon...
manned spacecraft (which many years later went on to carry the first space tourists), as well as the Luna vehicles that would soft-land on the Moon and make unmanned missions to Mars and Venus. But, unexpectedly, he was to die before he could see his various plans brought to fruition.
Death
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
. During his convalescence, it was also discovered that he was suffering from a kidney disorder, a condition brought on by his detention in the Soviet prison camps. He was warned by the doctors that if he continued to work as intensely as he had, he would not live long. However Korolev reasoned that once the Soviets lost their leadership in space, the capricious Khrushchev would likely cut off the funding for his programs. So he continued to work - now even more intensely than before.
By 1962 Sergei Korolev's health problems were beginning to accumulate and he was suffering from numerous ailments. He had a bout of intestinal bleeding that led to him being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. In 1964 doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrhythmia. In February he spent ten days in the hospital after a heart problem. Shortly after he was suffering from inflammation of his gallbladder
Gallbladder
In vertebrates the gallbladder is a small organ that aids mainly in fat digestion and concentrates bile produced by the liver. In humans the loss of the gallbladder is usually easily tolerated....
. The mounting pressure of his workload was also taking a heavy toll, and he was suffering from a lot of fatigue. Korolev was also growing deaf, perhaps due to much exposure to noise from rocket engine tests.
The actual circumstances of Korolev's death remain somewhat uncertain. In December 1965, he was supposedly diagnosed with a bleeding polyp
Polyp (medicine)
A polyp is an abnormal growth of tissue projecting from a mucous membrane. If it is attached to the surface by a narrow elongated stalk, it is said to be pedunculated. If no stalk is present, it is said to be sessile. Polyps are commonly found in the colon, stomach, nose, sinus, urinary bladder...
in his large intestine
Large intestine
The large intestine is the third-to-last part of the digestive system — — in vertebrate animals. Its function is to absorb water from the remaining indigestible food matter, and then to pass useless waste material from the body...
. He entered the hospital on 5 January 1966 for somewhat routine surgery. Nine days later he died. It was stated by the government that he had what turned out to be a large, cancerous tumor
Tumor
A tumor or tumour is commonly used as a synonym for a neoplasm that appears enlarged in size. Tumor is not synonymous with cancer...
in his abdomen. But Glushko later reported that he actually died due to a poorly performed operation for hemorrhoid
Hemorrhoid
Hemorrhoids or haemorrhoids , are vascular structures in the anal canal which help with stool control. They become pathological or piles when swollen or inflamed. In their physiological state they act as a cushion composed of arterio-venous channels and connective tissue that aid the passage of...
s. According to Harford, Korolev's family confirmed the cancer story. His weak heart next contributed to his demise—Korolev never regained consciousness after the operation. When doctors tried to insert a tube into his lungs to assist his breathing, they found they could not do so due to the heavy damage done to his jaw by the beatings he had taken in the gulag.
Under a policy initiated by Stalin and continued by his successors, the identity of Korolev was never revealed until after his death. The purported reason was to protect him from foreign agents from the United States. As a result, the Soviet people didn't become aware of his accomplishments until after his death. His obituary
Obituary
An obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
was published in the Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
newspaper on 16 January 1966, showing a photograph of Korolev with all his medals. Korolev's ashes were interred with state honors in the Kremlin Wall
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution were buried in mass graves on Red Square. It is centered on both sides of Lenin's Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930...
.
Korolev is often compared to Wernher von Braun
Wernher von Braun
Wernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
as the leading architect of the Space Race
Space Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
. Unlike von Braun, Korolev had to compete continually with rivals, such as Vladimir Chelomei
Vladimir Chelomei
Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey was a Soviet mechanics scientist and rocket engineer from Ukraine.-Early life:Chelomey was born in Siedlce, Russian Empire into a Ukrainian family...
, who had their own plans for flights to the Moon. He also had to work with technology that in many aspects was less advanced than what was available in the United States, particularly in electronics and computers.
Korolev's successor in the Soviet space program was Vasily Mishin
Vasily Mishin
Vasily Pavlovich Mishin was a Soviet engineer and a prominent rocketry pioneer....
