Rockets and People

 Creating a Rocket Industry Volume II:
Rockets and People

 Creating a Rocket Industry

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

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Volume II:

Boris Chertok

Asif Siddiqi, Series Editor

The NASA History Series

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA History Division

Office of External Relations

Washington, DC

June 2006

NASA SP-2006-4110
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chertok, B. E. (Boris Evseevich), 1912–

 [Rakety i lyudi. English]

 Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry (Volume II) / by Boris E. 

 Chertok ;

 [edited by] Asif A. Siddiqi.

 p. cm. — (NASA History Series) (NASA SP-2006-4110)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Chertok, B. E. (Boris Evseevich), 1912– 2. Astronautics—

Soviet Union—Biography. 3. Aerospace engineers—Soviet union—

Biography. 4. Astronautics—Soviet Union—History.

I. Siddiqi, Asif A., 1966- II. Title. III. Series. IV. SP-2006-4110.

TL789.85.C48C4813 2006

629.1’092—dc22

 2006020825

I dedicate this book

to the cherished memory 

of my wife and friend,

Yekaterina Semyonova Golubkina.
Contents

Series Introduction by Asif A. Siddiqi ix

Introduction to Volume II xxi 

A Few Notes about Transliteration and Translation xxiii

List of Abbreviations xxv

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

Three New Technologies, Three State Committees 1

The Return 25

From Usedom Island to Gorodomlya Island 43

Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor 75

The Alliance with Science 93

Department U 109

Face to Face with the R-1 Missile 119

The R-1 Missile Goes Into Service 141

Managers and Colleagues 155

NII-885 and Other Institutes 177

Air Defense Missiles 199

Flying by the Stars 219

Missiles of the Cold War’s First Decade 239

On the First Missile Submarine 247

Prologue to Nuclear Strategy 265

The Seven Problems of the R-7 Missile 289

The Birth of a Firing Range 313

15 May 1957 337

No Time for a Breather 355

Mysterious Illness 369

Breakthrough into Space 379

Flight-Development Tests Continue 393

The R-7 Goes into Service 415

From Tyuratam to the Hawaiian Islands and Beyond 421

Lunar Assault 435

Back at RNII 457

The Great Merger 477

First School of Control in Space 491

Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly to Koshka 519

The Beginning of the 1960s 539

“Onward to Mars...and Venus” 563

Catastrophes 597

Index 643

vii
Series Introduction

In an extraordinary century, Academician Boris Yevseyevich Chertok lived an 

extraordinary life. He witnessed and participated in many important technological milestones of the twentieth century, and in these volumes, he recollects them 

with clarity, humanity, and humility. Chertok began his career as an electrician 

in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow. Thirty years later, he was one of the 

senior designers in charge of the Soviet Union’s crowning achievement as a space 

power: the launch of Yuriy Gagarin, the world’s first space voyager. Chertok’s sixtyyear-long career, punctuated by the extraordinary accomplishments of both Sputnik 

and Gagarin, and continuing to the many successes and failures of the Soviet space 

program, constitutes the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People. In these four volumes, Academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also elicits and 

extracts profound insights from an epic story about a society’s quest to explore the 

cosmos.

Academician Chertok’s memoirs, forged from experience in the Cold War, provide a compelling perspective into a past that is indispensable to understanding 

the present relationship between the American and Russian space programs. From 

the end of the World War II to the present day, the missile and space efforts of the 

United States and the Soviet Union (and now, Russia) have been inextricably linked. 

As such, although Chertok’s work focuses exclusively on Soviet programs to explore 

space, it also prompts us to reconsider the entire history of spaceflight, both Russian 

and American.

Chertok’s narrative underlines how, from the beginning of the Cold War, the 

rocketry projects of the two nations evolved in independent but parallel paths. Chertok’s first-hand recollections of the extraordinary Soviet efforts to collect, catalog, 

and reproduce German rocket technology after the World War II provide a parallel 

view to what historian John Gimbel has called the Western “exploitation and plunder” of German technology after the war.1

 Chertok describes how the Soviet design 

1. John Gimbel, Science, Technology, and Reparations: Exploitation and Plunder in Postwar Germany 

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990).
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

x xi

team under the famous Chief Designer Sergey Pavlovich Korolev quickly outgrew 

German missile technology. By the late 1950s, his team produced the majestic R7, the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile. Using this rocket, the Soviet 

Union launched the first Sputnik satellite on 4 October 1957 from a launch site in 

remote central Asia.

The early Soviet accomplishments in space exploration, particularly the launch 

of Sputnik in 1957 and the remarkable flight of Yuriy Gagarin in 1961, were benchmarks of the Cold War. Spurred by the Soviet successes, the United States formed a 

governmental agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 

to conduct civilian space exploration. As a result of Gagarin’s triumphant flight, in 

1961, the Kennedy Administration charged NASA to achieve the goal of “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth before the end of 

the decade.”2 Such an achievement would demonstrate American supremacy in the 

arena of spaceflight at a time when both American and Soviet politicians believed 

that victory in space would be tantamount to preeminence on the global stage. The 

space programs of both countries grew in leaps and bounds in the 1960s, but the 

Americans crossed the finish line first when Apollo astronauts Neil A. Armstrong 

and Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr. disembarked on the Moon’s surface in July 1969.

Shadowing Apollo’s success was an absent question: What happened to the Soviets who had succeeded so brilliantly with Sputnik and Gagarin? Unknown to most, 

the Soviets tried and failed to reach the Moon in a secret program that came to 

naught. As a result of that disastrous failure, the Soviet Union pursued a gradual 

and consistent space station program in the 1970s and 1980s that eventually led 

to the Mir space station. The Americans developed a reusable space transportation 

system known as the Space Shuttle. Despite their seemingly separate paths, the 

space programs of the two powers remained dependent on each other for rationale 

and direction. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, cooperation replaced 

competition as the two countries embarked on a joint program to establish the 

first permanent human habitation in space through the International Space Station 

(ISS).

Academician Chertok’s reminiscences are particularly important because he 

played key roles in almost every major milestone of the Soviet missile and space programs, from the beginning of World War II to the dissolution of the Soviet Union 

in 1991. During the war, he served on the team that developed the Soviet Union’s 

first rocket-powered airplane, the BI. In the immediate aftermath of the war, Chertok, then in his early thirties, played a key role in studying and collecting captured 

German rocket technology. In the latter days of the Stalinist era, he worked to 

develop long-range missiles as deputy chief engineer of the main research institute, 

2. U.S. Congress, Senate Committee on Aeronautical and Space Sciences, Documents on International 

Aspects of the Exploration and Uses of Outer Space, 1954-1962, 88th Cong., 1st sess., S. Doc. 18

(Washington, DC: GPO, 1963), pp. 202-204.

the NII-88 (pronounced “nee-88”) near Moscow. In 1956, Korolev’s famous OKB1 design bureau spun off from the institute and assumed a leading position in the 

emerging Soviet space program. As a deputy chief designer at OKB-1, Chertok 

continued with his contributions to the most important Soviet space projects of 

the day: Vostok, Voskhod, Soyuz, the world’s first space station Salyut, the Energiya 

superbooster, and the Buran space shuttle.

Chertok’s emergence from the secret world of the Soviet military-industrial complex, into his current status as the most recognized living legacy of the Soviet space 

program, coincided with the dismantling of the Soviet Union as a political entity. 

Throughout most of his career, Chertok’s name remained a state secret. When he 

occasionally wrote for the public, he used the pseudonym “Boris Yevseyev.”3 Like 

others writing on the Soviet space program during the Cold War, Chertok was not 

allowed to reveal any institutional or technical details in his writings. What the state 

censors permitted for publication said little; one could read a book several hundred pages long comprised of nothing beyond tedious and long personal anecdotes 

between anonymous participants extolling the virtues of the Communist Party. 

The formerly immutable limits on free expression in the Soviet Union irrevocably 

expanded only after Mikhail Gorbachev’s rise to power in 1985 and the introduction of glasnost’ (openness).

Chertok’s name first appeared in print in the newspaper Izvestiya in an article 

commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik in 1987. In a 

wide-ranging interview on the creation of Sputnik, Chertok spoke with the utmost 

respect for his former boss, the late Korolev. He also eloquently balanced love for his 

country with criticisms of the widespread inertia and inefficiency that characterized 

late-period Soviet society.4 His first written works in the glasnost’ period, published 

in early 1988 in the Air Force journal Aviatsiya i kosmonavtika (Aviation and Cosmonautics), underlined Korolev’s central role in the foundation and growth of the 

Soviet space program.5 By this time, it was as if all the patched up straps that held 

together a stagnant empire were falling apart one by one; even as Russia was in the 

midst of one of its most historic transformations, the floodgates of free expression 

were transforming the country’s own history. People like Chertok were now free to 

speak about their experiences with candor. Readers could now learn about episodes 

such as Korolev’s brutal incarceration in the late 1930s, the dramatic story behind 

the fatal space mission of Soyuz-1 in 1967, and details of the failed and abandoned 

3. See for example, his article “Chelovek or avtomat?” (Human or Automation?) in the book M. 

Vasilyev, ed., Shagi k zvezdam (Footsteps to the Stars) (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1972), pp. 281-

287.

4. B. Konovalov, “Ryvok k zvezdam” (Dash to the Stars), Izvestiya, October 1, 1987, p. 3.

5. B. Chertok, “Lider” (Leader), Aviatsiya i kosmonavtika no. 1 (1988): pp. 30–31 and no. 2 

(1988): pp. 40–41.

Series Introduction
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

xii xiii

Moon project in the 1960s.6 Chertok himself shed light on a missing piece of history in a series of five articles published in Izvestiya in early 1992 on the German 

contribution to the foundation of the Soviet missile program after World War II.7

Using these works as a starting point, Academician Chertok began working on 

his memoirs. Originally, he had only intended to write about his experiences from 

the postwar years in one volume, maybe two. Readers responded so positively to the 

first volume, Rakety i liudi (Rockets and People) published in 1994, that Chertok 

continued to write, eventually producing four substantial volumes, published in 

1996, 1997, and 1999, covering the entire history of the Soviet missile and space 

programs.8

My initial interest in the memoirs was purely historical: I was fascinated by the 

wealth of technical arcana in the books, specifically projects and concepts that had 

remained hidden throughout much of the Cold War. Those interested in dates, 

statistics, and the “nuts and bolts” of history will find much that is useful in these 

pages. As I continued to read, however, I became engrossed by the overall rhythm of 

Academician Chertok’s narrative, which gave voice and humanity to a story ostensibly about mathematics and technology. In his writings, I found a richness that had 

been nearly absent in most of the disembodied, clinical, and often speculative writing by Westerners studying the Soviet space program. Because of Chertok’s storytelling skills, his memoir is a much needed corrective to the outdated Western view 

of Soviet space achievements as a mishmash of propaganda, self-delusion, and Cold 

War rhetoric. In Chertok’s story, we meet real people with real dreams who achieved 

extraordinary successes under very difficult conditions.

Chertok’s reminiscences are remarkably sharp and descriptive. In being selfreflective, Chertok avoids the kind of solipsistic ruminations that often characterize 

6. For early references to Korolev’s imprisonment, see Ye. Manucharova, “Kharakter glavnogo 

konstruktora” (The Character of the Chief Designer), Izvestiya, January 11, 1987, p. 3. For early 

revelations on Soyuz-1 and the Moon program, see L. N. Kamanin, “Zvezdy Komarova” (Komarov’s 

Star), Poisk no. 5 (June 1989): pp. 4–5 and L. N. Kamanin, “S zemli na lunu i obratno” (From the 

Earth to the Moon and Back), Poisk no. 12 (July 1989): pp. 7–8. 

7. Izvestiya correspondent Boris Konovalov prepared these publications, which had the general title 

“U Sovetskikh raketnykh triumfov bylo nemetskoye nachalo” (Soviets Rocket Triumphs Had German 

Origins). See Izvestiya, March 4, 1992, p. 5; March 5, 1992, p. 5; March 6, 1992, p. 5; March 7, 1992, 

p. 5; and March 9, 1992, p. 3. Konovalov also published a sixth article on the German contribution 

to American rocketry. See “U amerikanskikh raketnykh triumfov takzhe bylo nemetskoye nachalo” 

(American Rocket Triumphs Also Had German Origins), Izvestiya, March 10, 1992, p. 7. Konovalov 

later synthesized the five original articles into a longer work that included the reminiscences of other 

participants in the German mission such as Vladimir Barmin and Vasiliy Mishin. See Boris Konovalov, 

Tayna Sovetskogo raketnogo oruzhiya (Secrets of Soviet Rocket Armaments) (Moscow: ZEVS, 1992).

8. Rakety i lyudi (Rockets and People) (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1994); Rakety i lyudi: Fili 

Podlipki Tyuratam (Rockets and People: Fili Podlipki Tyuratam) (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 

1996); Rakety i lyudi: goryachiye dni kholodnoy voyny (Rockets and People: Hot Days of the Cold 

War) (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1997); Rakety i lyudi: lunnaya gonka (Rockets and People: The 

Moon Race) (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1999). All four volumes were subsequently translated and 

published in Germany. 

memoirs. He is both proud of his country’s accomplishments and willing to admit 

failings with honesty. For example, Chertok juxtaposes accounts of the famous aviation exploits of Soviet pilots in the 1930s, especially those to the Arctic, with the 

much darker costs of the Great Terror in the late 1930s when Stalin’s vicious purges 

decimated the Soviet aviation industry.

Chertok’s descriptive powers are particularly evident in describing the chaotic 

nature of the Soviet mission to recover and collect rocketry equipment in Germany 

after World War II. Interspersed with his contemporary diary entries, his language 

conveys the combination of joy, confusion, and often anti-climax that the end of 

the war presaged for Soviet representatives in Germany. In one breath, Chertok 

and his team are looking for hidden caches of German matériel in an underground 

mine, while in another they are face to face with the deadly consequences of a soldier who had raped a young German woman (Volume I, Chapter 21).9

 There are 

many such seemingly incongruous anecdotes during Chertok’s time in Germany, 

from the experience of visiting the Nazi slave labor camp at Dora soon after liberation in 1945, to the deportation of hundreds of German scientists to the USSR 

in 1946. Chertok’s massive work is of great consequence for another reason—he 

cogently provides context. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, many 

participants have openly written about their experiences, but few have successfully 

placed Soviet space achievements in the broader context of the history of Soviet 

science, the history of the Soviet military-industrial complex, or indeed Soviet history in general.10 The volumes of memoirs compiled by the Russian State Archive 

of Scientific-Technical Documentation in the early 1990s under the series, Dorogi 

v kosmos (Roads to Space), provided an undeniably rich and in-depth view of the 

origins of the Soviet space program, but they were, for the most part, personal nar9. For the problem of rape in occupied Germany after the war, see Norman M. Naimark, The 

Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949 (Cambridge, MA: The 

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995), pp. 69–140.

10. For the two most important histories of the Soviet military-industrial complex, see N. S. 

Simonov, Voyenno-promyshlennyy kompleks SSSR v 1920-1950-ye gody: tempy ekonomicheskogo rosta, 

struktura, organizatsiya proizvodstva i upravleniye (The Military-Industrial Complex of the USSR in 

the 1920s to 1950s: Rate of Economic Growth, Structure, Organization of Production and Control) 

(Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1996); and I. V. Bystrova, Voyenno-promyshlennyy kompleks sssr v gody kholodnoy 

voyny (vtoraya polovina 40-kh – nachalo 60-kh godov) [The Military-Industrial Complex of the USSR 

in the Years of the Cold War (The Late 1940s to the Early 1960s)] (Moscow: IRI RAN, 2000). For a 

history in English that builds on these seminal works and complements them with original research, see 

John Barber and Mark Harrison, eds., The Soviet Defence-Industry Complex from Stalin to Khrushchev

(Houndmills, UK: Macmillan Press, 2000).

Series Introduction
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

xiv xv

ratives, i.e., fish-eye views of the world around them.11 Chertok’s memoirs are a 

rare exception in that they strive to locate the Soviet missile and space program in 

the fabric of broader social, political, industrial, and scientific developments in the 

former Soviet Union.

This combination—Chertok’s participation in the most important Soviet space 

achievements, his capacity to lucidly communicate them to the reader, and his skill 

in providing a broader social context—make this work, in my opinion, one of the 

most important memoirs written by a veteran of the Soviet space program. The 

series will also be an important contribution to the history of Soviet science and 

technology.12

In reading Academician Chertok’s recollections, we should not lose sight of the 

fact that these chapters, although full of history, have their particular perspective. In 

conveying to us the complex vista of the Soviet space program, he has given us one 

man’s memories of a huge undertaking. Other participants of these very same events 

will remember things differently. Soviet space history, like any discipline of history, 

exists as a continuous process of revision and restatement. Few historians in the 

twenty-first century would claim to be completely objective.13 Memoirists would 

make even less of a claim to the “truth.” In his introduction, Chertok acknowledges 

this, saying, “I . . . must warn the reader that in no way do I have pretensions to the 

laurels of a scholarly historian. Correspondingly, my books are not examples of strict 

historical research. In any memoirs, narrative and thought are inevitably subjective.” 

Chertok ably illustrates, however, that avoiding the pursuit of scholarly history does 

not necessarily lessen the relevance of his story, especially because it represents the 

opinion of an influential member of the postwar scientific and technical intelligentsia in the Soviet Union.

Some, for example, might not share Chertok’s strong belief in the power of scientists and engineers to solve social problems, a view that influenced many who 

sought to transform the Soviet Union with modern science after the Russian Revo11. Yu. A. Mozzhorin et al., eds., Dorogi v kosmos: Vospominaniya veteranov raketno-kosmicheskoy 

tekhniki i kosmonavtiki, tom I i II (Roads to Space: Recollections of Veterans of Rocket-Space 

Technology and Cosmonautics: Volumes I and II) (Moscow: MAI, 1992) and Yu. A. Mozzhorin et al., 

eds., Nachalo kosmicheskoy ery: vospominaniya veteranov raketno-kosmicheskoy tekhniki i kosmonavtiki: 

vypusk vtoroy (The Beginning of the Space Era: Recollections of Veterans of Rocket-Space Technology 

and Cosmonautics: Second Issue) (Moscow: RNITsKD, 1994). For a poorly translated and edited 

English version of the series, see John Rhea, ed., Roads to Space: An Oral History of the Soviet Space 

Program (New York: Aviation Week Group, 1995).

12. For key works on the history of Soviet science and technology, see Kendall E. Bailes, Technology 

and Society under Lenin and Stalin: Origins of the Soviet Technical Intelligentsia, 1917-1941 (Princeton, 

NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978); Loren R. Graham, Science in Russia and the Soviet Union: 

A Short History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); and Nikolai Krementsov, Stalinist 

Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).

13. For the American historical discipline’s relationship to the changing standards of objectivity, 

see Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The ‘Objectivity’ Question and the American Historical Profession

(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

lution in 1917. Historians of Soviet science such as Loren Graham have argued that 

narrowly technocratic views of social development cost the Soviet Union dearly.14

Technological hubris was, of course, not unique to the Soviet scientific community, but absent democratic processes of accountability, many huge Soviet government projects—such as the construction of the Great Dnepr Dam and the great 

Siberian railway in the 1970s and 1980s—ended up as costly failures with many 

adverse social and environmental repercussions. Whether one agrees or disagrees 

with Chertok’s views, they are important to understand because they represent the 

ideas of a generation who passionately believed in the power of science to eliminate 

the ills of society. As such, his memoirs add an important dimension to understanding the mentalité of the Soviets’ drive to become a modern, industrialized state in 

the twentieth century.

Chertok’s memoirs are part of the second generation of publications on Soviet 

space history, one that eclipsed the (heavily censored) first generation published 

during the Communist era. Memoirs constituted a large part of the second generation. In the 1990s, when it was finally possible to write candidly about Soviet space 

history, a wave of personal recollections flooded the market. Not only Boris Chertok, 

but also such luminaries as Vasiliy Mishin, Kerim Kerimov, Boris Gubanov, Yuriy 

Mozzhorin, Konstantin Feoktistov, Vyacheslav Filin, and others finally published 

their reminiscences.15 Official organizational histories and journalistic accounts 

complemented these memoirs, written by individuals with access to secret archival 

documents. Yaroslav Golovanov’s magisterial Korolev: Fakty i Mify (Korolev: Facts 

and Myths), as well as key institutional works from the Energiya corporation and 

the Russian Military Space Forces, added richly to the canon.16 The diaries of Air 

Force General Nikolay Kamanin from the 1960s to the early 1970s, published in 

14. For technological hubris, see for example, Loren Graham, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: 

Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

15. V. M. Filin, Vospominaniya o lunnom korablye (Recollections on the Lunar Ship) (Moscow: 

Kultura, 1992); Kerim Kerimov, Dorogi v kosmos (zapiski predsedatelya Gosudarstvennoy komissii) [Roads 

to Space (Notes of the Chairman of the State Commission)] (Baku: Azerbaijan, 1995); V. M. Filin, Put 

k ‘Energii’ (Path to Energiya) (Moscow: ‘GRAAL’,’ 1996); V. P. Mishin, Ot sozdaniya ballisticheskikh 

raket k raketno-kosmicheskomu mashinostroyeniyu (From the Creation of the Ballistic Rocket to RocketSpace Machine Building) (Moscow: ‘Inform-Znaniye,’ 1998); B. I. Gubanov, Triumf i tragediya ‘energii’: 

razmyshleniya glavnogo konstruktora (The Triumph and Tragedy of Energiya: The Reflections of a Chief 

Designer) (Nizhniy novgorod: NIER, four volumes in 1998-2000); Konstantin Feoktistov, Trayektoriya 

zhizni: mezhdu vchera i zavtra (Life’s Trajectory: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow) (Moscow: Vagrius, 

2000); N. A. Anifimov, ed., Tak eto bylo—Memuary Yu. A. Mozzhorin: Mozzhorin v vospominaniyakh 

sovremennikov (How it Was—Memoirs of Yu. A. Mozzhorin: Mozzhorin in the Recollections of his 

Contemporaries) (Moscow: ZAO ‘Mezhdunarodnaya programma obrazovaniya, 2000).

16. Yaroslav Golovanov, Korolev: fakty i mify (Korolev: Facts and Myths) (Moscow: Nauka, 1994); 

Yu. P. Semenov, ed., Raketno-Kosmicheskaya Korporatsiya “Energiya” imeni S. P. Koroleva (Energiya 

Rocket-Space Corporation Named After S. P. Korolev) (Korolev: RKK Energiya, 1996); V. V. Favorskiy 

and I. V. Meshcheryakov, eds., Voyenno-kosmicheskiye sily (voyenno-istoricheskiy trud): kniga I [MilitarySpace Forces (A Military-Historical Work): Book I] (Moscow: VKS, 1997). Subsequent volumes were 

published in 1998 and 2001.

Series Introduction
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

xvi xvii

four volumes in the late 1990s, also gave scholars a candid look at the vicissitudes of 

the Soviet human spaceflight program.17

The flood of works in Russian allowed Westerners to publish the first works in 

English. Memoirs—for example, from Sergey Khrushchev and Roald Sagdeev—

appeared in their English translations. James Harford published his 1997 biography 

of Sergey Korolev based upon extensive interviews with veterans of the Soviet space 

program.18 My own book, Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 

1945-1974, was an early attempt to synthesize the wealth of information and narrate a complete history of the early Soviet human spaceflight program.19 Steven 

Zaloga provided an indispensable counterpoint to these space histories in The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000, 

which reconstructed the story of the Soviet efforts to develop strategic weapons.20

With any new field of history that is bursting with information based primarily 

on recollection and interviews, there are naturally many contradictions and inconsistencies. For example, even on such a seemingly trivial issue as the name of the 

earliest institute in Soviet-occupied Germany, “Institute Rabe,” there is no firm 

agreement on the reason it was given this title. Chertok’s recollections contradict 

the recollection of another Soviet veteran, Georgiy Dyadin.21 In another case, many 

veterans have claimed that artillery general Lev Gaydukov’s meeting with Stalin in 

1945 was a key turning point in the early Soviet missile program; Stalin apparently 

entrusted Gaydukov with the responsibility to choose an industrial sector to assign 

the development of long-range rockets (Volume I, Chapter 22). Lists of visitors to 

Stalin’s office during that period—declassified only very recently—do not, however, show that Gaydukov ever met with Stalin in 1945.22 Similarly, many Russian 

sources note that the “Second Main Directorate” of the USSR Council of Ministers 

managed Soviet missile development in the early 1950s, when in fact, this body 

17. The first published volume was N. P. Kamanin, Skrytiy kosmos: kniga pervaya, 1960-1963gg.

(Hidden Space: Book One, 1960-1963) (Moscow: Infortekst IF, 1995). Subsequent volumes covering 

1964-1966, 1967-1968, and 1969-1978 were published in 1997, 1999, and 2001 respectively.

18. Sergei N. Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower (University Park, 

PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000); Roald Z. Sagdeev, The Making of a Soviet Scientist: 

My Adventures in Nuclear Fusion and Space From Stalin to Star Wars (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 

1993); James Harford, Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the 

Moon (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997).

19. Asif A. Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974

(Washington, D.C.: NASA SP-2000-4408, 2000). The book was republished as a two-volume work 

as Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2003) and The 

Soviet Space Race with Apollo (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2003).

20. Steven J. Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear 

Forces, 1945-2000 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002).

21. G. V. Dyadin, D. N. Filippovykh, and V. I. Ivkin, Pamyatnyye starty (Memorable Launches) 

(Moscow: TsIPK, 2001), p. 69.

22. A. V. Korotkov, A. D. Chernev, and A. A. Chernobayev, “Alfavitnyi ukazatel posetitelei 

kremlevskogo kabineta I. V. Stalina” (“Alphabetical List of Visitors to the Kremlin Office of I. V. 

Stalin”), Istoricheskii arkhiv no. 4 (1998): p. 50.

actually supervised uranium procurement for the A-bomb project.23 In many cases, 

memoirs provide different and contradictory information on the very same event 

(different dates, designations, locations, people involved, etc.).

Academician Chertok’s wonderful memoirs point to a solution to these discrepancies: a “third generation” of Soviet space history, one that builds on the rich 

trove of the first and second generations, but is primarily based on documentary

evidence. During the Soviet era, historians could not write history based on documents since they could not obtain access to state and design bureau archives. As the 

Soviet Union began to fall apart, historians such as Georgiy Vetrov began to take 

the first steps in document-based history. Vetrov, a former engineer at Korolev’s 

design bureau, eventually compiled and published two extraordinary collections of 

primary documents relating to Korolev’s legacy.24 Now that all the state archives in 

Moscow—such as the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), the Russian 

State Archive of the Economy (RGAE), and the Archive of the Russian Academy of 

Sciences (ARAN)—are open to researchers, more results of this “third generation” 

are beginning to appear. German historians such as Matthias Uhl and Cristoph 

Mick and those in the United States such as myself have been fortunate to work 

in Russian archives.25 I would also note the enormous contributions of the Russian monthly journal Novosti kosmonavtiki (News of Cosmonautics) as well as the 

Belgian historian Bart Hendrickx in advancing the state of Soviet space history. The 

new work has opened opportunities for future research. For example, we no longer 

have to guess about the government’s decision to approve development of the Soyuz 

spacecraft, we can see the original decree issued on 4 December 1963.26 Similarly, 

23. Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin’s Cold War: From Stalin to 

Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), p. 172; Golovanov, Korolev, p. 454. For the 

correct citation on the Second Main Directorate, established on December 27, 1949, see Simonov, 

Voyenno-promyshlennyy komples sssr, pp. 225-226.

24. M. V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye naslediye Akademika Sergeya Pavlovicha Koroleva: izbrannyye 

trudy i dokumenty (The Creative Legacy of Sergey Pavlovich Korolev: Selected Works and Documents) 

(Moscow: Nauka, 1980); G. S. Vetrov and B. V. Raushenbakh, eds., S. P. Korolev i ego delo: svet i teni v 

istorii kosmonavtiki: izbrannyye trudy i dokumenty (S. P. Korolev and His Cause: Shadow and Light in 

the History of Cosmonautics) (Moscow: Nauka, 1998). For two other published collections of primary 

documents, see V. S. Avduyevskiy and T. M. Eneyev, eds. M. V. Keldysh: izbrannyye trudy: raketnaya 

tekhnika i kosmonavtika (M. V. Keldysh: Selected Works: Rocket Technology and Cosmonautics) 

(Moscow: Nauka, 1988); B. V. Raushenbakh, ed., Materialy po istorii kosmicheskogo korablya ‘vostok’: k 

30-letiyu pervogo poleta cheloveka v kosmicheskoye prostranstvo (Materials on the History of the ‘Vostok’ 

Space Ship: On the 30th Anniversary of the First Flight of a Human in Space) (Moscow: Nauka, 

1991).

25. Matthias Uhl, Stalins V-2: Der Technolgietransfer der deutschen Fernlen-kwaffentechnik in die 

UdSSR und der Aufbau der sowjetischen Raketenindustrie 1945 bis 1959 (Bonn, Germany: Bernard 

& Graefe-Verlag, 2001); Christoph Mick, Forschen für Stalin: Deutsche Fachleute in der sowjetischen 

Rüstungsindustrie 1945-1958 (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2000); Asif A. Siddiqi, “The Rockets’ Red 

Glare: Spaceflight and the Russian Imagination, 1857-1957, Ph.D. dissertation, Carnegie Mellon 

University, 2004.

26. “O sozdaniia kompleksa ‘Soyuz’ ” (On the Creation of the Soyuz Complex), December 4, 

1963, RGAE, f. 298, op. 1, d. 3495, ll. 167-292.

Series Introduction
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

xviii xix

instead of speculating about the famous decree of 3 August 1964 that committed 

the Soviet Union to compete with the American Apollo program, we can study the 

actual government document issued on that date.27 Academician Chertok deserves 

much credit for opening the doors for future historians, since his memoirs have 

guided many to look even deeper.

The distribution of material spanning the four volumes of Chertok’s memoirs 

is roughly chronological. In the first English volume, Chertok describes his childhood, his formative years as an engineer at the aviation Plant No. 22 in Fili, his 

experiences during World War II, and the mission to Germany in 1945–46 to study 

captured German missile technology.

In the second volume, he continues the story with his return to the Soviet Union, 

the reproduction of a Soviet version of the German V-2 and the development of a 

domestic Soviet rocket industry at the famed NII-88 institute in the Moscow suburb 

of Podlipki (now called Korolev). He describes the development of the world’s first 

intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7; the launch of Sputnik; and the first generation probes sent to the Moon, Mars, and Venus.

In the third volume, he begins with the historic flight of Yuriy Gagarin, the first 

human in space. He discusses several different aspects of the burgeoning Soviet 

missile and space programs of the early 1960s, including the development of early 

ICBMs, reconnaissance satellites, the Cuban missile crisis, the first Soviet communications satellite Molniya-1, the early spectacular missions of the Vostok and 

Voskhod programs, the dramatic Luna program to land a probe on the Moon, and 

Sergey Korolev’s last days. He then continues into chapters about the early development of the Soyuz spacecraft, with an in-depth discussion of the tragic mission of 

Vladimir Komarov.

The fourth and final volume is largely devoted to the Soviet project to send cosmonauts to the Moon in the 1960s, covering all aspects of the development of the 

giant N-1 rocket. The last portion of this volume covers the origins of the Salyut 

and Mir space station programs, ending with a fascinating description of the massive Energiya-Buran project, developed as a countermeasure to the American Space 

Shuttle.

It was my great fortune to meet with Academician Chertok in the summer of 

2003. During the meeting, Chertok, a sprightly ninety-one years old, spoke passionately and emphatically about his life’s work and remained justifiably proud 

of the achievements of the Russian space program. As I left the meeting, I was 

reminded of something that Chertok had said in one of his first public interviews in 

1987. In describing the contradictions of Sergey Korolev’s personality, Chertok had 

27. “Tsentralnyy komitet KPSS i Sovet ministrov SSSR, postanovleniye” (Central Committee 

KPSS and SSSR Council of Ministers Decree), August 3, 1964, RGAE, f. 29, op. 1, d. 3441, ll. 299-

300. For an English-language summary, see Asif A. Siddiqi, “A Secret Uncovered: The Soviet Decision 

to Land Cosmonauts on the Moon,” Spaceflight 46 (2004): pp. 205-213.

noted: “This realist, this calculating, [and] farsighted individual was, in his soul, an 

incorrigible romantic.”28 Such a description would also be an apt encapsulation of 

the contradictions of the entire Soviet drive to explore space, one which was characterized by equal amounts of hard-headed realism and romantic idealism. Academician Boris Yevseyevich Chertok has communicated that idea very capably in his 

memoirs, and it is my hope that we have managed to do justice to his own vision by 

bringing that story to an English-speaking audience.

Asif A. Siddiqi

Series Editor

October 2004

28. Konovalov, “Ryvok k zvezdam.”

Series Introduction
Introduction to Volume II

As with Volume I, Boris Chertok has extensively revised and expanded the material in Volume II from the original Russian text. In this volume, Chertok takes up 

his life story after his return from Germany to the Soviet Union in 1946. At the 

time, Stalin had ordered the foundation of the postwar missile program at an old 

artillery factory northeast of Moscow. Chertok gives an unprecedented view into 

the early days of the Soviet missile program. During this time, the new rocket institute known as NII-88 mastered V-2 technology and then quickly outgrew German 

technological influence by developing powerful new missiles such as the R-2, the 

R-5M, and eventually the majestic R-7, the world’s first intercontinental ballistic 

missile. With a keen talent for combining technical and human interests, Chertok 

writes of the origins and creation of the Baykonur Cosmodrome in a remote desert 

region of Kazakhstan.

He devotes a substantial portion of Volume II to describing the launch of the 

first Sputnik satellite and the early lunar and interplanetary probes designed under 

legendary Chief Designer Sergey Korolev in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He ends 

with a detailed description of the famous R-16 catastrophe known as the “Nedelin 

disaster,” which killed scores of engineers during preparations for a missile launch 

in 1960.

Working on this project continues to be an extraordinary honor and pleasure. I 

owe a debt of gratitude to many for their hard work in bringing these stories to the 

English-speaking world. As before, I must thank historian Steve Garber, who supervised the entire project at the NASA History Division. He also provided insightful 

comments at every stage of the editorial process. Similarly, thanks are due to Jesco 

von Puttkamer for his continuing support in facilitating communications between 

the two parties in Russia and the United States. Without his enthusiasm, sponsorship, and support, this project would not have been possible.

Many others at NASA Headquarters contributed to publication of these memoirs, including NASA Chief Historian Steven J. Dick, Nadine J. Andreassen, William P. Barry, and others.

Heidi Pongratz at Maryland Composition oversaw the detailed and yet speedy 

copyediting of this book. Tom Powers and Stanley Artis at Headquarters acted as 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

xxii xxiii

invaluable liaisons with the talented graphic design group at Stennis Space Center. 

At Stennis, Angela Lane handled the layout with skill and professional grace, Danny 

Nowlin did an expert job proofreading this book, and Sheilah Ware oversaw the 

production process. Headquarters printing specialists Jeffrey McLean and Henry 

Spencer professionally handled this last and crucial stage of production.

As series editor, my work was not to translate, a job that was very capably done 

by a team at award-winning TechTrans International, Inc., based in Houston, Texas. 

Their team included: Cynthia Reiser (translator), Lydia Bryans and Laurel Nolen 

(both editors), Alexandra Tussing and Alina Spradley (both involved in postediting), Trent Trittipo, Yulia Schmalholz, and Lev Genson (documents control), Daryl 

Gandy (translation lead), Natasha Robarge (translation manager), and Elena Sukholutsky.

I would also like to thank Don P. Mitchell, Olaf Przybilski, Peter Gorin, Dr. Matthias Uhl, and T. V. Prygichev for kindly providing photographs for use in Volume 

II. Finally, a heartfelt thank you to Anoo Siddiqi for her support and encouragement throughout this process.

As the series editor, my job was first and foremost to ensure that the English 

language version was as faithful to Chertok’s original Russian version as possible. At 

the same time, I also had to account for the stylistic considerations of English-language readers who may be put off by literal translations. The process involved communicating directly with Chertok in many cases and, with his permission, taking 

liberties to restructure paragraphs and chapters to convey his original spirit. I also 

made sure that technical terms and descriptions of rocket and spacecraft design 

satisfied the demands of both Chertok and the English-speaking audience. Finally, I 

provided many explanatory footnotes to elucidate points that may not be evident to 

readers unversed in the intricacies of Russian history. Readers should be aware that 

all of the footnotes are mine unless cited as “author’s note,” in which case they were 

provided by Chertok.

Asif A. Siddiqi

Series Editor

June 2006

A Few Notes about

Transliteration and Translation

The Russian language is written using the Cyrillic alphabet, which concists 

of 33 letters. While some of the sounds that these letters symbolize have equivalents 

in the English language, many have no equivalent, and two of the letters have no 

sound of their own, but instead “soften” or “harden” the preceding letter. Because of 

the lack of direct correlation, a number of systems for transliterating Russian (i.e., 

rendering words using the Latin alphabet), have been devised, all of them different.

Russian

Alphabet

* Unitially and after vowels

Pronunciation

ă

b

v

g

d

ye

yō

zh

z

ē

shortened ē

k

l

m

n

o

p

r

s

t

ū

f

kh

ts

ch

sh

shch

(hard sign)

gutteral ē

(soft sign)

e

yū

yă

 ̆

Library of

Congress

a

b

v

g

d

e

ë

zh

z

i

i

k

l

m

n

o

p

r

s

t

u

f

kh

ts

ch

sh

shch

“

y

‘

i

iu

ia

 ̆

 ̆

US Board on

Geographic Names

a

b

v

g

d

ye* / e

ye* / e

zh

z

i

y

k

l

m

n

o

p

r

s

t

u

f

kh

ts

ch

sh

shch

“

y

‘

e

yu

ya

 ̈  ̈
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

xxiv xxv

For this series, Editor Asif Siddiqi selected a modification of the U.S. Board on 

Geographic Names system, also known as the University of Chicago system, as he 

felt it better suited for a memoir such as Chertok’s, where the intricacies of the Russion language are less important than accessibility to the reader. The modifications 

are as follows:

• the Russian letters “ ” and “ ” are not transliterated, in order to make readiing easier;

• Russian letter “ ” is denoted by the English “e” (or “ye” initally and after 

vowels)—hence, the transliteration “Korolev”, though it is pronounced 

“Korolyov”.

The reader may find some familiar names to be rendered in an unfamiliar way. 

This occurs when a name has become known under its phonetic spelling, such as 

“Yuri” versus the transliterated “Yuriy,” or under a different transliteration system, 

such as “Baikonur” (LoC) versus “Baykonur” (USBGN).

In translating Rakety i lyudi, we on the TTI team strove to find the balance 

between faithfulness to the original text and clear, idiomatic English. For issues of 

technical nomenclature, we consulted with Asif Siddiqi to determine the standards 

for this series. The cultural references, linguistic nuances, and “old sayings” Chertok uses in his memoirs required a different approach from the technical passages. 

They cannot be translated literally: the favorite saying of Flight Mechanic Nikolay 

Godovikov (Vol. 1, Chapter 7) would mean nothing to an English speaker if given 

as, “There was a ball, there is no ball,” but makes perfect sense when translated as 

“Now you see it, now you don’t.” The jargon used by aircraft engineers and rocket 

engine developers in the 1930s and 1940s posed yet another challenge. At times, 

we had to do linguistic detective work to come up with a translation that conveyed 

both the idea and the “flavor” of the original. Puns and plays on words are explained 

in footnotes. Rakety i lyudi has been a very interesting project, and we have enjoyed 

the challenge of bringing Chertok’s voice to the English-speaking world.

TTI translation team

Houston, TX

October 2004

List of Abbreviations

AFU Antenna Feeder System

AKT Emergency Turbine Contact

AMS Automatic Interplanetary Station

APR Automatic Missile Destruction

AS Automatic Station

ASSR Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic

AVD Emergency Engine Shutdown

AVD-APR Emergency Engine Shutdown and Emergency Missile

Destruction

AVDU Emergency Engine Unit Shutdown

BDU Strapon Propulsion Unit

BESM Large Electronic-Computation Machine

BKIP On Board Power Switchboard

BMP Armed Fighting Vehicle

BN Ballistic Normal

BON Special Purpose Brigade

BS Ballistic Staged

EKR Experimental Cruise Missile

EPAS Apollo-Soyuz Experimental Flight

FED Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy

FIAN Physical Institute of the Academy of Sciences

FTI Physical-Technical Institute

FTU Photo-Television Unit

GAU Main Artillery Directorate

GAI State Automobile Inspection

GAZ Gorky Automobile Factory

GDL Gas Dynamics Laboratory

GIPKh State Institute of Applied Chemistry

GIRD Group for the Study of Reactive Motion

GKAT State Committee for Aviation Technology

GKOT State Committee for Defense Technology

GKRE State Committee for Radio Electronics
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

xxvi xxvii

GKS State Committee for Ship Building

GOKO State Committee for Defense

Gosplan State Planning Commission

Gossnab Main Directorate for State Procurement

GSKB State Special Design Bureau

GSKB Spetsmash State Special Design Bureau for Special Machine Building

GSO Approximate Solar Orientation

GTsKB State Central Design Bureau

GTsP State Central Firing Range

GULAG Main Directorate of Labor Camps

IKI Institute of Space Research

IP Tracking Station

KB Design Bureau

KBV Traveling Wave Coefficient

KD Contact Sensor

KDI Design Development Test

KDU Correction Engine Unit

KIK Command-Measurement Complex

KIS Control And Testing Station

KN Winged Normal

KR Winged Staged

KRL command radio-link

KRZ Kiev Radio Factory

KS Staged Winged

KUNG All-Purpose Standard Clearance Body

LII Flight-Research Institute

LIPAN Academy of Sciences Instrumentation Laboratory

LKI Flight-Development Test

LMZ Leningrad Metal Works

LVMI Leningrad Military-Mechanical Institute

MEI Moscow Power Engineering Institute

MGU Moscow State University

MIFI Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute

MIIGAiK Moscow Engineering Institute of Geodesy, Aerial Surveying 

and Cartography

MIK Assembly and Testing Building

MNII Naval Scientific-Research Institute

MNIIEM Moscow Scientific-Research Institute of Electromechanics

MOM Ministry of General Machine Building

MPSS Ministry of the Communications Systems Industry

MVTU Moscow Higher Technical School

NDMG Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine

NII Scientific-Research Institute

NIIAP Scientific-Research Institute of Automation and

Instrumentation Building

NII Avtomatiki Scientific-Research Institute of Automatics

NIIIT Scientific-Research Institute of Current Sources

NIIP Scientific-Research and Test Firing Range

NIIPM Scientific-Research Institute of Applied Mathematics

NIP Ground Measurement Point

NIR Scientific-Research Work

NIRA Scientific Institute of Reactive Aviation

NISO Scientific Institute for Aircraft Equipment

NKVD People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs

NTS Scientific-Technical Council

OKB Experimental Design Bureau

OPM Department of Applied Mathematics

Ostekhbyuro Special Technical Bureau

PGU First Main Directorate

PIK Floating Measurement Complex

POS Tin And Lead Alloy

PS Simple Satellite

PSO Constant Solar Orientation

PTR Programmed Current Distributor

PVRD Ramjet

PVU Programmed Timing Device

RKK Energiya Energiya Rocket-Space Corporation

RKKA Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army

RKO Radio Control Orbit

RKS Apparent Velocity Regulation/Control

ROKS Aircraft Coordinate Radio Locator (22)

RNII Reactive Scientific-Research Institute

RUP Radio-Control Ground Station

RVGK Supreme Command Reserve

RVSN Strategic Rocket Forces

SAS Emergency Rescue System

SB Special Bureau

SKB Special Design Bureau

SOB Tank Emptying System

SOBIS Tank Depletion System and Synchronization

SOZ Startup Support System

SPVRD Supersonic Ramjet

SUBK Onboard Complex Control System

SUK Solar Heading Indicator

SVA Soviet Military Administration

TASS Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

xxviii

TGU Third Main Directorate

TNA Turbopump Assembly

TOGE Pacific Ocean Hydrographic Expedition

TP Engineering Facility

TsAGI Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute

TsAKB Central Artillery Design Bureau

TsIAM Central Scientific Institute for Aviation Motor Construction

TsKB Central Design Bureau

TsNII Central Scientific-Research Institute

TsNIIAV Central Scientific-Research Institute for Artillery Armaments

TsNIIChernmet Central Scientific-Research Institute for Black Metallurgy

TsNIIMash Central Scientific-Research Institute of Machine Building

TsSKB Central Specialized Design Bureau

TU Technical Condition

UD Administration

VDNKh Exhibitions of Achievements of the National Economy

VEI All-Union Electrical Institute

VISKhOM All-Union Institute of Agricultural Machine Building

VKP(b) All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

VNIIEM All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Electromechanics

VNIIT All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Current Sources

VPK Military-Industrial Commission

VSNKh All-Russian Council of the National Economy

VV Explosive Matter

ZIM V. M. Molotov Factory

ZIS Stalin Factory
Chapter 1

Three New Technologies, Three State 

Committees

During World War II, fundamentally new forms of weapons technology appeared—

the atomic bomb, radar, and guided missiles. Before I resume my narrative, in this 

chapter, I will write about how the Soviet Union organized work in these three 

new fields through a system of three “special committees” organized at the highest 

levels.

World War II forced us to learn quickly. Despite evacuations, relocations, 

reconstruction, building from scratch, and losing factories in the Ukraine and Byelorussia, after two years of war, our aircraft, artillery, tank, and munitions industries 

were producing such quantities of guns, tanks, and airplanes that the course of the 

war was radically altered. We overcame the mortal danger of total defeat during 

the first two years of the war. Beginning in mid-1943, we became hopeful that we 

would not only save our country, but would also defeat Nazi Germany. However, to 

achieve this superiority in manpower, the heroism of soldiers and officers was not 

enough.

According to the most optimistic calculations, a year-and-a-half to two years of 

war lay ahead of us. Despite the human losses—from prewar repressions, the deaths 

of scientist-volunteers in the militias in 1941, and all those who starved to death 

during the siege of Leningrad—the Soviet Union retained its intellectual potential, 

enabling it not only to improve the weapons it had, but also develop fundamentally 

new weapons.

Setting up operations to deal with the new challenges required the recruiting of 

scientists released from their wartime work routine and necessitated the introduction of a new system of research and development. Soon, the People’s Commissars 

recognized (and then prompted the members of Stalin’s Politburo to grasp) the need 

to coordinate all the basic operations in these fields at the state level, conferring on 

them the highest priority. But priority over what? Over all branches of the defense 

industry?

The experience of war had taught us that conventional weapons attain new levels 

of capability and become much more effective when combined with modern systems, for example, when aircraft are equipped with radar, when anti-aircraft batter1
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

2

Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

3

ies fire according to the precise target indications of radar fire control systems rather 

than the readings of antediluvian sound rangers, when missiles use radio guidance, 

when airplanes could carry atomic bombs, and on and on—the prospects were limitless. During the war it was still too early to limit the production of conventional 

weapons, but they had to be upgraded according to new trends. That being the case, 

where were the resources to come from?

There remained the tried and true “mobilization economy” method, that is, take 

everything you could from all the branches of industry responsible for producing 

conventional civilian goods.1 In addition, after the defeat of Germany, we could 

restructure conventional weapons production to benefit new fields and also use the 

potential of captured German technology.

During the war, the aircraft, artillery, and tank industries’ mass production process had become highly developed and had accumulated tremendous organizational 

experience. But what should be the path for new technologies? Should the new 

industries be entrusted to individual People’s Commissariats?2 Even before we began 

our work on rockets in Germany, scientists—nuclear and radio engineers—had 

sensed and had convinced high-ranking officials that such problems required an 

integrated systematic approach not only in the field of science but also in terms of 

management. The challenge required a special supervisory agency headed by a Politburo member, who would report directly to Stalin and who would be authorized, 

unhindered by bureaucratic red tape, to make rapid decisions on the development 

of the new technology that would be binding for everyone, regardless of departmental subordination.

The first such governmental agency to be established was for domestic 

radar technology. With radar, the senior leadership had the most clarity as to its 

“why and wherefore.” On 4 June 1943, on the eve of the great battle of Kursk, the 

State Defense Committee (GOKO) issued a decree signed by Stalin “On the Creation of the GOKO Radar Council.”3

 Stalin appointed G. M. Malenkov as Council 

Chairman.4 This decree, which appeared during the most trying wartime period, 

was the most critical governmental resolution for our radar development. By forming this council, supervision over the development of this new branch of technology and the implementation of an extensive set of measures in what had previously 

been isolated organizations was concentrated in the hands of a single governmental 

1. Broadly speaking, “mobilization economics” in the Soviet context meant massive state diversion 

of industrial resources to wartime needs, as happened during World War II.

2. People’s commissariats were governmental bodies equivalent to industrial ministries. After 1946, 

all Commissariats were renamed ministries.

3. GOKO—Gosudarstvennyy komitet oborony.

4. Georgiy Maksimilianovich Malenkov (1902–88) was one of the top government administrators 

during the Stalin era. In 1953, he succeeded Stalin as Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, 

serving in that position until 1955, when he was effectively ousted by Nikita Khrushchev.

agency. However, no matter how perfect the organizational structure, it is the leaders who determine the success. Amazingly, all three new fields were blessed with true 

leaders, all engineer-scientists.

The most brilliant figure in the history of domestic radio engineering was Radar 

Council Deputy Chairman Aksel Ivanovich Berg. He was a top-level scientist, military chief, and bold government official combined in one person. I first met Aksel 

Berg in late 1943. At Factory No. 293 in Khimki we were trying to develop the 

Aircraft Coordinate Radio Locator (ROKS) system for the flight control of the BI 

fighter.5 My deputy for radio engineering, Roman Popov, said that without Aksel 

Ivanovich’s help, nothing we were doing would work. He mustered the courage to 

invite him to Khimki.

At that time, Berg occupied the post of Deputy People’s Commissar of the 

Electrical Industry. He was also Malenkov’s deputy on the Radar Council, and a 

month earlier he had been selected as a corresponding member of the Academy 

of Sciences. In person, Aksel Ivanovich in no way matched the mental image that 

I had formed in my high school days of this respected scientist with the title of 

professor. I had spent my last two years in high school sitting long into the night 

in the Lenin Library striving to grasp the theoretical fundamentals from Professor 

Berg’s book Radio Engineering.6 Fifteen years had passed since that time. Rather 

than an elderly professor, it was a seaman with the rank of Vice Admiral who came 

to see us in Khimki. Berg quickly went over the naïve proposals of these young air 

defense enthusiasts, gave us practical advice—not at all professorial—and promised 

us real assistance. He made good on his promises, although we never finished ROKS 

because of other circumstances.

Twenty-five years later, I saw 75-year-old academician Berg at a meeting of our 

Academy of Sciences department. He was still as vibrant and unique as he had 

always been.

Festive celebrations were held for Berg’s 70th birthday in 1963 and later his 75th 

birthday in 1968. His unusual biography became available to the scientific community at the time. Aksel Berg’s father was a Swede and his mother an Italian. No 

matter how hard the pseudo-patriotic biographers tried, they could not find a drop 

of Russian blood in him. During World War I, the 22-year-old Berg was a submarine navigator, becoming a submarine commander after the Revolution. Following 

the civil war, Berg graduated from the Naval Academy, stayed on there as a radio 

engineering instructor, and attained the academic title of professor and the military 

rank of captain first class.

How could the vigilant security services resign themselves to the fact that a 

5. ROKS—radioopredelitel koordinat samoleta.

6. More recent editions were published as A. I. Berg, and I. S. Dzhigit, Radiotekhnika i elektronika 

i ikh tekhnicheskoye primeneniye [Radio Engineering and Electronics and Their Technical Applications] 

(Moscow: AN SSSR, 1956).
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

4

Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

5

person of obscure nationality and a former tsarist officer was training Red Navy 

commanders? To be on the safe side, they arrested this already well-known professor and author of the most current work on the fundamentals of radio engineering. 

However, sober heads prevailed and they released Berg and conferred on him the 

rank of rear admiral. Berg never lost his sense of humor. He had a simple explanation for his elevation in rank: “They accused me of being a counterrevolutionary 

conspirator. Over the course of the investigation the charge was dropped, but I held 

onto the first part of the accusation and tacked on ‘admiral’.”7

In March 1943, Berg was recalled from the Naval Academy and appointed 

deputy people’s commissar of the electrical industry. Remaining in that office until 

October 1944, Aksel Ivanovich managed the daily operations of the Radar Council 

and of the entire radio industry, which was part of the People’s Commissariat of the 

Electrical Industry.

In June 1947, the Radar Council was converted into Special Committee No. 

3, or the Radar Council under the USSR Council of Ministers. M. Z. Saburov, 

Chairman of the USSR Gosplan, was appointed council chairman.8 A. I. Shokin, 

who would later become deputy minister of the radio electronic industry and then 

minister of electronics industry, managed the committee’s day-to-day activity.

Berg organized and became the director of the head Central Scientific-Research 

Institute No. 108 (TsNII-108) under the Radar Committee.9 From 1953 through 

1957, he occupied the high-ranking post of USSR deputy minister of defense. Berg 

infused the working environment with new and creative plans. He immediately proposed radical designs and unwaveringly rejected slipshod work. Among scientists, 

Aksel Ivanovich possessed a vibrant individuality. In spite of years of repression, he 

did not hesitate to express his sometimes very blunt opinions on matters of technical 

progress and economic policy. During the postwar years, he very boldly spoke out in 

defense of cybernetics as a science, despite the fact that officially, just like genetics, 

it had also been persecuted.10 Berg, who had developed methods for calculating the 

reliability of systems that contained a large number of elements, even got involved 

in debates with our chief designers.

The Radar Committee was abolished in August 1949, and its responsibilities 

were divided among the Ministry of Armed Forces and the ministries of the various branches of the defense industry. In 1951, drawing on the personnel from the 

7. The word for counterrevolutionary in Russian is kontrrevolutsionnyy, and the word for rear 

admiral is kontr-admiral, hence the play on words.

8. Gosplan—Gosudarstvennaya planovaya komissiya (State Planning Committee)—founded in 

1921 by the Council of People’s Commissars, was in charge of managing allocations for the Soviet 

economy.

9. TsNII—Tsentralnyy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut.

10. For works on the ideological battles over genetics and cybernetics in the Soviet Union, 

see Nikolai Krementsov, Stalinist Science (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1997); Slava 

Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (Cambridge, MA: The MIT 

Press, 2002).

abolished committee, under the aegis of Lavrentiy Beriya, the Third Main Directorate (TGU) was created under the USSR Council of Ministers.11 The Third Main 

Directorate was entrusted with the task of missile defense. Ryabikov was appointed 

the direct chief, and Kalmykov, Vetoshkin, and Shchukin were appointed his deputies.12

By this time, Korolev and his deputies—Vasiliy Mishin, Konstantin Bushuyev, 

and I—had already had the opportunity to develop a closer relationship with Valeriy 

Kalmykov. In 1948, he was director of Scientific-Research Institute No. 10 (NII10) of the Ministry of the Shipbuilding Industry, where Viktor Kuznetsov worked.13

Kuznetsov had been appointed the chief designer of gyroscopic command instruments for all of our rockets.

At the beginning, Kalmykov received us very cordially and personally led us on 

a tour of the laboratories, demonstrating the mockups and newly developed operational detection and ranging systems. He was most interested in thermal detection 

and ranging in the infrared range. He demonstrated one project, a thermal detector, aiming it from the laboratory window at distant factory smokestacks that were 

barely perceptible by the naked eye. The effect was impressive. Kalmykov was very 

well-liked, not only as the director of a giant institute, but simply as a friendly, 

intelligent person with a good sense of humor, a quality he demonstrated over tea, 

pulling Vitya Kuznetsov’s leg about his stay in Berlin in 1941 as a “prisoner” of the 

Germans at the beginning of the war.14

In 1954, Kalmykov was appointed minister of the radio engineering industry. I 

often had to meet with him, in the different setting of his office or at the test range. 

