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Soviet Space Program

The origins of the USSR space program date back to 1921 with the founding of the Gas Dynamics Laboratory of the Red Army, which in 1933 became part of the Jet Research Institute (RNII) under the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR. From 1955, the Ministry of General Engineering of the USSR coordinated the work of all enterprises and scientific organizations engaged in the creation of rocket and space technology.

The RNII was created in Moscow by order of the Revolutionary Military Council (RVS) No. 0113 dated September 21, 1933 through the merger of the Moscow Group for the Study of Jet Propulsion (GIRD) (created in 1931, head S.P. Korolev) and the Leningrad Gas Dynamic Laboratory (GDL) (created in 1921, headed by I.T. Kleymenov) signed by the deputy chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, chief of armaments of the Red Army M.N. Tukhachevsky in the system of the People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR (Narkomvoenmor). The first head of the institute was military engineer 1st rank Ivan Terentyevich Kleymenov, his deputy was division engineer Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (from January 11, 1934 he would be replaced by Georgy Erikhovich Langemak).

By Resolution of the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) No. 104ss of October 31, 1933, signed by the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR V.M. Molotov, the organization of the RNII was entrusted to the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry of the USSR. Since the military GDL and the civilian GIRD united under the roof of one institute, this immediately gave rise to conflicts over leadership and assessment of development prospects.

In December 1936, it was renamed Scientific Research Institute-3 of the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry (from 1.1939 - People's Commissariat of Ammunition).

In October 1941, the institute was evacuated to Sverdlovsk ahead of the advancing German invasion.

By the Decree of the State Defense Committee of the USSR dated July 15, 1942, it was transformed into the State Institute of Rocket Technology (GIRT) under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR.

On February 18, 1944, the State Defense Committee, in connection with the “intolerable situation that has developed with the development of jet technology in the USSR,” decided to “… liquidate the State Institute of Jet Technology under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR” and entrust the solution to this problem to the People’s Commissariat of the Aviation Industry . The institute entered the system of the new People's Commissariat under the name NII-1.

Following the end of the Second World War, the organization came under the leadership of S. P. Korolev, who would become one of the prime motivators for the USSR's journey to the moon.

Early Life

Sergei Korolev was born late in the evening of December 30, 1906 in the city of Zhitomir, then part of Volyn Province of the Russian Empire, in the family of a teacher of Russian language and literature Pavel Yakovlevich Korolev (1877-1929), originally from Mogilev, and the daughter of a Nizhyn merchant - Maria Nikolaevna Moskalenko (Balanina) (1888-1980).

On June 28, 1908, the family moved to Kiev, where Pavel Yakovlevich received a position as a teacher of Russian language and literature at the Fifth Men's Gymnasium of M. A. Stelmashenko. At the same time, in Mogilev, Pavel Yakovlevich’s father died of pulmonary tuberculosis, and all worries about his mother and two minor twin sisters fell on him. He transported them to Kiev and rented two apartments: one for his family - a small apartment No. 6 in a wing of the house on Ivanovskaya, 31 (now Turgenevskaya Street , 35) from Olga Terentyevna Petrukhina, and for his mother with younger children - in another wing the same house. The life of the Korolev spouses became even more complicated with increasingly frequent quarrels.

On August 13, 1910, Maria Nikolaevna submitted a petition to the chairman of the Pedagogical Council of the Kiev Higher Women's Courses for admission to the German-Romance department of the Faculty of History and Philology, and soon became a student. Soon after, family life began to fall apart and she moved to live with her sister Anna Nikolaevna, who also rented a small room on Fundukleevskaya Street in house number 10. Sergei Pavlovich was sent to Nezhin in the fall of 1910 to live with his great grandmother Maria Matveevna (nee Fursa, 1863-1940) and grandfather Nikolai Yakovlevich Moskalenko (1842-1920). Pavel Yakovlevich was beside himself and filed an application to the Nezhinsky court to give him his son, but was refused. Pavel Yakovlevich and Maria Nikolaevna officially divorced in 1916.

In Nezhin, three-year-old Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was in the care of his grandmother and nanny. His uncle, the cheerful Vasily Nikolaevich, also took an active part in his upbringing. He taught the boy to ride a bicycle, play croquet, and develop photographs, made him swings and snow slides, and introduced him to music. According to reviews from those around him, as a child Korolev was a handsome, nimble, inquisitive and affectionate boy. He grew up among adults, having no friends among peers. They were afraid to let him out into the street because his father had threatened to kidnap him, so the gate of the Moskalenko estate was always locked.