. Mishin was a quite competent engineer who had served as Korolev's deputy and right-hand man. After Korolev died, Mishin became the Chief Designer, and he inherited what turned out to be a flawed N1 rocket
N1 rocket
N-1 was a heavy lift rocket intended to deliver payloads beyond low Earth orbit, acting as the Soviet counterpart to the NASA Saturn V rocket. This heavy lift booster had the capability of lifting very heavy loads into orbit, designed with manned extra-orbital travel in mind...
program. In 1972, Mishin was fired and then replaced by a rival, Valentin Glushko
Valentin Glushko
Valentin Petrovich Glushko or Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko was a Soviet engineer, and the principal Soviet designer of rocket engines during the Soviet/American Space Race.-Biography:...
, after all four N-1 test launches failed. By that time, the rival Americans had already made it to the Moon, and so the program was canceled by CPSU General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...
.
Awards and honors
Among his awards, Korolev was twice bestowed the Hero of Socialist LaborHero of Socialist Labor
Hero of Socialist Labour was an honorary title in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. It was the highest degree of distinction for exceptional achievements in national economy and culture...
in 1956 and 1961. He was also a Lenin Prize
Lenin Prize
The Lenin Prize was one of the most prestigious awards of the USSR, presented to individuals for accomplishments relating to science, literature, arts, architecture, and technology. It was created on June 23, 1925 and was awarded until 1934. During the period from 1935 to 1956, the Lenin Prize was...
winner in 1971, and was awarded the Order of Lenin
Order of Lenin
The Order of Lenin , named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union...
three times, the Order of the Badge of Honour and the medal "For Labour Valour".
In 1958 he was elected to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1969 and 1986, the USSR issued 10 kopek
Ruble
The ruble or rouble is a unit of currency. Currently, the currency units of Belarus, Russia, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria, and, in the past, the currency units of several other countries, notably countries influenced by Russia and the Soviet Union, are named rubles, though they all are...
postage stamps honoring Korolev.. In addition he was made an Honorary Citizen of Korolyov and received the 800th Anniversary of Moscow Medal
800th Anniversary of Moscow Medal
The 800th Anniversary of Moscow Medal was a medal in Russia. It was established by a decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on 20 September 1947 in commemoration of the 800th anniversary of the first Russian reference to Moscow, dating to 1147 when Yuri Dolgorukiy called upon the prince of the...
.
Namesakes
A street in Moscow was named after Korolev in 1966 and is now called Ulitsa Akademika Korolyova (Academician Korolyov Street). The memorial home-museum of akademician S.P.Korolyov was established in 1975 in the house where Korolev lived from 1959 till 1966 (MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, 6th Ostankinsky Lane,2/28). In 1976 he was inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame.
The town of Kaliningrad (formerly Podlipki, Moscow region) is the home of RSC Energia
S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia
OAO S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia , also known as RKK Energiya, is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components...
, the largest space company in Russia. In 1996, Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
renamed the town to Korolyov. There is now an oversized statue of S.P. Korolev located in the town square. RSC Energia was also renamed to S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia
S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia
OAO S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia , also known as RKK Energiya, is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components...
.
Astronomical features named
Astronomical naming conventions
In ancient times, only the Sun and Moon, a few hundred stars and the most easily visible planets had names. Over the last few hundred years, the number of identified astronomical objects has risen from hundreds to over a billion, and more are discovered every year...
after Korolev include the crater Korolev
Korolev (lunar crater)
Korolev is a large lunar crater of the walled plain type, named for Soviet rocket engineer Sergey Korolyov. It lies on the far side of the Moon, and the northern part of its floor crosses the lunar equator...
on the far side of the Moon, a crater
Korolev Crater
Korolev Crater is a crater in the Mare Boreum quadrangle of Mars, located at 73° north latitude and 195.5° west longitude. It is 84.2 km in diameter and was named after Sergey Pavlovich Korolev , the head Soviet rocket engineer and designer during the Space Race in the 1950s and...
on Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
, and the asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
1855 Korolyov.
Portrayals in fiction
The first portrayal of Korolev in Soviet cinema was made in the 1972 film Taming of the FireTaming of the Fire
Taming of the fire is a 1972 film, directed by Daniil Khrabrovitsky and starring Kirill Lavrov.).- Awards and recognition :The State Prize of Russia was awarded to actor Lavrov for his performance in the leading role...