His unfailing tact, competence, and friendly nature (which not every minister is 

able to maintain, even if he possessed those qualities before his appointment) facilitated decision-making on the most convoluted interdepartmental, organizational, 

and technical matters. Among the very many ritual farewells that have taken place 

over the last several decades at Novodevichye Cemetery, I recall with great sorrow 

my final goodbye to Valeriy Dmitriyevich Kalmykov.15 The successes of the radio 

electronic industry were of decisive importance for the subsequent evolution of 

rocket-space technology. That is why I felt it necessary to make this digression into 

history.

11. TGU—Tretye glavnoye upravleniye. The Soviet government initiated the air defense project in 

August 1950 and organized the TGU the following February to manage the program.

12. Valeriy Dmitriyevich Kalmykov (1908–74), Sergey Ivanovich Vetoshkin (1905–91), and 

Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shchukin (1900–) later became high-level managers in the Soviet militaryindustrial complex.

13. NII—Nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut.

14. Author’s note: In the summer of 1941, V. I. Kuznetsov was sent to Berlin on a temporary 

assignment. When the war started, like all Soviet citizens in Germany, he was interned and later made 

a long trip through neutral countries to return to the USSR.

15. Kalmykov died in 1974 at the age of 65.
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Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

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The leadership of the atomic problem or, as it was sometimes called, the 

“uranium project,” followed a slightly different script. While military and defense 

industry leaders took the initiative in gathering specialists and organizing the Radar 

Committee, in the case of atomic weaponry, it was the scientists and physicists who 

advocated for centralization from the very beginning, as was the case in the United 

States and Germany. However, because of their modesty, having been brought up 

working on laboratory-sized projects, they did not always dare to take away the 

country’s essential vital resources. As early as 1942, I. V. Kurchatov was entrusted 

with managing the scientific aspects of the problem at the recommendation of Academician A. F. Ioffe. Stalin personally supervised the operations. But as the scale of 

operations expanded, a small governmental staff was required.

At first, Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars M. G. Pervukhin was in charge of organizing atomic projects.16 He was simultaneously the 

People’s Commissar of the Chemical Industry. Soon, it became apparent that the 

16. The Council of People’s Commissars was the equivalent of the governmental cabinet in the 

Soviet system. In 1946, it was renamed the USSR Council of Ministers.

expenses and scale of the projects required new efforts from a half-starved people 

and a country that had not yet recovered from wartime ravages. In addition, following the Americans’ example, the highest degree of secrecy needed to be ensured. 

Only the department of the all-powerful Lavrentiy Beriya could provide such a 

regime.17

On 20 August 1945, the State Defense Committee passed the decree for the 

organization of a special committee under GOKO, which would be also called Special Committee No. 1. According to the decree, the Special Committee comprised 

the following members:

1. L. P. Beriya (Chairman)

2. G. M. Malenkov

3. N. A. Voznesenskiy

4. B. L. Vannikov (Deputy Chairman)

5. A. P. Zavenyagin

6. I. V. Kurchatov

7. P. L. Kapitsa

8. V. A. Makhnov

9.M. G. Pervukhin (Deputy Chairman)

The decree stated:

“The Special Committee under GOKO shall be entrusted with the management 

of all projects researching the nuclear energy of uranium, as well as the construction of nuclear power plants and the development and production of an atomic 

bomb.”18

The document was long and very detailed. It relieved Beriya of his duties as the 

people’s commissar for internal affairs, but to make up for it he received absolutely 

unlimited authority to create the nuclear industry. In connection with this, he was 

soon named first Deputy Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars. This 

same decree entrusted B. L. Vannikov, the People’s Commissar of Ammunition to 

be Beriya’s first deputy in the Special Committee. Vannikov organized and headed 

the First Main Directorate (PGU), which in fact meant he was the first nuclear 

minister of the USSR.19

Besides all the other advantages that Beriya had over conventional ministers, 

he had at his disposal an unknown number of workers, laboring without pay—the 

17. Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beriya (1899–1953) was the feared manager of the Soviet security services. 

Between 1938 and 1945, he headed the NKVD, the predecessor to the KGB.

18. The GOKO decree No. 9887ss/op, issued on August 20, 1945 was first published in V. I. 

Ivkin, “Posle Khirosimy i Nagasaki: s chego nachinalsya yadernyy paritet” [After Hiroshima and 

Nagasaki: The Origin of Nuclear Parity], Voyenno-istoricheskiy Zhurnal [Military-Historical Journal], 

4 (1995):65–67.

19. PGU—Pervoye glavnoye upravleniye. The PGU was the management and administrative branch 

of the Special Committee for the atomic bomb.

In 1947, Sergey Korolev created one of the most innovative management mechanisms in the 

early Soviet missile program—the Council of Chief Designers. This photo, a still from a rare 

film from the postwar years, shows the original members of the Council and Boris Chertok 

at a meeting. From the left, Chertok, Vladimir Barmin, Mikhail Ryazanskiy, Korolev, Viktor 

Kuznetsov, Valentin Glushko, and Nikolay Pilyugin (standing).

From the author’s archives.
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Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

9

often compared with Kurchatov in history-themed journalism in terms of his 

accomplishments—could in no way be compared with him in terms of power and 

resources. And in terms of material support for the laboratories, and the scientists’ 

and specialists’ standard of living, we in the missile industry looked like “poor relatives” compared with the nuclear scientists. Until the last few years, in terms of their 

services and utilities, the comfortable standard of living, cultural and social amenities, child-care and medical services, and supplies of fresh produce and household 

goods, there was absolutely no comparison between the closed atomic cities and 

the “rocket towns” built at Kapustin Yar, Tyuratam, and Plesetsk and the numerous 

ground measurement stations (NIPs) located throughout the country.23 When our 

professional collaboration with the nuclear scientists began in 1952, we discovered 

with some envy what limitless resources they had for production, experimental facilities, residential construction, and other goods in short supply. Korolev took the fact 

that we were “lagging behind” very hard, and often complained to Ustinov, who, 

he felt, underestimated our work. Now, many years later, one can see that it was 

not Ustinov’s doing at all. The country wasn’t capable of creating such comfortable 

conditions for everyone working in the three fields of nuclear, missiles, and radar.

We in the rocket industry worked together with the Ministry of Defense and 

with army personnel, but our facilities were built not by GULAG prisoners, but by 

military builders; the corresponding main directorates of the Ministry of Defense 

supervised the operation and acceptance of our work. In other words, we dealt with 

soldiers and officers who themselves led a semi-destitute existence.

State Committee No. 2, or Special Committee No. 2, as it was sometimes 

called, was second according to numeric designation, but it was the third one to be 

organized after the atomic and radar committees. It was created by special decree of 

the Central Committee and Council of Ministers dated 13 May 1946, No. 1017-

419. This decree is the document that marked the beginning of the organization of 

large rocket technology operations in the Soviet Union. Naturally, this decree came 

out too early to mention cosmonautics or the use of outer space for peaceful or 

scientific purposes. It discussed the organization and distribution of responsibilities 

among ministries and enterprises for the development of rockets for purely military 

purposes and for the use of the contingent of German specialists.

The reader will find it useful to spend a little time perusing the full text of the 

decree of the USSR Council of Ministers dated 13 May 1946, cited below. Studying 

this text will facilitate the understanding of many subsequent events in the history 

of the establishment of rocket technology and of the role of specific individuals in 

this history.24

23. NIP—Nazemnyy izmeritelnyy punkt.

24. This text of this decree, which Chertok presents, was first published openly in 1994 in a book 

published by the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces. See “Voprosy reaktivnogo vooruzheniya.” In I. D. 

Sergeyev, ed., Khronika osnovnykh sobytiy istorii raketnykh voysk strategicheskogo naznacheniya (Moscow: 

TsIPK 1994), pp. 227–234.

inmates of the “GULAG Archipelago” and an army of the internal troops of the 

People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (the NKVD) numbering many thousands.20

Beriya’s deputy, Boris Lvovich Vannikov, was a very colorful figure. Not very tall, 

quite energetic, typically Jewish in appearance, sometimes rudely cynical, sometimes very blunt, and friendly and amicable when necessary, he possessed quite 

exceptional organizational skills. In 1941, he held the post of People’s Commissar 

of Armaments, and right before the war he was arrested. He was kept in solitary 

confinement at Lubyanka Prison, in the same building where the office of the allpowerful People’s Commissar Beriya was located. Who would have surmised that 

four years later he would be Beriya’s deputy for the creation of nuclear weaponry? 

While Vannikov was in prison, his position was filled by the 33-year-old director of 

the Bolshevik Factory in Leningrad, Dmitriy Fedorovich Ustinov.

The war required just as much effort and heroism from industry as it did from 

the army. A story, which sounded like it might even be true, was in circulation to the 

effect that two months into the war, when enormous lapses were discovered in supplies of shells, mines, and even cartridges, Stalin asked Beriya about Vannikov’s fate. 

He was quickly given some medical treatment to make him at least look healthy 

after his stay in Lubyanka Prison and delivered to Stalin, who, as if nothing had 

happened, offered Vannikov, an “enemy of the people,” the post of People’s Commissar of Ammunition and asked him “not to hold any grudges over what had 

happened.”

Thus, Vannikov and Ustinov, who had replaced him, worked in tandem almost 

throughout the entire war.21 During the war, Vannikov’s tremendous contribution 

was to eliminate problems in ammunitions production and delivery. Therefore, it 

was not the least bit surprising that Stalin and Beriya, despite Vannikov’s past and 

his Jewish ethnicity, put him in charge of all operations for the development of the 

atomic bomb as head of the First Main Directorate.

By late 1947, when we began our campaign in Moscow to bring in specialists from various enterprises and institutes for our work on rocketry, we often ran 

up against the all-powerful, super-secret, but very broad-based personnel recruiting 

system, which snatched the tastiest morsels right out of our mouths. This was Vannikov’s atomic system already at work. He was using Beriya’s staff on his own behalf. 

In 1947, Kurchatov was the all-powerful scientific chief of the field. He was director of the Academy of Sciences’ Instrumentation Laboratory (LIPAN).22 Today, the 

enormous Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute stands on the former site of LIPAN.

During those first years of the rocket industry’s formation, Korolev—who is 

20. The Main Directorate of Correctional Labor Camps (Glavnoye upravleniye ispravitelnotrudovykh lagerey, GULAG) was a vast system of prison labor camps spread throughout the remote 

areas of the Soviet Union. The NKVD—Narodnyy komissariat vnutrennykh del (People’s Commissariat 

of Internal Affairs)—was the precursor of the KGB.

21. Vannikov was the commissar of ammunition (1942–46), and Ustinov was the commissar of 

armaments (1941–46)

22. LIPAN—Laboratoriya izmeritelnykh priborov akademii nauk.
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Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

11

To be returned within 24 hours to the USSR Council of Ministers

Administration (U.D.) special group25

SECRET

(SPECIAL FILE)

USSR COUNCIL OF MINISTERS

DECREE No. 1017-419 top secret

13 May 1946, Moscow, Kremlin

On Questions of Reactive Armaments

Considering the creation of reactive armaments and the organization of scientificresearch and experimental work in this field a vital task, the USSR Council of Ministers 

DECREES

I.

1. To create a Special Committee for Reactive Technology under the USSR Council of 

Ministers with the following members:

G. M. Malenkov – chairman

D. F. Ustinov – deputy chairman

I. G. Zubovich – deputy chairman, having been relieved of his 

 duties at the Ministry of the Electrical Industry

N. D. Yakovlev – Committee member

N. I. Kirpichnikov – Committee member

A. I. Berg – Committee member

P. N. Goremykin – Committee member

N. E. Nosovskiy – Committee member

2. To entrust the Special Committee for Reactive Technology with the following 

responsibilities:

a) Supervise the development of scientific-research, design, and practical operations 

for reactive armaments; review and submit plans and programs directly for the approval 

of the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers; develop scientific research and practical operations in the aforementioned field; and also specify and approve quarterly needs 

for monetary appropriations and material and technical resources for reactive armaments projects;

b) Track the completion status of the scientific research, design, and practical operations assigned by the Council of Ministers to the ministries and departments involved 

with reactive equipment;

c) Cooperate effectively with the appropriate ministries and departmental directors to 

ensure the timely fulfillment of the aforementioned assignments;

3. The Special Committee shall have its own staff.

4. To establish that the work fulfilled by the ministries and departments on reactive 

25. UD—Upravleniye delami.

armaments shall be monitored by the Special Committee for Reactive Technology. No 

institutions, organizations, or individuals shall have the right to interfere with or ask for 

information concerning the work being conducted on reactive armaments without the 

special permission of the Council of Ministers.

5. The Special Committee for Reactive Technology must submit its plan of scientific 

research and experimental operations for 1946-1948 to the Chairman of the USSR 

Council of Ministers for approval. Its top-priority task will be the reproduction of V-2 

(long-range guided missiles) and Wasserfall (surface-to-air guided missiles) rockets using 

domestic materials.

II.

6. The following shall be designated as the head ministries for the development and 

production of reactive armaments:

a) Ministry of Armaments—for missiles with liquid-propellant rocket engines;

b) Ministry of Agricultural Machine Building—for missiles with solid-propellant 

rocket engines;

c) Ministry of Aviation Industry—for cruise missiles.

7. To establish that the primary ministries involved with subcontractor production 

and tasked to carry out scientific research, design, and experimental operations, and also 

to fulfill orders for the head ministries approved by the Committee shall be:

a) Ministry of Electrical Industry—for ground-based and onboard radio control 

equipment, tuning equipment and television mechanisms, and radar stations for target 

detection and ranging;

b) Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry—for gyroscopic stabilization equipment, resolvers, naval radar stations for target detection and ranging, shipborne launcher stabilization systems, homing missile warheads for use against undersea targets, and for [other] 

instruments;

c) Ministry of Chemical Industry—for liquid propellants, oxidizers, and catalysts;

d) Ministry of Aviation Industry—for liquid-propellant rocket engines for long-range 

rockets and aerodynamic research and rocket tests;

e) Ministry of Machine Building and Instrumentation—for mountings, launch 

equipment, various compressors, pumps and equipment for them, as well as other accessory equipment;

f) Ministry of Agricultural Machine Building—for proximity fuses, munitions, and 

gunpowder.

III.

8. In the interests of fulfilling the tasks entrusted to the ministries, the following 

directorates shall be created:

in the Ministries of Armaments, Agricultural Machine Building, and the Electrical 

Industry—Main Directorates for reactive technology;

in the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces—a Directorate of reactive armaments within 

the structure of the GAU and a directorate of reactive armaments within the structure 

of the Navy;26

26. GAU—Glavnoye artilleriyskoye upravleniye (Main Artillery Directorate).
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Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

13

in the Ministries of Chemical Industry, Shipbuilding Industry, and Machine Building and Instrumentation—directorates of reactive technology;

in the Gosplan of the USSR Council of Ministers—a department of reactive technology headed by a deputy chairman of Gosplan.

9. The following scientific-research institutes, design bureaus, and test ranges for reactive technology shall be created in:

a) Ministry of Armaments—Scientific-Research Institute of Reactive Armaments and 

Design Bureau using the facilities of Factory No. 88, taking all its other programs and 

distributing them among the other Ministry of Armaments factories;27

b) Ministry of Agricultural Machine Building—Scientific-Research Institute of 

Solid-propellant Reactive Projectiles using the facilities of State Central Design Bureau 

No. 1 (GTsKB-1), a design bureau using the facilities of the Ministry of Aviation Industry NII-1 Branch No. 2, and the Scientific-Research Test Range for Reactive Projectiles 

using the facilities of the Sofrinsk Test Range;28

c) Ministry of Chemical Industry—Scientific-Research Institute of Chemicals and 

Propellants for Rocket Engines;

d) Ministry of Electrical Industry—Scientific-Research Institute with a design bureau 

for radio and electronic control instruments for long-range and surface-to-air missiles 

using the facilities of the NII-20 telemetry laboratory and Factory No. 1. Task Comrade 

Bulganin with reviewing and making a decision on the issue of transferring Factory 

No. 1 of the Ministry of Armed Forces to the Ministry of Electrical Industry so that 

the responsibility for this factory’s program will rest with the Ministry of the Electrical 

Industry;

e) USSR Armed Forces Ministry—GAU Scientific-Research Reactive Institute and 

State Central Test Range for Reactive Technology for all of the ministries involved with 

reactive armaments.

10. It shall be the responsibility of the Ministries of Armaments (Ustinov), Agricultural Machine Building (Vannikov), Electrical Industry (Kabanov), Shipbuilding 

Industry (Goreglyad), Machine Building and Instrumentation (Parshin), Aviation 

Industry (Khrunichev), Chemical Industry (Pervukhin), and the Armed Forces (Bulganin) to approve the structures and staff of the directorates, NIIs, and design bureaus of 

the corresponding ministries.

IV. 

11. The following work on reactive technology in Germany shall be considered top27. This organization eventually became Scientific-Research Institute No. 88 (NII-88), which was 

the seed of the Soviet missile and space industry.

28. GTsKB—Gosudarstvennoye tsentralnoye konstruktorskoye byuro. GTsKB-1 later became NII-1, 

and finally the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology, the developer of modern-day Russian mobile 

ICBMs such as the Topol. The NII-1 Branch No. 2 was later successively known as KB-2 and GSNII642. Currently, it is known as GNIP OKB Vympel and develops ground and launch equipment for 

the Russian space program.

priority tasks:

a) The complete restoration of the technical documentation and models of the V-2 

long-range guided missile and Wasserfall, Rheintochter, and Schmetterling surface-to-air 

guided missiles;

b) The restoration of the laboratories and test rigs with all the equipment and instrumentation required to perform research and experimentation on V-2, Wasserfall, Rheintochter, Schmetterling, and other rockets;

c) The training of Soviet specialists who would master the design of V-2, surface-toair guided missiles, and other rockets, testing methods, and production processes for rocket 

parts, components, and their final assembly.

12. Comrade Nosovskiy shall be named director of operations for reactive technology in Germany and shall reside in Germany. He shall be released from other work 

not related to reactive armaments. Comrades Kuznetsov (GAU) and Gaydukov shall be 

appointed as Comrade Nosovskiy’s assistants.

13. The Reactive Technology Committee shall be responsible for selecting the necessary 

number of specialists with various backgrounds from the corresponding ministries and 

sending them to Germany to study and work on reactive armaments, keeping in mind 

that each German specialist shall be assigned a group of Soviet specialists so that the latter 

may gain experience.

14. The ministries and departments shall be forbidden to recall, unbeknownst to the 

Special Committee, their employees working on committees studying German reactive 

armaments in Germany.

15. The Ministries of Armaments, Agricultural Machine Building, Aviation Industry, 

Electrical Industry, Chemical Industry, Machine Building and Instrumentation, and the 

USSR Armed Forces shall have one month to prepare and submit for the approval to the 

Special Committee for Reactive Technology specific plans for design, scientific-research, 

and experimental operations in Germany on reactive armaments, specifying assignments 

and deadlines for each design bureau.

Comrades Ustinov, Yakovlev, and Kabanov shall be sent on assignment to Germany 

with a group of specialists for 15 days in order to familiarize themselves with the work 

being conducted on reactive armaments in Germany, with a view toward preparing a 

plan for impending operations.

16. The USSR Ministry of Armed Forces shall be tasked with forming a special artillery unit in Germany to master, prepare, and launch V-2 rockets.

17. The transfer of the design bureaus and German specialists from Germany to the 

USSR by the end of 1946 shall be predetermined.

It shall be the responsibility of the Ministries of Armaments, Agricultural Machine 

Building, Electrical Industry, Aviation Industry, Chemical Industry, and Machine Building and Instrumentation to prepare facilities for the placement of the German design 

bureaus and specialists. The Special Committee for Reactive Technology shall submit 

proposals on this matter to the USSR Council of Ministers within a month.

18. The Special Committee for Reactive Technology shall be permitted to pay a higher 

salary to German specialists recruited for work involving reactive technology.
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Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

15

19. It shall be the responsibility of the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces (Khrulev) to 

allocate the following items in support of all the Soviet and German specialists involved 

in work on reactive armaments in Germany:

free rations per norm No. 11—1000 units;

supplementary rations per norm No. 2—3000 units;

vehicles: passenger cars—100 units;

trucks—100 units;

provide fuel and drivers.

20. It shall be the responsibility of the USSR Ministry of Finance and the Soviet 

Military Administration in Germany to allocate 70 million marks to finance all of the 

operations conducted by the Special Committee for Reactive Technology in Germany.

21. The Special Committee for Reactive Technology shall be granted permission to 

order various special equipment and hardware in Germany for the laboratories of the 

scientific-research institutes and for the State Central Test Range for Reactive Armaments 

as reparations. The Special Committee jointly with Gosplan and Ministry of Foreign 

Trade shall be charged with specifying a list of orders and their delivery dates.

22. The Special Committee shall be assigned to submit proposals to the USSR Council of Ministers concerning a business trip by a commission to the U.S. to place orders 

and procure equipment and instruments for the laboratories of the scientific-research 

institutes for reactive technology, having stipulated in these proposals that the commission 

be granted the right of procurement by public license for a sum of 2,000,000 dollars.

23. Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Serov shall be responsible for creating the 

requisite conditions for the normal operation of the design bureaus, institutes, laboratories, and factories involved with reactive technology in Germany (food supply, housing, 

transportation, etc.).

The USSR Ministry of Armed Forces (Khrulev) and SVA Supreme Commander 

Sokolovskiy shall be responsible for assisting Comrade Serov as needed.29

V. 

24. The Special Committee for Reactive Technology shall be responsible for taking 

inventory of all the equipment, tools, hardware, as well as materials and models of reactive technology brought back to the USSR by the various ministries and departments 

and also for redistributing them among the appropriate ministries and departments in 

accordance with the tasks assigned them.

25. The USSR Ministry of Armed Forces (Bulganin) shall be tasked with making 

proposals to the Council of Ministers concerning the site for and construction of the State 

Central Test Range for reactive armaments.

26. The Special Committee for Reactive Technology shall be responsible for submitting for approval to the Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers its policy on 

awarding bonuses for the development and creation of reactive armaments, as well as 

29. SVA—Sovetskaya voyennaya administratsiya (Soviet Military Administration).

proposals for paying a higher salary to particularly highly qualified employees in the field 

of reactive technology

27. The Special Committee for Reactive Technology shall be permitted to consider 

the scientific-research institutes and design bureaus recently established by the Ministries 

of Armaments, Agricultural Machine Building, Aviation Industry, Electrical Industry, 

Machine Building and Instrumentation, Chemical Industry, and the USSR Armed 

Forces as equal to the scientific institutions of the USSR Academy of Sciences in terms 

of salaries and the provision of industrial and food supplies in accordance with USSR 

Council of People’s Commissars decree No. 514, dated 6 March 1946.

28. The Ministry of Aviation Industry (Khrunichev) shall be responsible for transferring 20 specialists in the fields of engines, aerodynamics, aircraft construction, etc. to the 

Ministry of Armaments.

29. Minister of Higher Education Kaftanov shall be responsible for arranging for 

engineers and scientific technician to be trained in the field of reactive technology at 

institutions of higher learning and universities and also for retraining students close to 

graduating who majored in other specialties for a reactive armaments specialty, ensuring 

that the first graduating class from technical institutions of higher learning yields at least 

200 specialists in the field of reactive armaments and at least 100 from universities by 

the end of 1946 

30. The Special Committee for Reactive Technology shall be entrusted, jointly with the 

Ministry of Higher Education, with selecting 500 specialists from the scientific-research 

organizations of the Ministry of Higher Education and other ministries, retraining them, 

and sending them to work in ministries involved with reactive armaments.

31. In an effort to provide housing for the German reactive technology specialists 

transferred to the USSR, Comrade Voznesenskiy shall be tasked with providing 150 prefabricated sectional Finnish-style houses and 40 eight-apartment log houses per the order 

of the Special Committee for Reactive Technology.

32. Work for the development of reactive technology shall be considered the most 

important governmental task and it shall be the responsibility of all ministries and organizations to prioritize reactive technology assignments.

 

USSR Council of Ministers Chairman I. Stalin

USSR Council of Ministers Adminstrator Ye. Chadayev

Lev Gaydukov, Georgiy Pashkov, and Vasiliy Ryabikov prepared the main text 

of the decree with the direct involvement of Marshal Nikolay Yakovlev and Minister Dmitriy Ustinov.30 The draft decree affected dozens of leading ministries and 

30. Lev Mikhaylovich Gaydukov (1911–98) supervised recovery operations in Germany in 1946–

47. Georgiy Nikolayevich Pashkov (1911–93) was a senior official in Gosplan responsible for the new 

missile industry. Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Ryabikov (1907–74) was Ustinov’s first deputy in the Ministry 

of Armaments.
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Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

17

departments, determined the fates of many thousands of people, and demanded 

truly heroic efforts for the creation of a new field of technology and industry from 

a people bled dry by four years of war. Nevertheless, the text of the decree was concurred at all echelons with an urgency appropriate to wartime. As Gaydukov related 

many years later, only about 20 days elapsed from the first handwritten outline to 

the final text viewed by all the ministers and Malenkov himself. Stalin, to whom 

Malenkov reported, read and signed the draft without comments. The long and 

comprehensive document was essentially a strategic decision. In terms of its historic 

significance, it was comparable to the decree on the nuclear problem that preceded 

it.

 Georgiy Malenkov, who headed the Special Committee for Reactive Technology, remained a member of the Special Committee on the Atomic Problem. His 

closeness to Stalin and the knowledge and experience he had gained preparing and 

issuing all the “atomic” decrees aided the development and rapid passage through 

the state and Communist Party bureaucracy of all the decisions implementing the 

“rocket” decree of 13 May 1946. The 13 May decision served as the basis for subsequent ones defining dozens of particular issues for decrees and prompted an avalanche of orders within each ministry and department. Ustinov, the most enterprising and decisive of the ministers, without waiting for the appearance of the main 

decree, issued his own order in May 1946 for Artillery Factory No. 88 to begin 

studying the drawings of rockets arriving from Germany.

Ustinov’s order of 16 May 1946 announced the organization of the 

State Head Scientific-Research Institute No. 88 (NII-88), which was specified as the primary scientific-research, design, and experimental design facility for 

missile armaments with liquid-propellant rocket engines. NII-88 was created using 

the facilities of Artillery Factory No. 88, located in the suburban Moscow town of 

Kaliningrad near the Podlipki station.

After meeting with us in Germany, Ustinov and the other ministers quickly 

issued their orders in furtherance of the decree of 13 May on personnel assignments, having obtained concurrence from the All-Union Communist Party of the 

Bolsheviks (VKP[b)]).31 On 9 August 1946, as ordered by Ustinov, Korolev became 

chief designer of “Article No. 1”—the long-range ballistic missile.

On 16 August a decree of the Council of Ministers and Ustinov’s subsequent 

order made L. R. Gonor director of NII-88. Gonor would develop and Minister 

Ustinov would approve the structure of the head institute, which would contain 

a special design bureau (SKB).32 Department No. 3 was part of the SKB. Gonor 

31. VKP(b)—Vsesoyuznaya kommunisticheskaya partiya (bolshevikov), was the official designation of 

the Soviet Communist Party between 1925 and 1952, after which it became the Kommunisticheskaya 

partiya sovetskogo soyuza (KPSS) (Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU]).

32. SKB—Spetsialnoye konstrukturskoye byuro.

issued his own order to appoint Korolev chief of the NII-88 SKB’s Department 

No. 3.

The Ministry of Armaments headed by D. F. Ustinov received the leading role 

in the strategic decree. This was not coercion from above, but the result of Ustinov 

and his first deputy Ryabikov’s initiative when they visited the Institute RABE in 

1945. Both of them had already foreseen that rocket technology was the future for 

the entire industry. The decree was prepared after the special commission headed by 

Marshal Yakovlev visited Berlin, Nordhausen, and Bleicherode in February 1946. 

We in Germany, of course, had no way of knowing about this decree that determined our future fate.

Sergey Ivanovich Vetoshkin, our direct chief within the Ministry, and later in the 

Committee, scrutinized our affairs very carefully in Bleicherode. An artilleryman 

through and through, he understood that the time had come to reeducate himself. 

An intelligent man, kind and modest, with a great sense of responsibility, he tried 

first and foremost to gain an understanding of this completely new field of technology. Every free minute he could find away from commission meetings he would 

very politely address any one of the old hands in Bleicherode and request, “Please 

explain this to me—a mechanic who doesn’t understand much about electricity...” 

asking for an explanation of how the gyroscopes worked or the mischgerät.

33 In 

short, each answer required a lecture. On returning from Germany, Sergey Ivanovich was one of the leaders in the ministry office, and then in the new committee, 

who helped us daily.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Malenkov was named chairman of Committee No. 2. 

He was already chairman of the Radar Committee and a member of Committee No. 

1. Evidently, from Stalin’s viewpoint, things were going so well there that he could 

throw Malenkov into another new field—missile production. However, Minister of 

Armed Forces N. A. Bulganin soon replaced Malenkov as Committee chairman.34

Neither Malenkov nor Bulganin played a special role in establishing our field. Their 

prominent role boiled down to looking through or signing draft decrees that the 

committee office prepared with the active support of or on the initiative of Ustinov, 

Yakovlev, and the chief designers.

Right from the beginning, Ustinov and Vetoshkin, who was appointed chief of 

the Seventh Main Directorate within our ministry, paid special attention to rocketry 

and even displayed infectious enthusiasm, which was unusual for leaders.35 Unfortunately, Ryabikov, one of our first patrons in the Ministry of Armaments, was soon 

transferred from our field of rocket technology to “air defense and radar” to head 

33. The mischgerät was an amplifier that received signals from the gyroscopes on the V-2 rocket.

34. Bulganin replaced Malenkov in May 1947.

35. The Seventh Main Directorate was one of several “main directorates” within Ustinov’s Ministry 

of Armaments. Soviet ministries typically had between six and a dozen such directorates, that is, 

functional units, assigned to fulfill specific tasks. Other directorates in the Ministry of Armaments 

focused on non–rocket-related weapons.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

18

Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

19

the Council of Ministers’ Third Main Directorate. However, in 1955, Ryabikov 

once again returned to deal with problems of long-range missiles. They appointed 

him chairman of a new special committee for rockets and also chairman of the state 

commission for testing the first R-7 intercontinental missiles.

Along with the head institute of NII-88, a number of other organizations 

in other ministries played important roles in the early development of Soviet missiles. OKB-456, headed by Chief Designer Valentin Glushko, was charged with 

developing liquid-propellant rocket engines and their serial production.36 The OKB 

was created using the facilities of aviation Factory No. 84. Before the war, Factory No. 84, located in Khimki on the outskirts of Moscow, had specialized in 

the production of Li-2 transport aircraft, a copy of the famous American DC-3 

airplane produced by Douglas. In 1938, the OKB headed by Viktor Bolkhovitinov 

was relocated from Kazan to this factory. When completing my final thesis in 1939, 

I returned to Bolkhovitinov’s OKB at Factory No. 84. Soon thereafter, next to this 

large series-production factory, Bolkhovitinov built his new experimental Factory 

No. 293, and his OKB relocated there as well.

After his return from Germany, Glushko was faced with setting up a factory where 

the entire “Bolkhovitinov team”—Isayev, Chertok, Mishin, Bushuyev, Raykov, Melnikov, and many others—had worked before him. They joked that Glushko had 

exiled the native Khimki-ites to Podlipki.

Ministry of Armed Forces Factory No. 1 was designated as the lead factory for control systems and renamed NII-885. N. D. Maksimov was appointed its 

director and Mikhail Ryazanskiy its first deputy director and chief designer. In the 

beginning, Nikolay Pilyugin was the deputy chief designer for autonomous control systems. During the war, the factory that was later to be the site of NII-885 

had specialized in the production of remote-controlled electric motors and magneto generator field telephones. To make a call the user had to crank the handle. 

The factory’s production and technology culture, equipment, and staff were so far 

removed from those of rocket instrumentation that Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin complained spitefully that, “Korolev will transform artillerymen into missile specialists, 

Glushko will train aviation to use his beloved liquid-propellant rocket engines, and 

we are going to provide them all with control technology, using telephone cranks as 

our main component.”

Vladimir Barmin was appointed head developer of the ground-based launching complex and fueling and transport equipment, with Viktor Rudnitskiy as his 

first deputy. Their organization was called GSKBSpetsMash and was located at the 

Kompressor Factory site, which had been the head enterprise for the production 

36. OKB stood for both Osoboye konstruktorskoye byuro (Special Design Bureau) and Opytnokonstruktorskoye byuro (Experimental-Design Bureau). In the case of OKB-456, it was the latter.

of Katyusha guards’ mortars, the vehicle-mounted multibarreled solid-fuel rocket 

launchers.37

Of the six main chief designers, Viktor Kuznetsov and his associates were probably more fortunate. He returned to the shipbuilding NII organization, which held 

him in high esteem, and to a well-equipped laboratory. At that time the organization was developing gyroscopic navigation systems for ocean-going ships and had 

created a unique gyroscopic stabilization system for a tank gun for mobile use. But 

Kuznetsov did not like administrative work and had no aspirations for the director’s 

chair. The position of chief designer suited him completely, and he was a true chief 

in his field. He had no fear of theoretical mechanics equations and an excellent command of the theory of gyroscopic systems, but at the same time sensed a design’s 

adaptability to the manufacturing process and loved to delve into the fine points of 

production.

Once, I dropped in on Kuznetsov at home (at that time he lived on Aviamotornaya Street) and was amazed by the abundance of all sorts of electronic radio parts, 

bundles of wires, and fitting tools scattered about the room and on the desk. Viktor 

explained that he loved to unwind with a soldering iron in his hands. It turns out 

that he had assembled a homemade television and a unique television tube with a 

particularly high degree of clarity. This was at that time when televisions with tiny 

screens had just barely begun to appear in Muscovites’ apartments.

A missile system, even the first—and by modern conceptions such an elementary 

system as the A4 (R-1)—contained current converters in its control system—motor 

generators, or, as we sometimes called them Umformers.

38 These assemblies transformed 24 volts of direct current into 40 volts of alternating current with a frequency of 500 hertz to supply power for gyroscopic instruments. They tasked Ministry of the Electrical Industry’s NII-627 to manufacture these assemblies. Andronik 

Gevondovich Iosifyan headed this NII. He was responsible for manufacturing electric motors, trimming capacitors, and polarized relays for control-surface actuators. 

Several years later Andronik, as Korolev intimately liked to refer to him, took on a 

much larger challenge. He was appointed chief designer of onboard electrical equipment for a wide range of rockets. NII-627 was already a ready-made scientific production facility that specialized in servo drive technology and all sorts of low-power 

electrical machines. The small Moscow Mashinoapparat Factory was designated as 

the series-production facility for the onboard electrical equipment.

The Moscow Prozhektor Factory was charged with the development and manufacture of all of the ground-based electrical equipment. Aleksandr Mikhaylovich 

Goltsman was appointed chief designer of these systems. Chief designer Mark 

Izmaylovich Likhnitskiy, who had worked in the Leningrad fuse NII, was assigned 

37. GSKB Spetsmash—Gosudarstvennoye spetsialnoye konstruktorskoye byuro spetsialnogo mashinostroyeniya (State Special Design Bureau for Special Machine Building).

38. Umformer is the German word for transformer.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

20

Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

21

to develop fuses for the warheads. The Ministry of Higher Educational Institutions 

was tasked with setting up special departments and training rocket technology specialists.

A word about the customer for rockets—The Special Committee reserved 

a special role for the Ministry of Defense’s Main Artillery Directorate (GAU). Artillery Marshall Nikolay Yakovlev continued to be in charge of it. The Main Artillery 

Directorate was designated the primary customer for long-range ballistic missile 

systems. To this end, they created a special Fourth Main Directorate in the Main 

Artillery Directorate headed by General Andrey Sokolov. Using the facilities of an 

institute of the Academy of Artillery Sciences, a special military institute, NII-4, was 

created under the Main Artillery Directorate to work on problems of the military 

application of missiles. General Aleskey Nesterenko became the institute’s first chief. 

General Lev Gaydukov was named Nesterenko’s deputy. Gaydukov had supported 

all of our undertakings in Germany; had managed to get Stalin to bring in Korolev, 

Glushko, and other formerly imprisoned missile specialists for our work; and had 

headed the Institute Nordhausen. He was already well acquainted with those of us 

who would be creating his new rocket technology. Why not then entrust him with 

one of the defining leadership posts in the new Main Artillery Directorate missile 

organizations? But the war had ended, and many combat generals were left without 

jobs appropriate for the well-earned high ranks that they had gained in combat. 

Soon thereafter, Nesterenko was relieved of his directorship at the NII-4 institute 

of the Academy of Artillery Sciences, and some time later General Sokolov was put 

in charge. He had been the first of the Soviet military specialists to “domesticate” 

Peenemünde in 1945.

Lieutenant Colonel Georgiy Tyulin, also a member of our “German” company, 

became the chief of the theory of flight department in the Main Artillery Directorate.

In late 1946 Lieutenant-General Vasiliy Ivanovich Voznyuk, who had commanded major guards’ mortar subunits during the war, was appointed chief of the 

State Central Test Range (GTsP), which technically still did not exist.39 Colonel 

Andrey Grigoriyevich Karas became the chief of staff of the State Central Test Range. 

He would later become the chief of the Defense Ministry’s Central Directorate of 

Space Assets, the precursor to the Russian military space forces.

Voznyuk and Karas were very colorful figures in the history of the test range at 

Kapustin Yar and during the first years of our rocket technology in general. During 

the early days of our new assignments, these combat generals had to grapple with 

such a multitude of problems that they recalled the most difficult battles of World 

War II as heroic but simple work. Their work was complicated by the necessity to 

39. GTsP—Gosudarstvennyy tsentralnyy polygon. The official name of the Kapustin Yar, the first 

Soviet long-range missile testing facility, was GTsP-4.

deal appropriately with “those civilians,” that is, the chief designers, to cede to a few 

chiefs from Moscow, and to report not to the commander of an army or an army 

group but to the Central Committee and additionally to General Ivan Serov of state 

security.

They had to make time to resolve a plethora of domestic issues, to look after the 

housing and amenities for the officers, their families, and thousands of construction 

workers assigned to the projects. But they also had to gain an understanding of the 

new technology. All of the newly created organizations were expected within a very 

short time to determine their structure, fill out their staff, and begin the necessary 

construction. A mass of organizational, scientific and technical, and social problems 

crashed down on everyone. In spite of the very difficult postwar economic situation 

in the country, this newly created field, like the atomic industry, was appropriately 

prioritized in the Gosplan and Ministry of Finance to receive supplies, funds for capital construction and reconstruction, and production and laboratory equipment.

Here I feel it is fitting to make an observation in defense of the centralized 

state “bureaucratic” planning and coordinating apparatus. The competence of the 

officials of Committee No. 2 and their effective efforts not to shirk from making 

decisions rendered us quick and energetic assistance in setting up our operations. 

The decisions to recruit new firms for the work and drafting Council of Ministers’ 

decrees and similar matters were resolved with the urgency that had not been lost 

since wartime.

Of the three new technologies—radar, atomic, and missiles—atomic 

technology was the most science-intensive. Perhaps because of this, Special Committee No. 1 included two academicians: Igor Kurchatov and Petr Kapitsa.

Malenkov headed two of the three Special Committees (radar and missiles), created in 1945–46; Beriya headed the third (atomic). Both Malenkov and Beriya 

reported directly to Stalin, who attentively, strictly, and in a very demanding manner 

monitored the execution of the scientific, technical, and production tasks assigned 

to the committees. Stalin’s supervision was anything but detached. Stalin inserted 

his corrections and additions into drafts of decrees that had already been accepted. 

One such Stalin initiative was the top secret decree dated 21 March 1946, “On 

Awards for Scientific Discovery and Technical Achievement in the Use of Atomic 

Energy and for Cosmic Radiation Research Projects Contributing to the Solution 

of This Problem.”

This decree called for large monetary awards to be granted to individuals who 

solved specific scientific and technical problems. It stipulated prizes of one million 

rubles for the directors of the work and would confer on them the titles of Hero 

of Socialist Labor and Stalin Prize laureate. At government expense they would be 

granted, in any region of the Soviet Union, ownership of a villa, a furnished dacha, 

a car, double pay or salary for the entire period of time they worked in that field, 

and the right to free transportation (for life for the individual and wife or husband 

and for the children until they came of age) within the USSR by rail, water, or air 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

22

Three New Technologies, Three State Committees

23

transport. Large monetary awards were stipulated not only for the directors but also 

for the primary scientific, engineering, and technical employees who were involved 

in the work. The individuals who had distinguished themselves the most were presented with orders and medals of the USSR. No one but Stalin could dare offer 

such bountiful generosity. For the atomic scientists and everyone associated with 

them, this decree was unexpected. Scientists of all ranks, engineers, and technicians 

were so accustomed to working for nearly nothing, to living poorly and sharing the 

adversity of the entire populace, that the blessings promised by the decree shocked 

them at first.

Stalin wasn’t just looking after the senior science staff. At his instruction, beginning in the second half of 1946, wages were increased one-and-a-half to two times 

for all employees in the atomic industry. Budgetary expenditures on science, in 

particular on the Academy of Sciences, were tripled in 1946 compared with 1945 

and then doubled again in 1947!

If 13 May 1946 (the day the decree was issued) is considered the beginning 

of broad-scale missile technology operations in the USSR, then it was eight months 

behind the corresponding date for nuclear technology. This proved to be sufficient 

time to train government officials on the basis of the nuclear experience to prepare 

and issue decrees that had been worked out in minute detail to solve the most vital 

strategic, military, and technical problems.

The State Defense Committee (GOKO), which was created at the very beginning of World War II, held all the strings to control the economy. It created an 

original centralized military-industrial and transport management system, which 

supported the development of weapon prototypes and the production of all types of 

military hardware. Under peacetime conditions at the very beginning of the Cold 

War, centralization of the political and economic authority made it possible to effectively use the wartime experience for organizing operations.

After the war, State Defense Committee functions were transferred to the Council of Ministers.40 The industrial ministries, formed from the people’s commissariats, 

received a great deal of independence. However, solving the new and very complex 

scientific and technical problems called for the formation of the special committees described previously. These committees allowed the higher political leadership 

and Stalin personally to manage the solution of complex problems that required 

enormous material expenditures, scientific leadership, and participation of various 

branches of industry.

The complex government mechanism controlling the entire defense industry, as 

well as all of the branches of industry composing the country’s economy, was under 

the supervision of the Communist Party Central Committee. All of the decrees 

affecting the life of the country, its science, and its defense were made on behalf of 

40. The GOKO was a temporary body established to operate only under wartime conditions. The 

Council of Ministers was the cabinet-level body managing Soviet industry and society.

the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist 

Party of the Bolsheviks. To be sure, one should mention that Beriya, unlike Malenkov, tried to keep the Party apparatus from participating in generating decisions 

on matters within the scope of the Special Committee that he headed and the First 

Main Directorate subordinate to it.

After Beriya was overthrown, tried, and shot in 1953, stories leaked of his leadership methods. On one occasion, the Ministry of Aviation Industry had received 

instructions from Beriya to prepare a governmental decree to reassign one of its 

factories producing aircraft instruments to the First Main Directorate. The minister 

dared to inform Beriya that the decree must be issued in concordance with the 

defense department of the Party Central Committee. “What is the Central Committee to you?” shot back Beriya in indignation. “Stalin is the Central Committee 

and I will report this to him.”

In the mid-1950s, the interests of the three Special Committees became intertwined. They began to move atomic explosives from airborne bombs into missile 

warheads. A massive campaign was underway to “missilize” the infantry forces, 

navy, and air force. Radio electronic systems from auxiliary facilities were converted 

into the primary means of determining the effectiveness of anti-aircraft defense and, 

later, anti-missile defense. It was time to rethink the traditional division of the military into the three branches of the armed forces: the infantry, navy, and air force.

A scientific theory for a systemic approach to the management of complex hierarchical systems did not yet exist, but the organizers of industry, having cast aside their 

departmental differences, decided to consolidate the management of the country’s 

entire military-industrial complex. And so the special committees were dissolved and 

the managerial coordination of all the defense ministries was transferred to a new 

agency—the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues under the USSR Council of 

Ministers, or the VPK.41 I will write about this governmental agency later.

Here I would like to say a kind word about the mangers and bureaucrats during 

that period—the staff members of all the special committees, the defense departments of the Party Central Committee, the people’s commissariats’ main directorates, and later the ministries, Gosplan, and military chiefs—with whom, in one way 

or another, I had the occasion to come into contact during the period from 1945 

through 1955, the period during which the three technologies came into being. The 

overwhelming majority of the governmental and party officials who made up the 

large managerial machine of the military-industrial complex were at their core dedicated to their cause and competent organizers. They were a necessary component of 

the driving force behind the creative process for the birth of a new technology.

41. The full name of this body was the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues, but it was 

more commonly known as VPK—Komissiya po voyenno-promyshlennym voprosam (Military-Industrial 

Commission). Officially formed in December 1957, the VPK was the top management body for 

the entire Soviet defense industry. Commission members typically included the ministers of various 

branches of the defense industry (including the rocket industry).

Chapter 2

The Return

I spent 21 months in Germany. The majority of the Soviet specialists who worked 

at Institutes RABE and Nordhausen spent considerably less time there, 6 to 12 

months. Korolev himself was in Germany for about 15 months. The future chief 

designers of future new Soviet technology, including Valentin Petrovich Glushko, 

Nikolay Alekseyevich Pilyugin, Viktor Ivanovich Kuznetsov, Vladimir Pavlovich 

Barmin, Mikhail Sergeyevich Ryazanskiy, and almost all of their first deputies and 

future leading specialists and researchers, designers, process engineers, and military 

testers—several thousand people in all—for over a year had simultaneously undergone retraining, recertification, the difficult “breaking in” process, and getting to 

know one another. Many of us acquired good friends that we would have for years 

to come.

A plethora of new scientific and technological difficulties arose during the creation of these large and complex technical systems. One of them was totally unforeseen. It required the development of new “system-oriented” interrelationships 

among the people creating all the elements of a large system. This factor, a purely 

human one, had exceptionally great significance after our return and indeed from 

the very beginning of our activity in 1947.

We returned almost two years after victory, but during a difficult and complex 

time. Caught up in a new field of creative activity opening up boundless prospects, 

we made the most optimistic plans for future rocket technology. Having lost touch 

with the postwar reality of Moscow, before our return to the Soviet Union, we had 

virtually no experience with the everyday cares that were normal for Soviet people at 

that time. Finding ourselves plunged into this new atmosphere in the first months 

of 1947, we were forced to expend time and energy readapting to our native land.

After returning from comfortable Thuringia, not everyone was able to find 

quarters in conditions that were reasonable even by the postwar standards of that 

time. My family—there were four of us now—returned to the NII-1 superstructure, 

building No. 3 on Korolenko Street in Sokolniki. Here we occupied two adjacent 

rooms. Yevgeniy Shchennikov’s family, which also had four members, occupied the 

other two rooms. He was an official of the Russian Federation Council of Ministers. 

The apartment had no bathtub and no shower. It had one toilet and one sink for 

25
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

26

The Return

27

of ideological repression against the intelligentsia intensified. The government carried out resettlements, with the massive exile of entire ethnic groups, a process that 

had begun during the war. And former prisoners of war, officers, and millions of 

young Soviets, who had already undergone all manner of torments, were subjected 

to totally inexplicable repressions for being forced by the Germans to work in Germany.

During one of my first encounters with Isayev after returning from Germany, he 

asked, “Do you remember the walking skeletons at the Dora camp that the Americans didn’t take with them, but left behind for us just because they flat out refused, 

and demanded to be handed over to the Soviet authorities?”

“Of course I remember. You don’t just forget things like that.”

“Well, all of them, who by some miracle survived the German camps, have now 

been sent to our camps. Sure, our camps are different from the German camps. 

Ours don’t have crematoria and they don’t trust the prisoners to be involved with 

the production of missiles or things like that!”

Applications for employment and admission to institutes of higher learning and 

technical schools contained such questions as: “Were you or any of your relatives 

held captive or on territories occupied by Nazi forces? Have you or any of your relatives been repressed? Have you or any of your immediate relatives been abroad? If 

yes, when and for what reason?”

Fifty years later I am trying and cannot find a satisfactory answer for myself to 

the question of why all the strata of postwar Soviet society—the army, scientists, 

intelligentsia from the applied sciences and humanities, the working class united by 

labor unions, and the poverty-stricken peasantry—made no historically significant 

attempts to change the state system or to stop the repression of millions of innocent 

people and the political suppression of any dissent. Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill 

were idols of the masses who had struggled with Hitler’s Germany. After victory, 

only Stalin remained. Up until 1953, there was no internal opposition whatsoever 

to his dictatorship. If, in the late 1940s or early 1950s, a poll similar to the ones 

nowadays had been taken to determine Stalin’s popularity, I am sure he would have 

rated much higher than the subsequent leaders of the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia.

While working in Germany, we had understood that after the war, international scientific cooperation would be of utmost importance for the development of 

domestic science and technical progress. We dreamed that instead of the confrontation that had begun to emerge, the interaction of the scientists from the victorious 

countries would be a natural continuation of the military alliance. In late 1946, 

Korolev, who had returned from some meeting in Berlin, smiled enigmatically at 

Vasiliy Kharchev and me, “Get ready to fly across the ocean.” Alas! Until the very 

day he died, neither Korolev, nor any one of his closest associates was ever “across 

the ocean.”

In autumn of 1947, many of the specialists returning from Germany, among 

them Korolev, Pobedonostsev, Kosmodemyanskiy, Ryazanskiy, and I, began to give 

everyone. The latter was also the kitchen sink for the small common kitchen. The 

apartment had a wood-burning stove, for which the wood had to be carried up from 

a shed in the courtyard to the fifth floor, and, of course, there was no elevator. After 

our fashionable Villa Frank in Bleicherode, these circumstances required psychological adaptation. Yet, many envied us. First, we had an average of six square meters 

per person, and, second, we had good neighbors. Our wives immediately became 

friends, and our children were still friends a half-century later.

A year passed before Korolev received a separate apartment in the factory building, not far from the main entrance. Almost all of 1947 he spent nights on a couch 

in the old apartment on Konyushkovskaya Street. After his arrest in 1938, his wife 

Kseniya Vintsentini and daughter had been left with one tiny room.

Many lived wherever they could, “catch as catch can.” In other words, they 

were registered at the factory dormitories so that their passports were in order, but 

they lived without a residence permit with relatives or friends or rented rooms in 

dachas on the outskirts of town. In Podlipki, where our new NII-88 rocket center 

was located, only the old staff workers of the former artillery factory had separate 

apartments. The newly hired young specialists and workers were housed in barracks 

that had been built in abundance. However, we were not the least bit depressed! 

Even when we were living and working for many months under arduous conditions—verging on the impossible—at the Kapustin Yar test range, we saw things 

with humor and optimism.

It was more difficult to adjust to the country’s general atmosphere of a stifling 

ideologically repressive system. While enthusiastically working for some time as victors in another country, which previously had been under even harsher repressive 

control, we were sure that the postwar life in our country would be much more 

democratic. These same hopes were shared by the military intelligentsia, including 

the many combat officers who had experienced the crucible of war.

During the war, people faced death and performed feats under the motto “For 

the Fatherland!,” “For Stalin!,” or “For the tears of our mothers!” At the rear they 

labored heroically under the motto “Everything for the front, everything for Victory!” We had triumphed at the cost of countless lives, with real heroism and genuine unity of the people in the face of a common mortal danger. But now, once again, 

they were demanding heroism, this time in the workplace.

Hope for a better life, faith in the wisdom of the “greatest leader of the peoples,” 

and constant ideological Communist Party pressures proved so strong that in spite 

of all the sacrifices made during the war, people were prepared to endure postwar difficulties and to accomplish new feats for the even greater consolidation of 

military might and for new accomplishments and triumphs in Soviet science and 

technology.

There was a wave of triumphant euphoria, of genuine nationwide exultation, but 

instead of being caught up by this enthusiasm and releasing the powerful spirit of 

free creative initiative, against all logic and common sense, Stalin and his entourage 

intensified their regime of repression. A new series of reprisals followed. A campaign 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

28

The Return

29

air defense airfields where the fighter aviation defending Moscow was based. For the 

first years we used this airfield for its real purpose.

Truthfully, when we first saw the future missile factory in Podlipki, we were horrified. There was dirt and primitive equipment, and even that equipment had been 

ransacked. Compared with the aviation industry from whence we had transferred, 

this seemed like the Stone Age to us. There was no need even to compare it with the 

conditions in Germany. There was no comparison. Korolev and his entourage began 

a stubborn struggle to establish a production culture. I must say that Minister of 

Armaments Dmitriy Ustinov gave us vigorous support in this. He did a great deal 

to establish the rocket industry and understood very well that rocket technology 

required new conditions and a more elevated culture and technology than artillery, 

which was the basis for the formation of our industry. But proper credit must also be 

given to artillery technology and to the industrial and process engineers who took 

part in the solution of our problems with wartime enthusiasm.

We had to create our own laboratory facilities and debug and test the missiles 

that had been brought in. Based on the Germans’ experience, we knew that even 

if a missile had been tested somewhere but was then transported to a different site, 

during subsequent tests it might not fly. The German missiles failed in large numbers right on the launch pad if thorough tests and checks had not been conducted to 

the end. For that reason we paid particular attention to debugging the missile tests. 

In particular, in my department we developed a testing/simulating bench, where 

we debugged all the test automatics, and in place of a “live” missile there was a set 

of onboard equipment with the appropriate indicator lights simulating operations 

during the launch phase of the trajectory.

In Germany, using Institute Nordhausen resources and then at NII-88 in Podlipki, two missile series of 10 units each were prepared. We assembled series “N” 

in Germany at the Kleinbodungen factory and also performed the horizontal tests 

there, using the process previously employed at Mittelwerk. We assembled the “T” 

series in Podlipki at the NII-88 experimental factory from assemblies and parts that 

we had prepared in Germany.

The engines for the T series had undergone firing tests in 1946 in Lehesten, but 

we retested them. The pairing of the engines with the turbopump assemblies and 

steam gas generators required tests and the recording of data to precisely determine 

parameters. OKB-456 in Khimki headed by Valentin Glushko performed all of 

these procedures.

The control system hardware for both rocket series underwent retesting at NII885 before it was sent to the test range. Mikhail Ryazanskiy and Nikolay Pilyugin 

supervised this work. A complex problem was solved at Naval Scientific-Research 

Institute No. 1 (MNII-1) of the Ministry of the Shipbuilding Industry.3 Here, 

3. MNII—Morskoy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut.

lectures for the higher engineering programs organized at the N. E. Bauman Higher 

Technical Institution. There, the entire “elite” of the still quite young rocket industry 

had been assembled to retrain military and civilian engineers. We were supposed to 

pass on the experience and knowledge we had acquired in Germany. I was assigned 

to teach the course “Long-range Missile Control Systems.” Korolev prepared the 

first systematized work for these courses, “Fundamentals for the Design of LongRange Ballistic Missiles.”1

 This was the first real engineering manual for designers 

in our country.