At that time, an unusual event for those years took place in Nezhin, which made a huge impression on Korolev, and may have influenced his future fate. On June 4, 1911, one of the first Russian pilots, a popularizer of aviation, Sergei Utochkin, came to town. His plane was delivered by train, transported on horseback to the fairgrounds and there prepared for flight. Families went to the square to witness the spectacle. When Maria Nikolaevna arrived, Korolev excitedly told her that he had seen a car with wings fly.

In the summer of 1914, hard times came - in the first month of the World War, the elder Moskalenkos were ruined, and in August Sergei Pavlovich and his grandparents moved to Kiev. Thus ended his time in Nezhin, and Sergei Korolev never returned.

In August 1914, the Moskalenko family rented a five-room apartment No. 5 in the center of Kiev on the third floor of a four-story building No. 6 (now No. 3) on Nekrasovskaya Street .

In 1915 he entered the preparatory classes of the gymnasium in Kiev.

In 1917, he went to the first grade of a gymnasium in Odessa , where his mother, Maria Nikolaevna Balanina, and stepfather, Grigory Mikhailovich Balanin (1881-1963), moved.

Korolev did not study at the gymnasium for long - it was soon closed; then there were four months of unified labor school. Then he received his education at home - his mother and stepfather were teachers, and his stepfather, in addition to teaching, had an engineering education.

Beginning of Career

Even during his school years, Sergei was interested in the then new aviation technology and showed exceptional abilities for it.

In 1921, he met the pilots of the Odessa hydraulic squad and actively participated in aviation public life: from the age of 16 - as a lecturer on eliminating “aviation illiteracy”, and from the age of 17 - as the author of the project for the K-5 non-motorized aircraft, which was officially defended before the competent commission and recommended for construction.

In 1922-1924 he studied at a construction vocational school, participating in many clubs and taking various courses.

In 1923 he became a member of OAVUK - Society of Aviation and Aeronautics of Ukraine and Crimea.

Having entered the Kiev Polytechnic Institute in 1924 with a specialization in aviation technology, Korolev mastered general engineering disciplines there in two years and became an athlete-glider pilot. In the fall of 1926, he transferred to the Moscow Higher Technical School (MVTU) named after N. E. Bauman.

During his studies at the Moscow Higher Technical School, Korolev had already gained fame as a young, capable aircraft designer and an experienced glider pilot. On November 2, 1929, on the Firebird glider designed by M.K. Tikhonravov, Korolev passed the exams for the title of “glider pilot”, and in December of the same year, under the leadership of Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev, he defended his thesis - the project of the SK-4 aircraft. After graduating from Moscow Higher Technical School, he worked for about a year at TsAGI under the leadership of A. N. Tupolev. The aircraft he designed and built—the Koktebel and Krasnaya Zvezda gliders and the SK-4 light aircraft, designed to achieve a record flight range—showed Korolev’s extraordinary abilities as an aircraft designer. Thus, for the first time in the USSR, the SK-3 “Red Star” glider was specially designed to perform aerobatic maneuvers and, in particular, a loop, which was successfully demonstrated by pilot Vasily Stepanchonok during the VII All-Union Glider Meeting in Koktebel on October 28, 1930.

Korolev’s idea to build a rocket plane came “after becoming acquainted with the works of Tsiolkovsky and becoming closely acquainted with Zander”. In September 1931, Korolev and a talented enthusiast in the field of rocket engines, Friedrich Zander, achieved the creation in Moscow, with the help of Osoaviakhim, of a public organization - the Jet Propulsion Study Group (GIRD); in April 1932, it became essentially a state research and design laboratory for the development of rocket aircraft, in which the first Soviet liquid-ballistic missiles (BR) GIRD-09 and GIRD-10 were created and launched .

On August 17, 1933, the first successful launch of a GIRD rocket was carried out.