, in which Korolev was played by renowned Russian actor Kirill Lavrov
Kirill Lavrov
Kirill Yuryevich Lavrov was a well-known Soviet and Russian film and theatre actor and director.-Childhood:Kirill Yuryevich Lavrov was born on September 15, 1925, in Leningrad, USSR . He was baptized by the Russian Orthodox Church of St. John the Divine in Lavrushinskoe Podvorie Monastery in...
. He was played by Steve Nicolson
Steve Nicolson
Steve Nicolson is an English actor. He has appeared in the BBC docudrama Space Race , and in single episodes of Silent Witness, Whitechapel, The Bill, Made in Romania, The Take, Blackwater, White Lightnin, The Fixer, Casualty, Spooks, Vital Signs, Im Auftrag des Vatikans, Rose and Maloney, Murphy's...
in the 2005 BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
co-produced docu-drama Space Race
Space Race (TV series)
Space Race is a BBC docudrama series first shown in Britain on BBC2 between September and October 2005, chronicling the major events and characters in the American/Soviet space race up to the first landing of a man on the moon. It focuses on Sergei Korolev, the Soviet chief rocket designer, and...
. In 2011 the British writer Rona Munro
Rona Munro
Rona Munro is a Scottish writer. She has written plays for theatre, radio, and television; was the author of the screenplay of Ken Loach's Ladybird, Ladybird and co-author of Aimée & Jaguar by German director Max Färberböck.Munro is also known for being the author of the last Doctor Who television...
produced the play Little Eagles on Korolev's life – its premiere was from 16 April to 7 May 2011, in an RSC
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
production at the Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre
Hampstead Theatre is a theatre in the vicinity of Swiss Cottage and Belsize Park, in the London Borough of Camden. It specialises in commissioning and producing new writing, supporting and developing the work of new writers. In 2009 it celebrates its 50 year anniversary.The original theatre was...
, with Korolev played by Darrel D'Silva
Darrel D'Silva
Darrell D'Silva is a British film and theatre actor, notable for his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His filmography includes Criminal Justice, Poppy Shakespeare and Dirty Pretty Things....
and Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
by Dyfan Dwyfor
Dyfan Dwyfor
Dyfan Dwyfor is a Welsh actor, originally from Cricieth. He attended Ysgol Eifionydd, Porthmadog and Coleg Meirion Dwyfor before going on to Ysgol Glanaethwy. He graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 2007....
.
A science fiction novel by Paolo Aresi, entitled Korolev, was published in the Italian series Urania
Urania (magazine)
Urania is an Italian science fiction magazine published by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore since October 10, 1952.-History:The first issue featured the novel The Sands of Mars by Arthur C. Clarke...
in April 2011.
A Space Vessel the RFS Korolev was name in his honor in the Science-Fiction series Stargate SG-1
Stargate SG-1
Stargate SG-1 is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 feature film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich...
on the 9th season.
See also
- Vladimir ChelomeiVladimir ChelomeiVladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey was a Soviet mechanics scientist and rocket engineer from Ukraine.-Early life:Chelomey was born in Siedlce, Russian Empire into a Ukrainian family...
- Valentin GlushkoValentin GlushkoValentin Petrovich Glushko or Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko was a Soviet engineer, and the principal Soviet designer of rocket engines during the Soviet/American Space Race.-Biography:...
- Kerim KerimovKerim KerimovLieutenant-General Kerim Aliyevich Kerimov was an Azerbaijani-Soviet/Russian aerospace engineer and a renowned rocket scientist, one of the founders of the Soviet space industry, and for many years a central figure in the Soviet space program. Despite his prominent role, his identity was kept a...