In these courses it was impossible to avoid mention of history and German 

achievements. Aside from the Katyusha, we still did not have our own combat rockets. Our first “almost domestic” R-1 rocket was to fly only a year later in autumn 

1948. In spite of that, the administrator who supervised the higher engineering 

courses, averting his eyes, asked that we “remove mention of the Germans’ work 

from the lectures to the extent possible.” Preparing a cycle of lectures, I conscientiously described the A4 missile’s control system and the basic history of its development. At Pobedonostsev’s recommendation, one of the publishing houses accepted 

this book for open publication, and by the middle of 1948 it had already been 

submitted for printing. Pobedonostsev unexpectedly called me in and said that the 

“powers that be” had really lit into him for agreeing to be the editor of my book. 

The publishing house had already received the order to scratch the printing job and 

to destroy all the printed copies of the manuscript.

“You in particular need to be circumspect and cautious now. If you have a typewritten copy, hide it, and I will report that everything was destroyed!”

Alas, I had nothing to hide. I had handed over all the copies to the publishing 

house. I very much regretted that soon thereafter I had to part ways with Pobedonostsev. They transferred him to the managerial staff and to teach at a recently 

established industrial academy to train leadership cadres for the Ministry of Armaments.2

The suburban Moscow railroad station with the poetic name Podlipki was 

located 20 kilometers from the Yaroslavskiy station. That is where our special train 

from Germany arrived. The A4 missiles that we had assembled in Thuringia were 

housed in the airfield hangars on approximately the same site where the spaceflight 

Mission Control Center is now located. During the war it was the site of one of the 

1. The second and main part of these lectures has been published. See “Osnovy proyektirovaniya 

ballisticheskikh raket dalnego deystviya” [“Fundamentals for the Design of Long-Range Ballistic 

Missiles”]. In M. V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye naslediye akademika Sergeya Pavlovicha Koroleva: 

izbrannyye trudy i dokumenty [The creative legacy of academician Sergey Pavlovich Korolev: Selected works 

and documents] (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), pp. 208–290.

2. Yuriy Aleksandrovich Pobedonostsev (1907–73) served as the Chief Engineer of NII-88 from 

1946–49. In May 1950, he was transferred to the Scientific Department of the Academy of the 

Defense Industry.
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rocket technology. We traveled in comfort in our two-berth compartments. I was 

in the upper berth, and Viktor Kuznetsov was in the lower one. Only Korolev, as 

the technical director of the State Commission had a deluxe compartment with a 

small boardroom. NII-88 director Lev Robertovich Gonor traveled in a separate 

compartment.

We were not involved in the test range site selection—military officials did this 

on their own. Kapustin Yar was an old village in the lower reaches of the Volga River, 

on a flood plain that was usually not covered with water. This was the area between 

the Volga and Akhtuba Rivers. Further along the firing line were the uninhabited 

Volga steppes. Lieutenant General Vasiliy Ivanovich Voznyuk was appointed chief 

of the test range.

I met General Voznyuk for the first time during the hot summer of 1947 in the 

NII-88 director’s office. Gonor invited Korolev, Voskresenskiy, and me to a meeting with the chief of the country’s first state rocket test range. When we entered, a 

broad-shouldered lieutenant-general of above-average height stood up to meet us. 

His chest was decorated with row after row of service ribbons and the Gold Star of a 

Hero of the Soviet Union. He gave each of us a firm handshake and wore a teasing, 

kind smile as he studied us, looking us straight in the eyes.

“Well, well. I thought General Gonor had officers, but I see that you all are running around in undershirts quenching your thirst with Borzhomi mineral water. 

Out there I’ve still got only barren steppe, the temperature is over 40°C (104°F), 

there is no good water, no roads, and nowhere to live. I still don’t know what you’re 

planning on building, where you’re going to build it, where it’s coming from, where 

it’s going to, or what you’re going to fire it with.” Smiling broadly, Voznyuk said, 

“Help me to gain some understanding of this,” happily downing yet another glass of 

mineral water that Gonor poured for him. We explained our understanding of the 

test range’s missions to Voznyuk as best we could.

“This will not be Peenemünde, and we have no pretensions of building a 

Schwabes Hotel,” joked Gonor. “To begin with, we will be arriving on our special 

train and will be living in it. And then we will help design firing test rigs, a rocket 

processing hangar, and launch pads.”

Military construction workers who had gained considerable experience on rush 

jobs during the war carried out the construction at the test range. It started literally 

from scratch. The officers were housed haphazardly in a small town of adobe huts. 

The soldiers lived in tents and dugout huts. The task of providing electricity to all 

of the test range facilities could be compared to a military operation.

But in September 1947, despite all of General Voznyuk’s energy, the test range 

was still not ready for tests. The first thing that we had to do was to place one of 

the rockets on a test rig and conduct integrated firing tests. The second thing was to 

equip the launch pad and assembly and testing building. We were supposed to have 

a concrete platform on which the launch pad would be installed and an assembly 

and testing building where the rockets would be tested in the horizontal position 

before they were brought out for launch. This building was called the “engineering 

under the leadership of Viktor Kuznetsov and Zinoviy Tsetsior, the Gorizont, Vertikant, and Integrator gyroscopic instruments were almost completely reassembled. 

The conventional bearings that they had been fitted with at the Zeiss factory in Jena 

were replaced with precision bearings, the rotors were balanced to reduce vibrations, 

and the command potentiometers were adjusted. The latter were perhaps the most 

delicate elements of the command gyroscopic instruments.

All of the ground equipment gave us a lot of trouble. The Viktoriya system was 

designed to perform lateral flight correction. In Germany we had not managed to 

come up with all the parts necessary to outfit it in its nominal form. Therefore, at 

NII-885, under the supervision of Mikhail Borisenko, workers not only performed 

restorative work but also partially developed and fabricated missing assemblies and 

antennas for the ground control station and thoroughly tested out its joint operation with the onboard receiver. For this they even conducted special aircraft tests at 

the Kapustin Yar State Central Test Range (GTsP) before we arrived there for the 

rockets’ first launches.

Under the supervision of Vladimir Barmin and his deputy Viktor Rudnitskiy at 

the Kompressor factory, workers repaired and checked out all of the ground-based 

launching and fueling equipment. The ground-based electric equipment was completed, retested, and shipped to the test range by the Prozhektor Factory. Aleksandr 

Goltsman was in charge there. He was one of the chief designers who had not been 

with us in Germany.

The individuals responsible for the reproduction of the onboard electrical equipment were Andronik Iosifyan, chief designer of the Moscow Electromechanical Scientific-Research Institute (MNIIEM), and Nikolay Lidorenko, chief designer of 

the Scientific-Research Institute of Current Sources (NIIIT).4 The explosives for 

the warheads made use of domestic development under the supervision of NII-46 

Chief Designer Mark Likhnitskiy. NII-20 of the Ministry of the Communications 

Systems Industry (MPSS) directed development of the telemetry systems.5 Grigoriy 

Degtyarenko and Special Purpose Brigade (BON) officer Captain Kerim Kerimov, 

who had both undergone training in Germany, supervised the preparation and 

operation of this system.6 Thus, aside from the six “really chief” designers (Korolev, 

Glushko, Pilyugin, Ryazanskiy, Barmin, and Kuznetsov), there were at least four 

more who were not “not so chief” but were also chief designers (Goltsman, Iosifyan, 

Lidorenko, and Likhnitskiy).

In September 1947, on our special train, we set out for Kapustin Yar, where 

the Ministry of Defense had created the State Central Test Range for the testing of 

4. MNIIEM—Moskovskiy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut elektromekhaniki; NIIIT—Nauchnoissledovatelskiy institut istochnikov toka. 

5. MPSS—Ministerstvo promyshlennosti sredstv svyazi.

6. BON—Brigada osobogo naznacheniya. The BON was the artillery brigade assigned to operate 

captured German missiles in the postwar era.
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Members of the State Commission were housed, and conducted their almost 

round-the-clock activity, in two trains: in Special Train No. 2, where we lived, and 

in Special Train No. 1, which was reserved for the military. The state commission 

approved by decree industrial representatives who were allowed to participate in 

operations; it also appointed technical management for the testers. Korolev was 

appointed technical director of testing. His deputies, all chief designers, were members of the Council of Chiefs. They were V. P. Glushko, V. P. Barmin, M. S. Ryazanskiy, and V. I. Kuznetsov. Pilyugin was not included in the technical management, 

because the decree had named Ryazanskiy chief designer of the guidance system and 

Pilyugin as his deputy. During the flight tests in 1947, Pilyugin had two duties at 

the firing range. First, he was chief of Electrical Department No. 1 both at the engineering facility and at the launch site during electrical testing of the missile. Second, 

during launch he served as a firing department operator. I was also on the roster as 

a firing department operator.

It bears mentioning that the organizational structures for the launches were 

developed at General Tveretskiy’s Special Purpose Brigade (BON) back in Germany 

and were applicable to troop operations, with provisions that took into consideration the need for personnel training. Technical management required that each 

military unit concerned with technology have monitors or industrial representatives 

who worked with the military personnel.

The State Commission had to approve two organizational structures, one for 

military personnel and one for civilian personnel. During work, no one thought 

about who was where in the organizational hierarchy. Everyone worked harmoniously. I cannot remember a single “who’s in charge here?” conflict. Special groups 

were created in the vast mixed military-industrial staff to support missile preparation and launch. These included analytical groups, groups for science experiments, 

instrumentation, meteorology, communications, medical assistance, and all the 

services supporting the critical functions of the special trains and the hundreds of 

individuals involved in testing.

German specialists occupied an entire railroad car in our special train. Helmut 

Gröttrup was in charge of the German “firing squad.” He brought almost all of the 

leading specialists from Gorodomlya. In addition to them, Glushko wanted to have 

his own German engine specialists from Khimki.

On 14 October, the missile was finally brought out to the almost completed 

firing rig. The only difference between the rig version of the missile and the combat 

version was that the “Heck,” or tail section, had been removed from it. This was 

done in keeping with the German way of testing at Peenemünde. It took days to 

connect the ground-based electrical control and measurement networks, to test 

them, sort them out, and eliminate problems that inevitably appeared in a large and 

complex electrical system assembled for the first time and in a hurry. Barmin and 

Rudnitskiy received personal instructions from Marshal Yakovlev to monitor and be 

responsible for the fueling process.

facility.” We needed several cinetheodolite tracking stations, which were supposed 

to film the rockets’ launch and flight.7 The test range was supposed to have a rather 

large meteorological service because the launches needed to be conducted under 

good weather conditions in order to observe and film them. A synchronized time 

service was needed so that all the test range services would use a synchronized time 

system.

To begin with, efforts were focused on completing the test rig. This was a large 

three-tiered rig, the design of which drew from the experience in Peenemünde and 

Lehesten. The rocket was secured to the rig in a gimbal ring brought from Peenemünde. Our job was to equip it with everything it needed and to set up all of the 

launch and fueling equipment. The firing rig was quite far from our special train. 

It was next to the airfield, where airplanes landed on an unpaved airstrip. And the 

launch pad was further away, approximately three kilometers. Here they also began 

to build the command bunker. But missile launch control would be initiated not 

from the bunker but from the German armored fighting vehicle, the Panzerwagen,

which were reminiscent of modern infantry armored fighting vehicles (BMP); the 

Panzerwagen was widely used by the German military for V-2 launches.8

A large wooden structure, cold and drafty, was built to serve as the assembly and 

testing building. There, we began the horizontal tests on the rocket before it was 

hauled out to the firing rig, which was being finished with the help of a round-theclock all-hands rush job by the military construction workers under the supervision 

of Marshal Vorobyev.

A state commission appointed by governmental decree managed and monitored 

the conducting of the first long-range ballistic missile launches in the USSR.

The members of the commission were:

1. N. D. Yakovlev—Chairman, also Artillery Marshal and Head of the

Main Artillery Directorate

2. D. F. Ustinov—Deputy Chairman, also Minister of Armaments

3. I. A. Serov—First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs

4. S. N. Shishkin—Deputy Minister of Aviation Industry

5. N. I. Vorontsov—Deputy Minister of the Communications Industry

6. V. P. Terentyev—Deputy Minister of Shipbuilding

7. M. P. Vorobyev—Marshal, Commander of the Infantry Engineering 

Troops

8. M. K. Sukov—Head of the Main Directorate of the Oxygen Industry 

Under the Council of Ministers

9. S. I. Vetoshkin—Head of the Main Directorate of Reactive Armaments

of the Ministry of Armaments

10. P. F. Zhigarev—Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces

7. Cinetheodolites are optical cameras that record the position and movement of objects in flight.

8. BMP—Bronemashina pekhoty.
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less nights attempting to start up the engine, that an aggravated Serov addressed us 

in the presence of the entire commission:

“Listen, why are you doing this to yourselves? We’ll find a soldier. We’ll wind 

some twine onto a long stick, dunk it in gasoline, the soldier will insert it into the 

nozzle, and you’ll have your ignition!”

The idea was “splendid,” but in spite of the fact that it was Colonel General 

Serov’s, no one fell for it. We continued to discuss the causes of the latest bobik. It 

was cramped in the bankobus and everyone was chain-smoking. Thank goodness 

there was a strong draft through the broken windows.

“Why was there was no ignition this time? Have you analyzed it?,” Serov meddled once again.

Korolev said that Pilyugin could give a report, adding, “His circuit failed.” Pilyugin explained, “Yes, we found the cause. A relay in the ignition circuit didn’t trip.”

“And who is responsible for that relay?” asked Serov.

“Comrade Ginzburg,” responded Pilyugin after a brief pause.

“Show me this Ginzburg,” said Serov menacingly. Pilyugin, who was leaning on 

Ginzburg’s shoulder, surreptitiously pressed him into the crowd that was huddled 

around, and answered that he could not point Ginzburg out because he was at the 

rig replacing the relay. I should say that over that entire time no harm came to any 

of us, although the “Sword of Damocles” was constantly hanging over each of us.

Finally, on the night of 16–17 October, from one of the armored vehicles that 

served as the command post where Pilyugin, Smirnitskiy, Voskresenskiy, Ginzburg, 

and I were located, we started up the engine! The feeling of triumph was extraordinary! For the first time, a liquid-propellant rocket engine had been started up at the 

State Central Test Range in Kapustin Yar. Tired and worn out, we barely managed 

to crawl out of the armored vehicle. I pulled an ordinary soldier’s flask filled with 

pure alcohol out of my pocket and treated the entire crew of our armored vehicle. 

And that was the first toast that we raised to the successful launch of our rocket, 

albeit still only on the rig.

After the test-firing, we did not conduct any more tests on that rig. Instead of 

spending more time on that, we switched to preparing and launching rockets from 

the launch pad.

In those days, we didn’t drive to the launch pad over a luxurious concrete road 

as they do today. We drove along dusty roads in American Jeeps, and our favorite 

hymn was the song, “Eh, roads, dust and fog...” The autumn weather tormented us 

a great deal, and the most popular people then were the meteorologists. There were 

two reasons for this: first, we waited for them to give us permission for launch; and 

second, there were a lot of young women in this service, which relieved our difficult 

workaday routine somewhat.

The launch team in our military unit was staffed primarily by servicemen from 

the Special Purpose Brigade formed in Germany. Its personnel had worked with 

us at the Institutes RABE and Nordhausen practically all of 1946, and each officer 

knew his job. The most highly trained specialists from industry were included on 

the launch team. Engineer Major Ya. I. Tregub was in charge of the launch team on 

The engine was started up directly from the Panzerwagen by the firing squad, 

which included Captain Smirnitskiy and industry “operators” Voskresenskiy, Pilyugin, Ginzburg, and me. No matter what we did, however, we couldn’t get the engine 

to start up. The “lighters”—the special electrical devices that ignited the fuel—kept 

getting knocked out during the very first firing, and the engine did not start up. For 

the most part the defects were in the electrical starting system. First one relay would 

fail, then another... All of these incidents were heatedly discussed in the bankobus

during State Commission sessions.9 We testers had to report on each operation to 

the State Commission. There, in Kapustin Yar in 1947, was the birth of the term 

bobik, which later became part of the missile field vernacular. Since then, testers 

have called a failure that requires several hours to identify and eliminate a bobik. The 

source of this folklore was an anecdote that Ginzburg told, very appropriately, in the 

bankobus after the engine’s latest failure.

It was on perhaps the third day of our sufferings, after we had spent several sleep9. Author’s note: The term bankobus was formed by combining two words, “bank” (in the sense of 

a collective discussion) and “bus.” We met in a dilapidated bus that had been pulled up close to the rig 

so that we could have some sort of shelter from the wind and rain.

Shown here are the leading participants who oversaw the historic first A4 (V-2) launches 

from Kapustin Yar in the fall of 1947. Sitting huddled on the ground are (from left to right): 

M. I. Likhnitskiy, N. A. Pilyugin, G. A. Tyulin, N. N. Khlybov, and S. S. Lavrov. In the middle 

row (left to right) are: M. S. Ryazanskiy, V. P. Barmin, S. P. Korolev, S. I. Vetoshkin, L. M. 

Gaydukov, and V. I. Kuznetsov. Standing at the back (from left to right) are: unknown (face 

obscured), V. P. Glushko, D. D. Sevruk, B. Ye. Chertok, M. I. Borisenko, L. A. Voskresenskiy, 

unknown, and V. A. Rudnitskiy.

From the author’s archives.
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After a couple of hours, the State Commission promptly convened. At this meeting 

Serov reprimanded us:

“Imagine what would have happened if the rocket had reached Saratov. I won’t 

even begin to tell you; you can guess what would have happened with all of you.”

We quickly grasped that it was much farther to Saratov than the 270 kilometers 

that the rocket was supposed to fly, and so we were not very alarmed. Then it turned 

out that the rocket had successfully covered 231.4 kilometers, but had deviated to 

the left by 180 kilometers. We needed to find out why. And then, as annoying as 

it was for us, Ustinov decided to seek advice from the Germans. For the analysis, 

they enlisted the services of German specialists at the firing range who were in a 

separate “German” railroad car in our special train. Before this, Dr. Kurt Magnus, 

a specialist in the field of gyroscopy, and Dr. Hans Hoch, an expert in the field of 

electronic transformations and control, had been sitting around at the test range 

without anything in particular to do. Ustinov said to them, “This is your rocket and 

your instruments; go figure it out. Our specialists don’t understand why it went so 

far off course.”

The Germans sat down in the laboratory car, which was part of the special train, 

and began to experiment with a complete set of all the nominal control instruments. 

Dr. Magnus suggested testing the gyroscopic instruments on the vibration table. We 

put the gyroscope on the vibration table, connected it to the mischgerät—the amplifier-converter that received commands from the gyroscopic instruments—switched 

on the control-surface actuators, and thus simulated the control process, exposing 

it to vibrations under laboratory conditions. They succeeded in showing that in 

a certain mode, vibration could cause detrimental interference to the legitimate 

electrical signal. Dr. Magnus showed that the mukholapka, that is, the device that 

picked up the current from the gyroscope potentiometer, reacted to frequencies 

close to 100 hertz and began to “dance” and apply interference to the legitimate 

signal.11 Dr. Hoch explained that the process of differentiation in the amplifier-converter amplifies the interference such that it jams the legitimate signal. As a result, 

the rocket veers away from the assigned course in any direction and could even dive 

into the ground. Former Corporal Viebach, a participant in many combat launches, 

confirmed that in Germany there had been similar instances during test and combat 

launches when they had not been able to explain the true causes of the large deviations. Gröttrup joked about this, “If Dr. Magnus and Dr. Hoch had worked with us 

in Peenemünde during the war, British losses during our bombardment of London 

would have been considerably greater.”

The solution proved to be simple: we needed to put a filter between the gyroscopic instrument and the amplifier-converter that would allow only legitimate signals to pass and would cut off detrimental noise generated by vibration. Dr. Hoch 

himself designed the filter right then. He found everything he needed among our 

11. Mukholapka literally means “fly foot.”

behalf of the military and L. A. Voskresenskiy on behalf of industry. The assistant 

commander of the launch team was Engineer Major Rafail Vannikov, the son of the 

first minister of the atomic industry Boris Vannikov.

During the first launch, technical director Korolev was in the armored vehicle. 

He had the last word on the operation. At Ustinov’s insistence, a German specialist, 

Corporal Fritz Viebach, was there as controller and consultant.

The first launch was executed on 18 October 1947 at 10:47 a.m. It was a 

series T rocket. During the launch, I was in the armored vehicle and was thus denied 

the opportunity to delight for the first time in the spectacle of a launching rocket, 

an event that never leaves anyone indifferent. The weather was quite decent, and 

we were able to monitor the launch phase using test range systems. The rocket flew 

206.7 kilometers and deviated to the left by almost 30 kilometers. They didn’t find 

a large crater at the impact site. Subsequent analysis showed that the rocket disintegrated upon entry into the dense layers of the atmosphere.

They also used a series T rocket for the second launch. It was conducted on 20 

October. During the launch phase, the rocket deviated significantly to the left of its 

plotted course. No reports were received from the calculated site of impact, and the 

test range observers announced rather tongue-in-cheek, “It went toward Saratov.”10

10. Saratov is a large industrial center about 800 kilometers southeast of Moscow on the banks of 

the river Volga.

Shown here are Korolev and his principal associates during a break of the A4 (V-2) rocket 

tests in Kapustin Yar in 1947. From left to right are N. N. Smirnitskiy, L. A. Voskresenskiy, 

S. P. Korolev, Ya. I. Tregub, and an unknown associate.

From the author’s archives.
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would be very useful to us.”

I never submitted the report for 

declassification, and it got lost in the 

chaos among my books. Two years 

later, Magnus and Hoch reproduced the 

report’s contents and it became part of 

the design of the G-1 rocket now under 

our “secret” stamp.

In 1953, Magnus returned to Germany, where he pursued a brilliant scientific career. He established a department and then an institute of mechanics 

at the Munich Technical University. In 

1971, in West Berlin, Kurt Magnus’ 

monograph Gyroscop:. Theory and Applications was published.12 In 1974, the 

monograph was translated into Russian 

by the Mir publishing house and became 

a reference book for three generations of 

specialists.13 Magnus also established 

an institute of mechanics at the Stuttgart Technical University. The Russian 

Academy of Navigation and Motion 

Control elected Professor Magnus as an 

honorary member. In September 2002, 

I was invited along with other Russian 

scientists to Stuttgart Technical University to celebrate the 90th birthday of 

this distinguished Doctor of Technical 

Sciences. Dr. Sorg, who officiated at the 

festive gathering, reported that, to his great regret, Dr. Magnus was ill and would 

not be able to attend the celebration in his honor.

Having been granted the opportunity to deliver the first congratulatory speech, 

I told the attendees about Magnus’ work in the Soviet Union and about the episode at the Kapustin Yar test range in 1947. I asked that they pass on my gifts to 

the birthday boy: his 60-year-old report approved by Dr. Schüler and stamped 

Geheim; a commemorative medal issued for the 90th birthday of academician S. P. 

Korolev; and a commemorative souvenir from the Energia Rocket-Space Corpora12. Kurt Magnus, Kreisel: Theorie und Anwendungen [Gyroscope: Theory and Applications] (Berlin: 

Springer-Verlag, 1971).

13. K. Magnus, Giroskop [Gyroscope] (Moscow: Mir, 1974).

On the thirtieth anniversary of the first 

launch of the first Soviet V-2, several 

veterans reunited to celebrate in the event 

in 1977. Standing in front of the memorial 

are, from left to right: General A. G. Karas, 

Ye. V. Shabarov, Gen. V. A. Menshikov, B. Ye. 

Chertok, and [initials unknown] Kolomiytsev. 

At the time, Karas was commander of the 

Soviet military space forces.

From the author’s archives.

spare parts. We placed the filter on the next rocket, and the effect was immediately 

evident. Lateral deviation was slight.

To celebrate, Ustinov ordered that all the German specialists and their assistants 

be given what were for that time enormous bonuses—15,000 rubles each and a jerrican of alcohol for all of them. They, of course, couldn’t cope with it all and generously shared it with us. We celebrated the successful launch together. The authority 

of the German specialists, whom up until then only the “technicians” had respected, 

immediately rose in the eyes of the State Commission.

During the merrymaking in the German railroad car, having enjoyed a good 

mutton pilaf, I boasted to Dr. Magnus that in April 1945, in Adlershof, I had 

found a report, authored by him, on the development of a new type of gyroscope. 

The report had been approved by Dr. Schüler, and the title page had been stamped 

Geheim, that is, “Secret.”

Magnus, who had seemed tipsy, gave a start and immediately sobered up.

“Where is that report now?”

“I saved it, in violation of my instructions. But I can’t give it to you because that 

would now be my second gross record-keeping violation.”

“On your instructions, Dr. Hoch and I are developing proposals for a new control system that would be much more reliable than the one on the A4. That report 

Conditions at Kapustin Yar were difficult for even the most seasoned war veterans, with 

weather oscillating from extreme heat to unbearable cold. Shown here in their rugged attire 

are the armored vehicle crew for the first A4 (V-2) launches in the fall of 1947. From left to 

right are: A. M. Ginzburg, B. Ye. Chertok, N. A. Pilyugin, L. A. Voskresenskiy, N. N. Smirnitskiy, 

and Ya. I. Tregub. All of these men would later reach senior engineering or military positions 

in the Soviet space program.

From the author’s archives.
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Ustinov emerged from the cockpit and shouted, “Look! They’re already restoring 

the city. Let’s fly to the Barrikady Factory that Gonor defended.”

We pressed up against the windows, and the airplane banked sharply, suddenly 

climbed steeply, and turned once again. About 20 meters from the airplane the tall 

factory smokestack flashed by.

“Dmitriy Fedorovich has taken over the controls,” commented Vetoshkin, the 

color gone from his face.

The airplane rocked violently. It was flying at very low altitude and a collision 

with Stalingrad seemed unavoidable. Gonor managed to shout, “What is he doing? 

We’re about to crash into the Barrikady Factory.” And with the next lurch of the 

plane he flew out into the aisle. Korolev looked angry and somber. Glushko looked 

straight ahead, calm and unruffled. Marshal Yakovlev could not contain himself, 

and, barely able to stay on his feet, he headed for the cockpit. We could not hear 

what he said when he confronted Ustinov, but the rocking stopped. Once again we 

crossed the Volga, and, after 20 minutes of calm flight, we taxied safely up to our 

special train.

In all we launched 11 German rockets and 5 of them reached their target. The 

reliability of the rockets was roughly the same as what the Germans had experienced 

during the war. Of the 11 rockets launched, 5 had been assembled in Nordhausen 

and 6 at Factory No. 88. But the assemblies and parts were all German. And they all 

proved to be equally unreliable.

The launch of an A4 rocket in the fall of 1947 was in some ways the fruit of our 

18-month activity in Germany. The intense work in Germany during the period 

from 1945 through 1946 with the help of German specialists enabled us to save 

enormous resources and time for the formation of our domestic rocket technology. 

The flight tests in 1947 showed that Soviet specialists, both military and civilian, 

had mastered the fundamentals of practical rocket technology and had gained the 

experience needed to make an accelerated transition to a now independent development of this new, promising field of human endeavor.

Many years later, at the site of the first launch in 1947, an R-1 rocket was erected 

as a monument. In its outward appearance it was an exact copy of an A4. Enriched 

by the experience of the A4 tests, on our return from Kapustin Yar we immediately 

switched over to the task of developing domestic rockets, as the saying goes, without pausing to catch our breath. In the process of preparing for and conducting 

launches, we had discovered too many defects. Each of these defects, each negative 

observation and accident during launch needed to be thoroughly analyzed and a 

decision made as to what modifications were necessary for the creation of our own 

domestic R-1 rocket.

The tests also yielded other results that were certainly positive. First, combining all the services at the test range into a single collective during the process of the 

flight tests allowed both individuals and organizations to adjust to each other. The 

organizational experience of conducting such complex activities sometimes proves 

to be as valuable as the scientific and technical achievements.

tion.14 Without letting me leave the podium, Magnus’ protégé, President of the 

Institute of Mechanics, Professor G. Sorg, reminded the assembled crowd that I was 

also 90 years old and therefore was being awarded a model of the gyroscope. The 

attendees were delighted.

Now let’s return to the events of 1947 in Kapustin Yar. For everyone, 

military and civilian, the work was hard. The most unpleasant procedure was waiting for a clear sky during cold, rainy weather in the damp tents at the launch site. 

The food was quite satisfactory and our mood was optimistic, although the living 

conditions were like military field conditions.

On 7 November, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Great October 

Revolution, Minister Ustinov invited the senior technical staff and certain members 

of the State Commission for an airplane ride over Stalingrad. We took off in an 

18-seat Douglas from an unpaved area right by the special train. The cloud cover 

was very low, and we flew to Stalingrad at an altitude of no more than 100 meters. 

We crossed the Volga and suddenly found ourselves over the ruins of Stalingrad. 

14. Magnus was also one of several from the German rocket experts brought to the Soviet Union in 

1946 who published memoirs of their times there. See Kurt Magnus, Raketensklaven: deutsche Forscher 

hinter rotem Stacheldraht [Rocket Slave: German Scientists Behind the Red Barbed Wire] (Stuttgart: 

Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1993).

Shown here are engineers responsible for the guidance and control systems during the historic 

first A4 (V-2) launches from Kapustin Yar in the fall of 1947. Sitting in the front row are A. M. 

Ginzburg, V. I. Kuznetsov, M. S. Ryazanskiy, N. A. Pilyugin, B. Ye. Chertok, and M. I. Borisenko.

From the author’s archives.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

42

Second, the participation on the State Commission of high-ranking military officials and the directors of a number of ministries definitely influenced their “rocket 

world view.” Now it was not just the chief designers and all of their compatriots 

but also those individuals on whom we were directly dependent, who understood 

that a rocket was not simply a guided projectile. A rocket complex was a large, 

complicated system that required a new systematic approach during all the stages of 

its life cycle, such as design, development, fabrication, and testing. Given such an 

approach there should not be primary and minor tasks. In the system, everything 

should be subordinate to the interests of achieving a single final goal.

In this regard, I recall this episode, which later became an edifying anecdote, 

from the State Commission sessions. While analyzing the latest in a series of unsuccessful launches, it was determined that the most probable cause was the failure of 

one of the multicontact relays in the primary onboard distributor. Exercising his 

rights as the highest ranking minister and Deputy Chairman of the State Commission, Ustinov addressed Deputy Minister Vorontsov, who was in charge of rocket 

technology at MPSS. “How was it that your people didn’t look through and check 

each contact?” Vorontsov was offended and retorted, “There are 90 relays on board 

and 23 on the ground. You can’t look after every single one. Is it really that great a 

calamity, after all, one relay failed!” What a commotion erupted! The indignation 

reflected the gradual internalization of a new systematic thinking into our world 

view.

Third, at the test range, directors and specialists from various levels worked and 

lived together. In the future they would be implementing a national program on 

an enormous scale. Here they were not only developing an understanding of each 

other’s difficulties but they were strengthening amicable relations; real friendships 

developed regardless of departmental affiliation. In the work that was to last for 

years to come, this was enormously important.

Finally, during the process of the first range tests, an unofficial agency became 

firmly established—the Council of the Chief Designers headed by Sergey Pavlovich 

Korolev. The authority of this council as an interdepartmental, nonadministrative, 

but scientific and technical governing body had critical importance for all of our 

subsequent activities.
Chapter 3

From Usedom Island to

Gorodomlya Island

A total of over 200 German specialists came to NII-88 from Germany. With families, it was nearly 500 people. Among the new arrivals were highly qualified specialists—scientists and engineers who had worked with us at the Institutes RABE and 

Nordhausen and at the Montania factory. The German collective included 13 professors, 33 Ph.D. engineers, and 85 graduate engineers. As soon as they arrived in 

the Soviet Union, 23 German specialists were sent to Khimki to work at OKB-456 

to help set up production of engines for the A4 rockets. OKB-456 Chief Designer 

V. P. Glushko was personally involved with their job placement.

The majority of the Germans were at the disposal of NII-88 director L. R. 

Gonor. They spent some time at health and vacation resorts in the vicinity of Podlipki. Beginning in the spring of 1947, they began to house the Germans in quickly 

repaired and newly constructed homes on Gorodomlya Island in Lake Seliger. Before 

the war, this lake had been known as the best lake for fishing and the most beautiful 

lake in central Russia, thus the most favored by tourists. At the time, Gorodomlya 

Island was closed to tourists; it was the location of a center for biological research 

in the fight against foot-and-mouth disease and anthrax. In 1947 the entire island 

was given to NII-88.

The organization of German specialists housed on Gorodomlya Island was given 

the status of NII-88 Branch No. 1; thus, formally, the entire staff was subordinated to NII-88 Director Gonor. At first, F. G. Sukhomlinov, who had previously 

worked in the offices of the Ministry of Armaments, was appointed director of the 

branch. Soon, however, P. I. Maloletov, the former wartime director of Factory No. 

88, replaced him.

The former director of the Krupp Company’s ballistics department, Professor 

Woldemar Wolf, was appointed director of the German contingent. Engineer/

designer Blass was appointed his deputy. The German collective included prominent scientists whose works were well known in Germany: Peyse, thermodynamics expert; Franz Lange, radar specialist; Werner Albring, aerodynamics expert and 

pupil of Ludwig Prandtl; Kurt Magnus, physicist and prominent theoretician and 

gyroscope specialist; Hans Hoch, theoretician and specialist in automatic control; 

and Kurt Blasig, Askania Company specialist in control surface actuators.

43
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

44

From Usedom Island to Gorodomlya Island

45

1947–1948. In that same OKB-456, German specialist Dr. Oswald Putze, deputy 

chief of engine production, received 5,000 rubles per month. Glushko’s deputy 

V. A. Vitka had a salary of 3,500 rubles. The Germans were permitted to transfer 

money to their relatives in Germany. On a par with all the Soviet specialists who 

worked at NII-88 and OKB-456, in addition to the aforementioned salaries, the 

Germans were given incentives in the form of large monetary awards for completing 

phases of work within the scheduled deadlines.

On weekends and holidays they were permitted to make excursions to the 

regional center of Ostashkov and to Moscow to go to shops, markets, theaters, and 

museums. Therefore, life on the island surrounded by barbed wire could not in any 

way be considered comparable to the status of prisoners of war.

The case of Ursula Shaefer, who left Bleicherode and ended up on Gorodomlya Island on Seliger Lake, was unusual. The wives of the German specialists were 

not elated by the presence of a beautiful woman living alone in the rather closed 

German community. Frau Schaefer appealed to the administration with a request 

to find her husband, who was being held as a prisoner of war somewhere in the 

Soviet Union. The appropriate agencies actually looked for her husband in one of 

the POW camps. It turned out that he was an anti-fascist and quite possibly even 

the organizer of a new German party among the prisoners. They released him from 

the camp and sent him to his wife.

By that time, however, while he was being processed out of the camp and making 

his way to the island, his charming wife had abruptly changed her political orientation; among the German community, she turned out to be the most ardent 

supporter of the crushed fascist regime. The State security authorities on the island 

were in a complete state of confusion over it—such a beautiful woman and suddenly a true, unadulterated Nazi. What was to be done with her? Then her husband 

showed up, virtually a communist. They asked him to exert some influence over his 

unruly wife. It seems that he was unsuccessful in that venture. To get themselves 

out of harm’s way, our security agencies sent them both to East Germany ahead of 

schedule.

Officially all the German specialists were referred to as “foreign specialists” in 

correspondence and were combined into “collective 88.” The Germans themselves 

were divided into specialized structural subdivisions.

The NII-88 management had drawn up a thematic plan of work for the German 

collective for 1946 and early 1947 that included consultations for issuing a set of 

A4 rocket documentation in Russian, compiling diagrams of the A4 and surface-toair guided missile research laboratories, studying issues related to boosting the A4 

rocket engine, developing the design for an engine with a thrust of 100 tons, and 

preparing to assemble rockets that were made of German parts and had been outfitted with equipment at the Institute Nordhausen.

Probably the most vital stage of this period was the development of proposals for 

the A4 rocket launch program. Launches were scheduled for autumn 1947 at the 

State Central Test Range in Kapustin Yar. The German specialists, among whose 

The vast majority of German specialists in NII-88 at that time were not former 

associates of von Braun in Peenemünde. They were introduced to rocket technology at the Institutes RABE and Nordhausen, while working with us. Wernher von 

Braun had this to say about the German specialists that we had brought in to work 

with us: “... the USSR nevertheless succeeded in acquiring the chief electronics 

specialist Helmut Gröttrup... But he was the only important catch from among the 

Peenemünde specialists.”

By mid-1947 more than 400 persons, including 177 Germans, were working on 

Gorodomlya Island in NII-88 Branch No. 1. Among the German specialists were 5 

professors, 24 Ph.D.’s, 17 graduate engineers, and 71 “engineer practitioners.”

Initially, the German specialists were combined into “collective 88.” In August 

1947, the Germans carried out a reorganization, and “collective 88” was named 

“Department G.” The Germans themselves selected graduate engineer Gröttrup to 

be director of Department G; they also appointed him chief designer of new longrange ballistic missile designs.

The German specialists brought in from Germany worked at other locations in 

addition to NII-88 at Lake Seliger. For this reason, it is worth addressing their legal 

and material status in our country. It was practically the same in various organizations, because it was determined by orders coming from the top in the corresponding ministries. All of the specialists that had been brought to the USSR along with 

their family members, were provided with foodstuffs on a par with those of Soviet 

citizens, in accordance with the ration card system that existed in our country until 

October 1947. Upon arrival in the Soviet Union, they were housed in buildings that 

were quite comfortable. If the distance was sufficiently great, the specialists were 

transported from their place of residence to work and back on buses. Residences on 

Gorodomlya Island had undergone high-quality restoration, and the living conditions were quite decent for those times. In any case, specialists with families received 

separate two- and three-room apartments. When I arrived on the island, I could 

only envy the way they lived, because in Moscow my family and I lived in a communal four-room apartment, in which we occupied two rooms with a total area of 

24 square meters. Many of our specialists and workers still lived in barracks, where 

they did not have the most elementary conveniences.

The German specialists received fairly high salaries, depending on their qualifications, academic titles, and degrees. Thus, for example, Drs. Magnus, Umpfenbach, 

and Schmidt each received 6,000 rubles per month, Gröttrup and Willi Schwarz 

received 4,500 rubles each, and graduate engineers received, on average, 4,000 

rubles each. For the sake of comparison I can cite the monthly wages of the primary 

leading specialists of NII-88 (in 1947): Korolev (chief designer and department 

chief)—6,000 rubles; Pobedonostsev (the institute’s chief engineer)—5,000 rubles; 

and Mishin (Korolev’s deputy)—2,500 rubles. My monthly salary was 3,000 rubles. 

The average salary of the German specialists in the Ministry of Aviation Industry, 

to which OKB-456 was subordinate, also exceeded that of Soviet specialists. OKB456 chief designer V. P. Glushko received a salary of 6,000 rubles per month in 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

46

From Usedom Island to Gorodomlya Island

47

ranks were those who had participated in combat firing, as well as specialists in 

measurements and ballistics, were tasked with obtaining as much information as 

possible about the rockets with a minimum number of launches. Basically, the idea 

was for a program of no more than 10 to 12 launches. The Germans handled the 

work successfully, while Hoch and Magnus, as I have already mentioned, helped to 

determine the cause of the A4’s pronounced deviation during the second launch.

In June 1947, the NII-88 director held a meeting on the prospects and organization of the German specialists’ subsequent work. Six months of experience had 

shown that the German specialists, who were not fully staffed, were virtually isolated from our newly formed production technology. They had no contact with our 

recently initiated network of cooperation on engines, control systems, and materials and were not capable of developing new rocket complexes. Nevertheless, at 

Gröttrup’s recommendation, they were given the opportunity to test their creative 

powers and to develop the design of a new long-range ballistic missile. The missile 

design was assigned the designation G-1 (later the designation R-10 also appeared). 

Gröttrup was named project director and chief designer of the new missile.

The newly formed department in “collective 88” received the same rights that 

all of the institute’s other scientific-research departments enjoyed. It consisted of 

branches for ballistics, aerodynamics, engines, control systems, missile testing, and 

a design bureau. The institute’s chief engineer, Yuriy Aleksandrovich Pobedonostsev, 

became the immediate director of the department, as well as of other NII-88 departments. As Pobedonostsev’s deputy for control systems, I was to supervise the work 

of the German specialists on the new control system. The chief of the NII engine 

department, Naum Lvovich Umanskiy, was assigned to help them with engines, 

Viktor Nikolayevich Iordanskiy with materials, and Leonid Aleksandrovich Voskresenskiy with testing, and so on.

Throughout 1947 and 1948, I visited the “German” island many times. Usually after these business trips I had difficult and confidential conversations with 

Pobedonostsev and Gonor. It seemed obvious to me that the group of specialists, 

being completely out of the information loop, could not, in our system-oriented 

times, develop a design for a new rocket system that would fit in with the design, 

production, and most importantly, armament infrastructure being established in 

the Soviet Union.

Occasionally when speaking his mind, Pobedonostsev ruefully tried to explain, 

“Boris Yevseyevich! I can’t believe you still don’t realize that our security agencies are 

never, under any circumstances, going to allow the Germans to be involved in true 

joint work! They are under double scrutiny—ours (as specialists) and that of the 

state security agencies, who see in each of them a fascist who has gone over to the 

U.S. intelligence services. And anyway, no matter what they come up with, it won’t 

be in step with our current trend in ideology, which dictates that everything created recently or previously in science and technology be done without any foreign 

influence.”1

I had similar frank conversations with others. NII-88 director Lev Robertovich 

Gonor was a general and one of the first Heroes of Socialist Labor, but as a result 

of his Jewish parentage, he too could not withstand the rising turbid wave of the 

“struggle against foreign and cosmopolitan influence.” Soon he too was removed 

from his job and then arrested on charges of complicity in a “Zionist” conspiracy. I 

will describe his fate later.

For the sake of fairness I must mention that the Germans, judging by the specialists with whom I was in close contact, adjusted quickly. In almost two years 

of working in vanquished Germany and interacting with Germans from different 

social groups, not once did I sense either anti-Semitism or a spirit of German chauvinism. At that time, I thought that it was the result of discipline, cowardice, and 

submission to the victors. But after visiting the Federal Republic of Germany in 

1990, 1992, and 2002, I once again detected no traces of anti-Semitism, or what 

we referred to as revanchism.

Beginning in 1948, on orders of higher Communist Party authorities, all mass 

media outlets and especially liberal arts institutions, institutes, cultural organizations, and educational institutions, mounted a struggle against what they called 

“cosmopolitanism.” As part of this campaign, they organized active searches for 

the Russian authors of all inventions, discoveries, and the latest scientific theories, 

without exception. A widely known joke circulated: “Russia should also be declared 

the birthplace of the elephant.”2

But we should give credit to the directors of branches in the defense industry, 

such as Ustinov, Malyshev, Ryabikov, Kalmykov, Vetoshkin, and to their many likeminded associates—a fear of “cosmopolitanism” and “foreign influence” was not in 

their nature. Korolev did not maintain close contact with Germans for completely 

other, purely personal reasons. He was one of the founders of rocket technology in 

our country and had to drink a full cup of humiliation beginning with his arrest 

in 1938, only to find after his release in 1944 that many of the ideas that he had 

hatched had already been implemented by others and that, in many regards, the 

German rocket specialists had gone significantly farther than his most forward1. Here, Chertok is referring to the broader cultural trends of Zhdanovshchina [“time of Zhdanov”] 

and “anti-cosmopolitanism” campaign promoted by the Soviet Communist Party in the late 1940s 

and early 1950s, when many fields of intellectual inquiry were hostage to ideological interference 

and distortion. One of the central dimensions of these campaigns was to negate any and all Western 

influence on the development of Russian and Soviet science and technology. Another was to demonize 

Jews in the Soviet Union.

2. For more on the anti-cosmopolitanism campaign, see Gavriel D. Ra’anan, International Policy 

Formation in the USSR: Factional ‘Debates’ During the Zhdanovshchina (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 

1983).
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

48

From Usedom Island to Gorodomlya Island

49

thinking plans. Once he had finally obtained the position of Chief Designer, it 

offended him to be testing a German A4 rather than his own rocket and to design a 

domestic R-1, which by government decree was an exact copy of the A4. Being by 

nature a commanding and ambitious person who was easily hurt, he could not conceal his feelings when they hinted to him that “you’re not making your own rocket, 

you’re reproducing a German one.” On this topic, Minister Ustinov, who initiated 

the program for the exact reproduction of the German A4 rocket as practice for the 

production process, had serious conflicts with Korolev on more than one occasion.

After the aforementioned encounter at the meeting in the NII-88 

director’s office in June 1947, the German collective was tasked with the independent design for a ballistic missile with a range of at least 600 kilometers. Korolev 

did not sympathize with this work assigned to the Germans, because he justly considered that priority in the development of this rocket should belong to his staff, 

that is, the NII-88 Special Design Bureau (SKB) Department No. 3. Suddenly it 

turned out that almost all of the NII-88 scientific-research departments under the 

supervision of Pobedonostsev, his co-worker at RNII until 1938, would be working not only for him, but also for the newly appointed chief designer of the G-1, 

Helmut Gröttrup, Wernher von Braun’s closest associate.3

We had already begun developing the design for a rocket with a range of 600 

kilometers back at the Institute Nordhausen. Tyulin, Mishin, Lavrov, Budnik, and 

many other Soviet specialists had participated in the project there. The majority of 

them were now working under Korolev’s supervision. In 1947, Korolev’s department, already at work on the R-1 rocket, was working at full speed to design a 

rocket with a range of 600 kilometers, with the designation R-2. Out of consideration for the continuity of the technology, Korolev’s design called for the maximum 

use of the available parts stock for A4 and R-1 missiles. This also included requirements not to exceed the A4 diameter and to use the same engine, after having 

Glushko’s OKB-456 boost its performance characteristics. At Korolev’s initiative, 

the government approved the inclusion of the R-2 rocket in the NII-88 work schedule, although earlier they had envisioned developing the R-3 with a range of up to 

3,000 kilometers immediately after the R-1. Korolev had quite correctly assessed the 

difficulty of such a qualitative leap and decided that they should first try their hand 

at an intermediate version. However, it was the engine specialists such as Glushko 

who had the decisive word as to the possible deadlines for developing a rocket with 

twice the range of the A4.

Here it is fitting to note the differences between the two leading luminaries of 

our domestic rocket technology, Korolev and Glushko, in their attitudes to the 

3. RNII—Reaktivnyy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut (Reactive Scientific-Research Institute). RNII 

was one of the founding organizations of Soviet rocketry. Chertok describes the history of RNII in 

detail in Chapter 26.

German specialists. Korolev simply, and sometimes even demonstratively, ignored 

everything that had to do with the work the German collective was doing on Lake 

Seliger. Not once did he visit Gorodomlya Island, nor did he associate with Gröttrup or with the other leading German specialists. In contrast, Glushko placed the 

German specialists at OKB-456 in positions of responsibility in engine production. 

He dealt with them personally and had the same expectations of them as he did of 

his own subordinates. However, the Germans still were not cleared to work on the 

new design for the new engines. After the A4 rocket engine technology was restored 

and production of its domestic analog, the RD-100 engine, had been mastered, the 

German engine specialists were simply no longer needed.

Engine modification work at OKB-456 began immediately upon their 

arrival from Germany. For reasons of secrecy, the Germans who worked at NII88 on Gorodomlya Island were not informed about the work that their German colleagues were conducting per Glushko’s instructions at OKB-456. However, at both 

places, people understood that the A4 rocket engine could be upgraded. According 

to calculations, its thrust on the ground could be increased to 35 to 37 metric tons 

by increasing the turbopump assembly’s revolutions per minute and raising the pressure in the chamber.

They had already discovered significant reserves in the engine’s layout and design 

during the A4 engine firing tests in Germany. The firing tests in Lehesten, initiated by Isayev and Pallo in 1945, continued under Glushko’s supervision. They 

confirmed the feasibility of boosting the engine from a thrust of 25 metric tons 

to 35 metric tons. With the A4’s structural mass of around 4 metric tons, this was 

sufficient to hurl an 800- to 1,000-kilogram warhead 600 kilometers instead of the 

270 to 300 kilometers that had been attained!

However, increasing the range required a considerably greater amount of propellant and oxidizer. That meant larger tanks and a larger structural mass, which could 

nullify the gains achieved by boosting the engine. They studied several alternative 

versions, but in each of them they searched for reserves in structural volume and 

mass that would make maximum use of rigging that was fabricated and already 

available at the in-house factory. In early 1947, it was already evident that they 

needed to introduce a fundamental change into the design of the future long-range 

missile. Rather than the entire missile, only the nose section containing the warhead 

would fly to the target. This immediately eliminated the problem of the missile’s 

body strength during entry into the atmosphere—one of the A4 rocket’s weakest 

points.

The issue as to whose idea it was to have a separating nose section is debatable 

to this day. Beginning with the R-2, all modern long-range ballistic missiles have 

had a separating nose section. For a modern designer, it is incomprehensible why 

the Germans had the entire A4 enter the atmosphere and then were surprised that 

it disintegrated without reaching its target. But in 1947, the idea of nose section 

separation, like other daring proposals introduced during work on the design of the 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

50

From Usedom Island to Gorodomlya Island

51

R-2 rocket, was not immediately and unequivocally approved. All the new issues 

dealing with the separating nose section for the R-2 rocket were tested, first on a 

modification of the R-1 rocket known as the R-1A and then on an experimental 

version of the R-2 known as the R-2E .

Overtaking the project of Korolev—who was busy preparing for the A4 tests, 

organizing R-1 production, and practically fighting to establish his doctrine at NII88—the Germans brought their G-1 (or R-10) design before the NII-88 ScientificTechnical Council (NTS) for discussion in September 1947.4

Director of operations Helmut Gröttrup presented the main report. NII-88 

director Lev Gonor conducted the meeting. Participating in the discussion were 

Chief of the Main Directorate for Rocket Technology within the Ministry of Armaments Sergey Vetoshkin; Chief Engineer of NII-88 Yuriy Pobedonostsev; rocket 

technology pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov; Chief Designers Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, 

and Kuznetsov; head of the N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical Institute 

Nikolayev; Chief Designer Isayev; Director of the USSR Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation Trapeznikov Professor Kosmodemyanskiy; Korolev’s deputies 

Mishin and Bushuyev; and me, NII-88’s deputy chief engineer. Korolev himself did 

not attend the meeting.

4. NTS—Nauchno-tekhnicheskiy sovet.

Gröttrup, Professor Umpfenbach, and Drs. Hoch, Albring, Anders, Wolf, and 

Shaefer traveled from Gorodomlya Island to Podlipki to defend the G-1 design. 

In his opening remarks, Gonor reported that the design had been developed with 

the participation of NII-88 radio engineering specialist Dmitriy Sergeyev and 

Naum Umanskiy, who specialized in the improvement of liquid-propellant rocket 

engines.

In his report Gröttrup said, “A rocket with a range of 600 kilometers should be 

a stage for the subsequent development of long-range rockets, and it is precisely 

our design that makes it possible to develop rockets with an even greater range of 

effectiveness.” Reminding his audience that Soviet specialists were developing a 

rocket with the same range, making maximum use of A4 parts, he proposed, “From 

here on out it would also make sense to develop both designs simultaneously, but 

completely independently of one another until the test articles are fabricated and 

test launches are conducted.”

The main features of the G-1 design were the following:

• Retaining the A4 dimensions while reducing the dry weight and significantly increasing the volume for propellant

• Greatly simplifying the onboard control system by transferring as many 

control functions as possible to ground-based radio systems

• Simplifying the rocket itself and the ground systems as much as possible

• Increasing accuracy

• Separating the nose section during the descent portion of the trajectory

• Cutting the launch preparation time cycle in half

• Using two load-bearing tanks—alcohol and oxygen—in the design

In 1941, when von Braun invited his teacher Hermann Oberth to Peenemünde, 

Oberth noted the faulty design of the A4 rocket tanks. As early as the 1920s, Oberth 

had written in his books that propellant tanks should be a load-bearing part of the 

rocket design. Structural stability, he argued, should be maintained by increased 

pressure, the pressurization of the tanks. Why, then, was von Braun not using such 

a productive idea? Although faulty from the point of view of Oberth and of any 

modern rocket designer, the load-bearing layout of the A4 did not require prolonged testing and verification. The A4 structural optimization was dictated not by 

mass, but by a time factor. The war was going on and the time required to develop 

a combat rocket played the decisive role. Pressurized tanks were not adopted at the 

time. Gröttrup’s design for the G-1 and Korolev’s design for the R-2 both used the 

concept of load-bearing tanks.5

The layout of the A4 engine was also changed significantly. The turbine that 

5. Author’s note: Disputes as to whose idea it was are pointless; Academician Rauschenbach 

demonstrated this in his book. See B. V. Raushenbakh, German Obert, 1894-1989 [Hermann Oberth, 

1894-1899] (Moscow: Nauka, 1993). The volume was translated and published in English as Boris V. 

Rauschenbach, Hermann Oberth: The Father of Space Flight (Clarence, NY: West-Art, 1994).

A rare photograph of the Gorodomlya group of Germans while at Kapustin Yar during the fall 

of 1947 when the Soviets tested the A4 (V-2) missile. From left to right are Karl (Viktor) 

Stahl, Dr. Johannes (Hans) Hoch, Helmut Gröttrup, Fritz Viebach, and Hans Vilter.

The Collection of Olaf Przybilski.
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turned the pumps feeding alcohol and oxygen was driven by gas taken directly 

from the engine’s combustion chamber. A new radio control system provided a high 

degree of firing accuracy. The engine was shut down in one step when the rocket 

reached a specific trajectory point and speed, which was measured from the ground 

via radio. The speed was not only measured, but also corrected via radio during the 

straight segment of the trajectory. Regulating the speed by controlling the engine’s 

thrust was a very progressive idea. The weak point of this proposition was the necessity for control via radio from the ground.

We first developed the apparent velocity regulation (RKS) system for a rocket in 

1955, but did not put it to practical use until 1957, on the first R-7 intercontinental missile.6

 However, this system was purely autonomous and did not require the 

presence of a radio measurement system for rocket speed during flight. Currently, 

all liquid-propellant rockets, both for combat purposes and launch vehicles, have 

autonomous RKS systems.

Helmut Gröttrup expressed his confidence in the great merit of the design, which 

contained fundamentally new ideas and proposals. “The confidence with which we 

have put forth our design for discussion is based on the knowledge and experience 

of our colleagues. Accumulated experience provides the basis for the development of 

a rocket, which at first glance seems unrealistic; the range has been doubled without 

increasing the rocket’s size, and in spite of a significant reduction in the number of 

control instruments, the striking accuracy has been increased tenfold.”

The main difference between the G-1 design and that of the A4 and R-1 rockets 

(and our competing R-2 design) was the probabilistic error value, which was on 

a different order of magnitude than what we had in mind. Instead of the Gorizont

and Vertikant free gyroscopes, the design called for a simple and inexpensive singledegree-of-freedom gyroscope, the theory for which Dr. Kurt Magnus had already 

developed in detail in 1941. The control loop as a whole was theoretically designed 

by Dr. Hans Hoch.

Pneumatic control surface actuators replaced hydraulic ones under the rationale 

that “pneumatic energy on board doesn’t cost anything.” Classic Askania control 

surface actuators, on the other hand, required heavy storage batteries and electric 

motors. The number of electrical instruments, connectors, and cables on board 

was sharply reduced. As a result of all these measures, the A4’s structural mass was 

reduced from 3.17 to 1.87 metric tons, and, in so doing, the mass of the payload 

explosives was increased from 0.74 to 0.95 metric ton. Taking advantage of the 

newly freed space, they increased the propellant mass. The new design for the rocket 

layout featured a nose section that separated from the body at the end of the launch 

phase, smaller tail fins, and a body fabricated primarily of light alloys.