In 1933, by order of the Revolutionary Military Council, on the basis of the Moscow GIRD and the Leningrad Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) , the Jet Research Institute of the NK ViMD of the USSR was created under the leadership of Ivan Kleimenov. Korolev was first appointed his deputy, but already at the beginning of 1934 he was relieved of this position. In 1935 he became head of the rocket aircraft department; in 1936, he managed to bring cruise missiles to testing: anti-aircraft - "217" with a powder rocket engine and long-range - "212" with a liquid rocket engine. By 1938, his department had developed designs for liquid-propelled cruise and long-range ballistic missiles, an aircraft missile for firing at air and ground targets (the “301” missile) and anti-aircraft solid-fuel missiles. However, differences in views on the prospects for the development of rocket technology forced Korolev to leave the post of deputy director, and he was appointed to the position of head of the sector.

In February 1938, in a joint report with E. S. Shchetinkov, Korolev outlined the possibilities of using a rocket plane for various purposes, including justifying its use as a high-altitude fighter-interceptor. Until his arrest on June 27 of the same year, he continued to work on a prototype rocket plane with a liquid jet engine. Subsequently, work on this project continued under the leadership of A. Ya. Shcherbakov, the first flight of the RP-318-1 rocket plane with a running engine took place on February 28, 1940.

Arrest, Kolyma, and Sharashka

On May 29, 1938, Korolev, together with designer Arvid Pallo, conducted a test to develop the power supply system for the 312 cruise missile, as well as prepare it for fire tests. During testing, a pipeline explosion occurred, due to which Korolev, who was near the stand where the test was carried out, received a head injury.

Korolev was arrested on June 27, 1938, after the arrest of Ivan Kleimenov and other employees of the Jet Institute. Korolev’s arrest was authorized by the assistant to the USSR Prosecutor Andrei Vyshinsky, Mark Raginsky. The arrest order was written by the Deputy People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR Semyon Zhukovsky. The basis for the arrest was the testimony of Ivan Kleymenov, Georgy Langemak and Valentin Glushko, who had been arrested earlier - all three called Korolev an accomplice of a certain counter-revolutionary Trotskyist organization within the RNII, “with its goal of weakening defense power for the sake of fascism.” The investigation into the case was conducted by NKVD detective lieutenants Nikolai Bykov and Mikhail Nikolaevich Shestakov.

Charges were brought under two counts of Article 58 : 58-7 - “Undermining state industry … committed for counter-revolutionary purposes through the corresponding use of state institutions and enterprises, or counteracting their normal activities” - and 58-11 - “All kinds of organizational activities aimed at for the preparation or commission of the crimes provided for in this chapter…” It was alleged that since 1935, Korolev had been carrying out criminal work to disrupt the development and adoption of new types of weapons by the Red Army.

It took investigators five weeks to extract the testimony they needed from Korolev. He was declared an “ enemy of the people ”, kept in solitary confinement, had his jaw broken, and was threatened with the arrest of his wife and the sending of his daughter to an orphanage. Korolev himself confirmed the use of beatings and bullying against him by investigators in his letter addressed to Stalin dated July 13, 1940 with a request to objectively investigate his case. Soviet journalist Yaroslav Golovanov questioned the version of the jaw fracture during interrogation.

On September 25, 1938, he was included in the list of persons subject to trial by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR. On the list he was in the first (execution) category. The list was endorsed by Stalin , Molotov , Voroshilov and Kaganovich.

Convicted by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on September 27, 1938, charge: Art. 58-7, 11 . Sentence: 10 years of labor camp, 5 years of disqualification with confiscation of property. On June 13, 1939, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR overturned the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, and the investigative case against Korolev was transferred to a new investigation, during which Korolev showed that the testimony he gave during the investigation in 1938 was untrue and false:

"APPROVED"

DEPUTY START CHAP. ECOHOM. UPR. NKVD USSR ST. MAJOR OF STATE SECURITY /NASEDKIN/

May 29, 1940

Indictment in investigative case No. 19908 on charges against Sergei Pavlovich Korolev under Art. 58-7; 58-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

On June 28, 1938, the NKVD of the USSR arrested and prosecuted the former engineer of the said institute, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, for belonging to a Trotskyist, sabotage organization operating at Research Institute No. 3 (NKB USSR).

During the investigation, Korolev PLED HIMSELF GUILTY of being recruited into the Trotskyist sabotage organization in 1935 by the former technical director of Research Institute No. 3 Langemak (convicted).

On instructions from the anti-Soviet organization, Korolev carried out sabotage work to disrupt the development and delivery of new types of weapons to the Red Army (ld. 21-35, 53-55; 66-67, 238-239).

By the decision of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR on September 27, 1938, Korolev was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

On June 13, 1939, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the USSR overturned the verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR, and the investigative case against Korolev was transferred for a new investigation (see separate folder of judicial proceedings).

