Two months ahead of America's first such achievement, this and subsequent flights gave the Soviets valuable experience with space medicine. Because of its global range and large payload of approximately five tons, the reliable R-7 was not only effective as a strategic delivery system for nuclear warheads, but also as an excellent basis for a space vehicle. The United States' announcement in July 1955 of its plan to launch a satellite during the International Geophysical Year greatly benefited Korolev in persuading Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to support his plans. In a letter addressed to Khrushchev, Korolev stressed the necessity of launching a "simple satellite" in order to compete with the American space effort.
Sputnik and Vostok
Soviet space program
Soviet space program | Sputnik and Vostok
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The Soviet space program was tied to the USSR's Five-Year Plans and from the start was reliant on support from the Soviet military. Although he was "single-mindedly driven by the dream of space travel", Korolev generally kept this a secret while working on military projects—especially, after the Soviet Union's first atomic bomb test in 1949, a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to the United States—as many mocked the idea of launching satellites and crewed spacecraft. Nonetheless, the first Soviet rocket with animals aboard launched in July 1951; the two dogs were recovered alive after reaching 101 km in altitude.
Soviet space program | Sputnik and Vostok
Plans were approved for Earth-orbiting satellites ("Sputnik") to gain knowledge of space, and four uncrewed military reconnaissance satellites, Zenit. Further planned developments called for a crewed Earth orbit flight by 1964 and an uncrewed lunar mission at an earlier date. After the first Sputnik proved to be a successful propaganda coup, Korolev—now known publicly only as the anonymous "Chief Designer of Rocket-Space Systems"—was charged to accelerate the crewed program, the design of which was combined with the Zenit program to produce the Vostok spacecraft. After Sputnik, Soviet scientists and program leaders envisioned establishing a crewed station to study the effects of zero-gravity and the long term effects on lifeforms in a space environment.
Soviet space program | Sputnik and Vostok
The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. In response to the Sputnik crisis, although he did not see Sputnik as a grave threat, the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, created a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to oversee an American space program. Confidence that the United States was catching up with the Soviet Union was shattered on April 12, 1961, when the Soviet Union launched Vostok 1, and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth.
NASA Astronaut Group 5 | Background
At the end of the 1950s, with the help of engineers and technologies captured and imported from defeated Nazi Germany, the Soviets constructed the first satellite - Sputnik 1 and thus overtook the United States. This was followed by other successful satellites and experimental dogs were sent. On April 12, 1961, the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was sent to the space. He once flew around the Earth and successfully landed in the Kazakh steppe. At that time, the first plans for space shuttles and orbital stations were drawn up in Soviet design offices, but in the end personal disputes between designers and management prevented this.
Soviet Union | Space program
Unlike the American space program, which had NASA as a single coordinating structure directed by its administrator, James Webb through most of the 1960s, the USSR's program was split between several competing design groups. Despite the remarkable successes of the Sputniks between 1957 and 1961 and Vostoks between 1961 and 1964, after 1958 Korolev's OKB-1 design bureau faced increasing competition from his rival chief designers, Mikhail Yangel, Valentin Glushko, and Vladimir Chelomei. Korolev planned to move forward with the Soyuz craft and N-1 heavy booster that would be the basis of a permanent crewed space station and crewed exploration of the Moon.
Soviet space program | Internal competition
In August 1957 the Soviet Union tested the world's first successful Intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the R7 Semyorka. Within only two months of the launch of the Semyorka, Sputnik 1 became the first man made object in Earth's orbit. This was followed by the launch of Sputnik II which carried Laika the first living space traveller though she did not survive the trip. This led to the creation of the Vostok programme in 1960 and the first living creatures to survive the trip to space, Belka and Strelka the Soviet space dogs. The Vostok Program was responsible for placing the first human in space, yet another task that the Soviet Union would complete before the United States.
Cold War (1953–1962) | The Soviet Union in the Space Race
Unlike its American competitor in the Space Race, which had NASA as a single coordinating agency, the Soviet space program was split among several competing design bureaux led by Sergei Korolev, Kerim Kerimov, Mikhail Yangel, Valentin Glushko, Vladimir Chelomey, Viktor Makeyev, Mikhail Reshetnev, etc.
Soviet space program | Introduction
He previously served as President of the National Aero Club of Russia and Vice President of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. As recognition for his contributions as a test pilot and cosmonaut he was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union on 29 July 1984.
Igor Volk | Space program
The First Secretary hoped that public perception that the Soviets were ahead would put psychological pressure on the West resulting in political concessions. The Soviet space program, which Khrushchev firmly supported, appeared to confirm his claims when the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 into orbit, a launch many westerners, including U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon, were convinced was a hoax. When it became clear that the launch was real, and Sputnik 1 was in orbit, Western governments concluded that the Soviet ICBM program was further along than it actually was. Khrushchev added to this misapprehension by stating in an October 1957 interview that the USSR had all the rockets, of whatever capacity, that it needed.
Nikita Khrushchev | Early relations and U.S. visit (1957–1960)
The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. In response to the Sputnik crisis, the U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower created a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to oversee an American space program. The Space Task Group (STG) at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, created an American spaceflight project called Project Mercury, which aimed to send a person to space and then into orbit.
NASA Astronaut Group 3 | Background
Still influenced by Tsiolkovsky—who had chosen Mars as the most important goal for space travel—in the early 1960s the Soviet program under Korolev created substantial plans for crewed trips to Mars as early as 1968 to 1970. With closed-loop life support systems and electrical rocket engines, and launched from large orbiting space stations, these plans were much more ambitious than America's goal of landing on the Moon.
Soviet space program | Sputnik and Vostok
Two days after the United States announced its intention to launch an artificial satellite, on July 31, 1956, the Soviet Union announced its intention to do the same. Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957, beating the United States and stunning people all over the world. The Soviet space program pioneered many aspects of space exploration:
Soviet space program | Notable firsts
The Soviet space program had withheld information on its projects predating the success of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. In fact, when the Sputnik project was first approved, one of the most immediate courses of action the Politburo took was to consider what to announce to the world regarding their event. The Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) established precedents for all official announcements on the Soviet space program. The information eventually released did not offer details on who built and launched the satellite or why it was launched. However, the public release is illuminating in what it does reveal: "there is an abundance of arcane scientific and technical data...