In conclusion, Gröttrup cited an estimate for the increase in the rocket’s combat 

effectiveness: to completely destroy a 1.5- by 1.5-kilometer area from a range of 

300 kilometers, 67,500 A4 rockets would need to be launched, while from a range 

6. RKS—Regulirovaniye kazhushcheysya skorosti.

of 600 kilometers, only 385 G-1 rockets would be required. These estimates seem 

absurd from today’s nuclear standpoint, but they show how unreal Hitler’s hopes 

had been for the destruction of London using the V-2 “vengeance weapon.”

The general assessment of the reviewers who had first studied the design in 

groups by discipline was positive. In particular, Mishin’s speech was interesting. He 

referred to the Soviet work that had begun with his participation at the Institute 

Nordhausen. “Development of the proposed conceptual design [for an advanced 

A4] began in Germany. Around August 1946 they tasked us with assessing the possibility of modernizing the A4 rocket in order to attain a 600 kilometer range. We 

worked on this problem jointly with department No. 6 (Sömmerda) and department No. 3 (Institute RABE).”

Mishin could not resist describing the rival design to the G-1 of which he was the 

primary author. “We could see two ways to create such a rocket. The first way was to 

create a rocket based on existing designs and the experience gained operating them, 

taking into consideration the actual feasibility of realizing this rocket in metal. The 

second way was to create a rocket based on fundamentally new principles that, in 

and of themselves, require experimental testing. Meanwhile, existing designs would 

be used to an extremely limited degree, requiring a radical restructuring of production.”

In conclusion, responding to statements and criticism, including some polemics 

from Mishin, Gröttrup defended the idea of the forward-looking proposals. “We 

are approaching our task to create a rocket with a 600-kilometer range from the 

following standpoints. This rocket is not the end of the evolution of rocket science. 

That means that we need to design new rockets so that they will also find application in the future evolution of rockets. Therefore, we have adopted a large number 

of new engineering solutions that could promote the further evolution of rocket 

technology.”

In my evaluation, I supported the idea of simplifying the onboard control system 

(housing the instruments in a single location, the aft compartment) and recalled 

that: “the rocket of today has several tens of thousands of wires, thousands of twoway make-before-break contacts, and dozens of relays, potentiometers, etc. The 

operation of all of this equipment, even with well-trained personnel, is extremely 

intricate, both because of the complexity of the electrical system itself, and because 

all of the instruments are concentrated not only in the instrument compartment, 

but in other parts of the rocket and ground equipment... This new design offers 

a real and critical simplification of all the rocket’s electrical equipment. This provides not only an advantage in weight (although ultimately, this advantage is not so 

important), but also an enormous operational gain... It seems to me that this is one 

of the great merits of the design.”

Responding to the numerous critical remarks on the lack of calculations and

theoretical foundations, Gröttrup made a statement referring to the experience of 

Peenemünde. In this mission statement, he said:

“Using our method to evaluate the design it is quite sufficient to present theoretical 

principles. During the design process, we can update and confirm the theoretical prin-
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ciples via experimentation. Ours is an industry that demands an article be fabricated 

within specific deadlines and, of course, we are not in a position to conduct theoretical 

work on a large scale.

Therefore, as development progresses, we derive theory from experimentation. Essentially, theory should help to find the right direction for the experiment. Scientific-research 

institutes should provide the requisite textbooks for fundamental physics research. Many 

cases show that an experiment leads more rapidly to the objective and gives better results 

than theory. As one can easily understand, the second possible method requires some 

time. We don’t have much time to develop our rockets, considering the work that is going 

on in the U.S. Nor is this method more reliable. When design theory and experimentation cooperate closely, the end result is reliable and complete. This method—based only 

on theory—has only one advantage: it makes it easier for the customer to evaluate the 

design. But I think that this advantage is less important than the considerable failure to 

meet deadlines.”

Gröttrup’s view was essentially the design doctrine for complex rocket systems of 

that period, but its main features still apply today. Today instead of simply criticizing the speaker for not presenting enough theoretical research, people would ask, 

“But where are the simulation results?” Alas, at that time they did not yet have 

modern simulation methods, nor did they do mathematical modeling using real 

equipment.

In this regard, Korolev’s point of view concerning the procedure for evaluating rockets to make production decisions is also interesting. Immediately upon his 

return from Germany, Korolev began to pester the upper management to speed 

up rocket flight tests. In February 1947, Korolev prepared a memorandum for the 

upcoming discussion of the future plan of operations for rocket technology at the 

government level. Korolev wrote:

“It would be erroneous to think that the realization of the domestic R-1 rocket is a 

matter of simply copying German technology, of just replacing the materials with domestically produced materials. Besides replacing materials and restoring the entire manufacturing process for the rocket components and parts, we should keep in mind that the 

Germans did not bring the A4 rocket to that degree of perfection that is required of a 

product that has been accepted as an [operational] armament.

Our experience studying German rocket technology shows that to solve this problem, 

i.e., to achieve the final optimization of the A4 rocket, the Germans expended enormous 

manpower and resources. In addition to experimental design work, at numerous institutions on a broad scale, the Germans conducted scientific-research work of both an applied 

and problem-solving nature

It is also well known that a significant number of the Germans’ rockets broke up 

in the air, and the causes for this were not determined with any degree of certainty. In 

many cases they did not manage to achieve the required flight trajectory and accuracy. 

There were many well-known cases of failures during launch due to defects in the control 

instruments, propulsion system assemblies and mechanisms, etc

So far, we have not succeeded in conducting tests in flight on the previously assembled 

German production models and, consequently, we do not even have a complete understanding of the design.

All of this and many other issues must be extensively studied and tested in our scientific-research facilities, institutes, factories, on test benches, and at test ranges during the 

development and fabrication of the first batch of domestic R-1 rockets. 

To do this, first of all, we need to conduct flight tests on existing A4 rockets that have 

been lying in storage for a long time at the NII. This will give us the necessary practical 

experience and will generate a whole series of new tasks for everyone working in the field 

of long-range rockets

Right now we need to start equipping the launch pads and flight paths at the test 

range to conduct flight tests and we need to build a test rig near the test range...”

Decisions were made based on Korolev’s memorandum. We set up experimental 

rig tests and conducted A4 rocket flight tests at the State Central Test Range in 

Kapustin Yar. I have already talked about this in the preceding chapter. It never 

even occurred to anyone to argue with Korolev or try to prove that the experiments 

should not be conducted and that we should focus on theoretical designs and then 

determine the fate of the R-1 rocket.

But in the case of the G-1 design, in spite of the Germans’ sufficiently convincing arguments, the NTS decided not to hurry with decision-making. Moreover, 

there were not only technical issues but others as well that the majority of us did not 

utter out loud. Here is an excerpt from the NTS decision:

“The report on the G-1 rocket design contains a number of interesting, fundamentally new designs for the rocket’s individual structural assemblies. On the whole the 

design merits approval. Of particular interest is the rocket control system used in the 

design, which solves the problem of improving the grouping capability compared with the 

A4 rocket. However, the reports and the subsequent discussions show that many critical 

control system assemblies have not yet been optimized and do not meet the requirements 

of the draft plan... The idea of separating the warhead from the body of the rocket is a 

new one and deserves approval, as does Mr. Gröttrup’s proposal to conduct experimental 

optimization of the payload on A4 rockets... The load-bearing propellant tanks constructed of light alloys might substantially lighten the structure of the G-1 rocket’s middle 

section compared with the A4... The design of the G-1 (R-10) propulsion system makes 

it possible to simplify the general layout of the propulsion system, to reduce its weight 

and its dimensions... Driving the turbine with gases from the combustion chamber 

certainly requires experimental testing... Before the development of the rocket’s detailed 

design, individual experimental models of the aforementioned G-1 assemblies need to be 

fabricated and tested under test rig conditions... We need to speed up in every possible 

way the more detailed development of the control system as a whole and its fundamental 

assemblies all the way to the mockup phase, and subject the design of the radio equipment 

to an authoritative expert review... We also need to expedite follow-up on the theoretical 

and experimental principles of the design and speed up its further development in drawings so that at the next regularly scheduled NTS plenary session we can once again hear 
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a presentation of the rocket’s draft plan.”7

In theory, Gröttrup and his staff had no reason to protest the NTS decision. But 

in reality not only the NTS, but the management of the institute and Ministry of 

Armaments, at whose insistence this project had been implemented, found themselves in a very difficult situation.

Sergey Vetoshkin’s position was revealing in this regard. In the Ministry of Armaments he was the chief of the main directorate which had authority over NII-88, 

and he was basically Minister Ustinov’s right-hand man, managing the development 

of rocket technology.8 I became acquainted with Vetoshkin back in Germany. He 

had flown in as a member of Marshal Yakovlev’s commission. We had the highest 

regard for his genuine sophistication and intelligence, his ability to listen attentively to advocates of the most diametrically opposed technical points of view, his 

kindness, and his striving to delve, not just nominally, but into the essence of the 

most complex scientific and technical problems, and finally, his amazing capacity 

for work and unselfish devotion to our cause.

I also felt that he was well disposed toward me from our initial acquaintance. 

Time and again he candidly expressed his views and prognoses on the development 

of our technology and was also intent on getting my candid, rather than formal, 

observations.

One of these conversations took place soon after Gröttrup’s defense of his design 

described above. Vetoshkin and I were squeezed into the aft single-seat cabin of a 

Po-2 airplane that served us at the test range in Kapustin Yar. When neither time 

nor automobiles were available to get from the special train where we lived to the 

launch site and back, sometimes we availed ourselves of this “air taxi.”

On this particular occasion after takeoff, being to a certain extent an “aviator” 

because of my previous work, I noticed an unusually vigorous rocking of the aircraft’s wings. Usually pilots would do that at low altitude to greet someone. I happened to glance at the wings that the pilot was “waving” so intensely, and I saw that 

the ailerons for roll control were clamped in control surface locks. These control 

surface locks were supposed to be latched on the ailerons and rudders after landing 

to prevent buffeting by the wind. In his haste, our pilot, evidently, forgot to remove 

them before takeoff and took off with them still clamped to the ailerons. I decided 

to keep quiet until we landed and not upset Vetoshkin. Thankfully the entire flight 

only took 10 to 12 minutes. The pilot made a long approach into the wind to the 

landing area near our special train and we touched down successfully. When we 

7. The “draft plan” (eskiznyy proyekt) of a project typically denoted a document (usually several 

volumes long) that substantiated in detail the overall design of the system in question. Once designers 

signed off on the draft plan, they would then produce subsequent technical documentation for 

production to experimental workshops.

8. This was the Seventh Main Directorate of the Ministry of Armaments, one of many in the 

ministry overseeing weapons development.

had gotten out of our cramped cabin, I showed Vetoshkin the control surface locks, 

which did not look at all like they belonged on an airplane, and congratulated him 

on our successful landing, telling him that we could have ended up in the hospital 

because of that. Sergey Ivanovich decided to point this out to the pilot, but when 

we showed him the ailerons he smiled, unfazed, and said, “That’s nothing, we’ve 

flown with worse.”

After that, Vetoshkin asked me to drop by his compartment for some frank conversation over a glass of strong tea. After the “blowout” at the launch pad, after one 

more failed rocket launch attempt, this was very tempting. Over tea in the warm 

compartment he asked me straight out, “Boris Yevseyevich, you started all of this 

activity in Germany. You organized the Germans’ work. You know better than I do 

what they are capable of. And now they are here with us designing a new rocket, 

with your help, incidentally. How do you envision the future course of this work? 

You and I heard them out at the NTS. There was quite a bit of criticism, and it was 

all useful and interesting. But the main issue that continues to haunt me and that 

Dmitriy Fedorovich castigated me out about is—what to do with the design of the 

[G-1] rocket? After all, the Germans can’t create it by themselves on that island.”

The issue was not a simple one. Lately, especially after the meeting with the Germans at the NTS in September, I had been mentally scrolling through all sorts of 

alternatives for the subsequent process of combining our operations in order to utilize the creative potential of the specialists we had brought in from Germany. It was 

not just the official, but also the moral, weight of responsibility for their fate that 

haunted me. Nevertheless, I did not see any real prospects for the German collective 

to work effectively on the design they had proposed. Out of political and security 

considerations, no one would allow us to create a mixed Soviet-German collective 

at NII-88 like the one we had in Germany. But even if they did give us permission, 

whose design would be developed there and who would be the chief designer? That 

Korolev would work under Gröttrup was absolutely out of the question. And if 

Gröttrup worked under Korolev? This too was unrealistic, because Korolev would 

immediately announce, “Why? We can handle it ourselves.” In other words, we 

needed to set up two parallel design bureaus conducting parallel work. But this 

was beyond the powers of our institute and our subcontractors, especially because 

Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin would not implement the new ideas contained in the G1 design, not because the Germans had proposed it, but because they also wanted 

to be the authors of their own developments and systems. Both Ryazanskiy and 

Pilyugin, with whom I had very good relationships, viewed the A4 and its domestic 

reproduction, the R-1, as practice, above all for technology, production, and setting up a domestic control systems industry. Then they dreamed of creating their 

own systems. In this regard, they shared Korolev’s general attitude. In other words, 

we needed to use the Germans’ experience and those ideas that they expressed in 

our subsequent work, and then, unless relevant decisions were conveyed from the 

very top, gradually send them home. Those were approximately the thoughts that I 

expressed to Vetoshkin.
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He agreed with what I had said, but alluding to Ustinov’s opinion, he said that 

the availability of a creative staff of German specialists should serve as a stimulus for 

our work. “After all, it is still unclear precisely what rockets we are going to need. 

We have no one to fight against using A4 rockets. And even if we double its range, 

it doesn’t matter, because nobody needs it in a war. But we will certainly make it. 

Otherwise there will be no industry. And without factories, all the science in the 

world won’t help us.”

I left Vetoshkin, having thanked him for the tea, sugar, cookies, and frank conversation. Having crossed over to my two-berth compartment, I woke up Viktor 

Ivanovich Kuznetsov, who would later become a twice-recognized Hero of Socialist 

Labor and academician. A bust of Viktor Ivanovich now stands near his institute on 

Aviamotornaya Street. Over quite “allowable” portions of “Blue Danube”—that’s 

what we called the 70% alcohol tinted with manganese crystals that we filled the 

rockets with—I told Viktor about my conversation with Vetoshkin and asked for 

his opinion. Soon thereafter a terribly worn out Voskresenskiy, who had just arrived 

from the launch pad, knocked at our door and entered.

The conversation continued among the three of us. Voskresenskiy expressed some 

really prophetic thoughts: “Sergey (as he called Korolev) wants to be the autocratic 

master of the problem. I have studied him better than you have. And he will be able 

to do it. For him the Germans have already done their job, and he doesn’t need them 

any more. But the authorities are afraid of Korolev. They need a counterweight, and 

so for the time being we will pretend that we are interested in the German design. 

No matter what clever thing the Germans might propose, Sergey, Mikhail, and 

Nikolay will still do things their way. So there is no need to mess around. We have 

to be up early tomorrow, the weather is supposed to be good, let’s say goodnight.”

When we returned to Podlipki in late 1947 after the A4 launches, I once again 

had conversations with Pobedonostsev on that same subject.

In the winter of 1948—I don’t remember if it was January or February—a group 

of colleagues, including my deputy for radio engineering Dmitriy Sergeyev, and I 

set out for the island to—in institute Director Gonor’s parting words—“check how 

the implementation of the NTS decision was going.” During these business trips 

sometimes you got on friendlier terms with people than during the everyday hustle 

and bustle on the job. I really liked Sergeyev, a “kindred spirit” and talented radio 

engineer always filled with a lot of new ideas. He was really fascinated with the 

proposals for G-1 radio control, which embodied new principles that were substantially different from what had been done in Peenemünde, but he had redone a lot 

of things and it was difficult to determine what had actually been done without his 

prompting or direct involvement.

During the aforementioned trip to the island, a meeting and difficult conversation with Gröttrup were unavoidable. In Bleicherode, I was “tsar, god, and military 

commander” to him. The moment he was boarded onto the railroad car bound for 

the Soviet Union, he understood that my authority had ended, and our interaction 

during our meetings in Podlipki and at Lake Seliger was usually rather dry and 

formal.

But this time Gröttrup was very happy about my arrival and announced that, 

whether I liked it or not, he had a lot of unpleasant things to tell me. The gist of 

the rather long speech that he unleashed upon me was that, in spite of the NTS’s 

favorable decision regarding his design, he could not meet a single request listed on 

that document.

The testing that they had been faulted for omitting had not begun and was not 

scheduled on the island, in Podlipki at NII-88 itself, or in Khimki at Glushko’s 

design bureau. In their small, closed collective, alienated and artificially isolated 

from Soviet science and the Soviet OKBs, they continued to work on their design, 

which would be criticized again, because not a single one of its fundamentally new 

proposals would undergo experimental testing.

“They do not give us the opportunity to use your wind tunnels. We want to set 

up experiments on rigs to test our new propulsion system layout, but we can’t. And 

how can we prove that a turbine can actually be driven by taking gases straight out 

of the combustion chambers? That isn’t the kind of system you can corroborate with 

analysis. You need an experiment. The radio system needs test range and aircraft 

tests. But we aren’t capable of making the latest equipment here.”

I do not recall all of the criticisms now, but the list was sufficiently convincing. 

Next, Gröttrup switched to a calm, confidential tone. Although more and more he 

was convinced that he was being deceived, he asked that I, a Soviet citizen whom he 

trusted, tell him candidly what the future held for their work.

It was 1948; could I candidly tell him everything that I thought? I did not dare 

tell Gröttrup what I had told Pobedonostsev, Vetoshkin, and Gonor about the Germans’ work prospects. My reason was both professional and based in concern for 

Gröttrup’s well-being. I did not think that I had the right to kill his hope for at least 

a partial realization of the idea he had conceived. Gröttrup was an engineer genuinely committed to his work. He had lost his homeland, at least for a long time, so 

he assumed. Now, except for his family, his only pleasure and goal in life was the 

interesting, risky, next to impossible, but exceedingly fascinating task of creating 

the rocket that they had not been able to, had not had time to come up with in 

Peenemünde. Even if it was for the Russians. To hell with them. But this would be 

Gröttrup’s and his collective’s creation. Half of Germany was under Stalinist Russia 

anyway. That meant that this rocket could benefit not only the Russians, but the 

Germans as well. In my mind, that was Gröttrup’s reasoning. I must honestly admit 

that I liked him, both as a person and as a talented engineer. He just had that “divine 

spark.”

During that winter visit and one more subsequent visit to the “German island,” 

I acquired detailed knowledge of the work being conducted on the control system. 

Besides Sergeyev, who himself was actively involved in developing a radio control 

system, Kalashnikov also worked with me. He was my department deputy at the 

institute and the lead for electro-hydraulic control surface actuator development.

We confirmed that, in spite of the very primitive production equipment, the 
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system’s main new instruments were manufactured and undergoing testing. These 

instruments included a summing gyroscope proposed by Drs. Magnus and Hoch, 

which had a spherical gyro wheel and an electric spring, an amplifier-converter with 

magnetic amplifiers instead of the vacuum tubes that were used in the A4 rocket’s 

mischgerät, a program mechanism, and pneumatic control surface actuators. Of the 

ground equipment, they were finishing fabricating the launch console and launch 

control system test panel.

Engineer Blasig, experienced from working at Askania, was developing the 

pneumatic control surface actuator. We criticized this project more than any other. 

Kalashnikov especially loved to argue with Blasig. A staunch proponent of hydraulic 

drives, Kalashnikov would not tolerate even the thought of using pneumatic control 

surface actuators on rockets. It is worth mentioning that the subsequent development of both Russian and foreign actuator drive mechanism technology proved us 

right. For a variety of reasons, all large rockets, ours and the Americans’, used only 

hydraulic drives in various layouts and designs.

By late 1948, according to all indices, the G-1 design met the requirements of 

the draft plan. By this time we had returned from Kapustin Yar enriched by our 

experience from the range tests on the first series of R-1 rockets.

Right before the New Year, on 28 December 1948, the large NII-88 NTS gathered once again to discuss the G-1 design. This time it was not Gonor who conducted the session, but acting NII-88 Director Aleksey Sergeyevich Spiridonov. 

Gröttrup’s team of specialists, who had arrived to defend their design, included 

Drs. Wolf, Umpfenbach, Albring, Hoch, Blass, Müller, and Rudolph. Bushuyev, 

Lapshin, Isayev, Glushko, and I were to review the design from the Soviet side.

Right off the bat Gröttrup decided to take the bull by the horns and announced 

that “the majority of the design elements could be considered suitable only after 

thorough check-out and testing...” The new rocket in its draft plan featured additional advantages compared with the attributes reported more than a year before. 

The primary parameter, the range, was not 600 kilometers anymore, but 810! The 

maximum targeting error was ±2 kilometers for azimuth and ±3 kilometers for 

range.

They had thought through some of the more innovative design elements in 

much greater detail and more thoroughly. In particular, the warhead separated from 

the rocket as a result of the difference in aerodynamic forces. Two solid-fuel braking rockets were incorporated on the body for reliability. A single load-bearing tank 

divided into two chambers by an intermediate plate was used for both components. It is worth mentioning that this design proposal was not subsequently used 

in Korolev’s rocket designs. Many years later, V. N. Chelomey made use of it.9 The 

idea of using the turbine exhaust gases to pressurize the alcohol tank was new.

9. Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey (1914–84) was a prominent Soviet designer of naval cruise 

missiles, ICBMs, space launch vehicles, and spacecraft. These included the UR-100 ICBM (and its 

various modifications), the Proton launch vehicle, the Soviet ASAT and ocean reconnaissance satellites, 

and the Almaz piloted military space station.

As he began addressing modifications to the propulsion system design, Gröttrup did not miss an opportunity to upbraid the critics: “We performed theoretical 

calculations in considerably greater detail than in Peenemünde, but of course, it 

would have been much better if, instead of excessively detailed theoretical research, 

we could have performed experiments on a test rig.”

In spite of the criticism at the first NTS aimed at the radio control system, Gröttrup, who had enjoyed Sergeyev’s genuine help and consultation over the past year, 

announced, “A purely autonomous control system is not feasible. We envisioned 

using instruments on the ground that had already undergone numerous tests, specifically radar.” The Germans did not have documentation on our radar, and the 

control department that I directed made all of the primary ground radio equipment 

for the design development. Also among the proposals were further simplifications 

in the ground launching and fuelling equipment.

In the conclusion of his report Gröttrup said, “It seems to me that we can 

acknowledge that we have found a solution to the problem posed, and that the 

R-10 [G-1] rocket, in addition to having an increased range, also has other significant advantages over the A4: a streamlined and inexpensive manufacturing process; 

simplicity of maintenance; and reliability in operation... Even if the rocket was 

not attractive as a weapon, it would be needed as an object for the testing of the 

aforementioned innovations (separating nose section, load-bearing tanks, improved 

liquid-propellant rocket engine turbine, and new control), which are vital for the 

future development of a long-range ballistic missile...”

By way of discussion, all the disciplinary groups reported their findings after 

a preliminary study of the design of the G-1. On the whole, all of the findings 

were positive and amiable. The control group ended up having the most negative 

remarks, which I was forced to read out. I considered the most serious of these to 

be such system vulnerabilities as: the unreliability of the pneumatic control surface 

actuators at low temperatures, the transfer of the last electrical operations before 

launch from an automatic system to a human being, the lack of an operator error 

protection circuit in the preparation automatics, and an increase compared with 

the A4 in the number of “air-to-ground” pneumatic connections. Nevertheless, the 

control group approved the draft plan just as the other groups had. Everyone noted 

that in terms of scope it surpassed the requirements for the draft plan and that it was 

time to make the transition from designs to the realization of all of the stipulated 

experimental work.

One of the fundamentally new features in the control systems design 

procedure was the use of Bahnmodel, the German term for trajectory simulators. In modern terms, this was the first time we had used an electromechanical 

analog simulator. This simulator was, of course, nothing like modern electronic 

machines, but for the first time it made it possible to simulate equations of the 

rocket’s motion relative to its center of mass with variable coefficients and to obtain 

solutions for these equations, taking into account the characteristics of the individual instruments connected to the simulator. The simulator’s inventor, Dr. Hoch, 

announced that it was now possible to conduct a preliminary checkout of the A4 
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rocket hardware before launches. There was no such simulator in Peenemünde. At 

that time, the Germans, and then we, used an elementary simulation involving a 

“Häusermann pendulum,” a simple instrument named after its inventor.

These days, when an engineer is designing a rocket motion control system, simulation is the main way of selecting the system’s parameters at the beginning and 

of performing a control check of the actual instruments at the end of the process. 

Electronic analog and digital simulators have attained such a degree of sophistication that when they are used to solve differential equations of the highest order, the 

results are more credible than the analytical calculations of the most distinguished 

mathematicians. Today simulation is viewed not as a desirable process of design 

and of the subsequent optimization of the control systems of any class of rocket, but 

rather but as necessary and mandatory. In this sense rocket technology instigated 

the evolution of a new and progressive method for the development of complex 

systems and has had considerable influence on many other fields of science and 

technology.

At least two ideas that were brought to the point of engineering realization and 

experimental testing belong to Dr. Hoch. These included one of the first electromechanical simulators in the Soviet Union and a simulating gyroscope. The latter 

development was a joint effort with Dr. Magnus.

Unfortunately, Dr. Hoch’s very productive work was cut short. His reputation 

extended beyond the confines of our NII and reached the organization where air 

defense rocket control systems were being developed. Sergey Beriya, son of the allpowerful Lavrentiy Beriya, had been appointed chief designer there.10 Without 

asking for approval, the leaders of this organization could transfer anyone from anywhere to work there. They transferred Dr. Hoch to work for young Beriya. According to rumors that reached us, he had settled down there quite well, was having 

great success on the job, and had asked to become a full-fledged Soviet citizen. But 

suddenly he ended up in the hospital, where he died after an operation as a result of 

purulent appendicitis.

The discussion process in the NTS was not without a curious dispute. 

The person who caused a ruckus was an NII-88 consultant on issues of motion stability who was head of the department of celestial mechanics at Moscow State University, professor of mathematics from the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Academy, Engineer 

Colonel N. D. Moiseyev. He was an exceptional polemicist, a brilliant lecturer, and 

vocal about his militant intolerance toward those displaying “dissident tendencies” 

in science.11

10. This was the Special Bureau No. 1 (SB-1) organization, established in 1947 in Moscow to 

develop air defense weapons. In 1950, SB-1 became Design Bureau No. 1 (KB-1), one of the most 

secret Soviet weapons design organizations. It was tasked with developing a foolproof air defense 

system around Moscow to protect against American strategic bombers.

11. In other words, Moiseyev supported the Communist Party’s position on strong ideological 

control over Soviet science.

This time he plunged into a debate, first with the design reviewer regarding 

automatic stabilization systems and then with Dr. Hoch in connection with the 

praise directed at the new simulator. Hoch believed that the simulator could do in 

several hours what mathematicians took months to calculate. And even after years 

of incredibly complex work the mathematicians would be less reliable. In response 

the reviewer wrote, “...elements of the control system are presented in metal. The 

control system proposed in this design is new and original.”

Regarding this same section of the design Moiseyev, on the other hand, declared, 

“The section devoted to the analysis of stability during the active and passive flight 

segments was not satisfactorily developed... The procedure used in the German 

studies of freezing the variable coefficients and analyzing the signs of the real components of the roots of characteristic equations was inadmissible, as the research of 

Soviet scientists has shown.” Here he was speaking not about Soviet scientists in 

general, but specifically about Moiseyev’s work on the “theory of technical stability.”

Later he said, “I offered Dr. Hoch an example of linear differential equations 

with variable coefficients. About a week has passed since I gave him this example. 

However, so far we do not have a solution from Dr. Hoch for this simple example 

using the Bahnmodel.... As a stability theory specialist, I believe that... coefficient 

freezing and all of that is the kind of thing that, in 1948, is simply not worth writing 

about in scientific reports to be submitted to serious scientific institutions.”

Regarding this position, Viktor Kuznetsov, who was well aware of the danger of 

overestimating the value of multistage theoretical calculations when working with 

gyroscopic systems, could not refrain from making this ironic statement: “Professor 

Moiseyev said that the theoretical grounds were insufficient. For us designers, on 

the contrary, what’s important is the experimental method, which no calculation 

can replace, and the availability of such a method is a great achievement. Sergeyev, 

who had spent many days working on the island during the development of the 

design, was more blunt in his speech. “I think it is better to use the Bahnmodel than 

to write very complex equations as is the way in 1948 and end up with no rocket.” 

Shapiro, another notable Moscow professor from another military academy, the 

artillery academy, supported Moiseyev’s opponents. “Considering that we are taking 

hundreds of aerodynamic coefficients with insufficient accuracy, I think that we 

need to have a sense of proportion and understand that mathematical methods 

must be in keeping with the degree of accuracy of those parameters, particularly 

aerodynamic ones, that we know.”

Moiseyev’s attacks did not disturb Dr. Hoch. He responded that in his report to 

the group he had already cited an example of a solution for the system of equations 

that convincingly showed the insubstantial effect of the coefficients’ variability. But 

the main advantage to his method was the use of the actual equipment, which could 

not be described with precise equations in theoretical studies. “If you look at any 

electrical instrument, you will see tolerance values for all of its resistors. I cannot 

order production to fabricate resistors with absolute precision.”

And as far as the examples that Professor Moiseyev proposed for solution on the 
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Bahnmodel, he commented, “Unfortunately they transported this precise measuring 

instrument as if it were a sack of nails, so it doesn’t have the accuracy it once did... 

I would like to remind you of a case in which Helmholtz once theoretically proved 

to Otto Lilienthal that human flight was altogether impossible.”12

After long-winded squabbling with one another, in his final wide-ranging speech 

Professor Moiseyev decided to divide the blame between his Soviet and German 

opponents. “Dr. Hoch is undoubtedly an intelligent worker and he undoubtedly is 

conscientious in his work. One can clearly sense this from the diligence with which 

he has approached the solution of the problem... This department’s advocacy of 

a simplistic treatment of theory and allowance for theoretical weakness is a gross 

error, and this error has its political significance... Comrade Shapiro is profoundly 

and fundamentally misguided, demonstrating his complete ignorance of elements 

of stability theory... The fruits of the simplification efforts of comrades Kuznetsov, 

Sergeyev, and Shapiro were immediately apparent. The authors of the design picked 

up their simplistic approvals and also began to defend what they had been forced to 

admit at NTS group reviews.”

I am giving such a detailed account of the polemics at the NTS because at that 

time, even scientific problems that were far removed from politics and ideology,

such as matters of rocket stability, could acquire political overtones.13

A sudden and unwelcome was not unimaginable.... a German scientist in a new 

secret rocket institute not only argues with a Russian professor and colonel, but even 

receives support from Soviet scientists, including Professor Shapiro, who was also a 

colonel and a Jew. The accusation that Moiseyev advanced (“this error has political 

significance”), at that time could unceremoniously turn into an affair that could end 

not only in loss of work, but also in an investigation by the security agencies to see 

if there were not something along the lines of a conspiracy there.

But by and large, the institute’s staff of engineers and scientists did not support 

Moiseyev’s line or similar attempts to insert political ideology into purely engineering problems. The general course of the discussion was friendly, but Glushko, Pobedonostsev, Bushuyev, and Mishin had consulted beforehand with Korolev and had a 

sense of the mood in the ministry. They were sure that the [German] rocket design 

on the whole could not be implemented.

In his closing remarks, Gröttrup expressed himself unequivocally. “Without 

12. The account here is somewhat garbled and probably refers to an episode involving Herman 

Ludwig von Helmholtz (1821–94), the great German scientist, who pronounced in the 1870s that 

human flight powered by muscles was probably an impossibility. Otto Lilienthal (1848–96) was the 

famous German pioneer in the human conquest of the air, whose book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage 

der Fliegekunst [Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation], published in 1889, greatly influenced the Wright 

Brothers’ early designs.

13. Here, Chertok is once again referring to the broader cultural trends of Zhdanovshchina [“time 

of Zhdanov”] and anti-cosmopolitanism promoted by the Soviet Communist Party in the late 1940s 

and early 1950s, when many fields of intellectual inquiry were hostage to ideological interference and 

distortion.

experimentation it is impossible to develop this design... The experiments are not 

simple, because in some instances we are dealing with tests of designs based on 

completely new principles. For this reason, if these experiments are to be conducted 

at an accelerated pace now, which I and all of the specialists working on this design 

would like very much to see, I request that the delivery of materials and equipment 

be increased accordingly so that experiments can be conducted... We need to completely change the method that we have used to develop this rocket up until now 

and switch from theoretical and design work to broad experimentation.”

Nominally the council’s ensuing decision was quite favorable. It contained all 

the necessary requests for experimental optimization and for the acceleration of all 

activities

The council’s favorable decision was, however, little consolation. Scrapping the 

two-year project—a constituent part of NII-88’s plan—was impossible both practically and for formal reasons. A great deal of resources had been expended for the 

development of the G-1 (R-10) design, which was the basis for work at Branch No. 

1. At the same time, there was neither enough engineering nor enough production manpower to realize a design being developed simultaneously with plans being 

executed under Korolev’s direction.

The further development of rocket technology required the concentration of 

efforts in a single decisive area. The conditions that had been created at that time 

had already made the R-10 design unfeasible. However, work on the design continued throughout 1949.

In October 1949, our institute had already conducted range tests on the R-2E 

rocket—an experimental version of the R-2 developed by Korolev’s OKB—at a 

range of 600 kilometers. At Branch No. 1, work on the [G-1] design that had seen 

so much effort poured into it were gradually curtailed. The German specialists were 

still hearing many promises to begin the experiments, but they lost faith and began 

to understand the futility of their activity.

Air defense guided missiles occupied a special place in the work of the German 

specialists. The goal of this work was an attempt at modernizing the Wasserfall and 

Schmetterling rockets. Chief designers Sinilshchikov and Rashkov conducted this 

work at the main base in Podlipki.14 However, with the transfer of air defense projects to the Ministry of Aviation Industry, where they entrusted rocket development 

to well-known chief designer S. A. Lavochkin, and the development of the entire 

control complex to the new KB-1 organization, it no longer made sense to continue 

14. Chief Designer Yevgeniy Vasilyevich Sinilshchikov (1910–90) headed the NII-88 SKB’s 

Department No. 4 responsible for reproducing the Wasserfall missile. Chief Designer Semyon 

Yevelyevich Rashkov headed Department No. 5 responsible for reproducing the Schmetterling.
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these operations at the Ministry of Armaments.15

During this same period and also under Gröttrup’s leadership, on the island they 

were studying ideas for developing the R-12 (G-2) rocket with a firing range of 

2,500 kilometers and a warhead with a mass of at least 1 metric ton. They intended 

that this rocket be developed immediately after the R-10 was put into production. 

The propulsion system for this rocket was to be constructed as an assembly of three 

R-10 engines, for a total thrust of over 100 metric tons. For the first time, this 

design called for doing away with gas-jet control fins. Loss of thrust in the propulsion system—because of the gas-dynamic resistance of the control fins standing in 

the stream of the hot gases—was thus eliminated, consequently increasing control 

reliability. One should note that no such proposals had been made while we were 

working in Germany. Eight years later we completely did away with graphite gasjet control fins on the famous R-7 intercontinental missile. In the R-12 design, the 

Germans proposed that control be carried out by changing the thrust of the engines 

arranged along the periphery of the tail section at an angle of 120 degrees. More 

than 20 years later, we implemented a similar idea on the N-1 “lunar” rocket. If I am 

not mistaken, these were the only examples of the control of a heavy rocket using 

that method. But the R-12 did not go any further than a paper report, and work on 

the N-1 was curtailed in 1974 after four failed launches. All modern liquid-propellant rockets are controlled by special control engines, jet nozzles, or hydraulic drives 

rotating the primary engines relative to the rocket’s body.

In addition to the detailed conceptual design of the R-10 rocket with a range of 

800 kilometers and the proposal for the R-12 rocket with a range of 2,500 kilometers, the Germans had performed preliminary calculations for more forward-looking designs, such as the R-13 (G-1M) rocket, which was an R-10 body augmented 

by a propulsion system from an A4, the G-4 (R-14) ballistic missile, and the G5 (R-15) cruise missile, with a range of 3,000 kilometers and a payload of three 

metric tons. All of these developments were in the stage of layout drawings and 

calculation of basic parameters. In terms of depth of developmental work they were 

inferior to the Peenemünde A9 and A10 designs and to the Sänger intercontinental 

rocket-bomber. The Germans conducted this work without having the opportunity 

to consult with Soviet specialists. Our similar work on long-range plans was strictly 

classified, and we did not have the authority even to discuss these subjects with the 

Germans.

In the same period, we were moving ahead with research on the R-3 

missile, one of the most important stages in the development of Soviet long-range 

15. In August 1951, the Soviet government transferred all tactical air defense and winged missile 

projects from the Ministry of Armaments to the Ministry of Aviation Industry. As part of the move, 

projects from NII-88 were moved to aviation-based organizations such as OKB-301 led by Semyon 

Aleksandrovich Lavochkin (1900–60) and KB-1 led by Amo Sergeyevich Yelyan (1903–65).

missiles in the postwar era. Work on the R-3 plan began, under Korolev’s supervision, as early as late 1947. The intention was to conduct broad-scale research for the 

development of a rocket with a range of at least 3,000 kilometers. To this end, four 

basic rocket design layouts were accepted for review: normal ballistic (BN), staged 

ballistic (BS), normal winged (KN), and staged winged (KS).16 Primary attention 

was devoted to work on the BN layout. As for the winged layouts, simultaneously 

with work being conducted at NII-88, work on them had begun to a significant 

extent under the influence of Sänger’s report as early as 1945 at NII-1 under Bolkhovitinov and was developed on a broader scale when Keldysh became the NII-1 

director.

Work had been conducted on the R-3 design as part of the cooperation that had 

already taken shape during 1947. Korolev’s KB was in charge of developing the conceptual design. Engines were being developed simultaneously in two organizations, 

at OKB-456 by Chief Designer Valentin Glushko and at NII-1 of the aviation 

industry by Aleksandr Polyarnyy.17 Control system design as a whole was assigned 

to NII-885 headed by Mikhail Ryazanskiy and Nikolay Pilyugin. A competitive 

version of the radio-control system using a gyro-stabilized platform was being developed at the same time under the supervision of Boris Konoplev at NII-20 (in the 

radio unit) and at NII-49 (in the gyroscope unit).

Korolev personally supervised all of the work on the R-3 plan. He took on the 

responsibility for the content of the first volume of the draft plan, “Principles and 

Methods for Designing Long-Range Rockets.” The entire design, which consisted 

of 20 volumes, not counting the tens of volumes and reports by subcontracting 

organizations, was completed in June 1949. In this work, I devoted a great deal of 

attention to the development of a stellar navigation system, on astro-correction for 

autonomous control systems, and above all, for winged versions that required control along the entire flight path. I will describe this in greater detail later.

On 7 December 1949, NII-88 held a meeting of its scientific-technical council, 

during which it examined the draft plan of the R-3 rocket, engines and control 

system. This meeting was held a year after the discussion of Gröttrup’s R-10 design; 

it finally shut off the prospects for the development of the German version.

The R-3 draft plan was approved on the whole, but at the same time the council 

noted the tremendous complexity of the problem that had been posed and its “scale, 

which was unusual for our field.” These words from Korolev’s memorandum show 

his understanding of the need for a systemic approach and a concentration of great 

effort on a common targeted objective. In his memorandum, upon completion of 

the R-3 draft plan, referring to the organization of operations, Korolev concisely 

formulated the organizational principles for operations on such a scale:

16. BN—ballisticheskaya normalnaya; BS—ballisticheskaya sostavnaya; KN—krylataya normalnaya; 

and KR—krylataya sostavnaya.

17. Aleksandr Ivanovich Polyarnyy (1902–91) was a liquid propellant rocket engine designer who 

had worked together with Korolev in the early 1930s at the amateur GIRD group.
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“[We must] conduct a set of large-scale measures in various fields of industry, resulting in a significant improvement in quality in the field of technology associated with the 

development of the R-3;

[We must] set up operations so that individual organizations and groups would not 

be actively working on the R-3 rocket, but R-3 development would be handled by the 

country’s best, with as great a workforce as is required...

In order to attract the very best technical staff, a number of material conditions need 

to be provided. One of the most important of these is the provision of housing and material support... To a significant degree, [we must] expand and strengthen the experimental 

base for the new technology, find the capital investment needed to reequip it... Entrust 

the country’s appropriate scientific and technical organizations with a whole complex of 

work and full responsibility for the solution of problems concerning the development of 

the R-3 rocket...

[We must] combine all the specialized organizations currently working on rocket 

technology into a single agency.”

These positions, which embodied the mission as seen not only by Korolev, but 

also by his colleagues on the famous Council of Chief Designers, essentially defined 

the requirements on a national scale for the subsequent rocket technology development program. Common sense, however, suggested that even 3,000 kilometers was 

not the range that our rockets needed. The R-3 design was a jumping point for a 

program of long-term operations. It took five years before such a program began to 

be realized on a national scale, when work was launched on a broad scale to develop 

the R-7, the first intercontinental missile with a thermonuclear warhead.

In 1950 the nature of the work conducted by NII-88 Branch No. 1 

changed. The Ministry of Armaments officially decided to halt further work on the 

design of long-range rockets in the German workforce. This decision was prompted 

by the perfectly understandable pessimistic moods of the Germans, the lack of faith 

in the purpose of their further work, and their loss of creative enthusiasm. The gap 

between the problems posed in 1947 and the actual capabilities for solving them 

was so obvious by 1950 that promises to correct the situation inspired little of the 

confidence required for work. As I mentioned earlier, for further productive work 

on the development of rockets, the main thing was that we needed to allow the 

German specialists to participate in joint work in all areas of our cooperation. But 

this would have involved “revealing state secrets.” The island’s isolation led to an 

ever increasing gap between the German scientists’ level of knowledge and experience and that of the specialists from the “mainland.”

To keep the collective busy, they came up with a list of minor odd jobs of various 

disciplines, which for one reason or another were not suitable to be performed on 

the main center of NII-88 at Podlipki. Among these projects were control system 

instruments, measurement instruments, and the optimization of the Bahnmodel. 

The latter very timely work, unfortunately, did not receive the proper development 

because of the departure of the primary author, Dr. Hoch, to another organization.

In October 1950, all work at Branch No. 1 of a secret character was terminated 

and the future stay of the German specialists in such a location and with its associated status lost any meaning. Earlier, on 13 August 1950, the USSR Council of 

Ministers made a decision concerning the further use of the German specialists. 

This decision regulated the conditions for the return of the German specialists to 

Germany. Those desiring to leave in the next two years could exchange their savings 

in rubles for German Democratic Republic marks; a worker would receive 75% of 

his wages and each member of his family, 25%. The trip home, transport of baggage 

to the border, and special passenger and freight cars were provided.

This decision obliged the Soviet Supervisory Commission in Germany to provide free passage to the German specialists and their families on German territory 

and ensure living quarters and work for them. Soviet organizations were allowed 

with mutual consent to continue using German specialists to complete projects.

The decision to send German specialists to the German Democratic Republic 

was made at the governmental level. They were sent in several groups. The first 

batch was sent from NII-88 Branch No. 1 in December 1951, the second in June 

1952, and the last special train left for the German Democratic Republic in November 1953. As is appropriate for the captain of a sinking ship, Gröttrup and his family 

left the island last. We received only fragmentary and random information about 

the subsequent fate of the German specialists.

In 1990, at a conference of the International Astronautical Federation 

in Dresden, Mishin met up with German aerodynamics specialist Dr. Albring. 

Their encounter was very warm. Albring reported that Gröttrup had passed away 

and that in the Federal Republic of Germany his wife Irmgardt had published a 

memoir about working in the Soviet Union.18

In spring 1991, while in the Federal Republic of Germany, I got to know Dr. 

Werner Auer, the leading specialist in space gyroscopic instruments. He turned out 

to be a protégé of Professor Magnus. In the foreword to Magnus’ famous Gyroscope: Theory and Application, published in 1971, the editor of the translation wrote, 

“This is a fundamental monograph in which the author exhaustively elucidates the 

main aspects and applications of modern gyroscopic theory, its methods and most 

significant results, in particular those that belong to the author himself.”

Every time necessity compels me to take this well-published book off the shelf, 

I remember the two jolly, young Drs. Magnus and Hoch, in 1947 intently working 

in the laboratory car of the special train at the Kapustin Yar test range, trying to find 

what caused the A4 rocket’s great deviations during the second launch. At that time 

the mood of the German specialists was splendid. At any rate, it was better than 

during all of the subsequent periods of our joint work.

It was not until 1992 that I was able to learn the fate of the Gröttrup family after 

18. The original German language monograph was published in English as Irmgard Gröttrup, 

Rocket Wife (London: Andre Deutch, 1959).
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their departure from Moscow for the German Democratic Republic in 1953. In 

March 1992, the newspaper Isvestiya published an abridged version of my memoirs 

about our postwar activity in Germany and subsequent work of the German specialists in the USSR.19 This series of articles was under the general headline: “Soviet 

Rocket Triumphs Had a German Origin.” Boris Konovalov prepared the articles 

for publication, but he did not coordinate the headline with me. I called Editor-inChief Igor Golembiovskiy and expressed my displeasure with the headline’s tendentiousness. He was surprised at my reaction, but promised to correct the situation. 

And so the last of the six articles in the series appeared under the headline “American 

Rocket Triumphs Also Had a German Origin.” An Izvestiya reader in Hamburg 

with whom I was not acquainted came across the surname of her friend, Gröttrup, 

in the series of articles and asked her if the article was about her father. It turned 

out that Ursula Gröttrup really was Helmut Gröttrup’s daughter. Ursula wanted to 

find out more details about her father and decided to travel to Moscow. She flew 

in to Moscow on 7 August 1992 and stayed with a Russian friend of her German 

acquaintance. This Muscovite woman, who had a beautiful command of German, 

also arranged a meeting for Ursula Gröttrup and me.

This was Ursula Gröttrup’s story. She was eight years old when the Gröttrup 

family left Moscow for the German Democratic Republic in 1953. Her parents had 

intended to start to work in the new Germany because many friends had gone there 

and wrote that her father would be guaranteed good work.

But on the platform at the Berlin train station, instead of East German state 

security agents or the Soviet guards that had protected them for almost eight years, 

they were surrounded by young people who turned out to be agents of the U.S. and 

British intelligence services. They were holding passports for the Gröttrups (which 

later turned out to be fake) and used them to prove to the Berlin authorities that the 

Gröttrups had expressed the desire to live in West Berlin. They were taken directly 

from the train station and driven to West Berlin, where they were placed in one of 

the American residences.

After the initial processing of Ursula’s parents, the Americans announced that 

they would create the necessary conditions for their work, but in Cologne rather 

than West Berlin. There was only one autobahn for the journey from West Berlin to 

Cologne through the German Democratic Republic and it was strictly controlled by 

the East German border guards. Apparently, they feared that Gröttrup, who did not 

have the necessary documents, might be detained, resulting in an operational failure 

of the mission, not to mention diplomatic unpleasantness. For that reason they did 

not put Gröttrup in a German vehicle, but in a station wagon with U.S. military 

license plates. These vehicles were not subject to inspection or control. Before their 

19. Izvestiya correspondent Boris Konovalov prepared these publications, which had the general 

title “U Sovetskikh raketnykh triumfov bylo nemetskoye nachalo” [Soviets Rocket Triumphs Had a 

German Origin]. See Izvestiya, March 4, 1992, p. 5; March 5, 1992, p. 5; March 6, 1992, p. 5; March 

7, 1992, p. 5; and March 9, 1992, p. 3.

departure, the raven that Gröttrup’s wife Irmgardt had tamed before their departure 

from Seliger Island—and was carrying in a large cage—became a source of contention. The Americans demanded that she get rid of the bird, but she firmly refused, 

declaring that she was not going anywhere without the raven.

In Cologne they housed the Gröttrups in a separate villa guarded by U.S. soldiers. Released into freedom in the interior chambers of the villa, the raven wasted 

no time before it decorated the rich décor and smashed a precious vase.

Instead of work in West Germany, the Americans offered Gröttrup a contract to 

work on rockets in the United States. He said that he had to consult with his wife. 

Irmgardt Gröttrup declared that she had had enough rocket technology in Russia, 

that she was not going to leave Germany for anywhere, and that she did not need 

America. No amount of persuasion changed their minds; the Gröttrups absolutely 

refused to go to the United State. Six hours later they were simply put out on the 

street in front of their luxurious residence, along with the raven.

Literally out on the street without any means, they lived in poverty for almost 

a year. Finally, after a series of odd jobs, Gröttrup managed to get a good job in a 

department of the Siemens firm in Munich. This was during the beginning of the 

big boom in computer development. Gröttrup proved to be a capable engineer in 

this field, and soon he was in charge of more than 400 scientists and engineers. He 

worked a lot and earned a good living.

Soon Gröttrup appointed a young and very talented engineer as his deputy. Suddenly this deputy was arrested and charged with being a Soviet spy. At the trial 

Gröttrup vouched for his deputy, but they did not believe him, especially because 

he himself had worked for the communists for nine years. Insulted by the distrust, 

Gröttrup turned in his resignation to the Siemens firm and found himself once again 

unemployed. Friends and acquaintances helped him find work at a firm that manufactured machine tools for printing currency and all sorts of automatic machines 

for the banking industry. Already enriched from his experience in computer technology, here he developed the first automatic machines capable of counting paper 

currency, scanning credit cards, exchanging currency, and so on.

He once again prospered and his family lived well. “Father spent the whole day 

at work, and in the evening at his desk he wrote, calculated, and invented. Mother 

spent money, was very eccentric and lively. She used to tell unbelievable stories 

about her life in the Soviet Union.” Her father warned Ursula that a lot of it was 

not quite that way.

Gröttrup could not avoid a merciless killer—cancer. He died in 1981. His wife, 

having obtained the freedom to follow her whim, published her diaries in 1958

under the title The Possessed and the Powerful in the Shadow of the Red Rocket.

20

Not long before my encounter with Gröttrup’s daughter I had the opportunity 

20. Irmgardt Gröttrup, Die Besessenen und die Mächtigen im Schatten der roten Rakete [The Possessed 

and the Powerful in the Shadow of the Red Rocket] (Stuttgart: Steingrüben Verlag, 1958).
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to acquaint myself with these diaries. It turned out that Frau Gröttrup’s imagination 

was focused not on exaggerating her husband’s role or that of the German specialists 

in Soviet rocket history, but on describing utterly incredible events from the time 

she had spent in Moscow, her association with certain high-ranking officials, and 

Soviet figures who had fallen in love with her. In addition, she described her participation in rocket launches at the test range in Kapustin Yar. But she had never been 

there, and everything that she described in her “diaries” was pure, unadulterated 

fiction. I told all of this to Ursula.

It turned out that her mother had died just three years before our meeting. 

Ursula agreed without protest that her mother had invented a great deal—that was 

her nature. Rather than write what actually happened, she could write how she 

wanted things to be. Alas, German readers have no way of figuring out which events 

in these rather lively narratives are true and which ones are pure fabrication.

Finding myself in the Federal Republic of Germany in September and October 1992, at the initiative of German television, I once again met with Gröttrup’s 

daughter, who had already told the German television audience about her father 

against the backdrop of the country estate in the village of Trebra, where I had 

settled the Gröttrups in 1945 after their transfer from the American zone.

What then, on the whole, was the role of German operations in establishing 

our rocket and space technology? Rather than the work that the German specialists 

performed while they were in the Soviet Union, their greatest achievement should 

be considered what they managed to accomplish in Peenemünde and other places 

where they were developing rocket technology before their surrender in 1945.

The creation of a powerful scientific-research base such as Peenemünde, the 

development of the A4 rocket system and its mass production, the beginning of 

work on forward-looking long-range ballistic, cruise, and multistage missiles, and 

the development of various types of air defense missiles, in particular, the Wasserfall—all these achievements would serve as the foundation, the virtual launching 

pad for our subsequent work and that of the Americans.

The organization of rocket development in Germany during the war was an 

example of how a government, even in a difficult situation, was capable of concentrating its resources to solve a large-scale scientific and technical problem.

Doctrine that depended on the effectiveness of an unmanned rocket-powered 

bomber against important strategic objectives was a miscalculation for the Germans 

during the war years. For us, with the emergence of nuclear weapons, it became a 

real hope for preserving peace by creating the equal threat of a reciprocal nuclear 

strike. When missiles and nuclear weapons united into a single force, their use was 

virtually dominated by the two parties that had become locked in the Cold War 

struggle: the USSR and the United States. This arrangement has maintained peace 

on our planet for a long time and continues to do so. Thanks to its integration with 

nuclear weaponry and to its intense technical development, the Germans’ “vengeance weapon” was converted into a real threat of a terrible retribution for all 

humankind, if the latter should lose its senses.

The Germans’ technical experience, of course, saved us many years of creative 

work. After all, Korolev, during his captivity in Kazan, was the only one thinking 

about ballistic missiles. And even then he proposed making solid-propellant ballistic 

missiles, because he did not believe that liquid-propellant engines could provide the 

requisite colossal power.21 But we saw that the Germans had real liquid-propellant 

engines with 30 metric tons of thrust and designs for engines with thrust up to 100 

metric tons. This taught us not to fear scale. Our military leaders stopped looking 

at a rocket as a projectile, for which all you had to do was come up with a little bit 

better “powder” and then everything would be fine. When you think about it, that 

was precisely what had served as the basis of our prewar doctrine for the development of the celebrated Katyusha solid-propellant rocket-propelled projectiles of Petropavlovskiy, Langemak, Tikhomirov, Kleymenov, Slonimer, and Pobedonostsev.

In Germany we learned that a single organization or even a single ministry was 

incapable of dealing with rocket technology. The development of missiles required 

strong, nationwide cooperation. And the main thing was that we needed high-quality instrument building, radio engineering, and engine building infrastructure.

The fact that after a devastating war we mastered and surpassed German achievements over a very short time was enormously significant for the general rise of the 

culture of technology in our country. The development of rocket technology was 

an exceptionally strong stimulus for the evolution of new scientific fields such as 

computer technology, cybernetics, gas dynamics, mathematical simulation, and the 

search for new materials.

From the standpoint of the “human factor,” as they say these days, in Germany 

we learned how important it was to have a solid intellectual nucleus of specialists 

from various fields. The unity generated in Germany was preserved even after our 

return to the USSR, although we were spread out over various ministries. And this 

was not just words or slogans, but in actual fact, despite the sometimes complicated personal relationships between the chief designers, their deputies, ministers, 

military, and governmental officials. Before the historical day of 4 October 1957, 

foreign publications wrote to the effect that the Russians were using German experience and German specialists to develop their rockets. All of these conversations and 

stories ended after the world saw the first artificial Earth satellite. The famous R-7 

rocket, the first intercontinental missile, free of the “birthmarks” of German rocket 

technology, inserted this satellite into orbit. Its development was a leap in new quality and enabled the Soviet Union to take the lead in cosmonautics.

21. In 1944–45, Korolev proposed a series of long-range ballistic and winged missiles known as 

the D-1 and D-2 to his superiors. According to his plans, they were to use solid propellants. These 

proposals were never approved.

