Sergey Pavlovich Korolev is an eminent engineer and scientist, who dedicated his life to rocket and space technology. Bearing the Title of Hero of Socialist Labour, being the winner of the Lenin Prize (one of the highest awards in the USSR) and the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Sergey Pavlovich Korolev is a creator of Russian strategic missile weapons of medium and intercontinental range and founder of applied space exploration. Korolev’s engineering developments in the field of rocket technology are extremely valuable for evolution of Russian missile weapons and essential for world space exploration industry. He deserves to be called the father of domestic rocket and space technology, providing strategic parity and making our state a leading rocket-and-space power.

Sergey Korolev was born on January 12, 1907, in the town of Zhitomir. Since his school time he showed extraordinary talents and desire to know more about aviation, which was a new promising field of that time. When Sergey Korolev was 17, he developed an original aircraft – a “motorless airplane”. In 1924 he entered Kiev Polytechnic Institute, and in 1926 moved to Moscow Higher Technical School, where he became famous as a young promising aircraft designer. 1936 saw two cruising missiles: 217 (anti-aircraft missile) and 212 (long range missile), which were made ready for trials by Sergey Korolev.

In 1946 Sergey Korolev was appointed the chief designer of long-range ballistic missiles, and his first task was developing of Fau-2 analogue, which received the name of R-1 and was finished in 1950. R-1 was much safer that its German twin. His parallel task is development of a new ballistic missile R-2 with flight range of 600 km and many other advantages (integral fuel tank and detachable nose among them). The missile was ready in 1951, followed by first Soviet strategic missile – R-5M, which became the basis of Soviet nuclear shield, in 1956, and first intercontinental missile R-7 in 1960. While dealing with ballistic missiles Sergey Korolev longed for conquering space by human being and manned space flights. That is why in 1949 the constructor started regular vertical launches of his R-1A – he wanted to find out parameters of near space, solar and galactic radiation, Earth’s magnetic field and study behaviour of high animals under conditions of space environment (zero gravity, overloads, heavy vibrations and noise inputs), as well as trials of life supporting systems and returning of animals back to Earth – about 70 launches were performed.

First artificial Earth satellite was launched on October 4th 1957 – this launch is stunningly successful. Another stroke for world public was made on April 12th, 1961. Sergey Korolev built first manned spacecraft “Vostok”, on which Yuri Gagarin performed first manned flight to space on near-earth orbit. Second space flight followed in 1961 by German Titov on “Vostok-2”, then manned flights were performed every year, and finally A. Leonov left the ship for outer space – and again for the first time ever

Sergey Korolev started to realize his ideas of a manned long-term orbital station, but unfortunately, he didn’t live long enough to see his dreams coming true in “Soyuz” space ships with habitation module for scientific research and living without space suits. Apart from space industry the constructor worked on developing satellites for science, economy and defense purposes, as well as first Soviet communication satellite. We all admire Korolev’s complex talent and inexhaustible creative vitality. One cannot even imagine what else he could have invented, if death hasn’t taken him away.

Source:
    http://www.h-cosmos.ru/
    http://www.korolev-s-p.ru/sp1.htm
    http://www.kapyar.ru/
    http://www.space-russia.ru/

Kizilova Anna