Soviet space program | Program secrecy
The Soviet space program () was the national space program of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from the 1950s until the state's collapse in 1991. The Soviet space program was mainly based on the human spaceflight program and the development of the expendable launch vehicles, which had been split between many design bureaux competing against each other. Over its 60 years of history, the Soviet space program was responsible for a number of major firsts in human spaceflight, including the first intercontinental ballistic missile (R-7), first satellite (Sputnik 1), first animal in Earth orbit (the dog Laika on Sputnik 2), first human in space and Earth orbit (Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1), first woman in space and Earth orbit (Valentina Tereshkova on Vostok 6), first spacewalk (Alexei Leonov on Voskhod 2), first Moon impact ("Luna 2"), first image of the far side of the Moon ("Luna 3") and uncrewed lunar soft landing ("Luna 9"), first space rover ("Lunokhod 1"), first sample of lunar soil automatically extracted and brought to Earth ("Luna 16"), and first space station (Salyut 1).
Soviet space program | Introduction
Glushko was the chief rocket engine designer but he had a personal friction with Korolev and refused to develop the large single chamber cryogenic engines that Korolev needed to build heavy boosters.
Soviet space program | Internal competition
The Soviets maintained a strong space program until economic problems led to cutbacks in the 1980s.
Science and technology in the Soviet Union | Introduction
Korolev sent another proposal (attached with American newspaper articles about the US program) on August 5, and on August 8 the Soviet leadership approved Korolev's satellite project. The spirit of cold war competition was adequate to secure approval for the project. Sputnik 1 was designed and constructed in less than a month by the Tikhonravov group, with Korolev personally managing the assembly at a hectic pace. The satellite was a simple polished metal sphere no bigger than a beach ball, containing batteries that powered a transmitter using 4 external communication antennas. Sputnik 1 was successfully completed and launched into space on 4 October 1957 using a rocket that had successfully launched only once before.
Sergei Korolev | Space program
The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. In response to the Sputnik crisis, although he did not see Sputnik as a grave threat, the President of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, created a new civilian agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to oversee an American space program. In doing so, he sought to emphasise the scientific nature of the American space program and downplay its military aspects.
NASA Astronaut Group 4 | Background
Leonid Alexandrovich Voskresensky (; 14 June 1913 – 14 December 1965) was a Soviet rocket engineer and long-time associate of Chief Designer Sergei Korolev. He served as launch director for Sputnik and for the first manned space flight, Vostok 1. The lunar crater Voskresenskiy is named in his honor.
Leonid Voskresensky | Introduction
The Soviets launch of Sputnik I and Sputnik II showed that America was falling behind in fall facets of scientific research only adding to the need of a national laboratory set aside for scientific research according to the issues present.
The Princeton Three | Response to Sputnik
The world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, had been put into orbit by the Soviets in 1957. The next milestone in the history of space exploration would be to put a human in space, and both the Soviets and the Americans wanted to be the first.
Vostok programme | Background
Launchings were not announced until they took place. Cosmonaut names were not released until they flew. Mission details were sparse. Outside observers did not know the size or shape of their rockets or cabins or most of their spaceships, except for the first Sputniks, lunar probes and Venus probe. However, the military influence over the Soviet space program may be the best explanation for this secrecy. The OKB-1 was subordinated under the Ministry of General Machine Building, tasked with the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, and continued to give its assets random identifiers into the 1960s: "For example, the Vostok spacecraft was referred to as 'object IIF63' while its launch rocket was 'object 8K72K'".
Soviet space program | Program secrecy
Another problem was that while the Soviet space agency had provided her with food, water and tooth paste, they had forgotten to pack a toothbrush. An official history of the Soviet space program published in 1973 described Tereshkova's physical condition and in-flight performance as "udovletvoritelnoe" (adequate) rather than "otlichno" (good or outstanding).
Vostok 6 | Mission
Korolev was reported to have resisted the idea as the Vostok was a one-man spacecraft and the three-man Soyuz was several years away from being able to fly. 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.
Sergei Korolev | Human spaceflight
After the success of Sputnik 1 in October 1957, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader, wanted a spacecraft launched on 7 November 1957, the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution. Construction had already started on a more sophisticated satellite, but it would not be ready until December; this satellite would later become Sputnik 3. Meeting the November deadline meant building a new craft. Khrushchev specifically wanted his engineers to deliver a "space spectacular", a mission that would repeat the triumph of Sputnik 1, stunning the world with Soviet prowess. Planners settled on an orbital flight with a dog. Soviet rocket engineers had long intended a canine orbit before attempting human spaceflight; since 1951, they had lofted twelve dogs into sub-orbital space on ballistic flights, working gradually toward an orbital mission set for some time in 1958.
Laika | Sputnik 2
Two months ahead of America's first such achievement, this and subsequent flights gave the Soviets valuable experience with space medicine. Because of its global range and large payload of approximately five tons, the reliable R-7 was not only effective as a strategic delivery system for nuclear warheads, but also as an excellent basis for a space vehicle. The United States' announcement in July 1955 of its plan to launch a satellite during the International Geophysical Year greatly benefited Korolev in persuading Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev to support his plans. In a letter addressed to Khrushchev, Korolev stressed the necessity of launching a "simple satellite" in order to compete with the American space effort.
Soviet space program | Sputnik and Vostok
Missions were planned based on rocket availability or ad hoc reasons, rather than scientific purposes. For example, the government in February 1962 abruptly ordered an ambitious mission involving two Vostoks simultaneously in orbit launched "in ten days time" to eclipse John Glenn's Mercury-Atlas 6 that month; the program could not do so until August, with Vostok 3 and Vostok 4.