Chapter 4

Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

The government decree of 13 May 1946 made the Ministry of Armaments State 

Union Scientific-Research Institute No. 88 (NII-88) the rocket industry’s primary 

scientific-technical, design, and production facility. After many transformations, 

this organization exists to this day, but since 1967, it has been called the Central 

Scientific-Research Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMash).1

I wrote earlier that during the summer of 1946, a high-ranking government 

commission headed by Artillery Marshall Yakovlev visited Bleicherode. Commission deputy chairman (and also Minister of Armaments) Ustinov and acting Gosplan representative Pashkov, before leaving Moscow, had evidently arranged with 

the personnel office of the VKP(b) Central Committee that, upon finishing our 

work in Germany, Pobedonostsev, Mishin, Voskresenskiy, Budnik, Chizhikov, and 

I would be transferred from the aviation industry’s NII-1 to the new NII-88 under 

Ustinov. The decision for our transfer was formulated in paragraph 28 of the 13 

May decree, but we did not yet know that such a decree existed.

This same commission also foreordained Sergey Pavlovich Korolev’s transfer to 

NII-88 as department chief. When they offered him this post and the duties of head 

of the development of long-range ballistic missiles in Germany, he did not yet know 

that he would end up at NII-88, not under the authority of the director, but under 

Special Design Bureau (SKB) Chief Karl Ivanovich Tritko.

The day after our arrival from Germany, after riding the commuter train to Podlipki, I reported to NII-88 for the first time. I couldn’t enter the grounds without a 

pass, so I stopped by the office of State Security Colonel Ivashnikov, deputy director 

for personnel and security. “I have an order on your assignment, but rules are rules. 

Go get the forms and fill them out like you’re supposed to, and bring two photos. 

After you hand in the forms they’ll give you a temporary pass, and then it’s up to 

the director.”

1. TsNIIMash—Tsentralniy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut mashinostroeniya. TsNIIMash, 

originally known as NII-88, remains the leading R&D institute of the Russian space program. It also 

has supervision over the Russian Flight-Control Center (TsUP) at the Moscow suburb of Korolev.

75
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

76

Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

77

with Gonor, although once he even ordered that I be severely reprimanded. In that 

instance, the matter concerned a fire that occurred one Sunday in my department. 

The fire was trivial, but the times were not. The experienced Gonor signed the order 

even before the cause was determined, and called the duty officer at the ministry 

over the “Kremlin” telephone network and reported “The fire was extinguished and 

the guilty parties have been punished.” After forcing me to sign my name to the 

order, he explained that, “It is better to receive a severe reprimand from me than to 

wait for a ministerial order removing you from the job. Should one of your people 

make a mistake, punish them yourself and quickly, in order to report that the ‘cause 

has been determined and the guilty parties have been punished.’ You gain time 

that way.” There was no reason to be offended. This was a lesson in administrative 

leadership.

Gonor’s fate was tragic after his appointment as NII-88 director. In this regard, I 

will allow myself to digress from the chronology to talk about him in greater detail. 

Like Ustinov, Gonor graduated from Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, or 

Voyenmekh.

2

 In general, this institute was the forge that produced the production 

and technology intelligentsia for the People’s Commissariat of Armaments. Gonor 

received an appointment to the Bolshevik Factory in Leningrad, where he rapidly 

advanced from foreman to chief engineer. Thus, he actually became deputy to Ustinov, who was director of the factory. The personal qualities of the chief engineer 

contributed to the fulfillment of Stalin’s immediate task for the mastery of new 

artillery systems for the navy. For this, the Bolshevik Factory, Ustinov, and Gonor 

received the first Orders of Lenin.

In 1938, they transferred the thirty-two-year-old Gonor from Leningrad to Stalingrad, as director of another large artillery factory, Barrikady.3

 Barrikady specialized 

in the production of 406-mm guns for battleship gun turrets, superpowerful infantry guns, and 122- to 305-mm howitzers. The factory had failed the reconstruction, 

and Gonor was supposed to salvage it from collapse. He managed to do that.

There, in Stalingrad during World War II, Gonor showed true heroism, and in 

the summer of 1942, he was among the first six military-industrial leaders to be 

awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor.4 To this day, Director Gonor is recalled 

with greater affection at the Stalingrad Barrikady Factory than at TsNIIMash—the 

former NII-88. During the Battle of Stalingrad, the Barrikady Factory was completely destroyed, and they transferred Gonor to Sverdlovsk to artillery Factory No. 

9, which was being created under the auspices of Uralmash.

5

 For the defense of 

2. In Russian this institute is called the Leningradskiy voyenno-mekhanicheskiy institut (LVMI), 

hence voyenmekh for short.

3. The Barrikady Factory was also known as Factory No. 221.

4. The Hero of Socialist Labor was the highest award for civilians during the Soviet era.

5. The Ural Heavy Machine Building Factory (Uralmashzavod) was one of the largest mining and 

metallurgical enterprises existing during the Soviet period. Since its founding in 1933, it produced a 

huge array of industrial equipment for the Soviet economy and military.

And so my first day on the job was spent filling out forms in duplicate and writing an autobiography. It wasn’t until the following day that I appeared before my 

immediate chief, NII-88 Chief Engineer Pobedonostsev. His office was located in 

the old building of the former artillery Factory No. 88 plant management. This 

pre-Revolutionary building was reminiscent of a monastery with its solid construction and thick walls. Pobedonostsev was very happy that I had finally showed up. 

He complained that people were always coming to him with problems in my field, 

and he already had a full plate. With that, he led me off to introduce me to Director 

Gonor.

Until then, I had seen Gonor only once in Germany, when he arrived as a 

member of Marshal Yakovlev’s commission. At that time, he was in the uniform 

of a major general of the engineer artillery service. A Hero of Socialist Labor star, a 

Stalin Prize laureate medal, and three Orders of Lenin distinguished him from the 

many other combat generals.

Now, as we entered his large office appointed with heavy antique style furniture, 

he was also in his general’s uniform, but of his many decorations he wore only the 

Hero star. We former aviation workers, still coming into our own as missile specialists, had an admittedly skeptical attitude toward artillerymen, and believed that, 

among all the men of arms, only Ustinov understood us. Nevertheless, we were 

going to have to work directly with Gonor and apparently for a long time. For 

this reason, I made up my mind to be obedient and to prepare myself to listen to 

instructions. Instead, what followed were simple questions: “How was your trip getting here? How are your living quarters? Have you been to your department yet?” 

He was clearly happy that I wasn’t requesting an apartment in Podlipki. He lit up 

a Kazbek cigarette and offered the pack to me, to the obvious dissatisfaction of the 

nonsmoking Pobedonostsev. Shifting to current business matters, Gonor made it 

clear that I should quickly organize the work of the department, which was constantly acquiring new specialists, and that I should help Pobedonostsev sort out the 

job placement of the Germans. He said that intensive construction was underway 

for their resettlement on the island of Gorodomlya, and for the intervening three 

months they would live in health and vacation resorts in the vicinity nearby. There 

were very many transportation and domestic issues to be worked out.

“However,” complained Gonor, “we’re having more trouble with your friends 

than with the Germans.” But he did not expand on that subject. When we returned 

to Pobedonostsev’s office, he explained that Korolev and Mishin, especially the 

latter, had mounted an attack on Gonor from the very start, trying to circumvent 

their subordination to SKB Chief Tritko. But Ustinov had approved the NII-88 

structure; everything had been done with the approval of the Central Committee 

office, and Gonor did not have the right to change anything. “We can work with 

him. He’s a reasonable and sensible individual, and Sergey is picking a fight for no 

good reason where he should be biding his time.” This was the first time I heard 

disapproval about Korolev’s aggressive behavior.

Henceforth, I developed a completely professional, business-like relationship 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

78

Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

79

famous Peenemünde center from scratch.7 Moreover, Gonor had to remember that 

NII-88 was the head institute of the new field. He had to combine the ideas and 

production output of engine specialists, guidance specialists, chemists, metallurgists, and mechanical engineers.

During the war, directors such as Gonor truly did accomplish great feats on the 

production front. A factory’s director and chief engineer worked under the threat of 

a military tribunal for failing to meet an armament production goal. Directors of his 

rank were accustomed to giving completely of their physical and spiritual strength 

and their professional knowledge on the job. Incompetence was simply not allowed. 

They were monitored rigidly from above and watched constantly by the factory 

workers from below. The workers could forgive even a strict boss for being demanding if he was as demanding of himself, was interested in everything that affected his 

workers’ living conditions, and showed sensitivity and humanity. Not every director 

possessed these qualities.

Now Gonor had to show his competence in a completely new field. Here he 

could not count on his reserve of knowledge and rich production experience. On 

more than one occasion during business meetings with him, he asked me to explain 

many problems of missile guidance that were incomprehensible to him. Yet, he 

was very helpful during the creation of our first integrated testing laboratory with 

operational test launching and onboard equipment, which included a large demonstrational light board that simulated the missile’s launch process.

By late 1947, this laboratory had already become our pride and joy, and, for 

Ustinov, it served as an occasion to invite high-ranking leaders of the army, who had 

participated in the most recent session of the USSR Supreme Soviet, to NII-88.8

For the first time, I found myself in the role of speaker at a gathering of such illustrious military leaders such as Marshals Zhukov, Rokossovskiy, Konev, Bagramyan, 

Vasilevskiy, Govorov, Sokolovskiy, and Voronov and army generals, whom I shall no 

longer risk listing here.9

Beginning early in the morning, laboratory chief Emil Brodskiy and I checked 

out the entire testing laboratory, and still during every routine cycle one glitch 

7. Walter Dornberger (1895–1980) played a key role in the development of the German A4 (V-2) 

missile. In 1937, he was appointed military commander of the research station at Peenemünde and in 

subsequent years served as the effective manager of the project.

8. The Supreme Soviet (Verkhovnyy sovet), formed in 1936, was the highest legislative body in 

the Soviet Union, and the only one empowered to pass constitutional amendments. In practice, the 

Supreme Soviet was more of a rubber stamp “parliament,” approving all decisions that came down 

from the Politburo.

9. Georgiy Konstantinovich Zhukov (1896–1974), Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovskiy 

(1896–1968), Ivan Stepanovich Konev (1897–1973), Ivan Khristoforovich Bagramyan (1897–1982), 

Aleksandr Mikhailovich Vasilyevskiy (1895–1977), Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov (1897–1955), 

Vasiliy Danilovich Sokolovskiy (1897–1968), and Nikolay Nikolayevich Voronov (1899–1968) were 

a few of the most important military commanders who served the Soviet armed forces during World 

War II.

Stalingrad and his subsequent activity during the war, Gonor was awarded the Stalin 

Prize first degree, yet another Order of Lenin, an Order of Kutuzov first degree, and 

the rank of major general of the engineer troops. On 24 June 1945, he attended the 

famous Victory Parade and the festive reception at the Great Palace of the Kremlin. 

But his most joyful assignment was his return to Leningrad in 1945 as director of 

the Bolshevik Factory, where he had begun his career path.

It seems that, in search of a future NII-88 director, Ustinov was playing a game 

of solitaire—only with people; he proceeded from the premise that, first of all, he 

should be an individual who was unconditionally devoted to him personally. Second, 

he should be a capable organizer, who had gone through a good school of production, “through thick and thin.” And third, his candidacy should be supported by the 

apparatus of the Central Committee and perhaps even by Stalin himself. Postwar 

1946 marked the recurrent rise of anti-Semitic sentiments as per directives from the 

top. But for the time being these were strategic appeals to the masses, who during 

the war had been driven by anti-German sentiments but were rarely anti-Semitic. In 

the defense industry, and in particular in the atomic industry, Stalin and Beriya not 

only tolerated, but protected talented Jews such as Khariton, Zeldovich, and many 

others.6 They were guarded almost like members of the government.

Ustinov took a risk. He bet on Gonor and won. For the forty-year-old engineer 

general, who had outstanding accomplishments and capabilities, Stalin’s confidence, 

and Ustinov’s patronage, a brilliant future was opening up as the director of the first 

Soviet rocket center. At Gonor’s disposal were missile specialists, whom Ustinov 

had persuaded to transfer to work for him. Gonor received an assignment as early 

as 1947 to begin flight tests on the German A4 missiles and, in 1948, to create the 

domestic R-1 missile. The government authorized the recruitment of many for this 

goal, including young specialists, those newly demobilized from the army, and scientists from institutes of the Academy of Sciences and institutions of higher learning; they would be able to work while simultaneously holding their former jobs. 

After becoming director, Gonor immediately created a scientific-technical council 

made up of scientists who had already made a name for themselves in our country.

As an artilleryman, Gonor used to associate with a very tight circle of scientists and military chiefs. Now dozens of individuals whom he hadn’t known before, 

but who were extremely influential people, were asking for permission to visit his 

institute and look at the rockets. The shops and interior of the old artillery factory 

were completely unsuitable for meetings and for displaying the new technology. We 

urgently needed to construct clean assembly shops, a tower for vertical testing of 

the rockets, and demonstration laboratories where we wouldn’t be ashamed to bring 

high-ranking guests and to show that less than a year after the decree was issued, 

we already had an institute. After all, Dornberger was able to create the now world6. Yuliy Borisovich Khariton (1904–96) and Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich (1914–87) were two 

pioneering physicists who played key roles in the development of the Soviet atomic bomb.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

80

Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

81

Gonor was far more demanding with regard to the factory than he was toward 

the scientific and design elite. He was right in his element with production, the 

mastery of new technological processes and the installation and reconfiguration of 

equipment. During the prewar and war years, directors of his level went through 

a sort of “production academy” and found themselves in situations that no formal 

education at institutes of higher learning could ever have anticipated.

In 1947, Gonor identified two tasks for the institute. First, we should master 

the technology for the clean assembly and testing of missiles from parts manufactured by us and shipped from Germany. This was the assignment of that very new 

assembly shop where the white lab coats had appeared for the first time. Second, we 

should begin to implement fabrication of missiles from domestic materials according to drawings that the Special Design Bureau had belatedly begun to issue. The 

most important among them were the drawings for the R-1 missile that Department No. 3, headed by Korolev, was issuing.

That year, Gonor traveled with us out to the State Central Test Range in Kapustin Yar to participate in the tests on the German missiles and the following year, in 

1948, to participate in the tests on the first series of R-1 missiles. Here, he was the 

first to appear before the State Commission when production defects were discovered in the missiles. But the most difficult thing for him was supporting the lifestyle 

of all the big shots who did not want to depend on test range chief General Voznyuk 

and counted on the all-powerful, rich director of NII-88.

Relations between Gonor and Korolev were complicated. Formally, Gonor was 

not Korolev’s immediate boss. Special Design Bureau chief Tritko, Gonor’s former 

compatriot at the Barrikady Factory in Stalingrad, still stood between them. But due 

to Korolev’s nature and his ambition, he could not endure two artilleryman bosses. 

Conflicts arose, often over irrelevant and immaterial matters. Korolev sometimes 

went over the heads of Tritko and Gonor to Vetoshkin, Ustinov, and other chief 

engineers on problems of design, new proposals, and relationships with contracting 

chief designers. Such behavior irritated some. On a number of occasions, knowing 

about the special relationship that Pobedonostsev and I had with Korolev, Gonor 

appealed to us with the request: “You know his character better than I. Have a 

little talk with him. Why must we have these quarrels?” We would have little success trying to smooth out conflicts over Korolev’s demands—demands that he be 

granted greater independence, allowed to create his own experimental shop, granted 

privileges in the selection of specialists, and so on. After all, there were also many 

other chief designers of various air defense missiles that were zealously monitoring 

the actions of Gonor, Pobedonostsev, and Chertok. They might view any assistance 

rendered to Department No. 3 as an infringement of their interests. Complaints 

were making their way to the Party Committee and even to the local Party Municipal Committee in Mytishchi.10

10. Mytishchi is a suburb of Moscow, about twenty-two kilometers northeast of Moscow, close to 

Podlipki (Kaliningrad) where NII-88 was based.

or another occurred. It was Murphy’s Law. The laboratory—which had not been 

designed for such a large number of guests—was cramped when the brass, decked 

out with all their orders and medals, filled the room.

Ustinov began the explanations. With difficulty, Gonor and Korolev squeezed 

through the crowd to join me standing by the console. Both of them wanted to 

intercept Ustinov’s initiative to contribute to the presentation. But suddenly he said: 

“And now our specialist Comrade Chertok will demonstrate the missile launching 

process.”

During Ustinov’s speech the marshals and generals had clearly begun to get bored, 

and I immediately switched to the demonstration, while providing commentary:

“The launch system is automated. Your attention, please! I am setting the switch 

on start! Look at what is happening on the light board. I am monitoring the process 

according to the message boards, and if I make a mistake, the system will not go 

into an erroneous launch. The automatics will reset everything into the initial position.”

Actually, being nervous, I did something wrong, and Brodskiy didn’t have time 

to correct me; the lights on the light board suddenly went out.

“I have just demonstrated that the system is foolproof. And now we will repeat 

the attempt to launch the missile.”

Now I was ready to start again; Brodskiy understood my error and was watching my every move like a hawk. The steam gas generator lit up on the light board, I 

added the turbo pump assembly, and then the ignition began to glow. There went 

the preliminary, then the primary! With gusto I explained that the liftoff contact 

had been tripped and now “look, the engine is producing a full thrust flame—we 

have flight! In sixty seconds, without our intervention, the engine will shut down.” 

Everything went splendidly.

Nevertheless, instead of expressing his gratitude as we expected, Marshal Rokossovskiy loudly exclaimed with a cunning smile:

“But regarding ‘foolproof protection,’ you were just pulling our leg.” I was taken 

aback, but Ustinov kept a cool head.

“No, Comrade Marshal, the entire demonstration was free of deception. I personally have checked out the entire system a number of times both here and at the 

test range.”

The marshals broke into smiles and began to exit the laboratory. They still needed 

to get a look at the rocket in the assembly shop. I told Brodskiy, “When I was sitting 

in the armored car during our first launch, my back was dry, and now I’m soaked.”

He burst out laughing and said, “Me too.”

Those were the kind of guests that director Gonor had to receive. But in this case 

Ustinov personally took on the role of host. To be sure, he later gave Gonor a dressing down because there was mud on the road to the assembly shop. What was he 

to do? We were well into autumn, and instead of snow, a light rain fell incessantly. 

But, in contrast to the factories that some of the marshals had occasionally visited 

during the war, workers in the assembly shop were already working in white lab 

coats. White lab coats at an artillery factory! What nonsense. Gradually there came 

a turning point in the psychology of the factory workers.
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Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

83

Marshall Yakovlev and a number of his GAU colleagues. They were charged with 

deliberate sabotage during the production of the new automatic antiaircraft guns 

designed by Grabin.15 They were all saved by the death of Stalin. Gonor was completely rehabilitated. The government returned all of his awards and appointed him 

director of the Central Institute of Aviation Motor Construction (TsIAM) branch 

in Turayevo, located in the Moscow suburb of Lyubertsy.16

It is difficult to explain what sort of logic governed our high-ranking officials in 

many similar cases. Consider the course of events: a specialist in the field of artillery production technology became the director of what was at that time the largest 

missile scientific-research center in Europe and, perhaps, in the world. Four years of 

managerial work in the field of rocketry provided the wise and experienced Gonor 

with a great deal of valuable knowledge, connections, and contacts and would have 

enabled him to be used to great advantage specifically in that field.

15. Vasiliy Gavrilovich Grabin (1900–80) was a famous wartime designer of guns and cannons. 

Chertok describes his work at length in Chapter 27.

16. TsIAM—Tsentralnyy institut aviatsionnogo motorostroyeniya. TsIAM was (and still is) one of the 

leading Soviet/Russian research institutes doing fundamental research on aviation propulsion.

Shown here are (left) Maj.-General Lev Gonor (1906-69), the first director of NII-88, the 

institute tasked with developing long-range ballistic missiles in the postwar years. Gonor and 

Korolev (right) had a complex relationship during Gonor’s tenure as NII-88 director. In the 

early 1950s, Gonor spent time in prison as part of a wave of anti-Semitic persecution.

From the author’s archives.

Because the government considered rocket development especially important, 

using wartime experience, it sent a VKP(b) Central Committee organizer—instead 

of an elected Party committee secretary—to manage the NII-88 Party organization. Gonor was supposed to find a common language with this man, but this was 

considerably more difficult than at the factories during the war, when everyone was 

united by a single production program and a single motto: “All for the front, all for 

victory.”

At that time, directors mingled with workers at Party conferences, at various 

meetings of Party and managerial leaders, and later at Party meetings in the departments. On these occasions, directors could also come under reverse scrutiny of the 

workers. At such gatherings, a director’s duties included not just giving speeches 

in which he framed pressing problems, but he was also obliged to criticize the 

actions and behavior of senior management. Typically, Gonor was accused of not 

being demanding enough with regard to Korolev, who was not a Communist Party 

member. Gonor was sufficiently wise not to press his luck when it came to criticism 

from the top, especially because the general Party atmosphere was becoming increasingly oppressive. A campaign of anti-Semitism, no longer local, but widespread, was 

spreading under the slogan of “struggle against rootless cosmopolitans.” The more 

accomplished and honored the campaign’s latest victim, the more effective it seemed 

was the victory of the ideological champions of the general Party line.

During the war, Gonor, had been a member of the presidium of the Soviet AntiFascist Jewish Committee.11 When word emerged about the “accident” with committee head Mikhoels, Gonor blurted out during one of its business meetings, “This 

is a very great misfortune. Bear in mind that now a purge will begin in our ministry.12 Our institute is too visible. Our subject matter is very enviable and promising. Ustinov won’t be able to protect us.” And indeed, in August 1950, Gonor was 

removed from his post as NII-88 director and sent off to be the director of an artillery factory in Krasnoyarsk.13

Later, in January 1953, during the infamous “Doctors’ Plot,” Gonor was arrested.14

Almost simultaneously, the security services also arrested our protector Artillery 

11. The Soviet Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was formed in 1942 with the support of the 

Soviet government to help foster support for the Soviet war effort and also to establish contacts with 

supporters outside the USSR.

12. Theater actor Solomon Mikhaylovich Mikhoels (1890–1948) became chairman of the Soviet 

Anti-fascist Jewish Committee in 1941. He was killed in an automobile crash in 1948 while visiting 

Minsk. Evidence suggests that Stalin was directly involved in staging this “accident.”

13. This production facility, Factory No. 4 Named After K. Ye. Voroshilov, was an important 

manufacturer of artillery, mortar, sea mines, and bombs.

14. In January 1953, certain Kremlin physicians, mostly Jewish, were arrested on charges of 

medically mistreating and murdering various Soviet leaders. The Doctor’s Plot served as a pretext for 

a broader society-wide anti-Jewish campaign that was interrupted only by Stalin’s death. See Joshua 

Rubenstein and Vladimir P. Naumov, eds., Stalin’s Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish 

Anti-Fascist Committee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001).
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Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

85

designing long-range surface-to-air guided missiles with a homing head (R-101) 

and for modifying the captured Wasserfall missile (the Germans had not yet completed the acceptance process for it to become operational.).

Department No. 5 (Chief Designer S. Ye. Rashkov) was responsible for designing the R-102 medium-range surface-to-air guided missile and for reconstructing 

the German Schmetterling and Rheintochter missiles.

Department No. 6 (Chief Designer P. I. Kostin) was responsible for designing 

R-103 and R-110 solid- and liquid-propellant unguided surface-to-air rockets, with 

a range at altitude of up to fifteen kilometers, using as a basis the German solidpropellant Typhoon rocket, which had also not been optimized to the point of acceptance as an operational armament.

Department No. 8 (Chief Designer N. L. Umanskiy) was the special department 

involved in liquid-propellant rocket engines using high boiling point oxidizers for 

surface-to-air missiles. It had a test station and an experiment shop.

Department No. 9 (Chief Designer A. M. Isayev) was the department involved 

with liquid-propellant rocket engines for surface-to-air missiles. This department 

was created in 1948, incorporating the personnel transferred from NII-1. Two years 

later Department No. 9 absorbed Department No. 8. I had something to with 

that.

I shall digress in order to describe my involvement in Isayev’s fate. Isayev left 

the Institute RABE in late 1945, and returned to his “home” Factory No. 293 in 

Khimki. By this time, the factory had become a branch of Ministry of Aviation 

Industry’s NII-1.

Let me remind the reader that NII-1 was created from NII-3, the former RNII 

in Likhobory. To this day, the main building of this historical institute, where so 

many “enemies of the people” worked, displays an inscription that in days gone by 

concealed that institution’s activity: “All-Union Institute of Agricultural Machine 

Building.”

In fact, the building really was erected for the Institute of Agricultural Machine 

Building. But in 1933, when, at Tukhachevskiy’s insistence, the Leningrad Gas 

Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) and the Moscow Group for Reactive Motion (GIRD) 

merged, they were given the main building and referred to as the Reactive ScientificResearch Institute (RNII).18

In autumn 1947, when I returned from Kapustin Yar and was deeply involved 

in setting up NII-88, Isayev tracked me down. He was in a terribly gloomy mood. 

He told me that our beloved patron, Viktor Bolkhovitinov, who was the NII-1 

institute’s scientific chief was not getting along with the ministry brass, had given 

up on the whole future of rockets, and was returning to the field of aviation as 

head of the design department at the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy. A new 

18. GDL—Gazodinamicheskaya laboratoriya; GIRD—Gruppa issledovaniya reaktivnogo 

dvizheniya.

But instead of bringing Gonor back to the missile industry, the Central Committee’s defense industry department decided that the aircraft engine building base 

needed to be reinforced with experienced personnel. And so Gonor was once again 

to start from square one and learn the technology for state-of-the-art aviation engine 

building. But his health had already been undermined. He developed gangrene of 

the extremities, and his fingers had to be amputated. On 13 November 1969, Gonor 

died at the age of sixty-three. His name is practically forgotten in Kaliningrad, the 

town outside Moscow for which he did so much in the most difficult early postwar 

years.17

More than likely, not without prompting from the Party Central Committee management, Ustinov approved the NII-88 structure so that the position 

occupied by Korolev in the official hierarchy was not all that high. He was just a 

department chief. And in 1947, the new NII already had more than twenty-five 

departments. From his very first days on the job at the new NII, Korolev’s quest 

for personal authority and to broaden his sphere of activity caused conflicts with 

administrative and Party leadership.

In Germany, Korolev had been the chief engineer of the Institute Nordhausen 

and Glushko, Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, Kuznetsov, and many other civilian and military specialists were under his authority. After Korolev returned to the Soviet Union, 

it was decided that he not be given such freedom and authority. Now Glushko, 

Ryazanskiy, Barmin, Kuznetsov, and Pilyugin stood considerably higher than 

Korolev on the official “table of ranks” because they were directors or “first deputy” 

directors of Soviet enterprises or institutes with experimental factories.

Structurally, NII-88 consisted of three major units:

• a special design bureau (SKB);

• a unit comprising scientific-research and design departments for various 

disciplines; and

• a large experimental factory.

K. I. Tritko was appointed SKB chief. He was the former chief engineer of the 

Barrikady artillery factory. Tritko was a typical administrative director of a wartime 

artillery factory. He had never come into contact with rocket technology or science 

before being assigned to NII-88. The SKB consisted of design departments headed 

by chief designers of rocket systems with the following tasks:

Department No. 3 (Chief Designer S. P. Korolev) was responsible for designing 

the R-1 and R-2 long-range ballistic missiles and for reproducing the German A4 

missile.

Department No. 4 (Chief Designer Ye. V. Sinilshchikov) was responsible for 

17. Kaliningrad is the Moscow suburb now known as Korolev where NII-88 (TsNIIMash), along 

with RKK Energiya, and a number of other Russian defense enterprises are still located.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

86

Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

87

that we would have launched a man into space on 12 April 1961.

In 1948, I was directly involved in augmenting NII-88 with yet another 

group from the aviation industry. In March 1948, Gonor gave me, as he put it, a 

delicate personnel assignment: “Yesterday I had a visit from Professor Karmanov, 

who works in an aircraft design bureau. The chief designer of that KB is Engineer 

Colonel Pavel Vladimirovich Tsybin.21 They are located somewhere in Beskudnikovo. Supposedly, they no longer have any work and they are ready to conduct 

negotiations concerning collaboration. Your job is to see what kind of people they 

have there, get acquainted with the chief designer, and have a discussion with him. 

Don’t make any promises until we have made arrangements here in our own ministry.”

The next day I went to the northern edge of Moscow and barely managed to 

find barracks housing the design bureau that was headed by Pavel Vladimirovich 

Tsybin. Tall, well-built, and blue-eyed Engineer Colonel Tsybin received me cordially. However, when I alluded to Professor Karmanov’s appeal to Gonor, he burst 

out laughing and shouted:

“Boris Ivanovich!”

The same Karmanov who had visited Gonor approached.

“This is Karmanov, but he is still a long way from being a professor. It just made 

it easier to gain access to your director.”

When we turned to business, it became clear that we had many common acquaintances. Above all, it turned out that Tsybin was the chief designer of various gliders 

and before the war, he used to meet with Korolev.

“But in 1938, our association ended. Now I know why,” he said.22

When he heard that I had been involved with the BI rocket-plane, he became 

very animated and said that now it was possible to explain the true cause for the 

death of pilot Grigoriy Bakhchivandzhi, thanks to the experience that had been 

gained using the flying laboratories that had been developed by Tsybin’s KB and the 

flight research that was being conducted at the Flight-Research Institute (LII).23 The 

work was now completed, but its future was unclear.

I announced that I was not leaving “this barracks” until Pavel Vladimirovich 

divulged the mystery of Bakhchivandzhi’s death. The crux of the matter was that, 

having a great deal of experience in glider design, Tsybin had agreed to create gliders 

21. KB—Konstruktorskoye byuro (Design Bureau).

22. Korolev spent six years in various Soviet prisons and labor camps after his arrest in 1938.

23. LII—Letno-issledovatelskiy institut. LII was one of the major Soviet testing facilities for highperformance aircraft. For the history of the BI rocket-plane, see Boris Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 

1, ed., Asif A. Siddiqi (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2005-4110, 2005), pp. 193–200.

director, Mstislav Keldysh, was coming to NII-1 from the Central Aero-Hydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI).19 “He doesn’t know anything about liquid-propellant 

rocket engines, and there is nothing for me to do there.”

I told Isayev about the prospects for NII-88 and went on and on about what 

Minister Ustinov—whom Isayev did not yet know—Vetoshkin, and Director 

Gonor thought of our work. “And of course you know Pobedonostsev very well. He 

will certainly support your transfer!”

Isayev knew how to make radical decisions. In both his personal and professional 

life, he was not afraid of changing course if he had come to the conclusion that he 

was on the wrong one. “Blow my brains out! Why didn’t I think of that before? Why 

was I dragging my feet, what was I waiting for?”

The following day, I persuaded Pobedonostsev to take on Isayev and together we 

visited Gonor in his office. He approved our proposal and immediately telephoned 

Vetoshkin. Having received Vetoshkin’s approval, Gonor requested that I convince 

Isayev and, so that there weren’t any misfires, tell him that the matter had already 

been approved by the NII-88 director and the Ministry of Armaments.

Gonor told us that “Isayev himself must appeal to the Ministry of Aviation 

Industry so that they don’t accuse us of luring specialists away from the aviation 

industry over and above the quota allowed by the [1946] decree.”

Isayev energetically sprung into action, and as a result, in 1948, the two ministers issued an order transferring Isayev’s entire staff from the Khimki branch of 

NII-1 (Factory No. 293) to NII-88.

This decision was important for Isayev’s subsequent fate—as well as that of many 

of his colleagues. At NII-88 an experimental facility was created for Isayev. He rapidly took over work on low-thrust liquid-propellant rocket engines using high boiling point components for surface-to-air missiles, medium-range missiles, and, subsequently, ship-borne missiles. In 1959, Isayev’s team was detached from NII-88 

to become the independent special design bureau OKB-2, which later became the 

Chemical Machine Building Design Bureau (KB Khimmash), one of the country’s 

leading firms in rocket and space engine construction.20

Neither I nor Isayev could foresee that our heart-to-heart conversation in the 

autumn of 1947 would be so fateful for cosmonautics. It has been said many times 

that history does not care what might have been. But if Isayev had remained to 

languish at NII-1, and if he had not accepted my offer, then who would have developed the maneuvering and braking propulsion system for the Vostok, Voskhod, and 

Soyuz spacecraft? Someone, of course, would have developed it, but I am not sure 

19. TsAGI—Tsentralnyy aerogidrodynamicheskiy institut. TsAGI was (and still is) the leading Soviet/

Russian R&D institution in the aviation sector. Additionally, the entire Soviet aviation design bureau 

system emerged from TsAGI in the 1930s.

20. This organization is today known as KB Khimmash imeni A. M. Isayeva (Design Bureau of 

Chemical Machine Building Named After A. M. Isayev).
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Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

89

this?” Kostin’s reply was “Of course, Dmitriy Fedorovich, if you give me about ten 

electricians.”

“Well, I see you’re a bold man,” chuckled Ustinov. Tritko felt comfortable with 

SKB chief designers Sinilshchikov, Kostin, and Rashkov, former artillerymen themselves, and saw them as kindred spirits, more so than he did the initially enigmatic 

Korolev. And besides, Korolev had such a past. If pressure were brought to bear on 

him, then very likely no one would stand up for him. But, it turns out someone did 

stand up for him. Much, much later it came out that in 1946, before the order was 

issued appointing Korolev as chief designer of long-range ballistic missiles, Yevgeniy 

Sinilshchikov’s more amenable and “clean” candidacy had been proposed.26 Ustinov 

had been pressured to pick Sinilshchikov, and he began to waver. After all, why take 

someone from outside the fold if you have your own tried and true people? But 

here again Gaydukov played a role, and not for the last time. He was very familiar 

with the complex structure of the bureaucracy and the personal relationships that 

controlled job placement. He did everything in his power to prevent a fatal mistake, 

and the order appointing Korolev instead of Sinilshchikov was signed.

The second major structural unit at NII-88 was the block of scientific departments under the management of Chief Engineer Pobedonostsev. The primary 

departments were:

Department M, materials technology (Chief V. N. Iordanskiy);

Department P, strength (Chief V. M. Panferov);

Department A, aerodynamics and gas-dynamics (Chief Rakhmatulin);

Department I, testing (Chief P. V. Tsybin);

Department U, control systems (Chief B. Ye. Chertok);

Department T, rocket propellants.

Having received my own department, as well as being deputy chief engineer 

of the institute, I felt a certain degree of independence and on many issues went 

straight to Director Gonor, to Vetoshkin at the ministry, or to the office of Special Committee No. 2. As a result, by late 1947, it was possible to create within 

the department a well-equipped experimental shop staffed with skilled workers, a 

special instrument design bureau, and numerous specialized laboratories. The main 

problem was personnel, but the ministry was not stingy in sending us young specialists and encouraged the transfer of specialists from other enterprises. 

In December 1947, after our return from Kapustin Yar, where the first A4 missile 

firings had taken place, Minister Ustinov ordered Gonor to assemble the Party and 

operations leaders from all of NII-88. More than a thousand persons gathered in 

the club of former Factory No. 88. After Gonor’s brief report on the state of affairs 

at NII-88, Ustinov delivered scathing criticism of the leadership and especially of 

26. In 1991, Korolev’s deputy Vasiliy Pavlovich Mishin revealed that Sinilshchikov had been 

considered for Korolev’s post in 1946. See B. Konovalov, “Iz Germanii—v Kapustin Yar” (“From 

Germany to Kapustin Yar”), Izvestiya, April 6, 1991, p. 3.

in the form of flying laboratories for aerodynamic studies at subsonic speeds.24

“In the wooden glider we reached near-sonic speeds, somewhat exceeding the 

speed of the towing aircraft,” he noted.

The specially designed glider was equipped with a solid-propellant accelerator 

and was loaded not only with a pilot, but also with water ballast. Once it was lifted 

on the aircraft towline to a high altitude, the glider pilot released the craft from the 

towline and dove steeply toward the ground, switching on the accelerator during the 

dive. When the maximum allowable speed was reached, the pilot opened the water 

drainage valve, pulled out of the dive, and went in for a landing in the glider, which 

had dumped almost half its weight. The accelerators made it possible to reach a 

speed of almost 1,000 kilometers per hour during the dive. The glider’s strong wing 

was attached to the fuselage on a dynamic suspension bracket, making it possible to 

determine the primary aerodynamic characteristics Cx, Cy, and Mz and the distribution of pressure over the wing.25

For the first time in the USSR, snapshots were obtained in flight of sudden 

changes in compression, the nature of the airflow over the wings, areas where the 

flow was interrupted, and deterioration of the control surfaces’ effectiveness.

“We conducted many dozens of flights and discovered very hazardous flight 

modes that were accompanied by losses of controllability. Something like that 

happened on the BI when Bakhchivandzhi reached maximum speed,” explained 

Tsybin.

I could have listened to Tsybin for hours. But at that time, having painted an 

alluring landscape of our field, I convinced Pavel Vladimirovich to transfer to us 

at NII-88. A couple of days later, he met with Gonor and then with Vetoshkin. 

The orders of the two ministers were drawn up rather quickly. More than twenty 

of the thirty individuals who had worked at Tsybin’s OKB transferred to NII-88. 

Tsybin himself was named chief of Department I for testing. His deputy was Leonid 

Voskresenskiy. “Professor” Karmanov was put in charge of aiming technology and 

worked at the launch pad.

Let’s return to 1946–47. The list of NII-88 SKB projects, taking into consideration modifications of all kinds, surpassed all the activities conducted at Peenemünde! And all of this was under the jurisdiction of a single chief, a mere artilleryman, Karl Ivanovich Tritko. Officially, Korolev was subordinate to him, as was 

another department chief, Kostin. When asked by Ustinov during the inspection 

of a V-2 in Germany in 1946, “Well, Pavel Ivanovich, can you make a missile like 

24. While working at LII, Tsybin developed two advanced design rocket-planes, the LL-1 and the 

LL-3, to test various innovative wing designs at subsonic speeds. These vehicles flew about 30 and 100 

test-flights respectively.

25. Cx denotes the drag-force coefficient, Cy, the lift-force coefficient, and Mz, the pitching moment 

coefficient.
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Institute No. 88 and Director Gonor

91

Using the facilities of the eliminated SKB, Specialized Design Bureau No. 1 (OKB1) for the development of long-range missiles and OKB-2 for the development of 

surface-to-air guided missiles were established. Korolev was appointed head and 

chief designer of OKB-1. Tritko was assigned acting chief and chief designer of 

OKB-2. Korolev’s appointment was logical and understandable. Everyone interpreted the second appointment, that is, Tritko’s posting, as temporary. Gonor told 

me, “This is so we can catch our breath.”

The most difficult situation of all was mastering the missile technology at the 

factory. The factory was the third, and to a great extent, the defining structural unit 

of NII-88. The factory personnel—management and workers—were steeped in the 

traditions of the artillery factory. We used to joke, “They’re still using technology 

from the times of Peter the Great and Demidov.”27

In 1941, the main part of artillery Factory No. 88 was evacuated.28 In Podlipki, 

for the most part, the work was armament repair. By the end of the war the factory 

was partially restored and had been set up for the series production of automatic 

antiaircraft guns. The factory personnel would have to be retrained. The new technology required a systemic approach not only during the design process, but also 

during the organization of production. The entire missile production process, from 

concept through the factory production process to the firing range tests, had to 

proceed from principles of unity and interdependence in the work of the drafter, 

designer, process engineer, and tester with great external cooperation. Reprimands 

were heard from above and below about the factory’s slow reconstruction. Officially, 

the factory had its own director and chief engineer. But Gonor was still considered 

to be responsible for everything. The chief designers complained that the factory 

was fulfilling their orders slowly and with poor quality.

During the first years working on rocket technology, virtually none of the institute directors criticizing the factory were able to specifically spell out what needed 

to be done to improve the standard of production and to determine the role of each 

shop chief, foreman, and worker. There were too many abstract decisions.

Ustinov’s attitude was merciless toward shop chiefs and production chiefs when 

it came to filth and uncouth behavior. During factory visits, he started with the 

bathrooms. As a rule, in the shops, long before you reached the bathroom, a dis27. Nikita Demidovich Antufyev (1656–1725) (he later took the surname Demidov) was a 

blacksmith from Tula who accumulated great fortune by manufacturing weapons and building and 

operating an iron foundry in Tula after receiving land grants from Peter the Great.

28. Here, Chertok is referring to the massive evacuation of industrial institutions (mostly factories) 

that took place after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Through the end of the year, 

hundreds of factories were literally packed up and moved to the eastern Soviet Union. Like many 

Soviet factory locations, the site occupied by the postwar Factory No. 88 had a confusing history. 

During the Nazi invasion, this site was occupied by Factory No. 8, whose equipment was evacuated 

to several different locations to the east in October 1941. A new plant, Factory No. 88, was then 

established on the evacuated site in December 1942.

the experimental factory for the slow pace of its reconstruction, which threatened to 

disrupt the work schedule for the production of the first series of R-1 missiles.

During his speech he was handed a note, which he read aloud: “Comrade Ustinov, in your speech you praised Chertok for his organization of work on guidance 

systems. But Chertok owes his success to you. You have helped him more than 

others. Help the others and their projects will thrive.” After reading the note, Ustinov replied: “It isn’t signed. But it’s not hard to guess its author. It’s one of those 

individuals who has been criticized today. I am assisting Chertok only because I see 

that his projects are going somewhere and he is solving complex problems. I promise to help each one of you who organizes his work well. And if someone’s project 

is still a mess, then why should I help him? He needs to be removed from the job.” 

Ustinov’s response to the anonymous note did not increase my fan club.

My whole Department U developed good relations with Korolev and his entire 

staff in SKB Department No. 3. We were united not only by our joint work in Germany, but, to an even greater degree, by the missile flight tests at the Kapustin Yar 

test range. There we were testing our characters as well as missiles.

Our relationships with the chief designers of surface-to-air missiles and SKB 

Chief Tritko shaped up quite differently. Tritko and Sinilshchikov were faithful to 

the artillery traditions. Surface-to-air guided missiles were shells to them. They considered that their main task was to produce good drawings so that these shells could 

be manufactured. It was just dandy that there was no need to design the “cannon” 

to shoot them. The missile would accelerate itself to a speed that surpassed that of 

an artillery shell!

Sinilshchikov used to love to say, “My designers in Department No. 4 draw better 

than the designers in the other departments.” It seemed that the most important 

thing was the quality of the drawings, and whether an aircraft would be destroyed 

by a well-drawn missile, that was the guidance specialists’ problem. Their guidance 

specialists worked at the NII-885 institute. There Ryazanskiy had set up the guidance department for surface-to-air missiles with Govyadinov in charge. He was a 

radio engineer coming into contact with this field for the first time. There was no 

qualified director of operations for the creation of the entire air defense missile 

system.

Sinilshchikov and Tritko complained to Gonor and to the Party committee that 

Department U, under Chertok’s management, was only working on Korolev’s projects—ballistic missiles—and was not devoting attention to surface-to-air missiles.

I ventured to tell Pobedonostsev that NII-88 was, in principle, not capable of 

fulfilling two programs: the long-range guided missile program and the air defense 

missile system program. He agreed with me, but who would dare report to the top 

that we were not capable of implementing a task that the decree signed by Stalin 

had entrusted to us?

Many of the conflicts between the NII-88 directors were temporarily eliminated by Ustinov’s order dated 26 April 1950, which was prepared by Gonor with 

Korolev’s involvement. According to that order, the SKB in NII-88 was abolished. 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

92

tinctive “aroma” wafted toward you. In the bathrooms themselves, you had to walk 

through puddles. Ustinov would fly into a rage and thunder, “I can look at a john 

and see what the shop chief is like. Until your johns are a model of cleanliness, there 

won’t be cleanliness in your shops.”

Many years have passed since then. The problem of cleanliness in the public 

toilets at our factories and institutes, however, just as in the country as a whole, has 

yet to be solved. This has proved to be far more difficult than creating the most formidable nuclear missiles and fighting for world superiority in cosmonautics.

To this day, the blatant lack of manners and of a standard for general industrial 

cleanliness and hygiene is one of the reasons for the low quality of many domestic 

articles. During the war and in the ensuing years, concern about elementary comfort in the shops and the creation of a general atmosphere suitable for and attractive 

to workers was considered an excessive and impermissible luxury. Yet, in the end, 

expenditures on cleanliness, comfort, and elementary service were repaid with interest by increased productivity and quality.
Chapter 5

The Alliance with Science

Beginning February 1947, during the first three months of work at NII-88, it 

seemed to me that I was recreating something resembling the Institute RABE in 

the four-story building allocated for my department. The laboratories were being 

stocked with equipment and staffed with artillery specialists left over from cannon 

Factory No. 88, young specialists who had arrived voluntarily after their demobilization from the army, and those ordered by the ministry to join us after graduating 

from technical institutes, universities, and technical schools.

A similar process was underway in all the other departments of NII-88. Officially, 

my direct chief was NII-88 Chief Engineer Pobedonostsev. We had established good 

relations as early as 1944, when NII-3 was transformed into NII-1.1 He relied completely on my experience and did not bother with managerial instructions. Most of 

Pobedonostsev’s time was taken up with a multitude of routine organizational problems concerning the departments of materials technology, testing, engines, aerodynamics, and strength, plus the conflicts that arose in the design bureau.

The new SKB chief, artilleryman production worker and former blacksmith Karl 

Ivanovich Tritko, was not highly esteemed among the chief engineers subordinate 

to him. Each of them demanded independence, priority in production, and direct 

access to the director and the ministry.

Director Gonor’s greatest concern was for factory reconstruction. All of us were 

anxious over both the preparation for flight tests of the V-2 missiles brought in 

from Germany and their production processes. On one of those hectic days in May, 

Gonor requested that Pobedonostsev and I report immediately to his office. When 

we had seated ourselves in the soft armchairs arranged before his enormous desk, he 

leisurely opened a pack of Kazbeks, lit one up, offered the pack to us, and looking at 

us slyly through half-closed eyes, he paused. Pobedonostsev was not a smoker, and 

instead of having a cigarette, without asking permission, I poured myself a glass of 

1. The original Reactive Scientific-Research Institute (RNII), formed in 1933, went through 

several different incarnations. It was known as NII-3 in 1937–42 and then was united with a number 

of other different teams and factories to become NII-1 in 1944.

93
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

94

The Alliance with Science

95

During the first months since our return from Germany I began to understand 

that the situation in Soviet science had changed substantially compared with triumphant 1945. Party and State monitoring of the behavior and attitudes of scientists had intensified. Scientists recruited for work involving the most important 

defense programs were, however, more protected from charges of “servility to the 

West and capitalistic culture.” The scientific community supported proposals of the 

Party Central Committee and ministries on their participation in missile technology projects for three reasons. First, the participation of a scientist in such projects 

was a sort of confirmation of his or her loyalty. Second, this new field of activity 

really was an extremely beneficial field for creative forces freed from routine industrial burdens. And third, participation in “Top Secret” operations strengthened the 

authority of scientific organizations at the regional, municipal, and oblast level for 

solving a multitude of economic problems.3

Aside from these practical factors, the field of missiles attracted true scientists 

with its romantic appeal. Maybe we really would actually achieve the dream of 

interplanetary flight in our lifetime! The war had shown that an inflexible armchair 

scientist stood little chance of achieving great scientific and technical advancement. 

But missile technology promised just such a chance!

The day after our talk with Gonor, Pobedonostsev surprised me. He was 

significantly better informed than I of the general political situation.

“At our upcoming meeting with President Vavilov, keep in mind that he had an 

older brother Nikolay, who was also an academician with a worldwide reputation, 

a famous biologist and botanist. He was elected an academician back in the 1920s, 

while Sergey was elected in the early 1930s.”

I answered that I had heard about the scientific feats of the botanist Nikolay 

Vavilov even when I was a schoolboy. “But why do you say ‘was’?”

“Here’s the deal. God forbid you should mention him. He was repressed. I think 

he may no longer be among the living.”

“So how can the brother of an ‘enemy of the people’ be elected president of the 

Academy of Sciences?” I asked.

“It’s a very complicated matter,” answered Pobedonostsev. “Perhaps by supporting the candidacy of Sergey Vavilov to the high post of president, Stalin wanted to 

prove his objectivity or soften history’s verdict for the death of Nikolay Vavilov.”

“I see. If Stalin supported Sergey’s candidacy, then the academicians supported 

him all the more so. They thereby expressed their solidarity with Vavilov.”

Sergey Vavilov was elected president by secret ballot at a general assembly of the 

Academy of Sciences. This election proved a success for the Academy and for all of 

Soviet science at that time.

3. Oblast is the Russian word for domestic geographical units just below the national level.

sparkling Borzhomi mineral water from the bottle standing on the director’s desk. 

Gonor asked an unexpected question:

“Comrade missile specialists, what, in your opinion, should be the objective of 

higher science in the postwar period?”

I recalled a statement from a philosophy course and answered, “The objective of 

science is knowledge.”

“I just received a call from Dmitriy Fedorovich [Ustinov],” said Gonor, switching to an official tone, “He is not pleased that we have not yet established close 

contacts with the Academy of Sciences. He insisted that we draw up proposals. To 

begin with he asked that we personally acquaint President of the USSR Academy 

of Sciences Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov with our problems. The president will visit us 

next week; probably with a large retinue of scientists. Get ready. Think about what 

to show them and what serious problems to pose before academic science. Keep 

in mind that Vavilov is not an armchair scientist, but a prominent physicist with a 

great deal of organizational experience. During the war he personally managed the 

development of the most complex optical instruments and mobilized the Academy 

of Sciences to help weapons production. According to my data, there are currently 

more than 20,000 persons working at the Academy. Comrade Stalin personally 

supports Vavilov.”

“While you were there in Germany studying German technology, very crucial 

events were taking place here for Soviet science,” continued Gonor. “In July 1945, 

there was a very festive celebration of the 220th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences. I was not present for the festivities, but I have been told that supposedly the 

old Academy president, botanist Komarov, said something wrong, but I don’t think 

that was the issue.2 Iosif Vissarionovich [Stalin] had understood for some time that 

the Academy needed a president who was younger and more energetic and who 

had a closer relationship to industry. A month after the anniversary celebration, the 

Academy’s general assembly elected a new president, Academician Vavilov. Vavilov 

is a scientist, a physicist with a worldwide reputation. He has been reorganizing the 

Academy’s work for two years, and now is precisely the time to get the Academy 

scientists interested in our work. You should have shown the initiative yourselves 

without waiting for ministry instructions.”

I tried to defend myself by indicating that I had already established contact with 

the Academy’s Institute of Automation and Remote Control, but Gonor showed us 

out, having instructed Pobedonostsev to have the appropriate explanatory talk with 

Korolev and Sinilshchikov.

After returning to my office, first of all, I assembled my “inner circle” to report to 

them about the talk with Gonor and to get their ideas about the upcoming crucial 

meeting with the Soviet Union’s foremost man of science.

2. Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov (1869–1945) served as President of the USSR Academy of 

Sciences between 1936 and 1945.
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The Alliance with Science

97

“You’ve got to tell her about the problems that her institute can help us with, 

and I am going to introduce you as a graduate of the Moscow Power Engineering 

Institute working here in a managerial position. Perhaps she really will be of some 

benefit. Keep in mind that she is coming with Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov.”

Gonor clearly wanted the NII-88 institute to make an impression on Golubtsova. 

After visiting us, who knew what she might say to Malenkov himself, who was not 

only a Politburo member, but also the chairman of Special Committee No. 2! Such 

a visit could have important consequences. Each serious undertaking for the development of rocket technology required the government’s support, but, ultimately, it 

was signed by Stalin. And Malenkov had to report to Stalin. I didn’t explain that I 

knew Valeriya Golubtsova even before she became director of the Moscow Power 

Engineering Institute (MEI), and I had no doubt that the meeting would be beneficial for both NII-88 and MEI.5

Gonor designated Pobedonostsev, Korolev, Sinilshchikov, and me to attend the 

meeting with Vavilov and Golubtsova. At the appointed time we stood at the main 

entrance of administrative building No. 49. Vavilov and Golubtsova arrived in the 

same ZIS automobile.6 Vavilov let Golubtsova pass through just slightly ahead. 

Gonor decided to introduce each person. When she saw me, Golubtsova smiled 

amiably, extended her hand, and—uncharacteristically for a woman—gave my 

hand a firm squeeze.

“Well, Chertok, so this is where you’ve ended up.”

Then she turned to Vavilov, evidently continuing a conversation that they had 

been having en route to Podlipki. “Look, Sergey Ivanovich, MEI can already report 

that its graduates are making rockets.”

Thus, I was honored with the attention of the president, whom I was seeing for 

the first time. Very likely I was embarrassed because I couldn’t for the life of me 

remember whether Golubtsova and I were on a first name basis back in our student 

days of long ago, but I quickly calmed down and adopted a business-like, focused 

attitude.

Gonor was clearly pleased that his honored guest liked his institute’s first “exhibit.” 

We went up to the second floor. I noticed that Vavilov climbed the stairs with great 

effort. In Gonor’s office, Vavilov asked that we brief him on the institute’s tasks 

and structure and, if we were prepared, that we tell him in the most general terms 

about the problems that the Academy might be able to assist us with. “Actually,” he 

added, “the Academy itself is interested in these projects. In particular, completely 

new opportunities are emerging for studying cosmic rays, the upper layers of the 

atmosphere, and various phenomena in the ionosphere. It would be possible to 

5. MEI—Moskovskiy energeticheskiy institut. The full name of the institute was the Moscow Power 

Engineering Institute Named After V. M. Molotov.

6. ZIS—Zavod imeni Stalina (Stalin Factory). ZIS cars were the most common official vehicles 

during the era.

The details of the tragic fate of Nikolay Vavilov were not discovered until the end 

of the twentieth century, when historians gained access to the top secret archives. 

Both brothers, Nikolay and Sergey, were scientists with worldwide reputations. 

Sergey Vavilov headed the State Optical Institute and the P. N. Lebedev Physics 

Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences (FIAN)4. Before he became president, 

Vavilov directed and coordinated all of the primary research in the field of optics 

and participated directly in the establishment of the optical instrument industry, 

which, from the beginning of the war, the People’s Commissariat of Armaments 

managed. For this reason, Ustinov had known Vavilov well beforehand and deferred 

to him, not only because he was president of the Academy of Sciences.

During the war and during the early postwar years, the leaders of the branches 

of the defense industry, and above all of the People’s Commissariat of Armaments, 

sensed the power that was possible from the interplay between creative scientific 

thought and industry.

For Sergey Vavilov, rocket technology was a field that catalyzed a wide range 

of research to be conducted in a whole series of new scientific areas. It was said 

of Vavilov that he possessed great courage and perseverance; he especially considered the recently discovered potential in the combining of science with technology 

promising. As early as 1934, it was Vavilov who had been appointed Chairman 

of the Commission for the Study of the Stratosphere under the Presidium of the 

Academy of Sciences. At that time, this was a very important new field of research. 

Vavilov also organized the All-Union Conference on the Stratosphere, which was 

held in Leningrad in 1934. At that conference, Korolev, still an unknown engineer, 

gave a report on a rocket-powered stratospheric airplane.

One must assume that Vavilov’s collaboration with the influential leaders of the 

military-industrial complex made it easier for him to defend the Academy and many 

scientists against the new wave of repressions in the postwar years.

As it turned out, the week after our conversation with Gonor, Academy President Vavilov came to see us, not with a retinue of venerable academicians, 

but accompanied only by a woman. On the scheduled day of the meeting with our 

high-ranking guest, Gonor telephoned and asked me an unexpected question:

“What institute did you graduate from?”

“V. M. Molotov Moscow Power Engineering Institute.”

“Who is the director there?”

“Valeriya Alekseyevna Golubtsova.”

“You must know she’s no longer Golubtsova, but Malenkova, the wife of Georgiy 

Maksimilianovich [Malenkov].”

“I know very well, Lev Robertovich, but what do you want from me?”