- Mstislav KeldyshMstislav KeldyshMstislav Vsevolodovich Keldysh was a Soviet scientist in the field of mathematics and mechanics, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences , President of the USSR Academy of Sciences , three times Hero of Socialist Labor , fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh . He was one of the key figures...
- Robert Bartini
- Wernher Von BraunWernher von BraunWernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
- Soviet MoonshotSoviet MoonshotThe Soviet manned lunar programs were a series of programs pursued by the Soviet Union to land a man on the Moon in competition with the United States Apollo program to achieve the same goal set publicly by President John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961...
- Space RaceSpace RaceThe Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
- Sputnik program
- VostokVostok programmeThe Vostok programme was a Soviet human spaceflight project that succeeded in putting a person into Earth's orbit for the first time. The programme developed the Vostok spacecraft from the Zenit spy satellite project and adapted the Vostok rocket from an existing ICBM design...
- VoskhodVoskhod programmeThe Voskhod programme was the second Soviet human spaceflight project. Two manned missions were flown using the Voskhod spacecraft and rocket, one in 1964 and one in 1965....
- SoyuzSoyuz spacecraftSoyuz , Union) is a series of spacecraft initially designed for the Soviet space programme by the Korolyov Design Bureau in the 1960s, and still in service today...
- Soviet space programSoviet space programThe Soviet space program is the rocketry and space exploration programs conducted by the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from the 1930s until its dissolution in 1991...
- State Space Agency of Ukraine
External links
- Episode 47 of astrotalkuk.org Contains recording from the unveiling of Yuri Gagarin Statue event in London on 14th July 2011, includes Natalya Koroleva speaking about her father.
- Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (1907–1966) Biography, with several historic photographs provided by Natalya Koroleva.
- Korolev, Mastermind of the Soviet Space Program Biography, with a few photographs, by James Harford, adapted, in part, from the author’s book.
- Sergei Pavlovich Korolev Biography by Phil Delnon dated May 1998.
- Sergey P. Korolev. The Great Engineer and Scientist. Biography at the official website of KorolevKorolyov (city)Korolyov or Korolev is an industrial city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, well known as the cradle of Soviet and Russian space exploration. It was originally founded as Kaliningrad in 1938 by Vasily Boldyrev, Naum Nosovsky, and Mikhail Loginov as the leading Soviet center for production of anti-tank...
, Moscow Oblast - Exclusive site on Sergei Korolev: The Soviet space pioneer. (needs Flash) direct link
- Soviet and Russian space programmes
- PBS Red Files
- Korolev — detailed biography at Encyclopedia Astronautica
- Detailed biography at Centennial of Flight website
- Korolëv's slide rule at the U.S. National Air and Space MuseumNational Air and Space MuseumThe National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution holds the largest collection of historic aircraft and spacecraft in the world. It was established in 1976. Located in Washington, D.C., United States, it is a center for research into the history and science of aviation and...
. His German-made slide rule was a "magician's wand" to his colleagues. - Photograph and description of monument to S. Korolev at the Kiev Polytechnic InstituteKiev Polytechnic InstituteThe National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” is a major university in Kiev, Ukraine.-History:The institute was founded in 1898. At that time it had four departments: Mechanical, Chemical, Agricultural, and Civil Engineering. The first enrolment constituted 360 students...
. - Extensive collection of photographs and documents related to Korolev at the RGANTD (РГАНТД)
- Korolev as a boy in NizhynNizhynNizhyn is a city located in the Chernihiv Oblast of northern Ukraine, along the Oster River, north-east of the nation's capital, Kiev. It is the administrative center of the Nizhynsky Raion, though the city itself is also designated as a district in the oblast...
, 1912. - Korolev as a student at KPIKiev Polytechnic InstituteThe National Technical University of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” is a major university in Kiev, Ukraine.-History:The institute was founded in 1898. At that time it had four departments: Mechanical, Chemical, Agricultural, and Civil Engineering. The first enrolment constituted 360 students...
, 1924.