Soviet space program | Funding and support
October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union put the first satellite into orbit around the Earth. Sputnik one caused many in the U.S. scientific community to outburst on the lack of work put into a satellite program. One of the key contributors to these outbursts was a former German scientist, turned American through project paperclip, Wernher von Braun. Von Braun stated that if given the correct materials and the go ahead he would have an American satellite in orbit in a matter of months, and he did not disappoint. January 31, 1958, two months after the Soviets launch their second satellite, Sputnik II, into orbit Explorer I, the first American satellite, was launched into orbit.
The Princeton Three | Response to Sputnik
The first big fiasco for the USSR was the landing on the moon by the Americans, when the Russians were not able to respond to the Americans in time with the same project. In the 1970s, more specific proposals for the design of the space shuttle began to emerge, but shortcomings, especially in the electronics industry (rapid overheating of electronics), postponed the program until the end of the 1980s. The first shuttle, the Buran, flew in 1988, but without a human crew. Another shuttle, Ptichka, eventually ended up under construction, as the shuttle project was canceled in 1991. For their launch into space, there is today an unused superpower rocket, Energia, which is the most powerful in the world.
Soviet Union | Space program
Korolev died in January 1966, following a routine operation that uncovered colon cancer, from complications of heart disease and severe hemorrhaging. Kerim Kerimov, who was formerly an architect of Vostok 1, was appointed Chairman of the State Commission on Piloted Flights and headed it for the next 25 years (1966–1991). He supervised every stage of development and operation of both crewed space complexes as well as uncrewed interplanetary stations for the former Soviet Union. One of Kerimov's greatest achievements was the launch of Mir in 1986. The leadership of the OKB-1 design bureau was given to Vasily Mishin, who had the task of sending a human around the Moon in 1967 and landing a human on it in 1968.
Soviet space program | After Korolev
The Soviet launch of Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957, highlighted the technological achievements of the Soviets and sparked some worrying questions for the politicians and general public of the US. Although US military and civilian agencies were well aware of Soviet satellite plans, as they were publicly announced as part of the International Geophysical Year, US President Dwight Eisenhower's announcements that the event was unsurprising found little support among a US public that was still struggling with McCarthyism. Political opponents seized on the event, helped by Eisenhower's ineffectual response, as further proof that the US was "fiddling as Rome burned." Senator John F.
Missile gap | Background
He was one of the 20 Soviet Air Forces pilots selected to be part of the first cosmonaut training group in 1960. As most cosmonauts, Leonov was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His walk in space was originally to have taken place on the Voskhod 1 mission, but this was cancelled, and the historic event happened on the Voskhod 2 flight instead. He was outside the spacecraft for 12 minutes and nine seconds on 18 March 1965, connected to the craft by a tether. At the end of the spacewalk, Leonov's spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter the airlock.
Alexei Leonov | Soviet space programme
He was originally part of the Soviet lunar program and was training with Alexei Leonov for the first human circumlunar flight. After the success of Apollo 8, however, the flight was cancelled. His first spaceflight was Soyuz 12 in 1973, a test flight to check the changes made to the Soyuz spacecraft after the Soyuz 11 disaster. His second flight was the abortive Soyuz 18a that made an emergency landing in the Altay Mountains, 21 minutes after launch. He was initially denied his spaceflight bonus pay, having to appeal directly to Leonid Brezhnev to receive it. Brezhnev was at the time the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Oleg Grigoryevich Makarov | Space program
This size discrepancy was apparent due to the gap in weapon technology as the United States was able to develop much smaller nuclear warheads than their soviet counterparts. The Soviet Union later launched Sputnik 2 less than a month later. The Soviet's satellite success caused a stir in America as people question why the United States had fallen behind the Soviet Union and if they could launch nuclear missiles at large American cities i.e. Chicago, Seattle, and Atlanta. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by creating the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). This committee was appointed to lead the United States in policy for scientific and defense strategies.
Cold War (1953–1962) | Origins of the Space Race
By 1957, the Atlas missile project was proceeding well, and the need for a nuclear upper stage had all but disappeared. On 2 October 1957, the AEC proposed cutting its budget. Two days later, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This surprise success fired fears and imaginations around the world. It demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, and contested cherished American notions of military, economic and technological superiority. This precipitated the Sputnik crisis, and triggered the Space Race. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded to by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which absorbed the NACA.
NERVA | Transfer to NASA
After training these men, they were brought into various Soviet missions as engineers and scientists at the discretion of Anokhin. Eventually, Anokhin himself was denied becoming an active cosmonaut for later missions due to health problems. He worked in the administration of the Soviet space program until his retirement in 1978.
Sergei Anokhin (test pilot) | Test Pilot and Space Program
He opened a valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off and was barely able to get back inside the capsule. Leonov had spent eighteen months undergoing weightlessness training for the mission. In 1968, Leonov was selected to be commander of a circumlunar Soyuz 7K-L1 flight. This was cancelled because of delays in achieving a reliable circumlunar flight (only the later Zond 7 and Zond 8 members of the programme were successful) and the Apollo 8 mission had already achieved that step in the Space Race. He was also selected to be the first Soviet person to land on the Moon, aboard the LOK/N1 spacecraft.
Alexei Leonov | Soviet space programme
By the time Salyut 4 reached orbit, Leonov had been switched to a more prestigious project.
Alexei Leonov | Soviet space programme
The Soviet Air Force agreed to a crew composed of a military pilot, an engineer or scientist, and a doctor, but advocated for an all-military crew. Konstantin Feoktistov, who had been a design engineer for the Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz programs, was selected for this flight, becoming the only Soviet outer space designer to make a spaceflight. Yegorov, a medical doctor, used his political influence to get selected for the crew through his father's Politburo connections. The Soviet space program viewed its crews as passengers more than pilots; the new cosmonauts received only three to four months of training, perhaps the briefest in space history other than that received by the American politicians Jake Garn and Bill Nelson for Space Shuttle flights in the 1980s.