During the repeated investigation, Korolev showed that the testimony he gave during the investigation in 1938 did not correspond to reality and was false (case sheets 153-156).

However, the investigation materials and documentary data available in the case expose Korolev to the fact that:

In 1936, he led the development of a gunpowder winged torpedo; Knowing in advance that the main parts of this torpedo - devices with photocells - for controlling the torpedo and pointing it at the target, could not be manufactured by the central laboratory of wired communications, Korolev, in order to load the institute with unnecessary work, intensively developed the missile part of this torpedo in 2 versions.

As a result of this, tests of four torpedoes built by Korolev showed their complete unsuitability, which caused damage to the state in the amount of 120,000 rubles and delayed the development of other, more relevant topics (case sheets 250-251).

In 1937, when developing the side compartment of a torpedo (winged), he made a sabotage calculation, as a result of which research work on the creation of a torpedo was disrupted (ld. 23-24, 256).

Artificially delayed the production and testing of defense objects (object 212) (case sheets 21, 54, 255).

Based on the above, SERGEY PAVLOVICH KOROLEV, born in 1906, is accused. Zhitomir, Russian, citizen of the USSR, non-partisan, before his arrest - engineer of the Scientific Research Institute-3 of the USSR NKB, in that:

Since 1935, he was a member of the Trotskyist sabotage organization, on whose instructions he carried out criminal work at NII-3 to disrupt the development and delivery of new types of weapons to the Red Army, that is, in crimes of Art. 58-7, 58-11 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.

He pleaded guilty, but subsequently recanted his testimony.

Convicted by the testimony of: Kleimenov, Langemak, Glushko; testimony of witnesses; Smirnov, Rokhmachev, Kostikov, Shitov, Efremov, Bukin, Dushkin and acts of expert commissions.

The case against Korolev should be sent to the USSR Prosecutor's Office of jurisdiction.

The indictment was drawn up on May 28, 1940 in the city of Moscow.

INVESTIGATOR OF THE INVESTIGATORY UNIT OF THE GEU NKVD USSR ML. LIEUTENANT OF STATE SECURITY /RYABOV/ ASSISTANT. START RESEARCH UNITS GEU NKVD USSR CT. LIEUTENANT OF STATE SECURITY /LIBENSON/ “AGREED” BEGINNING. INVESTIGATORY UNITS OF THE NKVD USSR MAYOR OF STATE SECURITY /VLODZIMIRSKY/

On June 10, 1940, the term was reduced to 8 years in the ITL, and he was released in 1944.

According to his application to the Military Prosecutor's Office dated May 30, 1955, he was rehabilitated “for lack of evidence of a crime” on April 18, 1957.

After the verdict was pronounced on September 27, 1938, Korolev was transferred to a transit prison in Novocherkassk, where he spent the next nine months, and then in June 1939 he was transferred to Kolyma. On August 3, 1939, he was at the Maldyak gold mine of the Western Mining Department and was engaged in so-called “general work”. Korolev spent five months in Kolyma, was exhausted, lost all his teeth from scurvy and suffered from heart problems that continued to plague him in the following decades. He was saved from death by another prisoner, Mikhail Usachev, the former director of the Moscow Aviation Plant, who knew Korolev while still free. Usachev helped get Korolev into the medical unit.

His mother was the first to start fighting for the review of Korolev’s case, enlisting the support of deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR M. M. Gromov and V. S. Grizodubova . The verdict of September 27, 1938 was overturned and the case was transferred for a new trial. As a result, on December 23, 1939, Korolev was sent from the Maldyak mine to the disposal of Vladlag and then to Moscow to review the case. On the way from the mine, Korolev fell ill and ended up in the infirmary. He was late in Magadan for the last voyage of the Indigirka steamship before the closure of navigation. Perhaps this saved Sergei Pavlovich from death: the ship sank in the Sea of Japan during a storm, killing 745 of the 1,173 people on board.

He arrived in Moscow on March 2, 1940, where four months later he was tried a second time by a Special Meeting, sentenced to 8 years in prison and sent to the Moscow NKVD special prison TsKB-29. At first, Korolev worked as an assistant to Lev Theremin, who was also sent to serve his sentence in the “Tupolev sharaga ”; one of the areas of their activity was the development of unmanned aerial vehicles controlled by radio - prototypes of modern cruise missiles. Then, under the leadership of Andrei Tupolev, also a prisoner, he took an active part in the creation of the Pe-2 and Tu-2 bombers and at the same time proactively developed projects for a guided aerial torpedo and a new version of a missile interceptor.