4. FIAN—Fizicheskiy institut akademiy nauk.
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Military Mechanical Institute, and several others. “MEI is very involved in issues of 

the economy generally. The postwar restoration of the devastated power engineering 

infrastructure, electric transportation, the mastery of the technologies of modern 

electric machine building, the electric instrument industry, cable production, 

vacuum tubes, and electric drives for the entire machine building industry—these 

are the kind of problems that determine the specialization of MEI graduates and, 

respectively, the scientific concerns of the departments.”

The gist of the MEI director’s very emotional speech was that she had decided 

to put in their place the missile specialists, who had gone too far in their excessive 

appetites. It is very likely that Golubtsova had already conducted similar “educational” work with the atomic specialists and with others aspiring to privilege in 

postwar science. But it all ended peacefully. She repeated her proposal, “Let Chertok 

come see us. I hope he still remembers how to get to MEI; we’ll work it out.”

When the guests had departed, Korolev did not pass up his opportunity to ask 

loudly, so that everyone could hear, “Well, Boris, confess, how did you distinguish 

yourself so that a director like that still remembers you after all these years?”

Now I can write about that. Back then, I shrugged it off with a brief response that 

I met Golubtsova during our studies at MEI. From 1943 through 1952, Valeriya 

Golubtsova was the director of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, one of the 

country’s largest institutions of higher learning. This amazing woman was a talented, 

intelligent, and determined organizer. She fully deserved the title “first lady” of the 

state, and in terms of her civic qualities, she personified the grand scale of the state. 

Unfortunately, in the twentieth century the careers of female leaders ended before 

they could reach their full potential. I have already mentioned the tragic fate of one 

such woman, Olga Aleksandrovna Mitkevich, in the first book of this series.7 The 

story of her life, utterly unusual for a woman, would make a captivating novel. But 

among professional writers and journalists, no interested parties have been found. 

In this regard, Golubtsova was a bit more fortunate.

On the occasion of what would have been her 100th birthday, the MEI publishing house issued a collection of remembrances about Valeriya Alekseyevna Golubtsova.8

 These recollections of her colleagues, former students, and daughter and 

sons paint a picture of a courageous woman with a generous heart, “an amazing 

director,” and a loving mother who determined the fate of many of our country’s 

scientists. The collection contains a chronology that enabled me to fine-tune my 

own recollections, which came out in the first volume of the publication Rockets 

and People.

I became a student at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute in the autumn 

7. Boris Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1, ed., Asif A. Siddiqi (Washington, DC: NASA SP2005-4110, 2005), pp. 79–93.

8. Valeriya Alekseyevna Golubtsova: Sbornik vospominaniy [Valeriya Alekseyevna Golubtsova: Collection 

of remembrances] (Moscow: MEI, 2002).

conduct very important joint work to study the passage of radio waves through the 

ionosphere if we succeeded in installing the appropriate equipment on rockets.”

Korolev was enthusiastic about the ideas expressed by Vavilov. He proposed that 

we switch from general ideas to specific proposals concerning experiments as early as 

the autumn of that year. “To do that,” declared Korolev, “we need not only wishes, 

but descriptions and drawings of instruments, connection diagrams, and specialists 

with whom we could work on specific layouts.”

My “bag of tricks” contained proposals for research on the properties of the ionosphere to reduce errors in radio control systems and the development of problems 

for the radio monitoring of flight trajectories. Gonor listed several problems in the 

development of new materials. All in all, the list of tasks for the Academy of Sciences 

became quite large. Vavilov listened attentively and took notes in his notebook. 

Golubtsova listened attentively and also made notes in her notebook. The wife of 

the second ranking figure in the government of the USSR behaved very modestly. 

She was wearing an austere, but elegant, tailored suit and no jewelry. I had seen her 

for the first time in 1936. At that time, she was beginning her graduate studies at 

MEI. Now I would say she was forty-six years old, but she hadn’t put on weight, as 

one might expect of the director of a major institute, a well-respected lady, and the 

mother of three children.

The conversation with Vavilov ended with him saying, “Well, there is really 

nothing to see here yet. It’s too soon. You’ll have a special conversation with Valeriya 

Alekseyevna.” Golubtsova did not disrupt our conversation with the president, but 

at the end she suggested that I come to MEI.

“We will assemble a small group of the faculty, and, if there are no objections, 

Chertok will present a report on the main problems. After that we can reach some 

agreement on the joint work of NII-88 departments with our departments. If necessary, we are prepared to conclude a contract to conduct scientific-research work using 

the personnel of our departments, but,” she added, and this comment betrayed the 

experience of an administrator, “we are not terribly interested in simple remuneration and compensation for expenditures. MEI is interested in creating specialized 

laboratories, and for this we need help with equipment and instruments.”

At the conclusion of her proposals, Golubtsova accused the industry of being too 

protective: “The People’s Commissariats hauled away everything that they possibly 

could from Germany, and now they don’t want to share it with the Academy or with 

institutions of higher learning. Therefore, if you want science to help, be so kind as 

to help science too.” In contrast to Vavilov’s mild-mannered way, typical of the old 

school intelligentsia, Valeriya Alekseyevna was tough-talking and exacting. “If you 

want to have good young specialists, if you want our scientists to help you, if you 

want us to conduct serious work for you in our departments, then really help us, 

and not with vague wishes.”

Golubtsova felt it was necessary to speak about the differences between MEI’s 

focus and that of other institutions of higher learning such as the Moscow Aviation Institute, the N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School, the Leningrad 
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were still standing in the fall. But in September, when my fourth academic year 

had already begun and I was supposed to make up the incompletes within the first 

two weeks, work was continuing on the aircraft for the search expeditions that were 

being sent out to find Levanevskiy. I wasn’t even able to show up at the institute for 

the beginning of classes.

I hoped for a “bail out” in the form of a letter written on the letterhead of 

the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry (specifically its Main Directorate of 

Aviation Industry) signed by Andrey Nikolayevich Tupolev himself.11 This letter, 

addressed to MEI director Dudkin, said that I had been very busy with crucial 

work on the preparation of transpolar flights and therefore the State Commission 

requested permission for me to take the exams in October or November 1937.12

Appearing for the first time at the general lectures two months late, I received an 

assortment of rebukes from my classmates and a warning from the dean’s office that 

I should report immediately to the director for the decision as to my subsequent 

fate.

My plight might have been harder on my classmates than it was on me. The 

feeling of camaraderie and “one for all and all for one” among the night school 

crowd was very strong at that time. Lev Macheret, our oldest classmate, whose student nickname was Bambula, a sobriquet he had received for his solid, rotund physique, and who, incidentally, was to become the chief engineer of a cable factory, 

announced that he knew how to help me.

“Bambula is coming to Bumba’s rescue,” proclaimed Macheret. “And ‘Sonny 

Boy’ is going to help me.” As revenge for the nickname “Bambula,” he called me 

“Bumba.” We called the very youngest among us long-in-the-tooth students “Sonny 

Boy.” His real name was Germogen Pospelov, a technician at the Moscow Electric 

Factory. Sonny Boy was a brilliant student and many years later became an academician and a world-famous scientist in the field of artificial intelligence.13

At our next meeting Bambula and Sonny Boy told me that under no circumstances should I go to Director Dudkin. “Go to Golubtsova in the Party Committee. We explained everything to her.”

Student Golubtsova didn’t appear in our class until our third year. Naturally, at 

first we wondered why a woman, clearly five or six years older than our average age, 

needed to study with such blue-collar types. Outwardly very reserved, always modestly but elegantly attired; from the very beginning Golubtsova enjoyed deferential 

attention among us students. We concluded that a woman with such qualities was 

11. Andrey Nikolayevich Tupolev (1888-1972) was the most influential and successful aviation 

designer of the Soviet era. His organization, OKB-156, produced several generations of bombers and 

civilian aircraft. Like many of his compatriots, Tupolev was arrested and thrown into prison during the 

height of Stalin’s Great Terror in the late 1930s.

12. The State Commission was the ad hoc body composed of various industrial representatives 

responsible for the polar flights.

13. Germogen Sergeyevich Pospelov (1914–), a specialist in automatic control, was elected an 

Academician of the Academy of Sciences in 1984.

of 1934. At that time the prefix “V. M. Molotov” was an obligatory part of the 

Institute’s name. I really didn’t want to quit my job at Factory No. 22, because the 

pay was pretty good, and financial support from my parents wouldn’t have been 

enough to study full-time during the day. So I enrolled in night school without 

terminating my factory service.

An incoming class of students made savvier through industrial and life experience 

had been selected to enter the institute. Almost all of them had already advanced 

on the job to the level of foreman or technician, and their studies at the institute 

enriched them with knowledge not for successfully passing the next examination, 

but for use in their selected specialty.

They all had the same specialty of electrical engineering. The electromechanical 

department, where we were enrolled, had identical programs in all disciplines for 

the first three years for the entire incoming class. The night school class turned out 

to be very impressive. Many of my classmates later became chief engineers, chief 

designers, and directors of design departments. We even had a future academician 

in our midst. We were united not only by academic interests, but also by industrial 

interests. Gathering for lectures and seminars from our various enterprises without 

even having had a chance to cool off after the workday, we swapped news from our 

factories.

We were supposed to begin our narrow specializations during our fourth year. 

At that time our entire class was broken into three groups: electrical equipment for 

industrial enterprises; aircraft and automotive electrical equipment; and cable technology. The majority of us already had three to five years of industrial experience 

before entering the institute, and on average we were within two to three years of 

each other in age.

For me, the most difficult times were the end of the third academic year in the 

spring of 1937 and the beginning of the fourth in autumn 1937. This was the time 

of the famous transpolar flights. I was saddled with the responsibility of preparing 

the electrical and radio equipment, first for a squadron of TB-3 aircraft that landed 

the Papanin expedition on the North Pole and then for the N-209 aircraft in which 

Sigizmund Levanevskiy was supposed to have flown over the Pole to the United 

States.9

Due to the heavy work load at the factory, I earned an academic incomplete. I 

had no opportunity to take the last exam in the fundamentals of electrical engineering taught by Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member Professor Krug, nor 

the first exam in future Academician Trapeznikov’s course on electric machines, nor 

had I completed the course project on the strength of materials.10 The incompletes 

9. See Chapter 7 of Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1.

10. Karl Adolfovich Krug, who was elected Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences 

in 1933, founded the Soviet school of theoretical electrical engineering. Academician Vadim 

Aleksandrovich Trapeznikov (1905–), a pioneer in Soviet control theory, headed the Institute of 

Automation and Remote Control (from 1969, the Institute of Control Sciences) from 1951 to 1987. 

In 1998, the institute was renamed the V. A. Trapeznikov Institute of Control Sciences.
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way, and tasteful. She stood up and with a kind and cheerful expression gave me a 

firm handshake. Golubtsova did not start moralizing, but simply asked me when I 

would be able to fulfill my incomplete work. And then, instead of a simple response, 

I handed her the letter signed by Tupolev.

Recalling that episode now, I think that at that time I wanted to attach more 

significance to my persona. Let the new Party Committee secretary know that I was 

not some lazy student. Tupolev himself would intercede on my behalf! But the effect 

was unexpected. The benevolent smile disappeared. Golubtsova frowned; she walked 

over to the safe standing in the corner, placed the letter inside like a secret document, and locked the safe. Turning to me, she said quietly, “Forget about Tupelov. 

He’s been arrested. Don’t even think about telling anybody about that letter, and if 

you don’t pass your exams by December, you have only yourself to blame.”15

After such a warning I bolted from work for several days in a row and hunkered 

down in the cozy reading room in the Park of Culture and Recreation. By November I had worked off my incompletes, while at the factory I had been reprimanded 

for failing to issue the next batch of documentation on time.

Soon rumors were in broad circulation about enemies of the people in the aviation industry and about the conspiracy that Tupolev himself had led. Comrades at 

the institute asked bluntly, “What was going on there with you all in the aviation 

industry?” My involvement with the transpolar flights was well known, and Bambula, who had a keen wit, reassured me, “If they didn’t take you when they took 

Tupolev, then it was simply a matter of sloppy work. Now they’re not about to correct their mistake, but you still better not fall behind, so it doesn’t catch up with 

you.”

Bambula and Todya organized a separate group specializing in cable technology 

and talked Golubtsova into switching to that group during her fifth and last year. 

That way, she graduated from the institute, as it were, for a second time, receiving a 

diploma in electrical engineering with a specialization in cable technology, although 

she had been considered a graduate assistant in the cable technology department 

since 1936.

During our fifth year we were supposed to have full-fledged daytime classes and 

take a leave of absence from the factory. I took my leave of the factory and once 

again met up with Golubtsova, this time in order to be placed on the Party roster 

at the institute. She had time to complain about the difficulties of combining Party 

leadership at the institute with her fifth year studies, and at the same time she asked 

me to delve into the affairs of the electromechanical department’s Party organization.

“You’ve been a Party member since 1932, and now you could be in charge of 

organizing your department.”

15. The Soviet secret police, the NKVD, arrested Tupolev on 31 October 1937. He remained 

incarcerated until July 1941.

fully capable of playing the movie role of a factory director who exposes a saboteur, 

the factory’s chief engineer. The all-knowing secretary of the dean’s office hinted 

that she was an official in the Central Committee apparatus and that we shouldn’t 

be up to any foolishness when she was around. But the outwardly severe Golubtsova 

was compelled more than once to turn to her classmates for help. We established 

good, comradely relations with her, including swapping course outlines, crib sheets, 

and the usual mutual assistance that goes on among students.

Suddenly, the most informed person in our class, Teodor Orlovich, who went by 

the nickname “Todya,” and who would later become the chief designer of the cable 

industry Special Design Bureau, in strictest confidence informed a tight circle of 

comrades that Golubtsova was her maiden name and that she was actually Malenkova, the wife of that very same Malenkov, who... “you know.”

We were filled with pride that such a distinguished woman shared our student 

ranks, but we soon became accustomed to it because she treated us as equals, rode 

public transportation after class in the evening, and got quite objective marks. We 

decided that we should be happy that Comrade Malenkov, well-known to the entire 

country, had such a good wife, who in the next three years would become a fine 

electrical engineer.

However, we were wrong about her intentions. Golubtsova had graduated from 

MEI back in 1934, and had been working as an engineer at the Dynamo factory, 

while dreaming of leaving to pursue science. She entered the MEI graduate school in 

1936. Here it became clear that the accelerated four-year course for engineers from 

the ranks of so-called Parttysyachniki (“Party captains of thousands”), which she 

entered in 1930, was too condensed.14 She would need to fill the gaps in the basic 

electro-technical disciplines, and after enrolling in graduate school, she became a 

part-time student of our night school.

Then it turned out that while I was working on transpolar flights and rescue 

missions, they had elected a new Party Committee at the institute and Golubtsova, 

a fellow student, became its secretary. At that time, the Party Committee secretary 

of an institution of higher learning could have as much influence as a director. In 

any event, it was impossible to expel a Party member from an institute without the 

approval of the Party Committee. On the other hand, the Party Committee could 

demand that a disagreeable student be expelled for any political sins. In that case, 

the director did not resist.

Following the advice of Bambula and Sonny Boy, I went to the Party Committee. Golubtsova received me like an old acquaintance. Her Party authority had not 

gone to her head in the least. As before, her outfit was modest, beautiful in its own 

14. The parttysyachniki were a huge demographic granted preferential treatment for entrance into 

institutions of higher learning in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The Soviet government sought to train 

tens of thousands of younger workers and peasants for important industrial, military, and Communist 

Party positions that had previously been occupied by those educated under the Tsarist regime.
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was elected a corresponding member, and in 1984, a full member of the USSR 

Academy of Sciences. If not for the initiative of his classmates and the intervention 

of Golubtsova, Sonny Boy would have laid down his brilliant head on the bloody 

battlefields outside Moscow and Soviet science would not have had an Academician 

Pospelov.

In October 1941, the families of all the VKP(b) Central Committee and Politburo members were to be evacuated from Moscow. Malenkov and Stalin remained 

in Moscow, having shifted into a state of siege, and Golubtsova was forced to travel 

to Kuybyshev (now Samara) with her children and temporarily part with MEI. 

In Kuybyshev she was appointed instructor of the oblast Party committee for the 

defense industry.

In late 1942, the State Defense Committee decided to return a contingent of students and instructors to Moscow from evacuation. On 9 January 1943, yet another 

decree was issued. It defined a new developmental phase for MEI, in particular, substantially increasing the number of students and calling back professors and instructors from active duty in the army. It called for building and equipping laboratories 

with new equipment and providing students and instructors with housing and a 

food supply. It was astonishing that during the country’s most difficult period of 

the war, when Hitler still believed in final victory, the high-ranking political leaders 

of the USSR made an unprecedented decision on mobilizing human resources for 

the country’s future power in engineering systems! We still had the Battle of Kursk 

and more than two years of war ahead of us! Decrees similar to the MEI decree were 

also implemented for other principal Moscow institutes of higher learning and for 

the Academy of Sciences. In a country that was bleeding to death, the top political 

leaders made truly heroic efforts not only to preserve the scientific cadres, but also 

to ensure their numbers increased in the future.

In June 1943, Valeriya Golubtsova, instructor for the Party defense industry 

oblast committee, was called back from Kuybyshev and appointed director of the 

Moscow Power Engineering Institute. A tremendous responsibility lay on the shoulders of this forty-year-old woman. In Moscow, where air raids continued, she needed 

not only to restore the academic process, but also build new academic buildings and 

dormitories, acquire equipment for the laboratories, find food for the half-starved 

students, and, most important, begin scientific developments to restore the devastated power systems and for new radio electronic weapons systems.

Golubtsova was well-known in the upper echelons of state and Party organizations, and, in addition, they knew her as the wife of a Politburo and State Defense 

Committee member. This helped, of course. But her personal qualities were the primary and decisive factors behind MEI’s success during the war years. So as not to be 

accused of having a subjective attitude toward Golubtsova, I will cite excerpts from 

the recollections of Petr Zhakovich Kriss, former MEI student and radio specialist, 

who collaborated closely with all the various transmutations of the Korolev collective. Of all the testimonials about Golubtsova published in the aforementioned 

collection, I have selected these because I have known Kriss for many years. No one 

I responded that I had a lot of gaps in my knowledge and would like to devote 

all my spare time to new problems in electroautomation. Nevertheless, when all 

was said and done, she had managed to persuade me to “bring order” to the Party 

organization of the electromechanical department.

According to some unwritten law, Party members, even leaders who belonged 

to the same Party organization, were on a first name basis. That is why seven years 

later at our meeting at NII-88, Golubtsova addressed me with familiarity, letting me 

know that she had not forgotten our Party association at MEI.

After defending my final thesis, I once again visited the Party committee office, 

this time to remove my name from the Party roster. Beforehand someone had 

warned me, “Don’t forget to congratulate Valeriya Alekseyevna. She defended her 

dissertation.” After we congratulated one another, Golubtsova recommended once 

again that I enroll at the institute, but this time as a graduate student without taking 

a leave of absence from the factory. When I wavered, she insisted, “You graduated 

with distinction, you have a great deal of factory experience; consider it arranged.” 

As I was leaving, Golubtsova said, “And you have good friends.” Bambula, Todya, 

and Sonny Boy really were good friends.

In the fall of 1940, I became a graduate student in the MEI department of 

aviation electrical equipment. Department head Professor Frolov even entrusted me 

with giving some of his lectures, because he had a heavy load at the Air Force Academy. The war interrupted my scientific career, which had begun at Golubtsova’s 

suggestion.

In the autumn of 1941, like all Moscow institutes, MEI was to be evacuated to 

the east. Here is where Golubtsova’s character and will emerged. She organized, to 

the extent possible, a normal evacuation, and then the continuation of the institute’s academic activity at its new site. Bambula and Todya were mobilized for some 

particularly vital cable production projects and, having received exemptions from 

being drafted into the army, were working in Moscow like soldiers. Sonny Boy was 

called up for the army and fought to repel the Germans’ attack on Moscow using 

an 1891-model rifle. Given his nearsightedness, this was terribly frustrating for him 

and he sent us desperate letters. Now, instead of Bambula and Todya, it was Lev 

Macheret and Teodor Orlovich, who appealed to Golubtsova in September 1941. 

They requested that distinguished MEI graduate Germogen Pospelov be relieved of 

his military duties and that he use his engineering knowledge for victory.

Golubtsova had not forgotten these men, whom she had referred to as my good 

friends. Pospelov was detached to the air force just twenty-four hours before the 

battle in which his rifle unit was completely wiped out. He finished the war at the 

rank of captain as an engineer working on special equipment for a major air force 

formation.

Having earned many combat decorations, Pospelov enrolled as a graduate student at the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy. He became an instructor, a senior 

lecturer, a professor, and even a general. He developed the theory for and directed 

the creation of an experimental blind landing system for airplanes. In 1964, he 
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ing assistant, Aleksey Fedorovich Bogomolov.

In 1954, Kotelnikov became an academician and the director of the Academy of 

Sciences Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics. Later Bogomolov was put 

in charge of operations at MEI. His hard work resulted in the creation of the Special 

Design Bureau (OKB MEI), a powerful organization that was fully involved in the 

production of complex radio electronic systems for the space industry. Kotelnikov 

and Bogomolov staffed their collective with MEI’s most capable graduates.17

Unrestricted by previous projects in this field and by any rigid schedules imposed 

by ministries, OKB MEI became famous for many original and unique developments. Sometimes their ideas outstripped industry’s technological capabilities, but 

they always remained a very strong stimulus for the developers of the space industry’s radio electronic systems. Kotelnikov and Bogomolov became indispensable 

members of the Council of Chief Designers.

Academician Kotelnikov, who became vice president of the Academy of Sciences, vice president of the International Academy of Cosmonautics, and chairman 

of the Interkosmos council, always kept his activities associated with space.18 We 

run into each other regularly at ceremonial sessions in honor of Cosmonautics Day 

and many other occasions. Vladimir Aleksandrovich never forgets to remind me, 

“You know, you were the one, Boris Yevseyevich, who got me into this business of 

cosmonautics some time ago.” Now, that “some time ago” is more than fifty-five 

years behind us.

After the war, director Golubtsova showed exceptional dedication to the construction (of new academic buildings, the pilot factory, a Palace of Culture, dormitories, and housing for professors and instructors) and expansion of the research 

facilities. Thanks in large part to her energy, combined with her closeness to the 

country’s higher authorities, an entire town sprouted in the area of Krasnokazarmennaya Street, consisting of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute and its 

OKB, which to this day are the foremost organizations in the field of rocket and 

space radio engineering.

Golubtsova, an engineer without any outstanding achievements in the fundamental or applied sciences, became the director of a major scientific technical institute. But in this case, the MEI was fortunate. God generously endowed her with 

organizational talent. Her natural feminine sensitivity helped her fuse the efforts of 

all the institute’s scientists with a minimum of conflicts. At any rate, the very reputable MEI faculty supported the director in all of her deeds.

Over the ten-year period that Golubtsova was a member of the institute’s governing body, her perseverance and day-to-day exactitude, and the close interaction of 

17. OKB MEI was created in September 1958 by expanding the original experimental scientificresearch profile sector at MEI.

18. Interkosmos was the international cooperative effort between the Soviet Union and other 

socialist countries, established to facilitate joint work on space research and applications satellites.

has ever doubted his objectivity, honesty, and decency.

This is how he recalls his first meeting with the director in 1943:

“Before us stood a very interesting woman who seemed young even to us, young men 

twenty years of age. She was modestly, but elegantly and tastefully dressed, with a cheerful, kind expression... In today’s terms, one might say that she radiated a powerful, positive energy, which each of us obviously sensed. She did not possess a drop of snobbishness, 

which often alienates young people. She won people over both by her simple, ingenuous 

manner of speaking, and by her kind, motherly look, and easy humor... I trusted her, 

and subsequently there was nothing that could disillusion me about a single feature of 

her blessed image.”

She was just as Petr Kriss so aptly described her when she met me in her director’s 

office in 1947. This was a week after the meeting described several pages ago at NII88 attended by the president of the Academy of Sciences.

“In ten minutes our scientists and department heads will gather here. You tell 

them everything that you think is necessary and topical for MEI.”

Out of all the institute scientists assembled there, the only one I recall is Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kotelnikov, dean of the radio department. Later I found out 

that senior lecturer Tkachev was also there. He was one of the pioneers in the development of inertial navigation systems. I became acquainted with him much later. 

His ideas at that time significantly surpassed the level of what we and the Germans 

had brewing in terms of autonomous control systems.

I told them briefly about our program of operations at NII-88 and the principles 

and problems of long-range missile flight control. I focused on the need to develop 

new multichannel telemetry systems and reliable radio monitoring of the flight trajectory along the entire flight path.

Within a short time, the results of this meeting exceeded our most optimistic expectations. Thirty-nine-year-old Professor Vladimir Kotelnikov was in charge 

of developing the ideas I had posed. But the efforts of a single radio engineering 

department were insufficient. What we needed was an institute-wide effort and 

pilot factory. Literally about ten days after my meeting with the MEI scientists, 

Golubtsova’s office issued a governmental decree signed by Stalin on the creation 

of a special operations sector at MEI.16 A year later, the collective that had rallied 

around Kotelnikov was already developing the Indikator-D system, which we used 

during the flight tests of the first R-1 domestic missiles in 1948. Beginning with 

this development, all subsequent missiles were equipped with MEI radio systems 

during test flights.

In 1951, the MEI collective entered a competition for the creation of telemetry 

systems, and the first R-7 intercontinental missile was equipped with its now legendary Tral system. Soon Kotelnikov acquired a young, energetic, and hard-charg16. This “experimental scientific-research profile” sector was officially created on 25 April 1947.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

108

the institute’s scientists with engineers from industry produced very tangible practical results. Golubtsova defended her Candidate of Science thesis in 1948 while 

she was director. In 1952, she handed over her post as director to her deputy and 

became a senior lecturer in the MEI department of general electrical engineering. 

In 1953, she received the position of deputy director of the USSR Academy of 

Sciences S. I. Vavilov Institute of Natural History and Technology, the very same 

Vavilov with whom we met at NII-88 in 1947. In 1955, she defended her thesis for 

a Doctor of Science degree in the history of electrical engineering.19

In 1957, after sacking a group of his former colleagues from Stalin’s Politburo, 

Khrushchev sent Malenkov into exile in Kazakhstan, appointing him first director 

of the Ust-Kamenogorskaya and then of the Ekibastuzkaya thermoelectric plants. 

Golubtsova could have stayed in Moscow, but she and her children followed her 

husband. She did not return to Moscow until 1968. She completed her journey on 

Earth in 1987, and was buried in Moscow at the Kuntsevskaya Cemetery.

President Vavilov passed away on 25 January 1951. Throughout his tenure in 

that post he closely observed the participation of Academy scientists in our work. 

Almost all of the firing range test launches were attended by FIAN scientists and 

future academicians S. N. Vernov and A. Ye. Chudakov and by a group of young 

up-and-coming scientists, who later served as the nucleus of the Institute of Space 

Research (IKI).20

I permitted myself to describe in such detail my meeting in 1947 at 

NII-88 with Academy of Sciences president Vavilov and MEI director Golubtsova 

because that event illustrates the quest to integrate three elements of our scientific 

and industrial infrastructure—the Academy’s fundamental research in various fields 

of science, the scientific potential of the institutes of higher learning, and the most 

leading-edge industrial technology—into a single, systemic statewide program. In 

subsequent years, this unity was actually attained. In the early 1950s, Korolev managed to achieve relative independence, and in 1953 he was elected an Academy of 

Sciences corresponding member. He took particular care to strengthen this triple 

alliance of the sciences and zealously guarded it against destructive departmental 

tendencies toward autonomy.

19. The Russian (and former Soviet) postgraduate educational system uses two academic degrees at 

the doctorate level: Kandidat nauk (Candidate of Science) and Doktor nauk (Doctor of Science). The 

former corresponds to the Ph.D. degree in the United States while the latter is equivalent to a higher, 

second doctoral degree.

20. IKI—Institut kosmicheskikh issledovaniy (Institute for Space Research), founded in 1965, was 

the Academy of Sciences’ foremost institution to manage the development of payloads for Soviet 

scientific and deep space missions.
Chapter 6

Department U

Unlike the other scientific departments in the NII-88 structure—approved by Ustinov and based on the concept developed by Gonor and Pobedonostsev in 1946—

the head of the guidance systems department (Department U) also served as the 

institute’s deputy chief engineer. I was indebted to Pobedonostsev for that. First, 

he wanted to emphasize the importance of guidance systems for rocket technology 

and, second, to grant me personally a position with greater authority and greater 

independence. Moreover, Pobedonostsev told me in one of our first serious meetings that he personally did not want to bear the responsibility for too great a variety 

of guidance system projects. Not only he, but Gonor and the ministry entrusted this 

responsibility completely to me. “As for Korolev,” Pobedonostsev added peevishly, 

“Sergey always has his own opinion. He wants Department U to work entirely on 

his projects. But now that’s impossible. We are obliged to work on surface-to-air 

guided missiles and to help Sinilshchikov and Rashkov.” Skipping ahead a bit, I will 

note that after I left this post in late 1950, no subsequent Department U chiefs were 

appointed deputy chief engineers.

I was also pleasantly surprised that the department had been given what were for 

those times quite nice accommodations. A separate five-story building was added 

onto the old director’s building. Before I arrived from Germany, the young control 

surface actuator specialist Georgiy Stepan, whom I had sent from Bleicherode, and 

radio engineer Dmitriy Sergeyev, who was appointed as my deputy, had been running the show rather successfully. I agreed to their draft of the office layout.

The fifth floor housed the radio laboratory; the fourth floor was home to the 

design bureau; the third floor contained the instrument laboratory (after late 1947, 

this included gyroscopic, stabilization, and astronavigation instruments); the second 

floor was allocated for the integrated laboratory for general schematics and tests; 

and the first floor, which was practically half underground, but the most spacious, 

housed the experimental instrument shop. Many young and capable specialists came 

to the department with an ardent desire to work, and there was not a whiner among 

them, which was pleasantly surprising. Sergeyev deserves a great deal of credit for 

setting up the department during the first one-and-a-half to two years. He was certainly a talented radio engineer. He immediately established contact with German 

109
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111

unique group of rocket-space antenna specialists.

Nadya Shcherbakova was a colorful figure among radio specialists. A nurse 

during the war, she graduated from a communications institute and attacked the 

problems of monitoring flight trajectory during firing range tests with vigor unusual 

for a woman. Her exacting nature, exceptional performance, and intolerance of 

everything that, from her point of view, stood in the way of our technology, occasionally led to conflicts that sometimes did not end in her favor. Nadezhda Pavlovna 

Shcherbakova enjoyed great prestige among missile specialists and later headed the 

radio department at TsNIIMash, which was formed at the NII-88 factory.

Shcherbakova’s dedication was not the exception. During the very first year in 

the department other female engineers also began to work energetically on a par 

with men. I think it’s fitting to mention Vera Frolova, Shcherbakova’s right-hand 

woman for the organization of firing range tests, and Zoya Melnikova, the indisputable authority on telemetry sensors. Melnikova served as a sort of intermediary 

between the physical value being measured, its electrical analog, and the data transmission radio system. She had several other female engineers—sensor and telemetry 

specialists—subordinate to her. Because they were still supposed to show up at “hot 

spots,” at the factory, with the Germans on Gorodomlya Island, and at the firing 

range, they used to joke about sharp-tongued Zoya Melnikova that she would be 

perfect commanding a female “death battalion,” but all she got was a brigade of 

“bluestockings.”3 However, these “bluestockings” were by no means totally devoid 

of humanity. They fell in love, got married, and were happy not only when they 

were on the job, and their unhappy times were not only due to technical failures.

I should also mention the great role that engineer electrician Aleksandra 

Melikova played. Coming to us with experience from her work as an electrical engineer involved with relay automatics, she quickly mastered the problems of developing and testing the general electrical circuits of a missile and simply became an 

indispensable specialist in that field, especially when troubleshooting was required 

for an off-nominal situation in the behavior of relay electroautomatics that wasn’t 

“by the book.”

The development, testing, and series production of control surface actuators, 

on the other hand, ended up being strictly men’s business. After returning from 

Germany, Stepan attracted several engineers to the department, including Ovchinnikov and Shumarov. Soon the strong-willed and broadly educated engineer Viktor 

Kalashnikov transferred from the Mytishchi tank KB. He became the supervisor of 

this entire direction of work and would go on to become one of the leading specialists in Korolev’s design bureau.

At first, engineer and optics specialist Kabalkin headed the design bureau of 

our department, but soon Semyon Chizhikov replaced him. He spent most of 

3. This is a reference to the famed Bluestocking societies of the late 19th century in England and 

France, which advocated further educational and social advances for women.

radio specialists and, for all intents and purposes, the development of proposals 

for the radio control system of the rocket developed by Gröttrup was conducted 

under his leadership. But he also established contacts with the new NII-885 (with 

Ryazanskiy, Boguslavskiy, and Borisenko), where they were developing radio control systems, and NII-20, where Degtyarenko was creating the Brazilionit telemetry 

system in place of the German Messina system. However, Sergeyev soon realized that 

we would not attain good missile flight control using those systems, and he created 

groups to develop our own system for monitoring the speed and coordinates of a 

missile in flight using standard radar systems.

The laboratory staff was quickly filled. Among its ranks were engineers who had 

been demobilized from the army. That is how radio engineer Aleksey Shananin 

came to the department. His frontline experience helped to quickly establish contact with comrades working in the laboratory and with a multitude of subcontracting firms. Later Shananin’s capabilities were noticed and he was lured away to work 

at the Commission on Military-Industrial Issues (or Military-Industrial Commission, VPK) under the USSR Council of Ministers, where for a long time he was one 

of the leading and truly competent specialists.

In March 1947, recently demobilized radio engineer Oleg Ivanovskiy, who had 

worked at the neighboring Ministry of Defense’s Central Scientific-Research Institute of Communications (TsNII Svyazi), caught Stepan’s attention. Ivanovskiy’s 

passion for the radio engineering field, organizational talent, and energy also did 

not go unnoticed. He went down in history forever as the “lead designer” of the 

Vostok that carried Yuriy Gagarin into space.1 He also deserves credit for being the 

first specialist, rather than a professional journalist, who described the epic of the 

creation of Vostok and Gagarin’s launch in his memoir First Stages.

2

 The censorship 

office prohibited the book’s publication under the author’s real name, and so the 

book appeared under the name of a totally unknown Aleksey Ivanov. Subsequently 

Ivanovskiy also worked in the VPK offices in the Kremlin, and then transferred to 

the Lavochkin Factory. When Ivanovskiy left the Kremlin, radio engineer Aleksandr 

Ivanovich Tsarev from Department U was promoted to take his place in the VPK 

offices.

Mikhail Krayushkin, former artillery battery commander, proved to be a very 

serious theoretician in the field of radio wave propagation and antenna design. He 

would go on to brilliantly defend his Doctor of Science dissertation and organize a 

1. “Lead designers” were different from “chief designers,” in that the former were much more 

junior in the design bureau hierarchy. Whereas chief and deputy chief designers were deeply involved 

in the R&D stages of a program, lead designers were typically responsible for the production phase of 

weapons development cycle.

2. Aleksey Ivanov [Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovskiy], Pervyye stupeni (zapiski inzhenera) [First Stages 

(Notes of an Engineer)] (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 1970). Later variations of this book appeared 

under different names. See, for example, Aleksey Ivanov, Vpervyye: zapiski vedushchego konstruktora

[The First: Notes of a Leading Designer] (Moscow: Moskovskiy rabochiy, 1982).
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Department U

113

rocket technology.

Speaking of scientific connections, I would like to note the essential difference 

in the way our department formulated control theory problems—and, in particular, 

controlled systems stability theory—and the methods that were proposed at that 

time by pure theoreticians such as Nikolay Moiseyev, the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air 

Force Academy professor and author of the so-called “theory of technical stability.” 

We preferred to conduct research using more empirical methods, without excessive 

use of profound and complex theoretical constructions that were not readily accessible to a practical engineer.

At that time, so-called frequency methods, based on the analysis of phase amplitude and frequency amplitude characteristics, were well developed at the Institute of 

Automation and Remote Control. Admittedly, they came to us from abroad, from 

the United States; we benefited from the famous research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The work at MIT was the practical response of theoreticians to the real wartime problem of creating a radar system capable of automatic 

search and tracking of airborne targets.6

It turned out that if one didn’t try to use pseudopatriotic and excessively complex approaches, then using these new methods [from the United States], one could 

successfully solve the problems of missile stability and control. The engineer should 

of course, have mastered classic oscillations theory. But that science was well developed and accessible in the works of our scientists Andronov, Bulgakov, Gorelik, and 

others.7 Moreover, as a result of the development of our own radar stations we had 

also produced some interesting works on the theory of nonlinear systems. Therefore, our young theoreticians observed the fierce battles of the “founding luminaries” from the sidelines. They themselves did not meddle in the scuffle and laughed 

at the theatrics of the scientific and technical councils on these subjects.

Out of critical necessity, specialists at NII-885 studied stability. Here Pilyugin, 

an engineer with a great deal of experience, declared in a way typical of him, that 

you could believe theoreticians as long as you were dealing with paper, but “if I am 

responsible for selecting the parameters and adjusting the automatic stabilization 

system, then I need a simulator that I can put my hands on and feel everything, 

and the transitional processes must be visible on oscillograph tapes.” We were in 

complete agreement about that. We had ordered the Institute of Automation and 

Remote Control to develop simulators instead of the primitive and scarce “Häuserman pendulums,” but Pilyugin was bent on solving this problem on his own.

6. Here, Chertok is referring to the work of the Radiation Laboratory at MIT, which during World 

War II focused enormous resources on developing microwave radar systems.

7. Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Andronov (1901–52) was one of the pioneers of Russian control 

engineering. Boris Vladimirovich Bulgakov (1900–52) was a specialist in mechanics who contributed 

to the theory of oscillations and the theory of gyroscopes.

his entire life, practically side-by-side with me, beginning with Factory No. 22, 

Institute RABE and NII-88 and then continuing on through all the Korolev programs. The work he did at NII-88 and then at Korolev’s OKB-1 created a rocket 

instrument design bureau that was unique in terms of its universality. When I write 

above of Chizhikov’s “entire life,” I can’t help but recall the last hours of his life. 

I walked into his apartment when two emergency medical teams were already at 

work. Oxygen, artificial respiration, numerous injections, and electroshock were to 

no avail. A massive heart attack after a heavy work day ended his steady passion for 

energetic work.

Chizhikov founded a dynasty. His son Boris leads a staff of designers working 

on spacecraft docking assemblies, and his granddaughter, Marina, a mathematician, 

calculated the dynamics and strength of spacecraft docking mechanisms.

In the beginning, the biggest concerns were for the integrated laboratory. Its 

managers were engineer practitioners Valentin Filipov and Dmitriy Shilov, and its 

true ideologue was engineer and communications specialist Emil Brodskiy. The laboratory was supposed to develop a test rig that would serve as a simulator to test and 

verify the circuits of automatic launch systems and as a site to test and verify operational documentation for factory and flight tests. The subject was not the problem; 

daily tasks were so labor intensive that they swamped the staff’s resources.

The experimental shop was quickly outfitted with captured precision machine 

tools. Using his connections at the factory, Troshin, the shop’s first chief, selected 

the best all-round machinists, metal workers, and precision mechanics, that is, those 

who had the “magic touch.” Thus, we were almost independent of the factory’s 

production shops. We distributed the most unique mechanics among the laboratories.4

Despite establishing a strict secrecy regime at the institute, all the leading specialists understood the need for communications with scientific organizations that were 

not directly involved in our cooperative network and with scientists from institutes 

of higher learning. Thus, from the first months of 1947, there were joint projects 

with the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Automation and Remote Control. Future 

Academicians Vadim Trapeznikov and Boris Petrov and future Academy of Sciences 

Corresponding Member Vyacheslav Petrov cooperated in our project.5 When the 

Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded me an Academician B. N. 

Petrov Gold Medal in 1992, it was particularly gratifying because it reminded me 

of my joint work with the fine gentleman Boris Petrov back in the very nascence of 

4. Author’s note: This first instrument shop received the first administrative censure for failing to 

meet deadlines for the production of control surface actuators for the first R-1 series. But that’s another 

story.

5. Academician Boris Nikolayevich Petrov (1913–80) was one of the leading Soviet scientists 

specializing in the theory of control systems. He contributed immensely to the early Soviet missile and 

space program, especially in the field of propulsion system control for ballistic missiles and spacecraft. 

From the 1960s, he was a prominent public spokesperson for the Soviet space program.
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Department U

115

ation from Peenemünde in 1945, 

they had already executed dozens of 

flight tests, which, while unsuccessful, provided them with invaluable 

experience.

One cannot say that Sinilshchikov and Rashkov had general 

working conditions that were worse 

than Korolev’s. In terms of pay, 

all sorts of “privileges,” budgetary 

appropriations, and other benefits, 

all the teams were in basically the 

same situation. Nevertheless, no 

urging from the top helped. Many 

years of experience showed that even 

the most well-provided-for groups 

entrusted with special projects to 

develop new systems, no matter 

what state-of-the-art equipment 

they had at their disposal and no 

matter how much financial support 

they received from the state budget, 

were incapable of completing the project if the team as a whole did not have confidence in the management. Faith in the management on all levels is considerably 

more important for the success of the work than the pay scale, a comfortable work 

site, and the prospect of receiving housing.

The surface-to-air missile specialists lacked such faith. Instead, they were sure 

that sooner or later new management would appear and say, “Quit fussing, everything needs to be done differently.” On many levels the time had come for reorganizing surface-to-air missile technology. This gave me at least the moral right to 

feign deafness to the criticism from Sinilshchikov; Tritko, who supported him; and 

the Party Committee and to devote all of Department U’s working potential to 

Korolev’s projects. Now I can admit that this happened with Pobedonostsev’s silent 

approval. But Gonor warned me that if I didn’t find a good explanation for why we 

had ignored surface-to-air missile projects, then during the next wave of anticosmopolitism I would be risking my neck.

For some reason I had a firm conviction that salvation would come from the outside! After all, there must be sensible people in our country who would understand 

that NII-88 was not going to save Moscow from the Americans’ atomic bombs 

using R-1 missiles and future R-2 missiles.

Sergeyev and I discussed the situation and decided that the work of Sinilshchikov, Rashkov, and the other surface-to-air missile specialists had no future at our 

facility. It wouldn’t be long before that would become clear to higher management. 

Shown here are Sergey Korolev (left) and 

Sergey Vetoshkin (1905-91) during the R-1 

test-launches at Kapustin Yar in 1948. In later 

years, Vetoshkin would become a very powerful 

administrator in the Soviet military-industrial 

complex.

From the author’s archives.

As director of the guidance department 

and NII-88 deputy chief engineer, I came under 

criticism from the chief designers of surface-to-air 

missiles. Sinilshchikov was particularly aggressive, 

because his Department No. 4, which was subordinate to Tritko, was marginalized. He argued that 

“Chertok’s entire department is working only on 

Korolev’s projects. Under these conditions we cannot 

create a missile like the Wasserfall because its guidance problems are a lot more complex than those 

of missiles like the A4. Either you switch Chertok 

to our project, or you create another similar department in NII-88.”

At NII-885, departments were set up to develop 

guidance systems for surface-to-air guided missiles. 

Guidance specialists who had previously worked at 

the Institute Berlin worked there. Govyadinov was 

in charge of this sector under Ryazanskiy’s authority. 

The surface-to-air missile guidance specialists also 

grumbled that the necessary conditions hadn’t been 

provided for them at NII-885. Thus, the resentments of the NII-88 and NII-885 surface-to-air missile chief designers fused and by and large they were 

justified. The level of work on air defense missiles 

was clearly below even what the Germans had done 

in Peenemünde.

The successes achieved during the first three years 

of establishing the two fields of domestic missile technology—long-range ballistic 

missiles and surface-to-air guided missiles—differed very substantially. Admittedly, 

the initial starting conditions for long-range ballistic missile technology had greater 

advantages. This was very obvious when the two fields came together at the two 

institutes, NII-88 and NII-885, under the same ministers, directors, and chief engineers. Long-range ballistic missiles, even if they were a German model, had already 

begun to fly in the autumn of 1947. In 1948 and the first half of 1949, there were 

numerous firing tests, and whether they were good or bad, the missiles flew, new 

ones were designed for longer and much longer ranges, various projects were discussed, factories were loaded down with orders for series production, and the military had something to accept.

In that context, the surface-to-air teams working at the same two head institutes looked very colorless. Their work had not moved beyond drawings of missiles 

very similar to the Wasserfall. After all, the Germans had conducted experiments 

with a Wasserfall guidance system on an A4 as early as 1944. Before their evacuMany mistakenly misinterpret 

the May 1946 decree that 

founded the Soviet missile industry as being entirely focused 

on reproducing the German 

V-2 ballistic missile. In reality, 

the decree devoted comparable 

resources to both the V-2 and 

the Wasserfall cruise missile 

which, unlike the V-2, was never 

used in battle by the Nazis. The 

original German Wasserfall is 

shown here in June 1944 ready 

for launch.

Dr. Matthias Uhl.
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Department U

117

ance systems, which were more promising than those being developed at NII-885. 

And the second charge was that I colluded with Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, and their colleagues to undermine work on new domestic systems and to prioritize the reproduction of German technology, which did not require intellectual exertion.

All the leading associates of Department U were drawn into the squabbles during 

the commission’s work. They all supported me. My deputy Viktor Kalashnikov 

advised me, “Go on vacation, relax, and we’ll deal with this mess without you.” 

Gonor was no longer there. The new NII-88 director, Konstantin Rudnev, had 

nothing against my taking a vacation, but said that he wasn’t going to get involved 

with the squabbles and the Commission. It wasn’t on his list. Pobedonostsev had 

already transferred from NII-88 to the leadership of the Academy of the Industry. 

I obtained a voucher to vacation at the Kislovodsk sanatorium and departed with 

the hope that the curative powers of the Caucasus would not only strengthen my 

cardiovascular system, but would also purge my brain of unhealthy worries. Upon 

my return I was immediately summoned by First Deputy Minister Ivan Zubovich. 

He upbraided me for deciding to take a vacation at an inopportune time, saying 

that I should have defended myself against the charges. Now he couldn’t help me at 

all. Based on the commission’s findings, I would be removed from work as NII-88 

deputy chief engineer and chief of the guidance department. I was free to select my 

future workplace, but he advised me to make an arrangement with Korolev and go 

under his supervision.

Reflecting on the events of a half a century ago, I have come to the conclusion 

that for the second time mysterious forces inflicted what appeared to be a shattering blow on my career. But in actual fact, these forces rescued me from potential 

genuine disaster.

The first rescue force came in 1933, when I was removed from supervisory Komsomol work at Factory No. 22 and was almost expelled from the Party. If this hadn’t 

happened, I would have surely advanced to the next stages of a political career. For 

many of my comrades at that time—especially after the arrest of Olga Mitkevich—

such political work ended their careers or their lives with the 1937–38 repressions. 

Seventeen years later, my removal from a high post rescued me from further enticing 

advancement up the administrative ladder in the ministerial system and made me 

one of Korolev’s closest colleagues.9

With the perspective of a half century, what accomplishments do I take 

credit for during the first four years of the establishment of Soviet rocket technology?

I shall try to formulate them and, for simplicity’s sake, list them point by point:

1. The organization of the country’s first staff of specialists who initiated the 

integrated method for creating complex guidance systems for long-range missiles in 

9. In effect, Chertok’s move from being Chief Engineer of NII-88 to a senior designer in Korolev’s 

OKB-1 led him to an entirely different career path.

They didn’t have much time left at the institute, and it was no use for us to sink with 

them. Therefore, relying on Pobedonostsev’s moral support and on Korolev’s criticism that we were not putting out the volume of work that he demanded, we would 

pursue a strategy of quietly ignoring surface-to-air missile related projects.

The tragic death of Dmitriy Sergeyev in the Caucasus was a very heavy blow for 

me and for our entire team. He had dashed off to take part in what was for those 

times a complicated traverse of several peaks. After Sergeyev’s tragic death, radio 

engineer Anatoliy Shustov, who had come to the institute after his demobilization, 

was designated chief of the radio laboratory and would later become chief of the 

radio department. From the very beginning of the establishment of OKB MEI he 

managed to set up a very productive collaboration with Kotelnikov’s collective.

Despite the fact that at that time it was fashionable to contend that “no one 

is indispensable,” I was convinced of the opposite. Each person who does things 

his own way is indispensable. We were all indispensable. I was convinced that if it 

hadn’t been for the death of Roman Popov in 1944 and Dmitriy Sergeyev in 1948, 

much in our missile radio engineering would have turned out to be considerably 

more effective. Each of them had been capable of becoming a prominent scientist 

or leader.

However, as they say, history does not care what might have been, “What would 

have happened if...” In this regard the specific meetings and events that I have 

described characterize the general atmosphere in the country and in the industry in 

which we were working during those first postwar years. The events underscore the 

thesis that sometimes the natural progression of historical events can be changed, 

seemingly by chance. However, as a rule, these very chance incidents are the manifestation of the natural order of history.

I occupied the position of NII-88 deputy chief engineer and chief of 

Department U from January 1947 until the end of 1950—just short of four 

years. Of these four years almost a year was spent at the State Central Test Range 

(GTsP) in Kapustin Yar. For three months, beginning in September 1950, I was 

tormented by a special ministry commission that single-mindedly studied my activity. The formal justification for this were letters to the Party Committee, Ministry, and even to the Party Central Committee. The letters, whose authors were the 

unsuccessful inventors of new missile guidance principles, accused me of sins, which 

I considered to be accomplishments. The main charge was that I had created an 

astronavigation laboratory, supposedly staffed with incompetent specialists, whom I 

selected based on our personal compatibility.8

Two other charges ensued from the main one. The first was that the diversion of 

manpower for the “stellar adventure” hampered the development of missile guid8. Author’s note: My passion for stellar navigation was so serious that later I will devote a special 

chapter (Chapter 12) to it.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

118

all aspects: development, production process, factory and prelaunch tests, in-flight 

monitoring, processing of flight-test results, and introduction into series production.

2. For hundreds of engineers with the most varied backgrounds (in my department by early 1950 there were more than 500) there was perhaps an intuitive sense 

for a systemic approach. Each individual had to understand and feel that he or she 

was participating in a large system of operations, and, accordingly, understand the 

decisive importance of intersystem connections.

3. At my initiative, with the assistance of Director Gonor, the Ministry, and 

Special Committee No. 2, new creative organizations were established in academic 

institutes and affiliated with institutions of higher learning (OKB MEI, and departments at MGU and MVTU).10

4. We studied and mastered virtually all of the basic experience on German 

rocket technology guidance and measurement.

5. We established close creative and business ties with the staffs of all the chief 

designers, the military specialists at the missile test range involved with the armament acceptance process, and with central directorates.

6. We developed the theory and technology for electrohydraulic power drives for 

control surface actuators. We laid the foundation making it possible in later years to 

create a unique school of power drives for missile and later for space technology.

7. We invented and experimentally tested automatic stellar navigation methods. 

We set up an astronavigation laboratory, the staff of which, after being transferred to 

the Ministry of Aviation Industry, became the basis for the independent astronavigation design bureau that supported the world’s first soft landing on the Moon.

8. We set up an antenna systems laboratory, which served as the starting point 

for the development of a scientific design school for onboard antenna feeder systems 

for missiles and later also for spacecraft.

9. For the first time domestically, we developed a method for bench testing a 

complex of electrical circuits and instruments and their interaction in a ground-toair system.

10. Working jointly with testers, we developed instructions in the form of technical documents for factory and flight-design missile tests.

11. We introduced methods into experimental instrument production for testing the reliability of electrical and electromechanical instruments when exposed to 

external factors such as temperature, vibration, and electrical interference.

12. I consider as one of my special personal accomplishments bringing the teams 

of Chief Designers Isayev and Tsybin (in 1948) and Babakin (in 1949) into the NII88 institute structure. Officially, their transfer was formalized by ministers’ orders, 

but it was up to me to prove to Isayev, Tsybin, and Babakin that their transfers to 

NII-88 made sense and to persuade Gonor and Vetoshkin that it was an absolute 

necessity to take these design groups into NII-88.

10. MGU—Moskovskiy gosudarstvennyy universitet (Moscow State University); MVTU—

Moskovskoye vysshyeye tekhnicheskoye uchilishche (Moscow Higher Technical School).
Chapter 7

Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

I have already written about the 1947 firing range tests on the A4 missiles assembled 

in Germany. After 1947, we stood face to face with the task of creating and launching R-1 missiles. These missiles were supposed to be precise copies of the German 

A4s.

To this day, among connoisseurs of the history of our rocket technology, there is 

still controversy over whether it was worth it in the years 1947–48 to begin broadscale projects for the reproduction of German rocket technology. The war’s results 

had shown the ineffectiveness of A4 missiles, even when fired against such obvious 

targets as London. It was clear that if the A4 missile had become obsolete as early as 

1945, then its domestic analog, which could not appear in mass production before 

1950, would be all the more hopelessly obsolete. We too had these same doubts 

back then.

This situation was perhaps harder on Korolev than anyone. He had been designated chief designer of a rocket whose actual developers had only yesterday been our 

mortal enemies. We had all experienced firsthand how difficult its field operation 

could be and its low degree of reliability during firing range tests in 1947. Besides 

that, at whom were we going to fire with a range of just 270 kilometers? This was a 

more difficult issue for the Soviet Union than for Germany in 1944. As if that wasn’t 

enough, the frantic campaign against foreign influence was still brewing.

From the standpoint of today’s understanding of history, one must admit that 

the decision to reproduce the A4, approved by Stalin, was correct. However, the initiative belonged to Minister of Armaments Ustinov. Despite the wavering of designers and many government officials, Ustinov, along with Ryabikov and Vetoshkin, 

insisted on this decision, consistently and strictly monitoring its implementation.

The following considerations influenced the decision to precisely reproduce the 

A4. First, large groups of engineers and workers needed to be brought together, 

trained, and taught to work. To do this, they needed a specific and clear task and 

not distant prospects. Second, the factories needed to be kept busy. If they were 

left idle, somebody else might borrow them. The nuclear community’s paws were 

particularly dangerous. They were not only building factories, but taking away 

other people’s factories using Beriya’s protection. But to keep production going, we 

119
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Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

121

country, had to enable production and product output without the assistance and 

involvement of the designers who had developed this documentation.

In the aviation industry, “on the spot” adjustments and slight deviations from 

the drawing that didn’t affect the general tactical and technical requirements were 

considered normal, especially when running piping, cables, and so on. The artillerymen did not allow this. The situation required not only a new frame of mind from 

both sides, but also the judicious pursuit of compromises when daily job-related 

conflicts arose during the production process.

From the very beginning of work on the R-1 missile, in addition to these primarily formalistic conflicts, serious manufacturing problems also cropped up. The first 

of these was the problem of replacing all of the German materials with domestic 

equivalents. A problem affecting dozens of Soviet enterprises came crashing down 

on our materials technologists, who, it is apropos to mention, were not subordinate 

to Korolev at that time. In the production of A4 missiles, the Germans used eightysix brands and gauges of steel. In 1947, Soviet industry was capable of replacing 

only thirty-two grades with steel that had analogous properties. The Germans used 

fifty-nine brands of nonferrous metals, and we could only find twenty-one of them 

domestically. It turned out that the most difficult materials were nonmetals: rubber, 

gaskets, seals, insulation, plastic, and so on. We needed eighty-seven types of nonmetals, and our factories and institutes were capable of providing only forty-eight!