Voskhod 1 | Background
The Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, the two Cold War superpowers, began just before the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. Both countries wanted to develop spaceflight technology quickly, particularly by launching the first successful human spaceflight. The Soviet Union secretly pursued the Vostok programme in competition with the United States' Project Mercury. Vostok launched several precursor uncrewed missions between May 1960 and March 1961, to test and develop the Vostok rocket family and space capsule. These missions had varied degrees of success, but the final two—Korabl-Sputnik 4 and Korabl-Sputnik 5—were complete successes, allowing the first crewed flight.
Vostok 1 | Background
The Soviet space program was secondary in military funding to the Strategic Rocket Forces' ICBMs. While the West believed that Khrushchev personally ordered each new space mission for propaganda purposes, and the Soviet leader did have an unusually close relationship with Korolev and other chief designers, Khrushchev emphasized missiles rather than space exploration and was not very interested in competing with Apollo. While the government and the Communist Party used the program's successes as propaganda tools after they occurred, systematic plans for missions based on political reasons were rare, one exception being Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space, on Vostok 6 in 1963.
Soviet space program | Funding and support
The Center for Cosmonaut Training (present-day Star City, Russia) was initially led by Colonel Karpov, Kamanin's subordinate.
Nikolai Kamanin | Space program
They were in orbit during the Soviet coup attempt of 1991. For several days, the political situation seriously jeopardised their position.
Anatoly Artsebarsky | Introduction
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union took the lead in the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik 1 on 4 October 1957. "Sputnik" was the first artificial satellite in orbit around the Earth, and the surprise of its successful launch, compounded by the resounding failure of Project Vanguard to launch an American satellite after two attempts, has been dubbed the "Sputnik crisis" and was the impetus for the beginning of the Space Race. Trying to reclaim lost ground, the United States embarked on a series of new projects and studies, which eventually included the launch of Explorer 1 and the creation of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and NASA.
Project A119 | Background
Western nickname "Battlestar Khrushchev" a nuclear-armed monolith station, about 5 times the volume of Salyut 1 and as heavy as Skylab. The station was designed for a crew of 6 and proceeded to mock-up stage before cancellation.
List of human spaceflight programs | Soviet Orbital Station 1 (Soviet Union 1962–1965)
Gagarin's flight was announced while Gagarin was still in orbit, by Yuri Levitan, the leading Soviet radio personality since the 1930s. Although normally, news of Soviet rocket launches would only be aired after the fact, Sergei Korolev wrote a note to the Party Central Committee, to convince them that the announcement should be made as early as possible: We consider it advisable to publish the first TASS report immediately after the satellite-spacecraft enters orbit, for the following reasons: (a) if a rescue becomes necessary, it will facilitate rapid organization of a rescue;
Vostok 1 | Soviet reaction
The Vostok program was a project that succeeded in putting a person into orbit for the first time. Sergei Korolev and Konstantin Feoktistov began, in June 1956, crewed spacecraft research. The program developed the Vostok spacecraft from the Zenit spy satellite project and adapted the Vostok rocket from an existing ICBM design. Just before the first release of the name Vostok to the press, it was a classified word. By August/September 1958 a division had been formed devoted to producing the first Vostok craft. The official approval (decree) for the Vostok was delayed until 22 May 1959 by competition with photo reconnaissance programs.
List of human spaceflight programs | Vostok program (USSR, 1956–1964)
In 1959, he became the Soviet Union's first Merited Test Pilot of the Soviet Union. In July and August 1964, Anokhin was commissioned to test specific airlock designs for what would become future Soviet spacecraft, specifically for the spacecraft sent on the Voskhod 2 mission. Also in 1964, Anokhin was selected by Sergey Korolev to be the head of a team to train civilian cosmonauts, rather than military that they had been prior. Under him, seven people were selected for training. These people included Konstantin Feoktistov, Georgiy Grechko, Valery Kubasov, Oleg Makarov, Nikolay Rukavishnikov, Vladislav Volkov, and Valery Yazdovsky. These men were collectively known in the Soviet Space program as “Korolev’s Kindergarten”.
Sergei Anokhin (test pilot) | Test Pilot and Space Program
Despite the very large geographical size of the Soviet Union, there were obvious limitations to monitoring orbital spaceflights from ground stations within the country. To remedy this, the Soviets stationed about seven naval vessels, or tracking ships, around the world. For each ground station or tracking ship, the duration of communications with an orbiting spacecraft was limited to between five and ten minutes.
Vostok programme | Missions
In a U.S. press conference on February 23, 1962, colonel Barney Oldfield revealed that an uncrewed space capsule had indeed been orbiting the Earth since 1960, as it had become jammed into its booster rocket. According to the NASA NSSDC Master Catalog, Korabl Sputnik 1, designated at the time 1KP or Vostok 1P, did launch on May 15, 1960 (one year before Gagarin). It was a prototype of the later Zenit and Vostok launch vehicles. The onboard TDU (Braking Engine Unit) had ordered the retrorockets to fire to recover, but due to a malfunction of the attitude control system, the spacecraft was oriented upside-down, and the firing put the craft into a higher orbit.
Lost Cosmonauts | Robert Heinlein
In 1960, science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein wrote in his article "Pravda means 'Truth" (reprinted in "Expanded Universe") that on May 15, 1960, while traveling in Vilnius, in the Soviet Lithuania, he was told by Red Army cadets that the Soviet Union had launched a human into orbit that day, but later the same day, it was denied by officials. Heinlein speculated that Korabl-Sputnik 1 was an orbital launch, later said to be uncrewed, and that the retro-rockets had fired in the wrong attitude, making recovery efforts unsuccessful. According to Gagarin's biography, these rumours were likely started as a result of two Vostok missions equipped with dummies (Ivan Ivanovich) and human voice tape recordings (to test if the radio worked) that were made just prior to Gagarin's flight.