This was the reason for Korolev’s transfer in 1942 to another prison-type design bureau - OKB-16 at the Kazan Aviation Plant No. 16, where work was carried out on new types of rocket engines for the purpose of using them in aviation. Here Korolev, with his characteristic enthusiasm, devoted himself to the idea of the practical use of rocket engines to improve aviation: reducing the length of the aircraft's takeoff run during takeoff and increasing the speed and dynamic characteristics of aircraft during air combat.

At the beginning of 1943, he was appointed chief designer of the rocket launch group. He was involved in improving the technical characteristics of the Pe-2 dive bomber, the first flight of which with a functioning rocket launcher took place in October 1943.

According to the memoirs of Leonid Kerber about the period of work in the sharashka , Korolev was a skeptic, a cynic and a pessimist, who looked absolutely gloomily at the future. “They’ll slam you without an obituary,” was his favorite phrase. At the same time, there is a statement by cosmonaut Alexei Leonov regarding Korolev in the 1960s: “He was never embittered… He never complained, never cursed or scolded anyone. He didn't have time for that. He understood that it is not a creative impulse that causes embitterment, but oppression”.

In July 1944, Korolev was released early from prison with his criminal record expunged, but without rehabilitation (minutes of the July 27, 1944 meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR) on the personal instructions of I.V. Stalin, after which he worked for another year in Kazan. On January 12, 2007, a high relief of Korolev by sculptor Mahmut Gasimov was inaugurated near the entrance of Kazan Aviation Plant No. 16.

Korolev became one of the first teachers at the Department of Jet Engines of the Kazan Aviation Institute.

Ballistic Missile Development

On September 8, 1945, Korolev flew to Berlin to participate in the study of captured rocket technology in the Soviet occupation zone (Thuringia). In 1946, a new Soviet-German rocket institute, Nordhausen, was created there, and Korolev was appointed chief engineer.

To study and reproduce V-2 missiles, a Special Design Bureau for Rocketry (SKB RT) was organized at the large artillery plant No. 88 near Moscow at the end of 1945. Valentin Petrovich Glushko, who at one time testified against Korolev, which led to the arrest and conviction of the latter, became head of the SKB RT. Their uneasy and sometimes openly hostile relationship had an impact on the future Soviet space program. When SKB representatives arrived at the Nordhausen Institute to get acquainted with the V-2, it was decided to appoint Korolev as head of the production of the V-2 copy.

In 1946, he was appointed head of department No. 3 of NII-88 . At the same time, the position of Chief Designer of the SKB RT was replaced and the positions of Chief Designers for each missile were introduced. As a result, Korolev became a Chief Designer.

Speaking about the design of Soviet missiles that followed the R-1, it is difficult to distinguish between the time periods for their creation. So, Korolev thought about the R-2 back in Germany, when the R-1 project had not yet been discussed, the R-5 was developed by him even before the delivery of the R-2, and even earlier, work began on the small mobile rocket R-11 and the first calculations for the intercontinental R-7 rocket .

In 1948, Korolev began flight development tests of the R-1 ballistic missile (analogue of the V-2) and in 1950 he successfully put it into service.

By order of the USSR government dated April 24, 1950, OKB-1 NII-88 MV USSR was created, and Korolev became its head and Chief Designer.

During 1954 alone, Korolev simultaneously worked on various modifications of the R-1 rocket (R-1A, R-1B, R-1B, R-1D, R-1E), completed work on the R-5 and outlined five different modifications of it, completed complex and responsible work on the R-5M missile - with a nuclear warhead. Work was underway on the R-11 and its naval version, the R-11FM, and the intercontinental R-7 acquired increasingly clear features.

In 1956, under the leadership of Korolev, a two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 was created with a detachable warhead weighing 3 tons and a flight range of 8 thousand km. The rocket was successfully tested in 1957 at Test Site No. 5 in Kazakhstan (the current Baikonur Cosmodrome ) built for this purpose. For combat duty of these missiles, a combat launch station (Angara facility) was built in 1958-1959 near the village of Plesetsk (Arkhangelsk region , present-day Plesetsk cosmodrome). A modification of the R-7A missile with a range increased to 11 thousand km was in service with the USSR Strategic Missile Forces from 1960 to 1968.