Great difficulties arose during the process of mastering the manufacturing process for control surface actuators in the pilot-production shop of my Department 

U. We executed the drawings in precise compliance with the GAU requirements, 

but the first experimental control surface actuators assembled according to those 

drawings did not satisfy a single requirement for static and dynamic characteristics. 

Moreover, it turned out they weren’t airtight. The oil that served as the working 

medium in these devices broke through the rubber seals when working pressure was 

generated and puddles formed under the test rigs.

One day Voskresenskiy dropped into our shop, and watching the tests on the 

first control surface actuators, he remarked, “You’ll blow up the missile that way!” It 

was believed that the mixture of liquid oxygen that inevitably leaked during fueling 

and the oil from the control surface actuators was highly explosive. We immediately 

set up “explosion hazard” tests. Drop by drop we poured control surface actuator oil 

into a chamber containing scalding liquid oxygen. Nothing happened!

After this, the emboldened testers poured oil right out of the measuring glass. 

Again there was no explosion. Then they rigged up a device that mercilessly shook 

the explosive chamber, simulating the impact and vibration of a missile in flight. 

Still there was no explosion. Nevertheless, the fear of a possible explosion during 

missile launch preparation remained. Before beginning the oxygen fueling process, 

testers usually inspected the missile’s tail section in the area where the control surface actuators were installed to make sure there were no traces of oil.

Late into the night, designers, factory process engineers, and metallurgists would 

labor over the control surface actuator gear pumps in the material technologists’ 

needed verified, good-quality, working documentation. Where were we going to get 

it? Were we going to develop our own new documentation from scratch or rework 

the Germans’? The answer was obvious. The second option was two years shorter. 

Third, the military had already formed special units and they had actually created 

the State Central Test Range. We couldn’t leave them with nothing to do! Fourth, 

we needed to get domestic industry involved in missile technology as soon as possible. Let them immediately start making engines, instruments, fittings, wire, and 

connectors, for which specifications already existed, and voila! our own drawings 

would appear.

When all this new cooperation got the kinks worked out and started working on 

a specific project—the series production of the R-1 missile—that’s when we, having 

established a foundation, could allow ourselves to make a leap forward, switching 

to the development of our own missiles, which, at that point, the army would really 

need. These were the basic considerations that drove our planning, and I repeat, 

from today’s standpoint they seem even more appropriate than they seemed back 

then.

The Americans immediately took a different route.1 History has shown that 

during that segment of time we were the wiser, although it is sometimes more difficult to reproduce something “exactly” than it is to make it your own way.

We faced our biggest problems during the stage when design documentation was 

issued and during production. NII-88 SKB Department No. 3 headed by Korolev 

had the main role in preparing the technical documentation for production. Issuing the documentation, which had to meet the rigid artillery requirements of the 

customer, GAU, was a very painful experience. Korolev, Mishin, Budnik, Bushuyev, Okhapkin, myself, Chizhikov—who was the director of my Department U’s 

design bureau—and many others wanted to bring aviation production approaches 

into NII-88. But we ran up against the harsh opposition of GAU officers and the 

NII artillery leadership, particularly SKB Chief Tritko. At first, compliance with 

the strict GAU specifications for technical documentation had seemed completely 

unnecessary to us. The so-called GAU “TU 4000” specification, which defined the 

drafting system, was very strict and rigid in terms of its formatting requirements.2

These specifications had been formulated during the war, drawing on the experience of infantry and artillery armaments mass production. According to this system, 

the documentation that appeared in the shops of any factory, in any region of the 

1. Instead of directly copying the V-2 rocket, in the postwar era, the U.S. Army fired dozens of 

them for research purposes. Later, companies such as North American Aviation used the experience of 

the V-2 design (such as propulsion) to develop the Navaho while the Aerojet and Martin companies 

developed completely indigenous rockets such as the Aerobee and Viking, respectively. By the time 

that more powerful American ICBMs and launch vehicles were available in the late 1950s, their lineage 

stretched back to both domestic and German origins.

2. TU—Tekhnicheskiye usloviya—literally “Technical Condition,” but more appropriately 

“specifications.”
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Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

123

The problem of the strength of the graphite control fins was so serious that 

Gonor ordered materials technology Department Chief Iordanskiy to create a special laboratory. Former GIRD engineer Fonarev was in charge of it. In his Department No. 3 Korolev gave the responsibility for the graphite control fins to young 

specialist Prudnikov. But the control fins remained a very unreliable part of the R-1 

missile flight control system for a long time.

Kurchatov needed graphite for the moderator rods in nuclear reactors. He needed 

graphite with a particularly high purity, but mechanical strength was secondary in 

importance. We didn’t need purity, but a high degree of strength was mandatory. 

How the Germans had achieved the strength of their graphite control fins, we did 

not know. Eventually, Prudnikov and the graphite production under his patronage 

run by Fialkov developed all the process secrets using their own wits. The control 

fins could be checked only on fire-testing rigs in the jet of a standard engine. NII88 did not yet have such a rig. Glushko had the only such stand (in Khimki), but 

he had a heap of his own problems there. In Germany, it seemed that welding the 

large combustion chambers was not at all tricky. But in Khimki, welded seams were 

bumpy, burn-throughs abounded, and cracks occurred during tests.

All the engine specialists (or as we joked, the “trench people”) in Glushko’s 

entourage—Vitka, Artamonov, Shabranskiy, Sevruk, and List—had been through 

the Sharashka with him in Kazan and the fire-testing rigs in Lehesten.3 They worked 

intensively. Here was yet another paradox. These were people to whom the existing 

regime had caused so much harm, against whom a scandalous injustice had been 

committed—seven years in prison, camps, or Sharashki—and they worked with 

self-denial and fanaticism that was rare even for those times. The tests on the gasjet control fins interfered with their firing test program because they put additional 

stress and the consumption on the new engines. And there were never enough of 

them.

The heavy burden of quality control and the precision reproduction 

of the German prototypes lay on the shoulders of military acceptance teams. 

Military engineers and our own engineers had gone through all the peripeteia of 

the Institutes RABE and Nordhausen. But while we had been workmates there, 

had enjoyed ourselves at the Villa Frank officers’ club, and had helped each other in 

every way, now modest Colonel Engineer Trubachev, chief of military acceptance 

(regional engineer) could stop production with a single telephone call: “Friendship 

is friendship, but you better have a waiver anytime you deviate from documentation!”

I often used to recall a thought that Lavochkin expressed once when I met him in 

3. Sharashka and sharaga were common slang words used to describe prison work camps for 

scientists that operated during the Soviet era.

laboratories. The primary parts of the pumps, which were made of special iron and 

steel, did not have the required cleanliness when treated. Sometimes the pumps fell 

apart. The relay/slide valve unit gave even more trouble. If the smallest speck got 

into the slide valve mechanism, it jammed. A “speck incident” would surely result 

in a loss of controllability and the inevitable crash of the missile.

But the greatest trouble of all awaited us when we began tests on control surface 

actuators cooled to temperatures below freezing. The oil thickened and caused such 

increased torque on the shaft of the electric motor turning the gear pump that it 

started to smoke from overload. The electric motor managed to burn out before it 

heated up and ignited the oil with its own energy.

We began a new search for hydraulic drive oils that wouldn’t freeze. But they 

proved to be too liquid under summer temperatures at the test range, which had 

soared as high as +50°C (122°F). It was discovered that our factory, which had just 

mastered permanent mold casting of aluminum alloy actuator housings and had 

cheerfully reported this technological accomplishment, was not maintaining quality 

in casting. The actuator housings were porous. At high temperatures, the control 

surface actuators would “sweat” because oil seeped through the pores. Once again, 

talk started up about the explosion hazard posed by the control surface actuators. 

These flashes of memory highlight only a minute portion of the everyday problems 

that cropped up during the production process.

The USSR Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation and Remote Control 

decided to render us scientific assistance on all aspects of the actuator drive problem, 

and did so very enthusiastically, especially after Academy President Vavilov’s visit to 

NII-88. Institute director Boris Nikolayevich Petrov, a young Doctor of Technical 

Sciences, had just taken over the directorship from Academician V. S. Kulebakin, 

who had been my guest in Bleicherode in September 1945. Petrov put his best 

personnel, under the leadership of future Academician Trapeznikov at our disposal. 

Academy scientists had a positive influence on raising our engineers’ general theoretical level and cultivated a taste for strictness in technical reports and theoretical 

generalizations. But they could not suggest anything to prevent the mass failure of 

gear pumps or dirt jamming the slide valves.

If the scientific level was high, the general industrial culture was not up to the 

level of our tasks. Workers and process engineers needed a new mindset. This 

required a great deal more time than the plans and schedules had allotted.

A similar situation was developing in many other industrial sectors and among 

our numerous contractors. Unlike the Germans, we experienced no difficulties with 

graphite for the gas-jet control fins. Their fabrication was entrusted to the Elektrougli firm in Kudinovo. Fialkov, a specialist in carbon electrodes for primary-cell 

batteries, was in charge of this production. He was subordinate to the “chief electrician” of missile technology, Andronik Iosifyan. This facetious title invented by 

Korolev really flattered Andronik. When he heard that Korolev called me a “rusty 

electrician,” he was very amused, and after that he loved to proclaim, “I am the 

‘chief electrician,’ but my assignments come from a ‘rusty electrician’.”
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124

Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

125

reinforced. Hatches were incorporated into the tail compartment, enabling the control surface actuators to be changed out without removing the entire compartment. 

The nominal design range was increased from 250 to 270 kilometers. This required 

increasing the amount of alcohol fuel by 215 kilograms and making the appropriate 

ballistic recalculations, which were drawn up in the form of a range table. The work 

of the Sparkasse (Savings Bank) group at the Institute Nordhausen, which included 

Tyulin, Lavrov, Appazov, and German specialists, was used as the basis for the range 

tables.

The nose sections of the missiles in the first series were filled not with explosives, 

but with ballast, and were provided with an ampoule containing a smoke mixture, 

which facilitated the search in the area where it came down. As with the A4, the 

instrument compartment was located behind the nose section. It contained all the 

primary motion control hardware, which was now strictly domestically produced.

Three command gyroscopes controlled autonomous flight control: the GG-1 

horizon gyro, the GV-1 vertical gyro, and the IG-1 longitudinal acceleration integrator. These instruments were substantially improved at the NII-10 institute after 

Viktor Kuznetsov and Zinoviy Tsetsior did a detailed study of the German models’ 

defects. In particular, rather than pulses with a frequency of 45 Hz passing from the 

vibrator—which was inconsistent in its performance—to the horizon gyro program 

mechanism, they passed from a special collector mounted on a motor generator.

Other instruments installed in the instrument compartment had been developed with small changes by the staffs of Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin at NII-885. Based 

on A4 experience, filters were inserted in the layout and design of the mischgerät

(amplifier-converter) for all three missile stabilization control channels. In 1947, 

Ustinov thanked Drs. Hoch and Magnus for introducing these filters. At the time, 

neither we nor the Germans knew that Ustinov had paid them a monetary reward 

in the amount of three months’ pay with Stalin’s consent.

The missile’s general electrical system was identical to that of the A4 both in 

terms of the operating logic and the number elements and their function. The system’s entire relay-control segment was concentrated in the main distributor. Time 

commands were issued by the “program current distributor” (PTR). That’s the term 

we used to replace Zeitschaltwerk, the German phrase for timer. Lead batteries developed by Nikolay Lidorenko, and Andronik Iosifyan’s motor generators supported 

the power supply system.

Instead of the four-channel Messina-1 telemetry system, our domestic eight-channel Brazilionit system was installed in the instrument compartment. Degtyarenko, 

who was assigned this work back at the Institute RABE, developed this system at 

NII-20. Yevgeniy Boguslavskiy developed the fundamentally new Don telemetry 

system at NII-885. However, despite the developers’ enthusiasm, this system was 

not ready to support missile flight tests in 1948. We used it only for the second 

series of R-1 missiles in 1949.

The alcohol and oxygen tanks were welded using an aluminum-magnesium 

alloy. The aviation industry supplied the material for the tanks. The welding proGonor’s office.4

 “It’ll take at least two or three years for us to get everything running 

smoothly.” But we didn’t have time for that. The R-1 missile series flight-design tests 

were scheduled to start in September 1948.

Operations on the R-1 had run full speed ahead since late 1947, but the decree 

for the development of long-range domestic missiles had not come out until 14 

April 1948. The higher offices of government and Special Committee No. 2 were 

actively assisting us and our contractors to expand cooperation. This required process restructuring at many enterprises of other ministries. We were also aided by the 

spirit we still retained from wartime: “If the Motherland is in need, look for a solution, instead of an excuse if you fail.”

Just to provide the entire gamut of new materials, the decree signed by Stalin 

stipulated that the following organizations be brought in for our projects: Central 

Scientific-Research Institute of Ferrous Metals (TsNIIChermet), the Academy of 

Sciences’ Metallurgy Institute, the Scientific-Research Institute of Rubber Industry, 

the All-Union Institute of Aviation Materials, the Academy of Sciences’ Institute of 

Physical Chemistry, the Central Institute of Aviation Fuels and Lubricants, the Serp 

i Molot (Hammer and Sickle) and Elektrostal factories, the Stupinskiy Light Alloy 

Industrial Complex, the Leningrad Rubber Technology Institute, and others.5

The decree made it incumbent upon the Ministry of Armaments to start building a rig to perform integrated firing tests on the missiles. In 1948, construction 

began at a very picturesque site fifteen kilometers north of Zagorsk. The rig was 

erected in a forest next to a deep ravine, which was to receive the rush of the engines’ 

fiery jets.

This new facility under the codename Novostroyka (New Construction) was 

first declared the NII-88 institute’s Branch No. 2, but then it attained its sovereignty 

and became the independent NII-229.6 Nevertheless, this facility for missile firing 

rig testing continued to be called Novostroyka for thirty years. For a long time Gleb 

Tabakov was in charge of the facility. He was subsequently one of the deputies of 

the missile industry ministry.7

While testing German missiles, including the A4, in 1947, we found certain defects that could not be ignored, problems that led us to modify the A4 somewhat. In the design of the missile body, the tail and instrument compartments were 

4. Semyon Aleksandrovich Lavochkin (1900–60) served as Chief Designer of OKB-301 in Khimki 

in 1945–60, during which time he directed the development of jet aircraft, supersonic cruise missiles, 

antiaircraft missiles, and drones.

5. TsNIIChermet—Tsentralnyy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut chernoy metallurgiy.

6. On 14 August 1956, NII-88’s Branch No. 2 separated to become the independent NII-229. 

The organization is known today as the Scientific-Research Institute of Machine Building (NII 

Khimmash)

7. Gleb Mikhailovich Tabakov (1921–95) served as director of NII-229 in 1958–63 and then as 

deputy minister of the Ministry of General Machine Building (MOM) in 1965–81.
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Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

127

two future academicians, Sergey Nikolayevich Vernov and Aleksandr Yevgeniyevich 

Chudakov. This was one of our country’s first scientific space teams, which was just 

as interested as we were in penetrating into outer space. FIAN hardware was to be 

installed on at least two missiles.

The tests on the first domestic missile series were called factory tests. Ustinov 

approved the 1948 test program, and it was concurred with GAU. Vetoshkin was 

the State Commission chairman, his deputy was General Sokolov, and Voznyuk, 

Gonor, Korolev, Tretyakov, Yeremeyev, Vladimirskiy, and Muravyev were appointed 

commission members. Chief Designers Korolev, Glushko, Barmin, Ryazanskiy, 

Kuznetsov, Pilyugin, Likhnitskiy, and Degtyarenko were responsible for the technical management of the tests.

In all, twelve missiles were shipped for the tests. Of these, ten were equipped 

with the new domestic Brazilionit telemetry system instead of the German Messina system. Having retained the frequency multiplexing principles of the channels, 

the developers doubled the carrying capacity. It became possible to receive twice as 

much data as on the A4. The entire radio monitoring system of the missiles’ flight 

and behavior was considerably enhanced. The number of radar stations had been 

increased, and their personnel had undergone preliminary training.

For the first time, the Indikator-D radar system responder was installed on several missiles. The Indikator-D was developed at OKB MEI by Kotelnikov as a result 

of our meeting with Valeriya Golubtsova.

We set aside a special railroad car for telemetry data processing. There, the members of the first serious measurement service, consisting almost entirely of young 

specialists who had graduated in 1946–47 from institutions of higher learning and 

were immediately “thrown into battle,” began their careers. They all proved to be 

enthusiasts and soon held leading positions and commanded respect. Among them 

I need to name Nikolay Zhukov, Vadim Chernov, Arkadiy Ostashev, and Olga 

Nevskaya. Major Kerim Aliyevich Kerimov commanded the telemetry receivingrecording station. He would go on to become the permanent chairman of the State 

Commissions on manned launches.9

Radar tracking stations were manned by a staff military contingent. But NII-88 

Department U radio engineers coordinated their work, developed the observation 

schedules, and processed the results. Nadezhda Shcherbakova and NII-4 radio engineer Grigoriy Levin supervised the operations.

The technical management included a group of ballistics specialists. These were 

men who would later become famous Soviet scientists and leaders in the space 

industry: Yuriy Aleksandrovich Mozzhorin, who in 1961 became director of the 

9. Kerim Aliyevich Kerimov (1917–2003) served as the First Deputy Director of NII-88 

(TsNIIMash) in 1974–91. From 1966 to 1991, he also served as Chairman of the State Commission 

for piloted space vehicles, that is, he oversaw flight operations for almost all Soviet human space 

missions including Soyuz, Salyut, and Mir.

cess, which was new for Factory No. 88, was mastered under the supervision of 

Leonid Mordvintsev. This was one of the key production problems for mastering 

missile production at Podlipki.

The R-1 propulsion system was developed under Glushko’s supervision at OKB456 in Khimki. They assigned it the designation RD-100. The greatest headaches 

during its reproduction and optimization had to do with the selection of nonmetallic materials for seals, various rubber and metallic parts, and problems with leaks at 

all the pneumatic and hydraulic interfaces.

As a rule, ignition was accompanied by a violent pop. Sometimes the engine 

never started. This defect was a problem that the engine specialists who had developed the engines worked on for a long time. The engines’ components did not have 

an auto-ignition feature. Apropos that, one day when we were talking about our 

troubles, Isayev confessed that he had made a vow to develop engines with only 

auto-ignition components so that he wouldn’t have to use the “horns and hooves” 

method that we had invented in Khimki in 1943, and he wouldn’t have to live in 

perpetual fear of the ignition problem.

During the first days of September 1948, the R-1 missiles designated for 

flight tests arrived at the State Central Test Range. The missiles to be tested were 

shipped in special enclosed freight cars under intensified guard in advance, so that 

the first ones had already been unloaded by the time we arrived. With NII-88 Director Gonor in charge, we followed the missiles out to Kapustin Yar to the State Central Test Range to take our first exam. Our work on the manufacture of a domestic 

long-range ballistic missile, the R-1, was about to be tested.

In today’s terminology, missiles with a range up to 1,500 kilometers are classified 

as short and medium range. But at that time, 300 kilometers was a great distance. 

After all, we were only just developing the R-2 with a range of 600 kilometers, and 

the R-3 project with a range of 3,000 kilometers was in the distant future.

The launches were supposed to confirm that the R-1 was at least not inferior 

to the A4. We rode out on our special train, in the sleeping cars that would be our 

living quarters at the firing range. Vasiliy Ivanovich Voznyuk had not yet managed 

to build hotels.8 There had been too many problems to take care of getting the firing 

range ready. The launch pad had been moved a little farther from the engineering 

facility and a thick concrete bunker built for launch control. Alongside the “steppe 

asphalt” road, a good concrete road was put down.

Construction workers also built sheds to house the three cinetheodolite stations. 

The launch site had a well-equipped shed that served as the facility for the Academy 

of Sciences’ Physics Institute (FIAN), where the physicists who studied the intensity 

of cosmic rays during launches huddled together. This team of scientists included 

8. Vasiliy Ivanovich Voznyuk (1907–76) served as Commander of the Kapustin Yar range in 

1946–73.
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Industrial workers had mixed feelings. The chief designers who comprised the illustrious Council were obviously not overly fond of Mrykin because every time he 

brought an issue to them, they had to either respond to all of his demands or find 

some rational reason for declining. The chiefs’ deputies and all the lower-ranking 

supervisors respected Mrykin. They saw and understood that his negative comments regarding technical imperfection, errors in calculations, or the need for solutions based on the analysis of the results from failed launches were essentially correct 

and required implementation.

Mrykin was not a military careerist. It wasn’t easy for him to develop relationships with high-ranking leadership precisely because, being very devoted to his work 

and firm in his convictions and in the validity of his case, he fearlessly entered 

conflicts from which he did not always emerge the victor. His work had a great 

influence on raising the operational characteristics of all the long-range missiles of 

the first decade.

The unflinching natures of Korolev and Mrykin often clashed, and higher-ups 

had to resolve conflicts between them. The complexity of the relationships of these 

two men devoted to their work affected those surrounding them. More than once 

Korolev and Pilyugin reproached me for having good relations with Mrykin and 

making concessions to him in various joint documents. In 1965, Mrykin retired 

with the rank of lieutenant general. He went to work at TsNIIMash as deputy director of the institute and began to study problems of reliability, and, as a hobby, he 

collected and worked with materials on the history of aerospace technology.11

The flight tests of the first series of R-1 missiles had a tragic beginning. I must make a confession to the readers of the first volume of the Russian edition of Rockets and People.

12 In chapter 4, “Getting Started on Our Home Turf,” on 

page 191, I write about the tragic death of one of the finest BON officers, Captain 

Kiselev. Over the eight years since the first volume was released, not a single reader 

pointed out my mistake to me. Captain Kiselev’s death occurred not in October 

1947, during preparation for the launch of the first missile, but during preparation 

for the launch of the first R-1 missile on 13 September 1948!

One of the negative comments of the military testers based on the experience of 

preparing the A4 missiles at the launch site was the inconvenient access to the instrument compartment, which was located directly under the warhead. Responding to 

the testers’ wishes, Korolev had commanded his designers to develop a “cradle,” a 

service platform that would be suspended from the nose section. After the missile 

was erected on the pad, the operator would be able to climb into this cradle from 

the upper part of the erector. When he had completed his work, the operator would 

11. Mrykin served as First Deputy Director of NII-88 (TsNIIMash) between 1965 and 1972. He 

died in October 1972.

12. B. Ye. Chertok, Rakety i lyudi [Rockets and People] (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1994).

main institute of the Ministry of General Machine Building; Svyatoslav Sergeyevich 

Lavrov, who in 1968 became a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of 

Sciences and in 1980, director of the Astronomical Institute; and Refat Appazov, a 

leading ballistics specialist in Korolev’s OKB. Practically the entire ballistics Kompashka, as we called it, under Georgiy Tyulin’s management, had worked well together 

at the Sparkasse of Institute Nordhausen back in Germany.

In early September, the Volga steppes, which had been scorched over the summer, 

were once again covered with vegetation. Ground squirrels scampered playfully 

over the roads. Steppe eagles stood watch on the telephone poles and transmission 

towers. Their life in the wild was continuously in danger. The ground squirrels, the 

eagles’ main prey, were poisoned because it was believed that they were plague carriers. The missile specialists who now occupied this area had a penchant for the great 

eagle wings, a unique souvenir of the steppes, and this also became a reason for the 

extermination of those remarkable birds. People, not missiles, were destroying the 

unique animal world of that region.

In 1947, the electric firing, fueling, and other departments were staffed primarily with civilian specialists who had undergone training at the Institutes RABE and 

Nordhausen. German specialists attended the launches as consultants and prompters, but by 1948, there was not a single German specialist at the test range.

The launch crew was staffed with special purpose brigade (BON) officers and 

soldiers under the command of General Aleksandr Fedorovich Tveretskiy. An industrial specialist was paired up with each member of the military detail as a monitor. 

Despite the industrial specialists’ obvious technical precedence, they quickly sorted 

things out with the military men and their joint work proceeded very amicably.

The military officers—launch team chief Major Yakov Isayevich Tregub, electric 

firing department chief Captain Nikolay Nikolayevich Smirnitskiy, his deputy Captain Viktor Ivanovich Menshikov, and stand-alone testing department chief Major 

Boris Alekseyevich Komissarov—all advanced to the posts of high-ranking generals, 

but they maintained their friendship with their missile launching comrades from 

the late 1940s. During those years, that is, during the period of operations at the 

Kapustin Yar test range in 1947–53, we all worked as a team.

Here, I’d like to give my due to Colonel (later General) Mrykin. In charge of 

the GAU missile directorate, he took upon himself the primary work of formulating the military’s technical policies.10 In the role of a strict and exacting taskmaster, 

Mrykin demonstrated exceptional steadfastness in dealing with Korolev and other 

chief designers, who were striving to rid themselves of the R-1 somewhat quicker 

and switch to forward-looking tasks. As a chief they thought he was harsh and too 

demanding. I have already mentioned that.

Mrykin’s subordinates were somewhat fearful of him, but they respected him. 

10. Mrykin’s official title between 1946 and 1953 was First Deputy Commander of the 4th 

Directorate of the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU).
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131

14th at noon I couldn’t help it, I fell asleep, and suddenly some force threw me from the 

sofa. I jumped up—it was exactly 2:00 p.m. At that moment he died ...

It seems so long since I had hoped for something so much, since I had prayed so hard 

to the powers that be or to some powerful God that he would stay alive—and now it’s all 

over for once and for all!

This situation is all the more tragic because five days later his daughter was born.

We buried our dear Pavel and the following day we returned once again to our work; 

the work for which he gave up his life.”

12 October 1948

“The distant and dear-to-my-heart hours and happy minutes of our life...

Now, here in this windy, sandy wilderness, during my few minutes of rest and calm I 

recall them. It is 1 a.m. Reveille is at 3:30. This is my second night without sleep, but I 

wanted to send you these few words of love and greeting...

I want you to be strong and steadfast in life. Know that I, too, am trying to be the 

same, and above all, for you.

No matter how hard our separation, it is necessary for the sake of this important work 

for our Fatherland, and we must be steadfast.”

In 1948, Pavel Tsybin was the chief of testing at Department No. 12 at NII-88. 

He had transferred to us from the aviation industry. His deputy was Leonid Voskresenskiy. Both of them were present at the launch when Kiselev tested the ill-fated 

“cradle.” After Kiselev’s burial and the customary ceremonial funeral banquet, I listened to Voskresenskiy’s ruminations; he had clearly been shaken by what had happened. He was tearing himself up that he had not demanded any documents from 

the designers clearing this cradle for operation, and there had been no preliminary 

factory tests whatsoever.

The tests of the first series of R-1 missiles showed that we had added 

our own defects to those of the A4. Whereas the A4 had endured in-flight 

accidents, the R-1 stubbornly refused to lose contact with the launch pad. It took 

twenty-one instances of the engine failing to go into main stage ignition to get nine 

missile launches. To a certain extent, these failures came as a surprise to us. We had 

not expected the R-1 to be so reluctant to fly. The cause turned out to be powerful pops from micro-explosions of fuel entering the combustion chamber after the 

“ignition” command. The pyrotechnic igniter, located on a special device made of 

wooden strips in the combustion chamber, was supposed to burn a portion of the 

alcohol mixed with liquid oxygen vapor. After this, upon the issuance of the “preliminary” command, a significantly greater quantity of fuel was fed to the fire that 

had formed, and for seconds the steady, roaring jet of the preliminary stage was 

formed. Then, the “main” command occurred. The main oxygen and alcohol valves 

opened at full flow. The main stage jet was generated with the characteristic roar, 

thrust increased, and the missile took off from the pad. But this did not happen 

during the first attempt to launch the first R-1 missile.

climb back onto the erector, open the locks of the metal belt secured around the 

warhead, and drag it onto the erector to descend to the ground.

The first missile was erected on the launch pad with the cradle placed on the 

nose section. Before work started, launch crew department chief Kiselev decided to 

personally check out the possibility of using the cradle for work in the instrument 

compartment. Standing in the cradle, without any safety precautions, he began to 

jump in the cradle to test the reliability of its fastenings. The catch clips did not 

withstand the dynamic load. The cradle holding Kiselev broke off and came crashing down from a height of twelve meters onto the concrete launch pad.

This happened right before the eyes of almost the entire launch crew. The ambulance on duty at the launch site delivered Kiselev to the test range military hospital. 

The hospital’s chief surgeon reported to the State commission that the trauma that 

the captain experienced was fatal. Use of the cradle during missile tests was forbidden. All of this I have dragged out of my memory almost fifty-five years after the 

fact.

Everything that happened on that sunny September morning at the Kapustin 

Yar launch site I have tried to recreate in my memory by reading Korolev’s letters published in the book ...It Was a Time that Needed Korolev.13 The author who 

compiled that book, Larisa Aleksandrovna Filina, director of the Korolev Memorial 

House-Museum, has published the most vivid excerpts from Korolev’s letters from 

the test range to his wife, Nina Ivanovna.

9–10 September 1948

“Our workday begins at six o’clock in the morning local time (5 o’clock Moscow time) 

and continues until late into the night.

Of course, I am very tired, being unaccustomed to it, but I think that I’ll soon get into 

the routine. Meanwhile everything is going rather well.”

30 September 1948

“On 13 September our dear friend and comrade-in-arms Pavel Yefimovich Kiselev 

died tragically. He was one of our main testers. The accident happened on the 13th, and 

he died without regaining consciousness on the 14th at 2:00 p.m.

A terrible chain of events led to his death. His personal courage and ardent love for 

the job entrusted to him tragically pushed him towards death. But given all of that, we 

designers and I, as their chief supervisor, bear a heavy responsibility for this incident. 

Officially they are saying that he is to blame, but I personally am taking this hard 

and cannot forgive myself that perhaps I might have overlooked something, and in any 

event, I should have watched more attentively. During the 24 hours that he was battling 

against death, all of us here lived with only one hope, that he would stay alive. On the 

13. L. A. Filina, ed., “... Byl veku nuzhen Korolev”: Po stranitsam arkhiva Memorialnogo domamuzeya akademika S. P. Koroleva [“...It Was a Time that Needed Korolev”: From the Pages of the 

Archives of the Memorial House-Museum of Academician S. P. Korolev] (Moscow: MDMA Koroleva, 

2002).
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132

Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

133

“I was responsible for the first crash,” declared Chernov. “At the launch site, 

Korolev saw me, called me over to the launch pad, and explained, ‘This missile is 

Soviet, but the launch pad is still German. Do you see the onboard skid contact? It 

starts the timer at the moment of launch. Its rod rests in a corresponding niche on 

the launch pad. The pad needs to be fixed so that everything will be ready by morning.’” Chernov was devising and designing all evening. He woke up the metalworkers in the middle of the night and by morning in the workshop on the special train 

they had produced his version of the skid contact stop, or more correctly speaking, 

the liftoff contact. According to Chernov’s version of the story, his student design 

did not withstand the powerful pop, and the contact broke after the “ignition” 

command rather than after the missile lifted off from the launch pad. The horizon 

gyro timer started ahead of time; a pitch command was sent to the control surfaces, 

tilting the missile immediately while it was still on the pad. As the missile was leaving the pad, the plume was pointed, not vertically, but at an angle, and it hurled the 

pad off into the steppe.

After this incident, Korolev instructed Chernov to calculate what gas dynamic 

forces were affecting the launch pad to the extent that it could fly so far. This was 

the first scientific-research project of the MAI professor, prominent specialist in the 

field of missile instrumentation, and member of the Russian Engineering Academy 

and Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.

Missile launch control members during a break in the winter of 1948 while launching the 

R-1 ballistic missile. From left to right are B. Ye. Chertok, N. A. Pilyugin, L. A. Voskresenskiy, 

and N. N. Smirnitskiy.

From the author’s archives.

After the “ignition” command, a powerful “pop” sound could be heard, a noise 

a lot louder than a rifle shot. The shock effect caused the message lights of the 

selected commands on the launch console to begin blinking and the circuit to reset. 

Transition to the intermediate stage was prevented, and power was cut off from the 

electric motors of the control surface actuators. For another launch attempt they 

had to reset the circuit to the initial state, cut off power to the onboard instruments, 

and replace the igniter, which required climbing almost inside the engine’s already 

“wet” nozzle. These operations, including all the discussions and arguments, took 

one or two hours.

During the second launch attempt there was once again a powerful pop accompanied by the consequent resetting of the circuit. A significant evaporation of 

oxygen accompanied the launch delay. Ground support needed to bring up the 

oxygen filler again and top off the tank with oxygen. They preferred to drain the 

oxygen back into the filler and investigate the causes of the launch failure. After 

draining, the missile needed to be dried, for which they decided to bring in aircraft 

air heaters. They decided to drain both the alcohol and the hydrogen peroxide in 

order to completely repeat the electrical tests on a dry missile and find the cause. 

This took three days. They never did find the exact cause. Everything seemed to be 

working properly.

The ground crews fueled it up and began a third launch attempt. Using the idea 

of one of Pilyugin’s testers, former seaman Nikolay Lakuzo, they decided to take the 

extra precaution of manually ensuring the launch’s reliability. Even if a pop occurred, 

they would not allow the system to reset. To do this, Lakuzo crawled behind the 

launch console in the bunker, removed the back panel, and at the required moment, 

he manually retracted the armature of those relays that popped loose during the 

pop. That way, the system had to continue the automatic process of proceeding to 

the “main” stage.

This forced start mode really did make it possible to proceed to the main stage 

mode. But, evidently still reacting to the assault on its electrical system, and having 

reluctantly taken off, the missile immediately leaned forward and went into horizontal flight. All the observers jumped into the open trenches that had been dug 

beforehand. After flying approximately ten kilometers with its engine running, the 

missile went into a dive and crashed into the ground. But that’s not all. Not just the 

missile, but also the heavy launch pad flew off and was hurled twenty meters from 

the launch site, and all that was left there was fused or swept away by the force of 

the fiery squall. Examining the mutilated launch pad, Glushko noted sarcastically, 

“I didn’t think that my engine could make launch pads fly too.”

All night we analyzed the system and finally realized that when Lakuzo was pulling in the relay armature, he didn’t pull in the armature of the control surface actuators’ power supply. The missile had flown without control surface actuators, that is, 

as an unguided projectile.

Forty-four years later, Dr. Vadim Chernov, who in 1948 had been at the test 

range as an MAI student, told me his version of the crash of the first Soviet R-1 

long-range guided missile.
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134

Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

135

I liked this idea so much that, despite the threatening mood of the visiting brass, 

I smiled and started to whisper this idea to Smirnitskiy. Infatuated with the hypothesis, I didn’t notice that the meeting’s arguing had died down. A strong shove in my 

side from Tregub stopped me. Ustinov’s menacing, mocking voice rang through the 

silence. Turning to Voronov he said, “Nikolay Nikolayevich, have a look at Chertok. 

We’ve all been sitting here for days and they can’t explain to us why the missiles 

won’t leave the pad. We have to report to Iosif Vissarionovich [Stalin] that we have 

mastered production of the missiles, but it turns out, they refuse to fly. And through 

it all, Chertok is still smiling.”

I immediately stopped smiling. But now, looking in my direction, Voronov 

smiled and kindly said, “So let’s hear Chertok’s explanation as to why the missiles would fly for the Germans, but not for us.” 

Despite the cramped quarters, I stood up and reported 

that as yet not everything was clear, but that tomorrow we would conduct an oscillographic analysis of the contacts’ behavior, which would enable 

us to understand and correct whatever was causing 

the system to reset when powerful pops occurred. 

After the meeting my comrades attacked me. “What 

oscillograph? Where? What have you promised without consulting with anyone? Start drying bread crusts! 

Serov’s agents have already memorized your smile.”14

Together with Boguslavskiy, whose artistic abilities for 

using an electronic oscillograph I had admired back 

at the Institute RABE, we worked out a system for 

monitoring the operation of the skid plug contacts. 

Right away, helpers and fans of the idea appeared 

out of nowhere. During the next pop we actually saw 

the blips of the tripping contacts on the oscillograph 

screen, which explained the system’s reset logic. Goltsman, the chief designer of the ill-fated plug, devised an 

external spring that increasing the contact’s reliability. 

The missiles began to fly!

I received no gratitude for the idea. But Voskresenskiy kept his head, and after the next successful launch, 

when the necessary quorum had gathered in one of 

the compartments of the special train, he explained, 

“Everyone drinks his own booze, but for hors d’oeuvres

we’ll have Chertok’s dried bread crusts.” We drank to 

14. The comment about bread crusts was a typical contemporary euphemism to warn about the 

threat of arrest and imprisonment.

The R-1, shown here just 

after launch, was the Soviet 

version of the German A4 

(V-2) missile. Its reproduction allowed Soviet industry 

to master a huge array of 

industrial practices necessary to develop much more 

complex missiles. The missile 

was eventually deployed for 

battle operations in 1950.

Asif Siddiqi.

The second missile proved to be even more obstinate. To begin with, the ground 

crews eliminated all the defects in the ground-based cable network. Next, during 

two launch attempts the engine did not start, despite the fact that the system did 

not reset. After long experiments on a missile standing on the pad, they discovered 

that the main oxygen valve had frozen. During subsequent attempts, resets were 

sometimes accompanied by the intervention of firefighters. Puddles of propellant 

components were burning under the launch pad.

Eventually they removed the oxygen valve from one of the missiles and checked 

its ability to freeze. They determined that the cause of the failure was the stiffening 

of the abundant amount of oil in its bellows assembly. The missile tests were discontinued. The main oxygen valves were removed from all the missiles and sent to 

the factory in Khimki for degreasing. This was a powerful blow to engine designer 

Glushko’s self-esteem. Up until that point he had been bad mouthing “the resetting 

circuits of those guidance specialists and electricians.”

It wasn’t until 10 October that the missile reached the target area. But three days 

later, after three attempts, the next missile once again remained on the launch pad. 

In terms of psychological effect, the disruptions caused by the freezing of the oxygen 

valves surpassed the pops that had accompanied the launch attempts.

Soon after the flight tests had begun, Ustinov, Artillery Marshal Voronov, and 

former State Commission chairman Artillery Marshal Yakovlev flew in, not only 

as observers and enthusiasts but also as supervisors and threatening bosses. Their 

appearance coincided with the beginning of a whole series of failures and disappointments, and left all the testing participants in a state of constant stress. The 

high-ranking leaders had been fully convinced that we had not only studied and 

reproduced German technology, but had substantially increased the missiles’ reliability. And now suddenly they discovered that the missiles, for various reasons, 

simply refused to fly.

According to the established traditions, we all were due strict reprimands. Supposedly this would be beneficial. In the conference car of the special train a State 

Commission meeting convened, including the chief designers and leading specialists. Glushko’s deputy Dominik Sevruk reported on the causes of the pops. He just 

managed to explain the cause, but all he could offer in the way of solutions was: 

“Let the guidance specialists figure out why their system resets. Pops during launch 

are inevitable.”

Pilyugin was offended and tried to argue that if you “hit all the relays with a 

sledge-hammer, you can’t help but disturb the contacts and that’s what causes the 

system to reset. The German missiles did not have this backfiring problem.”

During the meeting, I was sitting in the far corner of the car between Smirnitskiy 

and Tregub. Before this we had rejected the idea of the relay contacts in the main 

distributor being disturbed. The main distributor was located far from the engine 

and the missile’s entire structure should have damped the pop. I assumed that during 

powerful pops, the contacts were disturbed between the multiple-strand ground 

cable and the flange in the skid connector designed by the Prozhektor Factory.
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136

Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

137

they only affected morale. And the troops had no idea that the Germans had such 

a secret weapon. But what if, instead of thousands of their V-missiles, the Germans 

had hurled thousands of tanks or aircraft at the front! Now that’s something we 

would have felt!”

I don’t remember this general’s surname. His tunic was decorated with an impressive abundance of sparkling medals. Having overheard our conversation, Vetoshkin 

smiling cunningly, proposed a toast, addressing it more to that general than to the 

rest of the gathering: “Don’t look at what’s on your chest, look at what’s ahead!”

I must give credit to the sense of the future and the courage of the high-ranking 

military leaders Voronov, Nedelin, Yakovlev, and Marshal Zhukov himself, who at 

that time was deputy defense minister. In spite of all their accomplishments and 

highest authority, they risked more than we did. Ultimately, we were legally in the 

clear: there was a decree signed by Stalin that each of us was obligated to fulfill. But 

as regards this or that marshal, that same Beriya during his next meeting with Stalin 

could say that so-and-so supports missile projects demanding enormous resources 

and the ineffectiveness of such projects has been proven and was obvious already at 

the end of the war. And with that, the marshal’s career, and perhaps his freedom, 

would have come to an end. After all, it was in 1952 that the highly upstanding 

Marshal Yakovlev was arrested on a much less serious charge!

Of course, Minister Ustinov, Vetoshkin, other ministers and the directors of Gosplan and Special Committee No. 2 were also taking a risk gambling on our obsession. By late 1948, operations had expanded so broadly that doubts and retreats 

would have been much more dangerous for everyone than their intense continuation. But we had to keep in mind to ensure a “significant increase in reliability, 

failure-free operation, and improvement of the operational parameters of all the 

assemblies and systems comprising the R-1 missile.”

This is a citation from the State Commission’s resolution. In 1949, we were faced 

with eliminating the defects discovered in the first series and once again traveled out 

to the firing range no later than September for joint factory tests on the R-1 second 

series. Before our departure from the firing range Korolev impressed on all the chiefs 

and persuaded Vetoshkin that the second series must comprise at least twenty missiles. No one objected to this proposal.

During work on the second series we were all, to a certain extent, freed from the 

obligations to precisely reproduce German technology. For that reason, a great deal 

of resources were devoted to experimental work, new ballistic calculations, compiling new range tables, reviewing all the factors determining accuracy, and, finally, 

developing new monitoring systems and instrumentation.

The year 1949 was also taken up with preparation for the production of the new 

600-kilometer range R-2 missile, which was a departure from the German A4. The 

fabrication of the R-2E experimental missile was already underway at full speed. 

This missile was supposed to confirm the propriety of the primary design solutions 

adopted for the R-2. But who would support the prospects if we didn’t vindicate 

ourselves with the new R-1 series?

our success too soon. In addition to the skid connector, we also needed to increase 

the “pop resistance” of the skid contact. Chernov’s work on that problem had proved 

insufficient.

Added to all our troubles was another incident that finally drove the visiting 

brass to distraction. The next missile launch scheduled for 1 November was postponed due to severe fog. During the night, the sentry guarding the launch site 

showed exceptional vigilance and for some unknown reason shouted, “Stop! Who 

goes there?” No response came out of the fog and he fired a warning shot. The guard 

raised by the alarm found nothing suspicious in the surrounding area.

Arriving at the site the next morning, the launch team immediately smelled the 

strong scent of alcohol. An inspection showed that the shot the night before had not 

been fired into the air, but rather into the filled alcohol tank. The missile’s entire tail 

section was drenched with alcohol from the bullet hole. They removed the missile 

and shipped it to the factory in Podlipki for restoration and sent the sentry to the 

brig. Voznyuk was advised of the guards’ utterly unsatisfactory training.

Factory tests of the R-1 at the firing range had begun during the marvelous days 

of September. They finished in cold and rainy November. Of the twelve missiles, 

nine were launched. Despite the very discouraging results of the flight tests, the 

findings of the State Commission were very generous:

“The first series of R-1 domestic missiles in terms of their flight characteristics, as 

demonstrated by the flight tests, were not inferior to the captured A4 missiles. Fundamental issues during the reproduction of R-1 missiles from domestic materials were correctly resolved ... The flight characteristics of the first series of R-1 missiles conform to the 

characteristics specified by the tactical and technical requirements, with the exception of 

range scatter.”

Essentially, such an assessment was necessary to overcome the skeptical and even 

hostile or negative attitude toward missile armaments on the part of many military 

chiefs, who had gone through the war and emerged victorious using conventional 

armaments.

This calls to mind a statement by one of the combat generals who was invited 

to the firing range for familiarization with missile technology. After a modest banquet arranged in the special train in honor of completing testing on the first series, 

and being somewhat mellow from drinking our traditional “Blue Danube,” that is, 

rocket fuel tinted with manganese crystals, turning to Pilyugin, Kuznetsov, and me, 

he said confidentially so that the marshals sitting nearby could not hear: “What are 

you doing? You pour over four metric tons of alcohol into a missile. And if you were 

to give that alcohol to my division, they could take any city easily. And your missile 

wouldn’t even hit that city! Who needs it?”

We, of course, started to defend ourselves, and to argue that the first airplanes 

were not perfect either. But he proved to be not such a simpleton and crushed us 

with this simple argument: “The Germans manufactured and released thousands 

of missiles. But who could tell? In Berlin, I met both Brits and Americans. They 

told me frankly that they did not suffer any particular loss from the missiles. So 
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138

Face to Face with the R-1 Missile

139

critical situations, without waiting for the findings of the accident commission.

The year 1949 was the most stressful in terms of the number and variety of 

missile launches. During April and May, experimental launches of the R-1A were 

conducted. The primary objective of these launches was to optimize the separation principles of the nose section. But one could also not miss the opportunity 

for conducting a whole series of experiments necessary for the future during these 

launches.

The missile’s nose section was equipped with a cowling that ensured its static 

resistance during entry into the atmosphere. A parachute system made it possible 

to recover the nose section, which held containers of scientific equipment that were 

designed to study the atmosphere up to an altitude of about 100 kilometers. Four 

missiles were launched to a range of 210 kilometers, and two were launched to an 

altitude of 100 kilometers.16 At the same time, the capability was tested for radar 

tracking the missile body and the separated nose section separately. During the process of vertical launches, for the first time serious research work was conducted on 

the passage of SHF and UHF radio waves in the upper atmospheric layers. It turned 

out that the main interference for reliable radio communications with the missile 

was not in the ionosphere, but in the engine plume.

During vertical launches, patterns were very clearly recognized. While the engine 

was operating, information proceeded from the missile with transient errors. As 

soon as the engine was shut down, reliable communications were established, especially in the UHF band. Boris Konoplev at NII-20 had developed the equipment 

for experiments in that band. He also developed the radio control system for the 

future R-3 missile.

Konoplev was the staunchest supporter of combined control systems, that is, 

the combination of an autonomous inertial radio system and one that corrects its 

errors. I first became aware of his almost fanatical devotion to radio engineering 

and his ineradicable desire to solve any radio engineering problem his own new way 

after making his acquaintance back in 1937, during preparation for the transpolar 

flights. At that time he was working in the Main Directorate of the North Sea Route 

(Glavsevmorput) and, without having a degree in radio engineering, he was the most 

authoritative radio specialist. During the war he set up radio communications on 

the routes of northern sea convoys. Then he took a keen interest in radar. Finally, in 

1947, he decided that his place was in missile technology, and he devoted all of his 

enthusiasm and talent to it.

During tests, radiating optimism, he would report the results of his research 

on the attenuation of radio waves in the engine’s plume and countermeasures 

against this phenomenon to all whom he considered worthy of introducing to radio 

engineering. Pavel Tsybin, who at that time was NII-88 testing department chief, 

16. Six launches of the R-1A took place on 7, 10, 15, 17, 24, and 28 May. The last two were 

“vertical” launches for reaching altitude rather than downrange.

At one of the unofficial meetings of the technical management upon returning 

from the firing range, Korolev clearly expressed his belief that the primary work to 

achieve failure-free launches “on the first attempt” must be conducted at NII-885 

and OKB-456. As for NII-88, the main task would be bringing order and professionalism to the factory, increasing the reliability of the control surface actuators 

(this was addressed to me), and establishing a way to monitor what was going on in 

Pilyugin and Glushko’s organizations.

Upon our return, Gonor very actively set about redesigning the factory and 

introducing new production processes. Traditionally, the factory had little trouble 

with machining processes. New processes that required nonferrous castings, a large 

volume of copper, riveting, and welding work were taken on very reluctantly.

By late 1948, Gonor had strengthened the management of the main shops, and 

after making arrangements with Lavochkin, sent more than fifty process engineers 

and factory foremen to Lavochkin’s pilot-production factory for training in aircraft 

production.15 Their primary objective was to study the processes for bending, forming, and welding aluminum alloys. They created an independent fittings shop with 

a closed production and testing cycle. Later, this shop became a high-capacity and 

very state-of-the-art engine fittings production facility.

While working on the guidance systems for the second series of R-1s, my comrades and I needed to concentrate on four primary areas: optimization of airtight 

(nonleaky) control surface actuators; perfection of factory electrical testing procedures and processes and, correspondingly, test equipment; mastery of the new Don

telemetry system; and keeping track of what was going on at NII-885.

A serious technical achievement of 1947 was the creation of the new Don telemetry system, which was installed on all “series two” missiles instead of the Brazilionit. 

The Don was developed by Boguslavsky’s small team at NII-885, and a short time 

later it went into series production.

The increase in the number of parameters measured on each missile, the development of new sensors, and the general electrical circuitry of the telemetry system 

required an increase in the number of telemetry specialists. The Don system groundbased receiving station was equipped with an electronic monitor that enabled realtime observation, satisfying the curiosity of the authorities in the event of an accident, without waiting for the film to be developed and dried. Instead of recording 

on paper using mirror-galvanometer oscillographs, for the first time measurement 

results were recorded onto motion-picture film using an electronic oscillograph. All 

the system ground tests were successful, and Boguslavskiy proposed that we also 

conduct aircraft tests before the firing range tests. They were conducted at LII. For 

the first time, the aircraft testers envied the missile specialists when they realized that 

the system would make it possible to understand flight phenomena, especially in 

15. This was Factory No. 301 located in Khimki near Moscow.
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140

devoted a witty satirical ode to Konoplev and to the problem of the engine jets’ 

effect on radio waves. It was a sensational success among testers and radio specialists, 

who considered Konoplev a great radio ham, but a dilettante in radio physics.

In early 1950, Konoplev transferred to NII-885, where he was in charge of the 

entire field of radio engineering. Air defense problems were the exception. In this 

case his aspirations did not always match the technical view of Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin. However, these differences did not lead to the antagonism that often occurs 

in organizations when several outstanding talents are working on similar problems, 

dividing an entire team into warring camps.
Chapter 8

The R-1 Missile Goes Into Service

The second series of twenty-one R-1 missiles was broken into two batches: ten socalled ranging missiles and ten qualification missiles. One missile was designated for 

firing rig tests. The grim lessons of the first series were not lost on us. The second 

series, manufactured and tested at factories using newly revised documentation, 

showed substantial progress in reliability.

From September through October 1949, all the launches were conducted under 

incomparably calmer circumstances than in the past. It bears mentioning that the 

living conditions at the firing range had also been substantially improved. For the 

first time, we were living in hotels instead of the rather shabby special train. We now 

dined in normal dining halls rather than tents. All the roads were concrete-paved, 

and the old firing range song about “dust and fog” was receding farther and farther 

into the realm of folklore. Finally, missiles at the engineering facility for horizontal 

tests were given a significantly more comfortable assembly and testing building.

The new order at the firing range included brief periods of rest and relaxation. As 

a rule, we took advantage of them to go fishing. The Akhtuba River and its myriad 

tributaries were in the immediate vicinity of Kapustin Yar and our residential area. I 

don’t consider myself much of an angler, but I genuinely enjoyed the fishing parties 

back then, both the actual fishing, and the subsequent socializing, when the main 

and only dish was marvelous fish soup cooked on the riverbank.

Flight tests on the second series of R-1 missiles were conducted in September 

through October 1949. As for the numerical ratings, the results looked pretty good. 

Of the 20 missiles, 16 landed in the 16- by 8-kilometer rectangle that the technical 

requirements specified. Only two missiles fell short of the target. One instance was 

caused by the “popping”; its shock triggered the premature uncaging of the integrator, which generated additional error because of gravitational forces. The other was 

caused by an error in the integrator tuning. Two missiles experienced mishaps in the 

launch area: one from prelaunch leaks in the fuel lines, resulting from the violent 

pops, and the other from an explosion of the oxygen tank during the fueling process, resulting from a faulty pressure release valve.

There was not a single failure during engine startup caused by system reset. 

Pilyugin and his people were very proud of this, although the pops still took a toll 

141
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“I propose that we conduct experiments using 

a real missile in the woods near our airfield. We’ll 

set the missile up on the launch pad. We’ll fuel it 

and start the engine until it goes to the preliminary stage. As soon as it goes into the preliminary 

stage, we’ll shut it down. We’ll sort out the latest 

‘pop.’ Glushko, Pilyugin, and Chertok, if they are 

capable, can devise modifications, and we can do 

a restart. And so we’ll start up the engine as many 

times as we need to. Going to the preliminary 

stage isn’t hazardous stuff.”

“We’ll install all the electrical starting equipment in the cab of a truck, and we’ll ask Barmin 

and Goltsman to round up their assemblies from 

their factories.”

At first the proposal seemed crazy.

“We’re only fifteen kilometers from Moscow. 

What if the engine accidentally goes to main stage 

after preliminary? The missile will take off! Where 

is it going to crash?”

“The engine’s not going to go to main stage! 

We’ll switch off the circuits of the main stage 

valves, and that will be a full guarantee of safety.”

Back in Bleicherode, we counted Voskresenskiy among the ranks of the “hussars.”1

 This proposal underscored his hussar nature.

Gonor placed Voskresenskiy in charge of the experiments. Everything was ready 

in a week. Before the standard experiments began, Voskresenskiy decided to conduct a general rehearsal on a quiet Sunday in April, so that all the high-ranking 

guests could be invited to the missile launches beginning Monday on the outskirts 

of Moscow.

The missile was erected in a forest glade on approximately the same site where 

the main building of world-famous TsNIIMash is located today. After a general 

rehearsal for the fueling of all the propellant components, right down to the hydrogen peroxide and sodium permanganate, having made sure that everything was 

going normally, the testers cast their fates to the wind and decided to take the 

rehearsal up to the point of the first ignition and first “pop.”

On the first attempt the engine achieved nominal thrust without a pop. But 

1.“Hussars” were members of various European light-cavalry units for advance scouting, modeled 

on the 15th century Hungarian light-horse corps. Here, the word is used in the Russian stereotype of 

hussars as good-natured, courageous, and “hard living.”

Leonid Voskresenskiy (1913-65) 

was one of Sergey Korolev’s most 

well-liked and respected deputies, 

responsible for all field operations 

and flight-testing at the launch 

range. A man who had little time 

for the formalities of official hierarchies, he had a well-deserved 

reputation as a seat-of-the-pants 

adventurer.

From the author’s archives.

on the testers’ nerves. In the first series, six of the ten missiles were removed from 

the launch pad because of launch failures. In the second series, not a single missile 

was removed.

After the launches were completed, they set up a review commission, of which I 

was a member. We worked from dawn to dusk, forcing our typing pool to collapse 

from exhaustion. They revised and retyped the conclusions, proposals, and findings 

dozens of times.

Mrykin believed that the missiles’ shortcomings were still so serious that it was 

too soon to launch a large production run of them, much less propose putting 

them into service. Korolev was extremely disgruntled by this stance. He insisted 

on roughly the following wording: “begin series production, during which defects 

identified during flight tests shall be eliminated.” These controversies would have to 

be decided in Moscow at the level of ministers and marshals.

Ustinov, Vetoshkin, Gonor, Korolev, and all of us R-1 developers believed that to 

give the new technology a sense of worth and to add to the respect of the entire field, 

the series production documentation needed to begin with the statement “accepted 

into service.” After four years of unyielding work, the failure to hand over for production a missile that the Germans had been producing in series as early as 1944 

would have been a blow to our prestige.

In 1949, the primary tasks for NII-88 and its pilot-production factory

were the manufacture of a second series of R-1 missiles and its preparation for flight 

tests, which were scheduled for September through October. The factory was not 

designed for large-scale series production and was working under tremendous stress. 