Lost Cosmonauts | Robert Heinlein
The launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, started a Cold War technological and ideological competition with the United States known as the Space Race. The demonstration of American technological inferiority came as a profound shock to the American public. The Soviets followed up with Sputnik 2, which carried Laika, a Soviet space dog. American intelligence analysts assessed that the Soviets planned to put a man into orbit, which caused the United States Air Force (USAF) and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) to strengthen their efforts to achieve that goal. The USAF launched a spaceflight project called Man in Space Soonest (MISS), for which it obtained approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and requested $133 million in funding.
Mercury Seven | Background
However, the cramped conditions of the Voskhod space capsule has also been suggested as a factor ruling out a longer-duration spaceflight. During the flight, Khrushchev spoke with the cosmonauts via radio phone from his "dacha" in the Crimea. Shortly after this conversation, he was summoned back to Moscow where he learned that he was being expelled from office and the Communist Party. When the crew returned to Earth the next day, they were greeted by Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin in their first public appearance as leaders of the Soviet Union.
Voskhod 1 | Mission highlights
Beginning with work on the Vostok, Konstantin Feoktistov was recruited directly by Korolev to be the principal designer for crewed spaceflight vehicles. On 15 May 1960 an uncrewed prototype performed 64 orbits of the Earth, but the reentry maneuver failed. On 28 July 1960, two dogs by the names of Chaika and Lishichka were launched into space, but the mission was unsuccessful when an explosion killed the dogs. However, on 19 August, the Soviet Union became the first to successfully recover living creatures back to Earth. The dogs, Belka and Strelka were successfully launched into space on a Vostok spacecraft and they completed eighteen orbits.
Sergei Korolev | Human spaceflight
Political pressure in early 1964which some sources claim was from Khrushchev while other sources claim was from other Communist Party officialspushed him to modify his four remaining Vostoks to beat the Americans to new space firsts in the size of flight crews, and the duration of missions.
Space Race | Gemini and Voskhod
A group was selected for the manned space program - Vostok 6 based on the following qualifications: The five Soviet women selected were: Kuznetsova, Ponomaryova, Solovyova, Tereshkova, Yorkina on 16 February 1962 and reported for training a month later. However, the flight of a woman in space had little support from Chief Designer Korolev or Kamanin's military commanders.
Irina Solovyova | Female cosmonaut training group
By January 1959, the Soviets had begun preparations for human spaceflight. Physicians from the Soviet Air Force insisted that the potential cosmonaut candidates be qualified Air Force pilots, arguing that they would have relevant skills such as exposure to higher g-forces, as well as ejection seat experience; also the Americans had chosen the Mercury Seven in April 1959, all of whom had aviation backgrounds. The candidates had to be intelligent, comfortable in high-stress situations, and physically fit. Chief designer of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolev, decided that the cosmonauts must be male, between 25 and 30 years old, no taller than 1.75 meters, and weigh no more than 72 kilograms.
Vostok programme | Cosmonaut selection and training
On 8 August, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union approved the proposal to create an artificial satellite. On 30 August Vasily Ryabikov—the head of the State Commission on the R-7 rocket test launches—held a meeting where Korolev presented calculation data for a spaceflight trajectory to the Moon. They decided to develop a three-stage version of the R-7 rocket for satellite launches. On 30 January 1956 the Council of Ministers approved practical work on an artificial Earth-orbiting satellite. This satellite, named "Object D", was planned to be completed in 1957–58; it would have a mass of and would carry of scientific instruments.
Sputnik 1 | Satellite construction project
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the United States was engaged in the Cold War, a geopolitical rivalry with the Soviet Union. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This surprise success fired fears and imaginations around the world. It demonstrated that the Soviet Union had the capability to deliver nuclear weapons over intercontinental distances, and challenged American claims of military, economic and technological superiority. This precipitated the Sputnik crisis, and triggered the Space Race. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded to the Sputnik challenge by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and initiating Project Mercury, which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit.
Apollo 11 | Background
This may have been a political manoeuvre that would enable him to continue the manned space program and avoid diverting more of OKB-1's resources into Object OD-1. Despite bitter opposition from the military, the Soviet government-endorsed Korolev's approach and issued decrees on 22 and 25 May 1959 that ordered the development of three different spacecraft, all based on the same basic, Object OD-2, design. Spacecraft 1K would be a simplified prototype, 2K was to be a reconnaissance satellite and 3K was to be for manned flights. The name "Vostok" was also initially used for all three of these crafts. But in 1961 the name became publicly known as the name of Yuri Gagarin's spacecraft so the "Vostok 2" reconnaissance satellite was renamed "Zenit 2".
Zenit (satellite) | History
Until recently, it had been thought that Sedov was the principal engineer behind the Soviet Sputnik project.
Leonid Sedov | Introduction
The Soviet Interkosmos program included participants selected from Warsaw Pact members and later from allies of the USSR and non-aligned countries. Most of these people received full training for their missions and were treated as equals, but especially after the Mir program began, were generally given shorter flights than Soviet cosmonauts. The European Space Agency took advantage of the program as well. The United States Space Shuttle program included Payload Specialist positions which were usually filled by representatives of companies or institutions managing a specific payload on that mission. These individuals did not receive the same level of training as the NASA Astronaut Corps and were private astronauts.
Spaceflight participant | Background
Following his release he became a recognized rocket designer and a key figure in the development of the Soviet Intercontinental ballistic missile program. He later directed the Soviet space program and was made a Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences, overseeing the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects including the first human Earth orbit mission by Yuri Alexeyvich Gagarin on 12 April 1961. Korolev's unexpected death in 1966 interrupted implementation of his plans for a Soviet crewed Moon landing before the United States 1969 mission. Before his death he was officially identified only as "Glavny Konstruktor" ("Главный Конструктор"), or the "Chief Designer", to protect him from possible Cold War assassination attempts by the United States.