In 1957, he created the first R-11FM ballistic missiles based on stable components, kerosene plus nitrate oxidizer (mobile land-based and sea-based); became a pioneer in these new and important directions for the development of missile weapons.

Head of the Council of Chief Designers

The Council of Chief Designers - an informal council for the development of the USSR rocket industry under the leadership of Sergei Korolev, united the chief designers of the main enterprises participating in the rocket and space program of the 1940s - 1950s. It existed since the deployment of large-scale work in the industry (1946), and was expanded in 1954.

The council was headed by Korolev, who united the actions of scientists and designers, directing their work towards achieving a common goal - the creation of ballistic and then space rockets. In fact, the leadership of the council was carried out by Korolev until approximately 1961, when its members went over to the side of Vladimir Chelomei, who headed a similar advisory body, also called the Council of Chief Designers and which existed until approximately 1966, when V.N. Chelomei lost his positions after the resignation of N. S. Khrushchev from the post of General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee.

The Council of Chief Designers would continue to exist as an independent phenomenon after the death of Korolev in 1966.

First Artificial Sattelite

In 1955 (long before the flight tests of the R-7 rocket), Korolev, Mstislav Keldysh, and Mikhail Tikhonravov came to the government with a proposal to launch an artificial Earth satellite (AES) into space using the R-7 rocket. The government supported this initiative. In August 1956, OKB-1 left NII-88 and became an independent organization, with Korolev appointed chief designer and director.

To implement manned flights and launches of automatic space stations, Korolev developed a family of advanced three- and four-stage launch vehicles based on a combat rocket .

On October 4, 1957, the first artificial Earth satellite in human history was launched into low-Earth orbit. The launch of Sputnik greatly raised the international prestige of the USSR as a country of advanced science and technology.

In 1964, Korolev (under the pseudonym Professor K. Sergeev) assessed the first satellite:

He was small, this very first artificial satellite of our old planet, but his sonorous call signs spread across all continents and among all peoples as the embodiment of the daring dream of mankind.

In parallel with preparations for manned flights, work was carried out on satellites for scientific, economic and defense purposes. In 1958, the geophysical Sputnik-3 was developed and launched into space, and then the paired Elektron satellites were created to study the Earth's radiation belts. In 1959, three automatic spacecraft were created and launched to explore the Moon: “Luna-1” flew near the Moon, registering the Solar Wind for the first time , “Luna-2” was the first in the world to fly from the Earth to another cosmic body, delivering pennants of the Soviet Union to the Moon, "Luna-3" was the first to photograph the far side of the Moon (invisible from Earth), and about 70% of the far side of the Moon was photographed. Subsequently, Korolev began developing a more advanced lunar apparatus for soft landing on the surface of the Moon, photographing and transmitting a lunar panorama to Earth (object E-6).

Human Spaceflight

Having created the first manned spacecraft "Vostok-1", he realized the world's first human flight into space - USSR citizen Yuri Gagarin - in low-Earth orbit. Korolev was at first in no hurry to solve the problem of human exploration of outer space. The first spacecraft made only one orbit: no one knew how a person would feel in such a prolonged weightlessness, and what psychological stress would affect them.

For preparing the first crewed flight into space, Korolev was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for the second time (the Decree was not published).

Following the first flight of Yu. A. Gagarin on August 6, 1961, German Titov made a second space flight on the Vostok-2 spacecraft, which lasted one day. Again, a meticulous analysis of the influence of flight conditions on the functioning of the body was carried out. Then the joint flight of the Vostok-3 and Vostok-4 spacecraft, piloted by cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolaev and Pavel Popovich, was carried out from August 11 to 12, 1962 and direct radio communication was established between the cosmonauts. The following year - a joint flight of cosmonauts Valery Bykovsky and Valentina Tereshkova on the Vostok-5 and Vostok-6 spacecraft was carried out from June 14 to 16, 1963 and Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in space.

From October 12 to 13, 1964, the more complex Voskhod spacecraft was in space with a crew of three people of various specialties: the ship's commander, a flight engineer and a doctor.

The world's first spacewalk took place on March 18, 1965 during the flight of the Voskhod 2 spacecraft with a crew of two. Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov in a spacesuit exited through the airlock and was outside the ship for about 20 minutes. The second cosmonaut, Pavel Belyaev , remained in the ship.