Sergei Korolev | Introduction
Sputnik (Спутник, Russian for "satellite") is a spacecraft launched under the Soviet space program. "Sputnik 1", "Sputnik 2" and "Sputnik 3" were the official Soviet names of those objects, while the remaining designations in the series ("Sputnik 4" and so on) were not official names, but were names applied in the West, to objects whose original Soviet names may not have been known at the time.
List of spacecraft called Sputnik | Introduction
Flying without spacesuits exposed the cosmonauts to significant risk in the event of potentially fatal cabin depressurization. This feat was not repeated until the US Apollo Command Module flew in 1968; this later mission was designed from the outset to safely transport three astronauts in a shirt-sleeve environment while in space. By October 16, 1964, Leonid Brezhnev and a small cadre of high-ranking Communist Party officials deposed Khrushchev as Soviet government leader a day after Voskhod 1 landed, in what was called the "Wednesday conspiracy". The new political leaders, along with Korolev, ended the technologically troublesome Voskhod program, cancelling Voskhod 3 and 4, which were in the planning stages, and started concentrating on reaching the Moon.
Space Race | Voskhod program
On 4 October 1957, the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik I from their R-7 Semyorka ICBM. The US was aware of these efforts and had already talked to the press about it, suggesting that if the Soviets launched a satellite first it would be no big deal. To their surprise, the press exploded in rage over the affair. Having spent over a decade working on similar missiles, like Atlas, the fact that the Soviets could beat them was a serious blow, and prompted a deep review of the ongoing programs. One problem noted from the start was that the internecine fighting between the Army and Air Force was leading to significant duplication of effort, with little to show for it.
PGM-19 Jupiter | Saved from cancellation
It was the very first satellite of its kind. International response to the accomplishment was electrifying, and political ramifications continued for decades. Nikita Khrushchev — initially bored with the idea of another "Korolev rocket launch" — was pleased with this success after the wide recognition, and encouraged launch of a more sophisticated satellite less than a month later, in time for the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution on 3 November.
Sergei Korolev | Space program
Engineer Sergei Khrushchev, son of former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, explained in an interview some shortcomings of Korolev's approach, which in his opinion is why the Soviets didn't land on the Moon: Another reason the program didn't succeed was the rivalry between Korolev and Vladimir Chelomey. Their animosity was due to the intolerable persona of both men, and their desire for leadership at any cost. The two never said a harsh word about each other either in public or in private, but toppled each other's projects in any way possible. Instead of dividing competencies and responsibilities and cooperating in order to pursue the same goal, the two struggled for leadership in the space program.
Sergei Korolev | Criticism
It is presumed he joined the Soviet rocketry program shortly after the end of WWII; his area of expertise appears to have been applied dynamics. By 1948 he was head of a rocketry design office. Along with other members of Sergei Korolev’s team, Bushuyev was awarded a Stalin Prize in 1951 "for the development of instrumentation for temperature measurement for the R-1 missile flight tests." The launch of Sputnik earned Bushuyev the Hero of Socialist Labour, the highest civilian award in the Soviet Union. He earned a Lenin Prize in 1960.
Konstantin Bushuyev | Career
Korolev was keenly aware of the orbital possibilities of the rockets being designed as ICBMs. He had brought up the idea of using the R-7 to launch a satellite into space to the Central Committee of the Communist Party on May 26, 1954, but was rejected as the Communist Party was uninterested. Korolev's Tikhonravov group filed exaggerated Soviet newspaper articles which were referred by the United States (US) press. This influenced American authorities to start satellite programs, announced on July 29, 1955 by the Eisenhower administration. While the US government debated the idea of spending millions of dollars on this concept, Korolev's group suggested the international prestige of launching a satellite before the United States could act.
Sergei Korolev | Space program
watched the programs, versus 180 million in the USSR.
U.S.–Soviet Space Bridge | Introduction
After Stalin's death and a short period of collective rule, the new leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced the cult of personality of Stalin and launched the policy of de-Stalinization. The penal labor system was reformed and many prisoners were released and rehabilitated (many of them posthumously). The general easement of repressive policies became known later as the Khrushchev Thaw. At the same time, tensions with the United States heightened when the two rivals clashed over the deployment of the United States Jupiter missiles in Turkey and Soviet missiles in Cuba. In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, "Sputnik 1", thus starting the Space Age.
Russia | Cold War
The book was originally supposed to be released in 1987; however, due to political turmoil and related events, it didn't become published until late 2012, after being updated by now co-writer Veselin Stoyanov. It addresses the many facets of military use in space, especially in light of the United States - Soviet Union (USSR) Space Race. The Author revisits events around the launch of Sputnik 1, the April 1961 flight of Yuri Gagarin, and overall development of the US and USSR Space Programs in that period. A special attention is also given to the Interkosmos program, as well as the development of the Bulgarian Cosmonaut Program and Bulgarian astronauts Georgi Ivanov and Aleksandr Aleksandrov.
Yordan Milanov (officer) | "Military Space a Quarter of a Century Ago" (2012)
The US was the dominant world power in the early 1950s. Lockheed U-2 spy plane flights over the Soviet Union provided intelligence that the US held the advantage in nuclear capability. However, an education gap was identified when studies conducted between 1955 and 1961 reported that the Soviet Union was training two to three times as many scientists per year as the US. The launch and orbit of "Sputnik 1" suggested that the Soviet Union had made a substantial leap forward in technology, which was interpreted as a serious threat to US national security, which spurred the US to make considerable federal investments in research and development, education, and national security.
Sputnik crisis | Background
There was a success with the joint flight of Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 in January 1969 that tested the rendezvous, docking, and crew transfer techniques that would be used for the landing, and the LK lander was tested successfully in earth orbit. But after four uncrewed test launches of the N1 ended in failure, the heavy booster was abandoned and with it any chance of the Soviets landing men on the Moon in a single launch.
Soviet space program | After Korolev
The Soviet Union became the world's first spacefaring state by launching its first satellite, Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957.