Mars Exploration Project

In 1959, Korolev convinced the Soviet leadership to support the development of a project to send a rover to Mars. Korolev’s team began developing a super-heavy interplanetary rocket codenamed TMK - Heavy Interplanetary Craft. The craft was supposed to be launched by a super-heavy class N-1 launch vehicle.

On April 12, 1960, Korolev informed the Soviet leadership about changing the plan and adding the task of landing cosmonauts on the surface of Mars, with 3 or 4 spacecraft simultaneously flying to the Red Planet in support of one another. Although this initiative did not receive approval from the Kremlin, this was not the end of the program to send people to Mars. The ideas of exploring other planets using crewed stations continued to develop and gained more and more support among scientists and space program engineers.

Orbital Station Project

Continuing to develop the program of crewednear-Earth flights, Korolev began to implement his ideas about the development of a crewed DOS (long-term orbital station). Its prototype was the fundamentally new Soyuz spacecraft. This ship included a living compartment where cosmonauts could stay for a long time without spacesuits and conduct scientific research. During the flight, automatic docking in orbit of two Soyuz spacecraft and the transfer of cosmonauts from one spacecraft to another through outer space in spacesuits were also envisaged. Though he laid its foundation, Korolev would not live to see his ideas implemented in the Soyuz spacecraft.

Death On 3 March, 1960, Korolev suffered his first heart attack. During his convalescence, it was also discovered that he was suffering from a kidney disorder. He was warned by the doctors that if he continued to work as intensely as he had, he would not live long. Korolev became convinced that Khrushchev was only interested in the space program for its propaganda value and feared that he would cancel it entirely if the Soviets started losing their leadership to the United States, so he continued to push himself.

In the mid-1960s, though, the Soviet Union's leadership had begun to shift away from the Stalin-era generation which had led the development and transfer of heavy industry during the Great Patriotic War, to younger officials which had helped to carry it out on the ground. More energetic, they favored increased attention to light industry and consumer goods in the post-war world. These new leaders like Podgorny, Kirilenko, Tikhonov, and Kosygin also supported the continuation of the space program for the purpose of scientific progress and eventual human habitation on other worlds.

By then, Korolev's health problems were beginning to accumulate and he was suffering from numerous ailments. In 1964, doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrhythmia. In February, he spent ten days in the hospital after another heart attack. 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. On top of everything, he was experiencing hearing loss, possibly from repeated exposure to loud rocket-engine tests.

In December 1965, he was diagnosed with a bleeding tumor. He entered the hospital on 5 January 1966 for somewhat routine surgery, but died nine days later due to complications arising from his heart problems. Under Soviet policy for important state employees, the identity of Korolev was not made public until after his death in order to protect him from foreign agents. His obituary was published in the Pravda newspaper on 16 January, 1966, showing a photograph of Korolev with all his medals, and his ashes were interred with state honors in the Kremlin Wall.

Korolev is often compared to the western Wernher von Braun as a leading architect of the Space Age. Like von Braun, Korolev had to compete continually with rivals, such as Chelomei and Glushko. 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, and to cope with extreme political pressure. He led the program with a very autocratic style, and demanded the testing of fully-assembled rockets rather than ground experimentation on individual components.

Kosygin Era

Fortunately for the program, Korolev's close associate Mikhail Tikhonravov, who got along much better with Glushko and Chelomei, was appointed head of OKB-001 by Alexei Kosygin, who became first secretary in 1964. Kosygin was a reformer working to diversify Soviet economic goals, and was very interested in the N1's potential to be both an interplanetary launch vehicle and an ambassador of peaceful industry. He worked to relieve pressure on the program to produce flight tests while increasing its funding, hoping this would result in long-term benefits.

Perhaps most importantly, the government and OKB-001 worked to control interdepartmental rivalry through the Council of Chief Designers, organizing it into the Cosmonautics Institute to unite the design bureaus under a cohesive plan. Under these conditions, the much less dictatorial Tikhonravov and his team were able to conduct more rigorous ground testing with less waste than had occurred under Korolev's command, without the threat of being replaced. As a result, the N1 as well as the orbital and landing modules began to make serious progress.

The Soviet electronics industry experienced rapid new development going into the late 60s. In late 1966, the S-530 digital control system had been completed, which was capable of coordinating new and more efficient fuel pumps, exhaust system, and fire control developed by OKB-586. High-yield vernier engines needed for stability were completed soon after. By 1967, all 30 engines of the first stage were firing in unison and a successful uncrewed flight took place in March.

Success of Nauka-1

In the summer of 1968, the finished rocket was given the name Nauka (Eng: Science), while the crewed missions testing life-support systems and the LOK were given the name Matematika (Eng: Mathematics). On 2 August, Nauka successfully launched the crew of Matematika 1 into orbit, while the USSR went public with programs for the exploration of Venus and the outer planets, as well as an eventual crewed operation on Mars. This created renewed enthusiasm in the public consciousness for space travel as a long-term venture of world governments.

Science fiction at this time inspired people to dream of human habitation and terraforming of other worlds. Playing on the name of the program itself, the name of each segment of the landing process would be themed on the sciences, representing space travel as part of a grand historical project of the human species.

The next spring, a series of new launches were scheduled in quick succession, making use of four of the nine N1-L3 units that had been completed. The first was a second orbital test with no crew, the second an insertion into Lunar orbit. The third was a second Lunar orbital mission with a crew to more rigorously test the LOK.

At first, discussions of a landing site focused on the Mare Imbrium or possibly Frigoris. But in 1968, in response to improvements in computer technology and the imminent US landing, Tikhonravov's deputy Mstislav Keldysh suggested a new landing location in the far hemisphere in order to collect geological samples of the unique terrain there. He submitted an ambitious proposal for a mission aided by a large radio sattelite which would be launched with a Nauka-1 unit.

Matematika Program

This craft would maintain a "halo orbit" around the Earth-Moon L2 point to allow constant contact between Earth and the crew. This operation would serve to up the ante and prove that the space program of the USSR remained on the cutting edge.

The sattelite, named Tsirkon (zircon) was launched on April 25th, 1970. It was inserted into a semi-stable Lissajous orbit at the correct point, and deployed its radio transmitter, while a fourth Nauka-1 was launched on May 15 which deposited a backup LK at the planned landing site. The third crewed mission, Matematika 3, was to conduct the landing and was set to launch on May 30.

The mission was to land at a spot near the southern rim of the Mare Ingenii, near the mountain range separating it from the crater Obruchev. The one-person expedition was then to attempt exploration of the area just north of the mountains, hoping to capture images of them.

In October, 1970, the sixth launch of the Nauka-1 rocket took place from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The crew of two, Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyayev, were some of the most experienced and decorated cosmonauts in the entire eastern bloc and had also worked together on Voskhod 2.

During the mission, they displayed a dizzying synergy, accomplishing phenomenally precise navigation and keeping all systems operational. In the shadow of Komarov's death in 1967, they had been allowed to work closely with the design teams in order to ensure proper installation of valves and cables, and Kosygin made sure that their suggestions were implemented by the Ministry of Defense of the USSR with whatever financial resources were necessary.

Leonov would be the one to land on the moon itself and conduct EVA, and with the successful detatchment of the LK he and his colleague in radio communication guided the craft to the lunar surface very near to the assigned spot, and even closer to the mountains than had been planned. After exiting the vehicle, he took a famous self-portrait with large boulders and foothills in the background which illustrated the more varied terrain of the region.

He then ventured south towards the mountains, where he was able to crest a few lines of hills and obtain breathtaking views of the entire range, taking dozens of color photographs of rugged, sunlit peaks and fascinating rock formations. He was also able to set up a video camera which sent video via the Tsirkon sattelite back to Earth where it was broadcast following completion of the EVA by Soviet Central Television.

Leonov took time to congratulate the people of the United States for their success in the Apollo 11 mission as well as the people Soviet Union and the whole world for uniting in the effort of human space travel, reciting quotations of Soviet poets about its importance. He was able to collect a substantial volume of invaluable samples which would be returned to earth and provide new insights into both the moon's geological past and the possibility of future alteration of its environment. At the end of the EVA, a Soviet flag was planted into the lunar regolith along with scientific instruments and various mementos, including a small urn containing some of the ashes of Sergei Korolev.

Several more expeditions to the moon as well as orbital surveys were planned by the Soviet government as its economic situation improved in the early 1970s, while the stage was set for humanity's journey to Mars in that decade. The mission served to sustain human interest in cosmo-engineering and help our species embark on new projects to expand our influence and habitation across the universe.

#n1 #moonshot #soviet space program #sergei korolev #alternate history #kosygin #tikhonravov

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