Space policy | Soviet Union
Vostok 1 was the first human spaceflight. The Vostok 3KA spacecraft was launched on April 12, 1961, taking into space Yuri Gagarin, a cosmonaut from the Soviet Union. The Vostok 1 mission was the first time anyone had journeyed into outer space and the first time anyone had entered into orbit. There were six Vostok flights in total. Another seven Vostok flights (Vostok 7 to 13) were originally planned, going through to April 1966, but these were canceled and the components recycled into the Voskhod program, which was intended to achieve more Soviet firsts in space.
List of human spaceflight programs | Vostok program (USSR, 1956–1964)
Korolev's design bureau produced two prospectuses for circumlunar spaceflight (March 1962 and May 1963), the main spacecraft for which were early versions of his Soyuz design. Soviet Communist Party Central Committee Command 655-268 officially established two secret, competing crewed programs for circumlunar flights and lunar landings, on August 3, 1964. The circumlunar flights were planned to occur in 1967, and the landings to start in 1968. The circumlunar program (Zond), created by Vladimir Chelomey's design bureau OKB-52, was to fly two cosmonauts in a stripped-down Soyuz 7K-L1, launched by Chelomey's Proton UR-500 rocket. The Zond sacrificed habitable cabin volume for equipment, by omitting the Soyuz orbital module.
Space Race | Soviet crewed Moon programs
Further notable records included the first interplanetary probes: Venera 1 and Mars 1 to fly by Venus and Mars, respectively, Venera 3 and Mars 2 to impact the respective planet surface, and Venera 7 and Mars 3 to make soft landings on these planets. The rocket and space program of the Soviet Union, which initially employed captured scientists from the V-2 rocket program, was performed mainly by Soviet engineers and scientists after 1955, and was based on some unique Soviet and Imperial Russian theoretical developments, many derived by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, sometimes known as the father of theoretical astronautics. Sergei Korolev was the head of the principal design group; his official title was Chief Designer (a standard title for similar positions in the Soviet Union).
Soviet space program | Introduction
On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite. This shattered Americans confidence in their technological superiority, creating a wave of anxiety known as the Sputnik crisis. Among his responses, President Dwight D. Eisenhower launched the Space Race. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established on October 1, 1958, as a civilian agency to develop space technology. One of its first initiatives was Project Mercury, which aimed to launch a man into Earth orbit, evaluate his capabilities in space, and return him safely to the Earth. The first astronauts intake was drawn from the ranks of military test pilots.
Scott Carpenter | Mercury Seven
The first "Vostok" spacecraft was a variant not designed to be recovered from orbit; the variant was also called "Vostok 1KP" (or "1P"). At Korolev's suggestion, the media would call the spacecraft "Korabl-Sputnik", ("Satellite-ship"); the name "Vostok" was still a secret codename at this point. This first Vostok spacecraft was successfully sent into orbit on May 15, 1960. Owing to a system malfunction, on the spacecraft's 64th orbit the thrusters fired and sent it into an even higher orbit. The orbit eventually decayed, and it re-entered the atmosphere several years later.
Vostok programme | Korabl-Sputnik 1
This project was also cancelled. (The design required a spacewalk between lunar vehicles, something that contributed to his selection.) Leonov was to have been commander of the 1971 Soyuz 11 mission to Salyut 1, the first crewed space station, but his crew was replaced with the backup after one of the members, cosmonaut Valery Kubasov, was suspected to have contracted tuberculosis (the other member was Pyotr Kolodin). Leonov was to have commanded the next mission to Salyut 1, but this was scrapped after the deaths of the Soyuz 11 crew members, and the space station was lost. The next two Salyuts (actually the military Almaz station) were lost at launch or failed soon after, and Leonov's crew stood by.
Alexei Leonov | Soviet space programme
He supported in this period close contact with the "Union".
Sergey Kurginyan | Soviet period
In 1940-41 another advance in the reactive propulsion field took place: the development and serial production of the Katyusha multiple rocket launcher.
Soviet space program | Pre-war efforts
Gagarin was followed by additional Vostok flights, culminating with 81 orbits completed by Vostok 5 and the launch of Valentina Tereshkova as the first woman cosmonaut in space aboard Vostok 6. Korolev proposed communications satellites and a modified Vostok useful for photographic reconnaissance to quiet Soviet military objections about the cost of planetary and crewed programs of no perceived value for national defense. Korolev planned to move forward with Soyuz craft able to dock with other craft in orbit and exchange crews. He was directed by Khrushchev to cheaply produce more 'firsts' for the piloted program, including a multi-crewed flight.
Sergei Korolev | Human spaceflight
Arkady Ilyich Ostashev (; 30 September 1925 in village Maly Vasilyev, Noginsky District, Moscow Oblast, USSR – 12 July 1998 in Moscow, Russian Federation) was an Soviet-Russian mechanical engineer who participated in the launch of sputnik and later the first cosmonaut. He was a Candidate of Technical Sciences, docent, laureate of the Lenin and state prizes, senior test pilot of missiles and space-rocket complexes of OKB-1 as well as a companion of Sergey Korolev, the head of the Soviet space program.
Arkady Ostashev | Introduction
However, Dmitry Ustinov directed him to focus on near-Earth missions using the very reliable Voskhod spacecraft, a modified Vostok, as well as on interplanetary uncrewed missions to nearby planets Venus and Mars. Yangel had been Korolev's assistant but with the support of the military, he was given his own design bureau in 1954 to work primarily on the military space program. This had the stronger rocket engine design team including the use of hypergolic fuels but following the Nedelin catastrophe in 1960 Yangel was directed to concentrate on ICBM development. He also continued to develop his own heavy booster designs similar to Korolev's N-1 both for military applications and for cargo flights into space to build future space stations.
Soviet space program | Internal competition
Based on these results, a commission, supervised by Kamanin, recommended the use of the cosmonauts in the following order: Gagarin, Titov, Nelyubov, Nikolayev, Bykovskiy, Popovich. At this stage Gagarin was the clear favorite to be the first man in space, not only based on the exams, but also among an informal peer evaluation.
Vostok programme | Vanguard Six
Lieutenant General Yuri Mozzhorin recalled that by "approximately 1965", when the Soviet Union had the 'long arm' (ICBMs), the Soviets did not expect war "and thought it would not happen." As institute director, Mozzhorin, recalled that for a long time the institute could not envisage a civilian payload large enough to require a vehicle of that capacity. Officially, the "Buran" orbital vehicle was designed for the delivery to orbit and return to Earth of spacecraft, cosmonauts, and supplies. Both Chertok and Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy (Chief Designer of RKK Energia) suggest that from the beginning, the programme was military in nature; however, the exact military capabilities, or intended capabilities, of the "Buran" programme remain classified.
Buran programme | Introduction
Adlai Stevenson, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, was quoted as saying, "Now that the Soviet scientists have put a man into space and brought him back alive, I hope they will also help to bring the United Nations back alive," and on a more serious note urged international agreements covering the use of space (which did not occur until the Outer Space Treaty of 1967).
Vostok 1 | American reaction
Although he was having ideas since 1948, Korolev's planning for the piloted mission began in 1958 with design studies for the future Vostok spacecraft. It was to hold a single passenger in a space suit, and be fully automated. The space suit, unlike the United States' pure oxygen system, was 80 percent nitrogen and only 20 percent oxygen. The capsule had an escape mechanism for problems prior to launch, and a soft-landing and ejection system during the recovery. The spacecraft was spherical, just like the Sputnik design, and Korolev explained his reasoning for this by saying "the spherical shape would be more stable dynamically".
Sergei Korolev | Human spaceflight
Engine of the first stage RD-214 (rocket R12 and Space Missile) Engine of the second stage RD-119 (Space-2) Layout 1:10
Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov Museum of Cosmonautics | Space program
In the 1970s, the United States began developing the reusable orbital Space Shuttle spaceplane, and launched a range of uncrewed probes. The USSR continued to develop space station technology with the Salyut program and Mir ('Peace' or 'World', depending on the context) space station, supported by Soyuz spacecraft. They developed their own large spaceplane under the Buran program. The USSR dissolved in 1991 and the remains of its space program mainly passed to Russia. The United States and Russia have worked together in space with the Shuttle–Mir Program, and again with the International Space Station. The Russian R-7 rocket family, which launched the first Sputnik at the beginning of the Space Race, is still in use today.
Space Race | Human spaceflight after Apollo
After the launch of Sputnik, a poll conducted and published by the University of Michigan showed that 26% of Americans surveyed thought that Russian sciences and engineering were superior to that of the United States. (A year later, however, that figure had dropped to 10% as the U.S. began launching its own satellites into space.) One consequence of the Sputnik shock was the perception of a "missile gap". This became a dominant issue in the 1960 Presidential campaign.
Sputnik 1 | Legacy
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought an end to the Cold War and opened the door to true cooperation between the US and Russia. The Soviet Soyuz and Mir programs were taken over by the Russian Federal Space Agency, now known as the Roscosmos State Corporation. The Shuttle-Mir Program included American Space Shuttles visiting the "Mir" space station, Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle, and an American astronaut flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft for long-duration expeditions aboard "Mir". In 1993, President Bill Clinton secured Russia's cooperation in converting the planned Space Station "Freedom" into the International Space Station (ISS).
Human spaceflight | US / Russian cooperation
The Vostok was the Soviet Union's first crewed space capsule. The first human spaceflight was Vostok 1, accomplished on April 12, 1961 by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. The capsule was originally designed for use both as a camera platform for the Soviet Union's first spy satellite program, Zenit and as a crewed spacecraft. This dual-use design was crucial in gaining Communist Party support for the program. The design used a spherical reentry module, with a biconic descent module containing attitude control thrusters, on-orbit consumables, and the retro rocket for orbit termination. The basic design has remained in use for some 40 years, gradually adapted for a range of other uncrewed satellites.
Space capsule | Vostok
Some ideas were incorporated in the R-2 and R-5 missile systems. The launcher Vostok 1 for Yuri Gagarin's space flight in April 1961 was based on a bundling of a total of 20 A4-like engines with conical rocket bodies, as already proposed by the German scientists in 1949 in Gorodomlja. For political reasons, however, the contributions made by the German collective of rocket scientists to Soviet missile development have long been considered insignificant by the public in East and West.
Helmut Gröttrup | Soviet rocketry program
However, on May 19, "an attempt to deorbit a space cabin failed" and sent the cabin into high Earth orbit, only for it to crash into the Earth in September of the same year. The Soviets continued their space program, however by launching Sputnik 5 on August 19, 1960, which carried the first animals and plants to space and return them safely to Earth. Other notable launches include:
Cold War (1953–1962) | Soviet Space Travel from 1960–1962
A later pro-Air Force campaign (May–July 1964) also failed. Rivalry and duplicate functions continued on lower levels; for example, the Institute of Medical and Biological Problems (established 1964) competed with the older Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine for personnel and premises, etc. Expansion of Vostok programme. Kamanin also realized that Korolyov's Soyuz project was in the very distant future, and relying on Soyuz alone would ground his cosmonaut squad for years. Throughout 1961-1963, he campaigned for more Vostok manned launches. His calls to build 8-10 Vostok spacecraft did not materialize (at some point in 1963, he seemed to succeed with a "build Vostoks" program, but it was soon folded down).
Nikolai Kamanin | Political failures
Boris Yevseyevich Chertok (; – 14 December 2011) was a Russian electrical engineer and the control systems designer in the Soviet Union's space program, and later found employment in the Russian Roscosmos in Russia. Major responsibility under his guidance was primarily based on computerized control system of the Russian missiles and rocketry system, and authored the four-volume book "Rockets and People"– the definitive source of information about the history of the Soviet space program. From 1974, he was the deputy chief designer of the S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia, the space aircraft designer bureau which he started working for in 1946.
Boris Chertok | Introduction