Factory horizontal tests in the control and test station of assembly shop No. 39 were 

conducted jointly by shop testers and Department U specialists, without whom it 

would have been impossible to figure out the intricacies of the electrical circuits and 

to master the new Don telemetry system. By brainstorming, we quickly learned to 

overcome all the difficulties we encountered during tests at the factory. But Pilyugin, 

our chief launch tester Voskresenskiy, and I were plagued by the memories of the 

“popping incidents” during the 1948 missile launches. We very much wanted assurance that the modifications to the electrical circuits, the strengthening of the cable 

connectors’ fastenings, and the changes in the ignition devices were sufficient. How 

could we verify the reliability of all these modifications before flight tests began?

At first we hoped it would be possible to conduct firing tests on the missiles’ 

launch process on the rig under construction near Zagorsk at NII-88 Branch No. 2. 

But in a meeting with Gonor on the readiness of the first firing test rig we were told 

that it would not be ready before December. The rig at the firing range was too far 

away for us to use. It was inconvenient and very expensive. It was unrealistic to ship 

a special missile and an expedition of hundreds of specialists to the firing range for 

the sake of two or three “pops.”

“I’ve got it!” announced Leonid Voskresenskiy, who was already recognized by 

everyone as the highest authority in testing.
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torical because it had been presented to the Moscow regional administration as 

material evidence allowing the anniversary events to be conducted. Moreover, over 

the fifty years of its activity, the former Novostroyka had been transformed from a 

small settlement into a flourishing modern scientific city. And it deserved its own 

name and location on a map. It had been proposed that it be given the name “Peresvet,” the symbol of the ancient warrior hero, whom St. Sergius of Radonezh blessed 

for battle with the Tatars.2

The report, from which the secret stamp had been removed so that it could circulate freely among the administrative offices of the Moscow regional governor, was 

bound in a beautiful gold-embossed hard cover. The functionaries had not noticed a 

historical discrepancy: the gold embossing on the cover said “NIIKhimmash 1949.” 

But in 1949 there was only an NII-88 branch, but no NIIKhimmash.3 But let’s not 

split hairs! For me the important thing was that I had received the right to refer in 

my memoirs to my direct involvement in the birth of a new city in the Moscow 

region.

The report on the first firing test on rig No. 1 of the NII-88 branch, now the 

city of Peresvet, had only three signatures: those of chief of Department No. 12 

flight-test station No.2 (LIS-2) Voskresenskiy; chief of NII-88 Department No. 16 

Chertok; and NII-88 Branch No. 2 chief engineer Tabakov.

The construction of Branch No. 2 began the summer of 1948. By late 

1949 Novostroyka was already a small, completely closed forest housing development. Its central and first installation was rig No. 1, closed off from the residential 

area. It also included service facilities supporting the missile’s preliminary preparation for tests, the compressor unit, and yet-to-be-completed propellant component 

storage facilities, instrumentation building, and workshops. Rig No. 1 was built for 

missiles with cryogenic components. They had in mind the R-1 missile, its development, the R-2 missile, and subsequent modifications. A great deal of space remained 

for the construction of missiles using high-boiling components.

The initiator and primary enthusiast behind the creation of Novostroyka was 

Minister Ustinov. Its chief builder, and in the early years its actual manager, was 

Georgiy Sovkov, who had transferred to our ministry from the Academy of Sciences. Gleb Tabakov was the chief engineer overseeing the creation of the firing 

section and the technical ideologue. My Department U, or No. 16, was tasked with 

2. The monk Aleksandr Peresvet fought for the Russians against the Tatars in the great Battle of 

Kulikovo in 1380 on the banks of the river Don. St. Sergius of Radonezh (1314–92) was a Russian 

Orthodox monk whose spiritual beliefs and social programs gained him fame as a highly respected 

spiritual leader. Zagorsk (now known as Sergeyev Posad) is the site of the monastery founded by St. 

Sergius.

3. At the time, NIIKhimmash was still known as NII-88 Branch No. 1. In 1956, the branch 

separated from NII-88 to become the independent NII-229. Today, the organization is known as 

NIIKhimmash.

despite all the commands from the control panel, the engine did not want to shut 

down and roared into the preliminary stage. The fiery squall thundering against the 

conical splitter of the launch pad spread out over the ground, igniting the grass, the 

bushes, and various and sundry trash. All attempts to shut down the engine failed. 

The launch pad and missile tail section were in danger of overheating. If the whitehot launch pad did not bear up, the missile would fall and an explosion would 

follow, shattering the windows in the nearby factory settlement of Finnish-style log 

homes.

Voskresenskiy asked the fire-fighting crew that rushed to the fire to direct the 

streams of water at the launch pad to cool it off as much as possible. The supply of 

propellant components kept the engine running continuously in preliminary mode 

for ten minutes. The propellant components were finally used up, but the launch 

pad and missile tail section were still steaming for a long time from the drenching 

with water.

On that sunny Sunday I was looking forward to strolling around Sokolniki with 

my sons. But a call from the NII-88 duty officer cut short my plans: “Lev Robertovich [Gonor] ordered that I find you immediately and bring you to the launch site. I 

have already sent a car.” When I arrived, steam was still rising from the overheated 

launch pad and missile tail section.

Surrounded by individuals unknown to me, Gonor was explaining something 

to Deputy Minister Ivan Zubovich. Off to the side stood the small group of those 

responsible. Judging by their appearance, they had really “gotten theirs” and were 

waiting for further instructions. After the higher-ups had gone their separate ways, 

Gonor calmly explained to all of us that a state security representative had asked for 

a brief summary of why all of this was necessary and what had been the probability 

of the missile actually taking off.

“Chertok and Voskresenskiy shall write this at once. And tomorrow I will send 

Zubovich a copy of my order with severe reprimands for the gross violation of safety 

procedures, for unauthorized deviation from the program of experiments, and for 

lack of a backup means for shutting down the engine. But this is a precautionary 

measure. Ivan Gerasimovich [Zubovich] will try to keep us from being hounded 

by investigators.” And so the attempt to fire up the R-1 missile engine at Podlipki 

ended in disgrace.

Novostroyka, NII-88’s Branch No. 2 in the vicinity of Zagorsk, had been conceived to facilitate the integrated ground testing and verification of a missile with an 

operating engine. Firing tests on rig No. 1 at Novostroyka began after the tests on 

the second R-1 series in December 1949.

I wouldn’t even have remembered them if it hadn’t been for the 50th anniversary 

of NIIKhimmash. At the ceremonial anniversary meeting, NIIKhimmash director Aleksandr Makarov gave me a precious gift. It was a photocopy of the original 

report on the first firing tests on rig No. 1, dated 18 December 1949, article 1R No. 

24, with propulsion system RD-100.

At the time, factory Director Makarov announced that this document was his-
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on board, and the failure to execute the necessary operation at the prescribed time 

caused the automatic circuit reset.

“Yes, that very same ‘foolproof’ feature.”

We changed the relay and increased the entire system’s power supply voltage to 

the maximum allowable, but we still didn’t achieve stable operation.

Gonor arrived. When he found out that we, our eyes rimmed with dark circles from lack of sleep, had not yet granted permission for fueling the tanks, he 

demanded an immediate decision:

“If there is no hope of a launch, then tell me honestly. I will call Ustinov and 

request that the launch be postponed to another day.”

“There’s no need, Lev Robertovich. We have an idea and we’re going to check it 

out. Give us thirty minutes.”

The idea was fundamentally simple. We would take the tester who was smallest in size, but with a good head on his shoulders. We would shove him under the 

console where the monitoring and launching equipment was installed. The relay 

cabinet containing the unruly relay was located under the launch pad. The console 

operator controlling the launch would track the process by monitoring the illuminating display lights, and as soon as the process reached the point of the “groundto-air” command, he would nudge or press down on the “under-the-pad operator” 

with his foot. The operator, in turn, having readied himself in front of the relay in 

question, from which the protective cover had been removed, would press on the 

armature with his finger, simulating its actuation.

Thirty minutes later, we had checked out the idea and the general tests proceeded “without incident.”

Voskresenskiy and I reported to Gonor and he called Moscow and gave the green 

light for the high-ranking guests to make the trip out. We finally gave permission 

to fuel the tanks.

“During the launch we will have ten guests in the bunker. God forbid that anybody should notice that we have a man hidden behind the consoles, and that anybody should get the notion to speak about that afterward.”

The fueling process proceeded with delays that were understandable because this 

was the first time. It had also turned bitterly cold, and even wearing gloves it was 

impossible to work on the rig exposed to the wind from all directions. The guests 

had no desire to freeze and the bunker was packed to capacity. Petya Vishnyakov, 

whom we had hidden behind the console before our guests arrived, was tired of 

being scrunched up like a snail in its shell and he started asking to be let out to 

stretch his legs.

Finally, at 8:50 p.m. Voskresenskiy announced momentary readiness. I nestled 

up close to the console, monitoring the displays, and all I could think about was the 

operator under the equipment.

The first fire up was successful. The engine ran for fifty-five seconds. Half of the 

high-ranking guests were watching the fiery squall for the first time. The spectators 

began to exchange hearty congratulations. Georgiy Sovkov proposed that all the 

developing and fabricating the electronic testing and launch equipment using the 

manpower of the experimental shop and also with developing and setting up instrumentation during firing tests.

With the consent of Gonor and Korolev, Pavel Tsybin made Voskresenskiy responsible for organizing and conducting tests in Department I, or No. 12. 

Together he and the rest of us verified the test rig’s readiness for all the departments 

and the technical documentation for the first firing test. The factory was responsible 

for delivering the assembled missile, preparing it for firing tests, and installing it in 

the rig.

In 1949, Novostroyka did not yet have its own staff. For that reason, the primary functions were performed by mass expeditions from Podlipki to Zagorsk on 

the commuter train, and from the station to Novostroyka on service buses. Gonor 

ordered Voskresenskiy and me to arrive at Novostroyka a day before the launch, 

having warned us that this was a historical event and that Minister Ustinov, Marshal 

Yakovlev, and even Ivan Serbin from the Central Committee would be coming to 

the “performance.”

“This launch is politically vital! It must go off without a hitch. And at precisely 

the time announced! I will say 6:00 p.m. OK?”

Gonor addressed those parting words and that question to us on 16 December. 

We agreed, and on the morning of 17 December we convened an operational meeting at Novostroyka and heard reports. The horizontal tests were completed successfully. The missile was installed in the rig. The instrumentation was inspected and 

calibrated, and stand-alone engine tests were performed.

“We’ve started general testing, but meanwhile we’ve discovered glitches in the 

circuit. We’ll find out whether it’s an onboard or ground problem,” Emil Brodskiy 

reported to us. In effect, he was held responsible for the failings of the developers, 

testers, component manufacturers, and “everybody who concocted that missile.”

The entire night of 17 to 18 December they worked to find the cause of the 

launch control system failure. When the “ground-to-air” command was issued, the 

circuit reset, and the engine’s automatic startup process terminated.

“Perhaps this situation is similar to the demonstration of our ‘foolproof’ system 

that Marshal Rokosovskiy didn’t trust.” I reminded Brodskiy how we had demonstrated our smart automatic launch control system to almost all the marshals of the 

Soviet Union in 1947.4

As we were searching for the cause, Pilyugin’s most scrupulous tester, Nikolay 

Lakuzo, proved that Pilyugin’s onboard system was not the culprit. He asked us to 

look for errors in the ground-based control panels. And, of course, we found them. 

The great length of the cable network from the panel in the bunker to the rig caused 

voltage drops. The relay in the panel failed to pick up the commands coming from 

4. See Chapter 4.
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believed that only he and I should define the technical policy for the development of 

the ideas and principles behind control surface actuators for all types of missiles.

Soon thereafter the talented designer Lev Vilnitskiy transferred to us from the 

SKB’s Department No. 4, involved with air defense missiles. He proved to be a really 

remarkable designer and one who took a highly valued, unconventional approach to 

complex designs and mechanisms. His authority among designers and production 

engineers was indisputable. More than once, Vilnitskiy rescued Kalashnikov and me 

from seemingly hopeless design fiascos in terms of reliability, mechanism characteristics, and production deadlines. Later he was the one tasked with developing the 

most complex electromechanical assemblies for spacecraft docking.5

Possessing design and engineering talent like a gift from God, Vilnitskiy could 

not resign himself to the failure of his hip joint after a severe illness. Together with 

some surgeons he developed an artificial joint mechanism. He persuaded some doctors to perform an operation to replace his natural hip joint, and this restored his 

ability to walk using just a cane instead of crutches. Over the course of many years 

of joint work Kalashnikov and Vilnitskiy formed a duo that not only supervised the 

development of control surface actuators and mechanisms, but also established a 

discipline that became the leading one in our field.

After long disputes and controversy at the highest levels, the decree on 

the acceptance of the R-1 missile into service nevertheless was issued in November 

1950. The reconstructed Dnepropetrovsk automobile and tractor plant was transferred to the Ministry of Armaments for the series production of missiles. The factory was assigned the number 586 and it became yet another “post box.”6

 A large 

group of specialists headed by Korolev’s deputy Vasiliy Budnik was transferred from 

NII-88 to Dnepropetrovsk on a voluntary basis.

Korolev believed that the primary task of the designers sent from OKB-1 of NII88 was to introduce the manufacturing process for the R-1 missile and then for the 

R-2 missile—and none of their own inventions. Budnik, departing from Podlipki, 

thought otherwise. When Korolev was no longer among the living, this is the story 

Budnik told:

“When I left the Moscow suburb of Kaliningrad in 1952, S. P. Korolev personally reviewed the list I had compiled of specialists to be transferred to the Ukraine 

and he crossed off all the designers, saying that there would be nothing for them 

to do there. At my request, Deputy Minister I. G. Zubovich put all the crossed off 

names back on the list.7”

5. Vilnitskiy participated in the development of docking systems for the early generations of Soyuz 

spacecraft.

6. During the Soviet era, organizations conducting sensitive operations were assigned post box 

numbers which were used as both official designations and addresses.

7. B. I. Gubanov, Triumf i tragediya ‘Energii’, t. 1 [Triumph and Tragedy of ‘Energiya’, vol. 1] 

(Nizhniy Novgorod: Izdatelstvo NIER, 2000), p. 126.

guests and test directors come over to his Finnish log cabin for the post-test wrapup. The “wrap-up” lasted late into the night, as we sat around a table with unlimited 

quantities of “rocket fuel,” hot potatoes, pickles, and sauerkraut. Gonor was one of 

the first to get up to leave and suggested I ride with him.

“Afterward the driver will take you home,” he said.

I sat next to the driver. Despite my own intoxication, I had just had time to realize that the official driver was drunk when I received a violent blow to the forehead. 

Later I found out that all the drivers had received large portions of missile alcohol as 

a reward. But not all of them could endure the long wait for their passengers. Our 

driver swerved off of the road and was unable to make out a stump hidden under 

the snow, and he hit it with the automobile’s front axel. I flew forward and hit my 

head against the mounting of the windshield heater. I had a deep gash in my forehead and blood was streaming over my face.

Taking their prerogative as hosts, Sovkov and Tabakov gave me first aid. Voskresenskiy drove me to Podlipki with my head wrapped up in bandages.

“Alyona!” he shouted to his wife, as he dragged me, putting up a fight, into his 

apartment. “I have brought our friend, who was injured during the execution of his 

official duties. He can’t go home looking like this.”

Yelena Vladimirovna tried as best she could, and early in the morning, Voskresenskiy delivered me, cleaned up and rebandaged, to my home.

“The rig is poorly lit. Boris hit his head against the structure. But, according to 

the trauma specialists’ findings, it’s nothing serious.” That’s how he explained the 

situation to [my wife] Katya.

Almost all of 1950 was frittered away at OKB-456 for the experimental 

development of a new shock-free liquid ignition system to replace the pyrotechnic 

system to battle the pops. Kuznetsov reworked the integrator’s impact resistance. 

Pilyugin tormented his subcontractors with his striving to increase the reliability of 

the relays and all of the contact couplings.

The production engineers and I had already announced for the umpteenth time 

our campaign for cleanliness and high standards during the production of control 

surface actuators. In this field I had a powerful assistant in Viktor Kalashnikov. In 

1948, he transferred to us at NII-88 from the Mytishchi Machine Building Factory, 

along with designer Falunin and tester Kartashev. While I was coping with the dust 

at the firing ranges, my deputy Stepan got all three of them settled in to work on 

the subject of control surface actuators. Kalashnikov showed extraordinary organizational capabilities. By late 1949, he was already my deputy in Department No. 16 

(Department U).

Kalashnikov managed the development, production, and testing of control surface actuators. Despite digressions into several other fields, Kalashnikov remained 

true to that subject until the end of his life. In 1951, Falunin left for Factory No. 

586 in Dnepropetrovsk. There he later successfully headed the Ukrainian control 

field, which was more than a little irritating to his former boss Kalashnikov, who 
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problem, decided, supposedly on Stalin’s instructions, to check how things were going in 

our ministry as far as getting missile technology into production and, in particular, at 

the Dnepropetrovsk factory. He made an official phone call to Ustinov almost daily and 

raked him over the coals. Almost a thousand kilometers away, Ustinov would stand at 

attention as he carried on his conversation with Beriya, and would ask us to leave the 

office.

One night Ustinov called me from the shop and ordered me to be ready in an hour to 

fly to Moscow. He said nothing as to why and for what reason. We flew into Moscow and 

drove straight from the airfield to the Kremlin for a meeting with Beriya. There we were 

given an earful over our inability start producing engines at the Dnepropetrovsk factory. 

Beriya asked Ustinov to give an explanation. But Ustinov replied that engine shop chief 

Afanasyev was in charge of engines, so let him give a report; in other words, he put the 

whole burden on me.

I started to report on the situation. I spoke about the difficulties we were having mastering the new materials, the test rigs, the construction of which was behind schedule, 

about our progress mastering parts and assemblies, the fabrication of rigging, and about 

the necessary remedies and deadlines. All of this I knew perfectly well and reported from 

memory without any notes.

“When will there be an operating engine and when will it go into series production?” 

asked Beriya.

I responded that, according to the approved production preparation schedule, the 

engine would be ready in eight months.

This angered Beriya. He started to shout and curse. Then he asked, “What will it take 

for the engine to be finished in two months?”

“Time,” I answered. 

“We’ll have your head!” bellowed Beriya.

I was in a difficult situation. The meeting ended, everyone started to leave, and I left 

the room too. Beriya’s secretary requested that I stay. Everyone passed by me, including 

Ustinov, with whom I had flown in. The last one to leave was Deputy Minister Ivan 

Gerasimovich Zubovich. He was the one responsible for missile technology in the ministry. He came up to me and said, “Let’s go!”

“But the secretary forbade me to leave,” I said, referring to Beriya’s instructions.

Ivan Gerasimovich, clearly agitated, returned to Beriya’s office. The door was slightly 

ajar, and I was able to hear the conversation. Beriya shouted, “I will throw you and your 

Afanasyev in prison.”

Ivan Gerasimovich kept his cool. I could hear Beriya’s cursing. Zubovich left the 

office, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the exit, after telling the secretary that 

it was all settled with Lavrentiy Pavlovich.

 Ivan Gerasimovich and I fled onto Red Square through the Kremlin’s Spasskiy Gate 

in a depressed state. Zubovich warned me that I should not stop off at home, nor at the 

ministry, but that I should wait there by St. Basil’s Cathedral for the car to pick me up 

and it would take me straight to the factory in Dnepropetrovsk. I hadn’t been home [in 

Moscow] for almost a year. I so wanted to drop in on them, if only for five minutes!

Factory No. 586 was tasked with mastering not only missile assembly, but 

the manufacture of engines, control surface actuators, and all the fittings for the 

mechanical and hydraulic systems. The missile fabrication schedules were disrupted 

from the moment production began. The situation with mastering the manufacturing process of engines and control surface actuators was particularly critical. Ustinov 

appointed Leonid Smirnov as director of the new factory. Smirnov gave exclusive 

attention to the mastery of serial production at this major factory.

More than once I had to travel to Dnepropetrovsk to take part in setting up production of control surface actuators and integrated missile tests. The second half of 

1951 and all of 1952 were especially critical for the factory. Kalashnikov, Andronik 

Iosifyan, and Nikolay Obolenskiy, director of the Moscow-based Mashinoapparat 

Factory, and I spent more than two months at that factory involved in organizing 

the large-scale series production of control surface actuators. Despite of all of his 

ministerial duties, Ustinov worked almost this entire time at the factory, substituting for the director and chief engineer. Availing himself of his authority in industry 

and contact with the local Party leadership, he staffed the factory with solid personnel. But they did not meet the missile rollout deadlines.

To help the factory master the manufacturing process for combustion chambers, 

Ustinov sent technical directorate chief Sergey Afanasyev on temporary assignment 

from the Ministry of Armaments. Afanasyev would later become minister of general 

machine building.8 In 1998, I was part of a large group of veterans who celebrated 

the 80th birthday of our former minister. In his ceremonial speech at our convivial table he also recalled the difficult years of mastering missile production at the 

Dnepropetrovsk factory. There was one episode that characterizes the general circumstances of those times, and he shared his reminiscences about it in greater detail 

at other meetings later, as well.

I reconstruct Afanasyev’s story from memory:

“The factory in Dnepropetrovsk was still under construction while workers were 

simultaneously mastering the production of the R-1 and R-2 there. There was a large 

brigade of specialists at the factory from institutes, design bureaus, and other factories 

of our industry. Minister of Armaments Dmitriy Fedorovich Ustinov was personally in 

charge of the brigade. Being chief of the ministry’s technical directorate, as part of the 

brigade I was appointed chief of the Factory No. 586 combustion chamber shop. After 

the shop was up and running, I was appointed chief of the most complex engine shop at 

the factory.

There were very many difficulties. According to Valentin Petrovich Glushko’s documentation, the missile engines were to be brought into large-scale series production first. 

At that time Lavrentiy Beriya, who headed Special Committee No. 1 for the atomic 

8. Sergey Aleksandrovich Afanasyev (1918–2001) served as head of the Ministry of General 

Machine Building (MOM) in 1965–83. MOM supervised the development of nearly all Soviet missile 

and spacecraft during the late Soviet era.
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The R-1 Missile Goes Into Service

153

missiles in the descent portion of the trajectory during entry into the dense layers of 

the atmosphere. This phenomenon had been one of the primary defects of the A4 

missiles. Of course, not every missile armed with explosives blew up, but, without 

fail, one or two out of ten did. Despite the large number of experiments and the 

organization of special measurements in the impact area, for a long time we were 

unable to figure out the true cause for the aerial explosions.

It wasn’t until 1954, when we were already working on a missile with a nuclear 

warhead, that we finally and unambiguously succeeded in figuring out the secret 

of the R-1 missiles’ premature explosions. And the credit for solving the riddle 

belongs not to the designers, but to military engineers—GTsP Deputy Chief A. 

A. Vasilyev and the director of the firing range measurement service, A. L. Rodin. 

Ultimately, the cause of the trajectory explosions turned out to be the heating of the 

TNT charge. Its intense evaporation increased the pressure in the warhead’s pressurized compartment, which led to the rupture of the metal housing. The resulting 

dynamic loads caused the graze percussion fuse to trip and naturally explode the 

entire charge. If you begin counting with the Germans, who never managed to 

figure out the true cause of the aerial explosions, then it took almost ten years to 

solve this puzzle!

Altogether, from the beginning of development until a relatively reliable (compared with other types of armaments) missile system was obtained, sixteen years 

passed! Of these sixteen years, Germany spent seven; two years can be considered a 

joint Russian-German project; and for seven years it was purely our project. In this 

regard, the R-1 with its entire set of ground equipment set a record for the length of 

time required for its total production cycle.

Evidently, the total number of missile launches conducted only for testing and 

verification also remains a record to this day (here, we will not take into account the 

Germans’ combat launches, although they provided information that was extremely 

useful for developers). The total number of A4 and R-1 launches on Soviet territory 

for testing and verification was over 200.

One must not downplay the historic significance of the A4 and R-1. This was 

the first breakthrough into a completely new field of technology. Neither the Germans nor we had any practical experience or theory for creating large integrated 

technical systems combining many scientific disciplines and the most diverse technologies. Both in Germany and in the Soviet Union, in terms of the equipment and 

the top-level totalitarian state leadership, the optimal conditions were created for 

this work. In addition, both in Nazi Germany and later in the Soviet Union, the 

respective governments demanded a maximum reduction of the production cycle 

from all those involved in the work. And still it took sixteen years! All subsequent 

developments of much more complex and advanced missile weapons systems took 

no longer than six to eight years.

It is not the threatening dictates of governmental leaders, but the experience and 

knowledge of scientists, engineers, and all those involved in the development of 

large systems that determine the cycle of their creation. Those who are responsible 

Twenty-four hours after my return [to Dnepropetrovsk], I found that the strictest 

confinement-to-barracks discipline had been established at the factory. All the specialists 

involved in putting the engines into production lived in the break rooms of the tool-anddie shop. They were not authorized to leave the factory premises. I had two KGB colonels 

assigned to me. They worked around the clock since they also wrote down every one of my 

oral or written instructions.

We slept no more than three or four hours. Just as I promised, the engines were up and 

running and went into series production eight months later.”9

In 1953, the series production of missiles—which had replaced automobiles at 

the factory—was running smoothly. Incidentally, tractor production was set up as 

a parallel operation. The factory began to produce them even for export. Later on, 

everyone forgot about the factory’s number and the world came to know it as the 

Southern Machine Building Factory (Yuzhnyy mashinostroitelnyy zavod or Yuzhmash).

The first ballistic missile, the R-1, was accepted into service in the Soviet Army 

along with a set of ground equipment almost five years after the Institute Nordhausen was established.10 We were all very well aware that, were a war to break out in 

the very near future, this missile’s acceptance into service would frighten neither a 

strong enemy nor a weak one. Moreover, it posed absolutely no threat to the NATO 

block. The strategic importance of the R-1 missile was not in its frontline combat 

qualities.

It served as good training material for many designers and scientific and testing 

centers, for organizing missile production, consolidating military and civilian specialists scattered throughout various agencies, and, in the final analysis, creating in 

the Soviet Union the foundation for a powerful missile infrastructure.

The R-1 missile was accepted into service with reservations. In order to ensure 

that all the identified defects had been eliminated, it was stipulated that the third 

and fourth production batches would undergo testing. Tests on the third production 

batch took place in January 1951. In particular, the missiles were checked out at an 

ambient temperature as low as minus 26oC (–14.8°F). The tests on the fourth production batch, which were called verification tests because they verified the Dnepropetrovsk factory’s series production manufacturing process, also took place without 

significant negative findings. One hundred percent of the two batches reached their 

targets and landed within a 16- by 8-kilometer rectangle. The greatest deviations 

under a purely autonomous guidance system did not exceed 5.5 kilometers.

Despite the apparent success and the decorous wording in the test reports, one of 

the comments was not given proper attention. The matter concerned the breakup of 

9. The incident that Chertok describes has been published in several different sources, including 

an essay by Afanasyev himself. See Yu. A. Mozzhorin et al., eds., Dorogi v kosmos: I [Roads to Space: 1] 

(Moscow: MAI, 1992), pp. 40–42.

10. The R-1 missile was officially declared operational on 28 November 1950.
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for the security of the nation must concern themselves not only with material support for experimental and design work. They must make sure that in creating new 

and large systems, they find bright and forceful leaders with organizations devoted 

both to the leaders and their ideas.
Chapter 9

Managers and Colleagues

The Communist Party Central Committee defense department paid particular 

attention to selecting and appointing managers and administrators to implement 

large government-sponsored military science and industry programs.1

When Stalin was alive, it was impossible to appoint directors of leading organizations without his approval. After Stalin’s death, a multistep procedure was gradually 

authorized to regulate the appointment of directors for the entire hierarchy. The 

Central Committee Secretariat passed decrees appointing missile industry directors 

and chief designers or removing them from office.2 Only after such a step did governmental decrees and the corresponding orders of the industry minister appear.

In the one to three years since NII-88 was created, many new scientific-research, 

design, and production teams were created. Almost all of them faced the problem 

of finding qualified management. During the war, the office of the Central Committee, which monitored all scientific and design organizations and factories had 

appointed directors without burdening itself with concern over their rapport with 

the staff. The Committee favored strong-willed directors, who would spare neither 

themselves nor their subordinates to meet a military technology production deadline while obeying precisely the instructions from their superiors.

For the most part, this tradition persisted during the first postwar years. However, new scientific and technical problems required technical management that 

would play a much stronger role. The central figure became the chief designer, 

rather than the director-administrator bestowed with many government awards. 

1. Technically, the Central Committee was the highest body within the Communist Party of the 

Soviet Union. In practice, because of its relatively huge membership and infrequent meetings, the 

whole Central Committee rarely acted as a deliberative body. Instead smaller, more powerful bodies 

within the Central Committee, such as the Politburo (also known as the Presidium) acted as the true 

centers of power during the Soviet era. The Central Committee also had several departments (such 

as the defense industries department) that effectively controlled almost every facet of Soviet political 

and economic life. The Council of Ministers was the most powerful deliberative body in the Soviet 

government (as opposed to the Party).

2. The Secretariat of the Central Committee was the cabinet-level body within the larger Central 

Committee composed of several “secretaries,” each with a different portfolio.

155
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Managers and Colleagues

157

(literally “roof,” or mafia protection).

At NII-88 director Lev Gonor’s request, Ustinov agreed to give an audience 

to the obstinate Korolev. Under the pretext of discussing complex issues of the plan 

for the year 1950, Ustinov summoned Gonor, Korolev, Tritko, and me to his office 

on a Saturday night in May at 10 o’clock.

We took two cars; I rode with Korolev while Gonor rode with Tritko. On the 

way, Korolev said that he would not so much lay out plans for the minister as 

complaints about the structure and chaos at NII-88. He would demand that an 

independent OKB with its own pilot production and its own guidance, testing, and 

materials department be split off from the SKB. Disregarding the driver’s presence 

(which was risky back then), rehearsing his speech, he turned to me and delivered 

an impassioned argument:

“You’ve got the entire guidance system with all of the cables. You pulled the guts out of 

the live body of the missile. I have to ask you before I change anything, as if I were asking 

for a favor. The testers obey me only at the firing range. It’s a good thing that Chertok, 

Tsybin, and Voskresenskiy are people that I can trust, and we can always talk things over. 

But the material engineers could send me packing if they felt like it, if Tritko told them 

not to listen to that Korolev. And the factory, it doesn’t consider my opinion at all! We 

can’t continue our work without test rigs, without preliminary checkouts.

The factory has its own plan, and, plus, it does work for other projects. At the factory, 

they say that they are working on Korolev’s project only now. But they don’t want to listen 

when we say, we’d like you to do some testing using provisional sketches or something 

not included in the plan. Unbelievably stupid! I must have my own production! I have 

been to Glushko’s facility in Khimki. There everyone hangs on his every word. But I 

have to kowtow to Gonor for every little thing. If Gonor were gone tomorrow and some 

empty suit were in his place, then everything would go to hell. It seems like that’s what 

it’s coming to.

Ryazanskiy complained to me that when Chertok come from NII-88 to NII-885, 

you go to the director and ask to change the schedule or do something over and above any 

plans, and they obey you at an institute that isn’t even your own. And here at our own 

place, we aren’t in charge. What’s more, Gonor is afraid of spoiling relations with the 

Party committee. Utkin is there, and at least he’s a decent man, but there are more than 

enough complainers.4 He is also afraid of catching grief from the Central Committee if 

they receive letters complaining about Korolev.”

But Korolev wasn’t able to say all of that to the minister. First, Ustinov started 

the meeting not at 10 p.m., but an hour and a half later. Sitting in the waiting room 

chain smoking, half asleep, we wondered what time it would be when he dismissed 

4. Ivan Ivanovich Utkin (1910–85) was the Communist Party secretary at NII-88 in 1947–50. Party 

Committees within organizations typically had significant influence in personnel appointments.

That is what happened in the aviation industry, and the intention was that the 

nuclear field would work in the same way. At NII-88 in the rocket industry, something different took shape.

During the fall of 1949, Yuriy Pobedonostsev left his post as NII-88 chief 

engineer to become the rector of the Academy of the Industry. Karl Tritko, while 

remaining SKB chief, was temporarily assigned the post of chief engineer. Until 

April 1950, Korolev remained only chief of the SKB’s Department No. 3, officially 

subordinate to Tritko.

At the firing range, Korolev was the ultimate ideological and technical leader, 

and every year his authority grew. Deputy ministers, industrial management central 

office chiefs, and chief designers from other ministries implicitly recognized Korolev 

as the missile program chief. Whenever he returned from the firing range, however, 

everything changed. At NII-88, Korolev was losing his status as top leader, unlike 

Glushko, Ryazanskiy, Barmin, Kuznetsov, and other chief designers who remained 

at the top of their organizations in a rapidly developing cooperative project. This 

depressed Korolev. His deputies, Vasiliy Mishin in particular, were also unable to 

come to terms with this mistreatment. Korolev began a struggle within NII-88 

for greater autonomy. All his colleagues from the Institute Nordhausen and people 

arriving from the aviation industry supported him in this. Ustinov understood the 

absurdity of the NII-88 structure, but did not immediately opt for a serious reorganization. The paradox was that the minister himself could not resolve an issue 

such as reorganizing an institute subordinate to him or conferring greater rights on 

Korolev. The all-powerful office of the VKP(b) Central Committee defense department headed by Ivan Serbin was over Ustinov. Sometimes Serbin was aptly referred 

to as “Ivan the Terrible.”3

It was mandatory that he approve all personnel reshuffling, firings, promotions, 

awards, and punishment of directors. Later, at various conferences attended by 

Serbin, I saw for myself that the ministers really were afraid of this man and never 

risked an argument with him.

Only in the nuclear sector, and later also in the air defense sector, was the appointment, promotion, and transfer of directors not coordinated with the office of the 

Central Committee. In the nuclear sector, where Lavrentiy Beriya was in charge, 

decisions on the appointment of program managers, directors of institutes and factories, and design bureau chief designers were made by Boris Vannikov, coordinated 

with Igor Kurchatov, and submitted for Beriya’s approval. The small office of Special 

Committee No. 1 prepared draft resolutions on appointments, which Beriya presented to Stalin for signature. The power of “Ivan the Terrible” did not extend to the 

managers of the atomic program. In modern lingo, they had a more powerful krysha

3. Ivan Dmitriyevich Serbin (1910–81) served as Chief of the Central Committee’s Defense 

Industries Department in 1958–81, during which time he was responsible for approving all high-level 

appointments in the defense industry on behalf of the Communist Party.
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159

artillery officers weren’t the only ones capable of such a feat. After I had chugged a 

half-liter of vodka, chased it with a mug of beer, and finally started on my soup, I 

have no recollection of what happened. I didn’t even see what Korolev and Gonor 

did. I regained consciousness the next morning when I woke up at home, completely 

fresh, and tried to remember how I had gotten home and in what condition.

My wife, Katya, said that I had showed up at 5 a.m., explaining that we had 

had a very tough meeting with the minister; I asked her not to wake me up in the 

morning and turned down any offers of food. In her sleepiness, she had not noticed 

anything abnormal in my behavior. On Monday, Tritko felt obliged to verify by 

telephone whether I had shown up for work. Finding that everything was in order, 

he said, “You’re a real artilleryman!”

Gonor’s chauffeur told me what had really happened: “We barely got Lev Robertovich [Gonor] and Korolev into the cars. Korolev wanted to scuffle, and you and 

Tritko separated them. I drove you home. You got out all right, but Gonor was in 

really bad shape. When we got to his place, he couldn’t even get out of the car.” 

Subsequently, neither Gonor nor Korolev ever mentioned this nocturnal “heart-toheart” conversation.

In 1950, they began reshuffling personnel anyway, upsetting the stability 

that Ustinov had asked us to maintain. In June, the director’s office was empty for a 

while. Gonor flew off to Krasnoyarsk, without even being allowed time to say goodbye. In August, Konstantin Rudnev was appointed the new NII-88 director. He 

belonged to the young generation of military industry managers and was transferred 

to us from Tula. In Tula, Rudnev had been director of the famous ordnance factory. 

We began our acquaintance with the new director by peppering secretary Anna 

Grigoryevna with questions. She had been the permanent secretary under Gonor. 

As a rule, a new director would bring “his own” secretary with him, but from the 

very beginning Rudnev aimed to inspire a sense of trust and had no intention of 

reshuffling the staff, including the director’s secretary.

Anna Grigoryevna could tell many stories about the managerial personnel. 

During her 56-year career as secretary or administrative assistant, she saw eight men 

pass through the director’s office of NII-88, later renamed the Central ScientificResearch Institute of Machine Building (TsNIIMash). She reassured us all that the 

new director was very civil, had not yet manifested any despotic tendencies, and had 

an open door policy for anyone who requested an audience.

I considered myself an experienced manager by that time and decided that, before 

meeting the new director, I needed to find out about him in greater detail by taking 

advantage of my acquaintances in the ministry offices. Sergey Vetoshkin’s secretary, 

Irina, whom he renamed Irene, was my neighbor on Korolenko Street. When asked 

what people in the central offices for industrial management were saying about our 

new director, she said that everyone considered him a very capable manager with 

a bright future. Acquaintances considered excessive leniency and civility his shortcoming. The people in Tula felt very sorry for him and thought that the missile 

us. Second, he began the meeting by telling us about the prospects of a project 

involving surface-to-air guided missiles. Here, he alluded to the possibility of transferring that entire field to the aviation industry, bearing in mind that the brass were 

already reviewing such proposals for the reorganization of operations.5 But for the 

time being, it was early to make such a decision. Therefore, he requested that we 

amicably and harmoniously work in the existing structure, taking into consideration the extreme complexity of the plans for 1950. Ustinov asked that we devote 

particular attention to the R-2 missile, saying that this was a test of our ability to 

work independently. He mentioned that Sinilshchikov still hadn’t produced any 

good results in reproducing the Wasserfall; therefore, Korolev’s work would become 

decisive for the fate of NII-88.

Korolev tried to cut in on the minister’s lengthy lecture to express his views on 

how operations were being run, but Ustinov was not disposed to opening up the 

discussion. He glanced at his watch and said that we were all very tired, that it was 

already 1 o’clock in the morning. He wished us success, told us to enjoy our Sunday 

off, and dismissed us.

We left, terribly disappointed that not one of us had had the opportunity to 

speak his mind at the meeting. Tritko suddenly proposed that we go have supper. 

“The Moskva restaurant is open until 5 a.m.,” he said. “While we were waiting, I 

called up and reserved a table. They’re expecting us.” Korolev and Gonor were not 

overjoyed, but agreed. Despite the late hour, the third-floor restaurant was crowded 

with people who, by the looks of things, had also just come from late-night meetings. The military-industrial elite caroused into Sunday. It turned out that Tritko 

was a regular here. The foreigners, the partying types, and the women, he explained, 

were kicking up their heels on the roof of the Moskva, so we could all talk frankly 

here. But in order to have a real “heart-to-heart” conversation, we all needed to toss 

down a drink “artillery style.” Those who could drink “artillery style” would remain 

combat buddies forever. Such, according to Tritko, was the tradition of true frontline artillerymen. On his command, the experienced waitress quickly set our table 

with four half-liter bottles of vodka, four empty beer mugs, and two large pitchers 

of beer and filled soup bowls with steaming hot, fragrant solyanka.

6

Gonor was the first to protest: “What were you thinking—ordering a half liter 

for each of us?! Solyanka and beer is enough for me.” Korolev sat sullenly, waiting 

for our “heart-to-heart” conversation. But Tritko quickly filled the beer mugs to the 

brim with vodka and commanded: “You have to drink a half-liter of vodka in one 

breath without taking your lips off the mug! Then we drink beer and eat solyanka.” 

He demonstrated. I was the youngest in the group and felt compelled to show that 

5. Ministry of Armaments’ NII-88 supervised development of both surface-to-surface and surfaceto-air missiles. By the late 1940s, Soviet industrial leaders believed that it might be more efficient to 

transfer the latter to the Ministry of Aviation Industry.

6. Solyanka is a savory, somewhat sour soup made with meat or fish, vegetables, and pickles.
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denly he outranked Korolev, having been appointed Rudnev’s deputy. But Ryazanskiy explained to me frankly that when the Central Committee was discussing the 

chief engineer vacancy, he had been warned that the Central Committee had many 

denunciations directed at me. They primarily had to do with the development of the 

automatic astronavigation system. But it wasn’t only a matter of technology; rather 

it had to do with the fact that the current situation required a different personnel 

lineup and therefore I could no longer remain in the post of deputy chief engineer. I 

did not have the right ethnicity. If the fifth line of the personal history form had said 

“Russian” or even “Ukrainian,” then it would have been a different story.8

With Ryazanskiy’s arrival, power at NII-88 was actually shared by the triumvirate of Rudnev, Ryazanskiy, and Korolev. Korolev reorganized his Department No. 

3 and began to form the full-fledged OKB-1, which soon was destined to become 

a historic organization, ensuring the Soviet Union’s primacy in missile and space 

technology.

As I muse over the past many years later, it occurs to me that there were many 

blessings in disguise. More importantly, when the circumstances were bad, there 

were good people. In late 1950, new Deputy Minister Ivan Zubovich announced 

to me that he was very sorry, but by his order I was relieved of both posts—chief of 

Department U and deputy chief engineer of the institute—and was being sent to 

the disposal of the NII-88 personnel department. The directive was implemented, 

and I was thus removed from the nomenklatura.

9

 Above all, this was a blow to my 

morale but I endured it relatively easily because Korolev and Rudnev had warned 

me in advance. Both sympathetically told me that with the minister’s consent they 

would not dismiss me from NII-88.

The personnel department obeyed the director’s command and transferred me to 

the post of deputy chief of Department No. 5 in the new OKB-1. This department, 

by Korolev’s design, was the foundation of an integrated guidance system department, which was to be part of OKB-1 and subordinate to Korolev and not to the 

institute chief engineer.

Ryazanskiy supported this line. If I hadn’t experienced such persecution, perhaps 

my subsequent fate would have taken a different turn. Now I was not just subordinate to Korolev in terms of subject matter, but also administratively.10 My immediate boss was Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel. Someone from the top levels of management 

clearly had his eye on him when, after working in the aviation industry and graduating from a year-long course at the Academy of the Industry, it was recommended 

that Ustinov keep Yangel in the pool for further promotion. Korolev warned me 

8. At the height of the anticosmopolitanism campaign, Chertok’s Jewish ethnicity was a huge 

liability.

9. The nomenkletura was the list of Communist Party-approved individuals who could occupy 

important positions in industry.

10. In other words, Chertok reported to the NII-88 chief engineer in 1946–50, but after that he 

reported directly to Korolev, thus moving his career into a different direction.

specialists at NII-88 would “eat him alive,” while the Soviet ordnance manufacturers 

were losing a good manager.

Gonor had worked as director in this hot spot since August 1946. He visited 

us in Germany. He knew us all inside and out. Over the course of four years he 

had gained an understanding of the technology and established good relations with 

all the subcontractors. Everyone respected him. Korolev often clashed and argued 

with him, but now he had to start everything from scratch. And why should the 

experience and knowledge that Gonor had gained go right out the window while he 

started making guns again? In meetings with other chief designers, Korolev grumbled, but he understood all too well that Gonor’s departure was not Ustinov’s whim, 

but Stalin and Beriya’s policy, and it was better to keep quiet.

Rudnev actually turned out to be a polished, unobtrusive, and fairly modest 

manager. Of course, he was not familiar with our technology and, therefore, he was 

forced to study people in order to understand whom to lean on and whom to trust 

completely. When they got to know Rudnev, managers who had grown accustomed 

to stuffy conversations in the director’s office were surprised by his inexhaustible 

good sense of humor. He didn’t hide the fact that he favored people who understood a joke and preferred to “work rather than just follow instructions.” Soon even 

Korolev announced that he could work with Rudnev. They found a mutual understanding, and the new director supported Korolev’s proposal for reorganization.

Actually, already before that, Gonor had drawn up an order for the minister that 

stipulated a change in the NII-88 structure. The SKB was divided into two OKBs. 

Department No. 3 was converted into OKB-1, and Korolev was named its chief 

designer and head. Tritko was relieved of his post as SKB chief and was named head 

of OKB-2 in place of Sinilshchikov.

The post of institute chief engineer remained vacant. Here Rudnev, probably 

with someone’s prompting, tried to explore the possibility of appointing me, especially since I was currently a deputy chief engineer. After his proposal was turned 

down, he attempted to bring back Pobedonostsev. The latter also was declined.

A rumor spread through the ministry offices that Korolev was laying claim to 

both posts, chief engineer and head of OKB-1. The ministry staff feared such a turn 

of events since Korolev’s single-mindedness and character had always made the officials fearful that he would become uncontrollable and that all the projects at NII-88 

would be completely under his influence.

Unexpectedly, Rudnev got Mikhail Ryazanskiy as “first deputy” and chief engineer.7

 It had not been very hard for Ustinov to persuade Ryazanskiy to abandon that 

same post at NII-885 and come to the rescue of NII-88 to help the young director 

straighten things up. Ryazanskiy felt uncomfortable about Korolev. He had been a 

subcontractor to Korolev as the chief designer of a guidance system, and now sud7. Russians use the term “first deputy” to denote someone who is “first among the deputies.”
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At that time, we, that is, OKB-1 staff members subordinate to Korolev, blamed 

Yangel for the strained relations. Korolev’s lust for power, ambition—which was 

rather understandable—and difficult personality irritated Yangel. Korolev’s merits 

at the time—six years after beginning his work on the series production of domestic missiles—were great even by today’s standards. Korolev and his organization 

worked selflessly and obsessively.

Like almost any new director who suddenly finds himself heading a powerful 

organization, Yangel decided to change its methods, goals, and structure to his 

liking. He made it his goal to “reform” Korolev so that OKB-1 would serve NII-88, 

but Korolev demanded that NII-88 projects be subordinated to OKB-1 tasks. At 

that time Korolev was certainly right. But Korolev’s failure to accept Yangel’s leadership threatened to destroy the institute structure, which was fragile at best. The 

ministry and Central Committee reached a compromise, and in late 1953, they 

removed Yangel to the post of institute chief engineer, thereby relieving him of the 

right to be in charge of Korolev. Having worked for less than a year in that role, frittering away his energies on workaday, routine administrative work, Yangel agreed to 

leave for Dnepropetrovsk, where he became chief designer of the Dnepropetrovsk 

OKB.12 Here he gained the opportunity to begin to actually implement ideas for the 

production of missiles using high-boiling propellant components, rather than just 

talking about it. Yangel began with the development of the R-12 missile as a counterweight to Korolev’s R-5M. After Gonor, Rudnev, and Yangel, the NII-88 director 

slot was filled by Aleksey Spiridonov, who until then had been chief engineer of the 

ministry’s main directorate.

In early 1953, OKB-1 employed over 1,000 people and was an organization 

capable of leading both practical work and scientific research for missile technology development. The ministry, too, had finally realized that the missile industry 

needed a head institute like TsAGI, which had emerged as the lead institute in the 

aviation industry.

On 14 August 1956, the minister signed an order making OKB-1 an independent organization, that is, separate from NII-88. The structure of this new organization had already practically been worked out over the course of the last two years, 

and, therefore, no radical shakeups were required in the ranks of the main staffs. But 

it added many new concerns for Korolev personally and for his immediate retinue.

Under the new structure, the factory became subordinate to the OKB chief 

and also separated from NII-88. Production is fundamental for any design bureau. 

Without it, the most perfect ideas and designs will remain on paper. To have a 

truly state-of-the-art factory transferred to OKB-1, Korolev had to endure frequent 

battles at different levels. The factory’s primary work was, after all, manufacturing 

12. Yangel was appointed chief designer of OKB-586 at Dnepropetrovsk in July 1954.

that I would serve as guidance department chief Yangel’s deputy on a temporary 

basis. Yangel was not a specialist in matters of guidance and automatics; therefore, 

Korolev would place the responsibility on me and I would answer to him.

The staff of the new department received both Yangel and me well since there 

were too many projects and technical problems. In addition, no one tried to shirk 

or shift the workload; on the contrary, everyone tried to take on a little more and 

take full responsibility. Such a work ethic was one of the conditions for our success 

during the first decade.

Yangel asked me to take on all the projects related to electrical circuitry, control 

surface actuators, and telemetry and radio systems. I was given free rein to make the 

decisions I deemed necessary without consulting him. But he retained the right to 

review them with my participation and prepare proposals for Korolev on matters of 

flight dynamics and the coordination of these matters with NII-885, that is, with 

Pilyugin’s dynamics experts.

In 1951, the R-5 missile was already being designed. In terms of its dynamic 

characteristics, the R-5 required fundamentally new approaches to guidance system 

development. For that reason, we needed to be in constant contact with Pilyugin’s 

theoreticians. Here, Yangel relied completely on my friendship with Pilyugin’s team 

because conflicts arose from the very start.

Thus, Yangel and I came to terms and worked for almost a year in a very friendly 

atmosphere. A year later, Yangel was transferred to the post of deputy chief designer. 

Among other matters, Korolev assigned him design oversight over the series production of R-1 and R-2 missiles in Dnepropetrovsk.

In June 1952, NII-88 once again lost its chief engineer. Ryazanskiy moved to the 

ministry structure to head the main directorate—fortunately, not for long. Unable 

to endure the bureaucratic rigmarole, he soon returned to his old NII-885 organization.11 Also in 1952, Rudnev was transferred to the ministry to the high post of 

deputy minister. To everyone’s surprise, including Korolev, Yangel was appointed 

NII-88 director. Later the ministry officials said “in secret” that this had been the 

Central Committee’s initiative. This appointment proved to be a difficult test of the 

good relationship between Yangel and Korolev.

Unfortunately, they did not pass the test of peaceful, amicable, ideological, and 

practical interactions. Both of them encouraged work contacts through their deputies and staff and met with one another only for meetings when summoned to the 

ministry or at other high levels. Our missile and space technology probably could 

have developed even further if these two managers had consolidated their efforts 

rather than being antagonists. Their relations were strained to the point that they 

tried to avoid one another and would not speak to each other. Korolev used me, 

Mishin, and his other deputies as go-betweens to communicate with the new director.

11. Ryazanskiy rejoined NII-885 in 1954.
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ing a working team within the NII-88 system, 

Mishin was even more aggressive than Korolev, 

insisting on the unconditional subordination of 

institute scientific department projects to the 

front-burner problems of the KB.

Responsibilities were distributed among the 

other deputy chief designers approved by the 

ministry order as follows:

Konstantin Davydovich Bushuyev—drafting 

departments;

Sergey Osipovich Okhapkin—design departments and everything associated with technical 

documentation;

Leonid Aleksandrovich Voskresenskiy—firing 

rig and flight tests;

Anatoliy Petrovich Abramov—ground complex, including construction at the firing range.

Somewhat later Mikhail Vasilyevich Melnikov, 

who transferred from NII-1, became deputy chief 

designer for propulsion systems. So-called lead 

designers, on the other hand, were independently 

close to Korolev despite being lower in the hierarchy. By that time Dmitriy Ilich Kozlov, Viktor 

Petrovich Makeyev, and Mikhail Fedorovich Reshetnev had already distinguished 

themselves. I mention them first, because while Korolev was still alive they ventured 

outside OKB-1, first heading branches and then independent organizations.

The prestige of Viktor Makeyev—academician, two-time Hero of Socialist 

Labor, general designer of submarine missiles—was so great that in 1976 he was 

offered the post of minister of general machine building. However, Makeyev turned 

it down.14

In 1952, after Yangel’s transfer from OKB-1 to the post of NII-88 director, I 

became department chief. But now it was no longer the NII-88 guidance department, but NII-88 OKB-1 Department No. 5. The administration of this department entailed problems of flight dynamics and guidance, telemetry and radio trajectory measurements, development of emergency engine shutdown systems, general 

onboard and ground electrical equipment, and a lot of other issues that, in one way 

or another, had to do with electricity and information transmission and processing.

14. Viktor Petrovich Makeyev (1924–85) was the Chief/General Designer of SKB-385 (KB 

Mashinostroyeniya) in 1955–85 and oversaw the development of several generations of submarinelaunched ballistic missiles, which constituted one of the most important elements of Soviet strategic 

military power.

Roman Turkov (1901-75) served 

as the director of the experimental 

pilot production facility at Korolev’s 

OKB-1 located in the outskirts of 

Moscow. As such, early production 

runs of all of Korolev’s missiles and 

spacecraft were directed by Turkov.

From the author’s archives.

missiles developed by OKB-1. The Dnepropetrovsk factory had already taken over 

series production of R-1, R-5, and R-5M missiles. Production of naval modification 

R-11M missiles had been transferred to the Urals.13 Specialized instrument building 

design bureaus and factories were created in Kiev, Kharkov, and Sverdlovsk.

In 1955, the pilot production Factory No. 88 began manufacturing parts of 

the first R-7 intercontinental missile at full steam. The government decree for the 

development of this missile was issued on 20 May 1954. Before its final release, all 

the chief designers, their immediate deputies, ministry offices, and Gosplan had 

thoroughly reviewed the contents of the voluminous decree. The document devoted 

proper attention to production problems. It was logical to make Factory No. 88 

subordinate to the OKB chief, in this case, the chief designer. But, despite the fact 

that it was officially part of the structure of OKB-1, at the ministry’s insistence, 

the factory maintained a certain degree of independence. It had its own operating 

account at the bank, and its plans had to be coordinated with the ministry.

Roman Anisimovich Turkov was appointed factory director. At the same time 

he also acquired the status of Korolev’s first deputy. Turkov had gone through the 

brutal school of war, when he served as chief engineer and then as director at a Krasnoyarsk artillery factory. He considered it perfectly natural to take on, in addition to 

production process problems, the burden of social problems—housing, public services, kindergartens, schools, hospitals, transportation, and a lot of other concerns 

that now would fall on Korolev.

Where, in what other country, must a scientist—a designer and director of a 

highly complex scientific and technical program—concern himself with relocating 

his staff out of ramshackle huts or with construction of roads and children’s daycare 

centers? At that time, and even decades later, such was the hard lot of the director of 

a large-scale enterprise in the Soviet Union.

Sometimes people try to compare the creative achievements of von Braun and 

Korolev. They forget that while Korolev was developing the intercontinental missile and first spacecraft, he was going to great lengths to make sure that a municipal 

Palace of Culture was built, taking care of the orphanage, reviewing all the housing 

distribution lists, and making the rounds ordering food for the city.

Turkov was his invaluable assistant in this work. They understood each other 

well. Turkov had a knack for recognizing real craftsmen and exposing slackers on 

the production line and personally sorting out complex technological processes. He 

quickly gained the respect not only of the factory workers, but also the designers, 

with whom he loved to maintain contact, studying the drawings of the most complex assemblies.

Korolev kept Vasiliy Mishin as first deputy chief designer for drafting and design 

work. They had worked very well together back in Germany. In the process of form13. These two factories were Factory No. 586 (at Dnepropetrovsk) and Factory No. 385 (in the 

Urals).
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One such headstrong individual was Vladimir Syromyatnikov. Having reluctantly 

begun work on electrical drives and control surface actuators under the supervision 

of the indefatigable Lev Vilnitskiy, he found a successful combination of theory and 

practice in the development of complex mechanisms. Twenty years later, Candidate 

of Technical Sciences Syromyatnikov used his experience to develop androgynous 

docking assemblies for the famous Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz Experimental 

Flight (EPAS).15 Soon thereafter, Syromyatnikov defended his doctoral dissertation, 

received recognition abroad, and, in 1992, was selected as a member of the International Academy of Astronautics. Professor Syromyatnikov still heads the world’s 

only team that designs docking assemblies.

We were also fortunate with our talented young theoreticians. Beginning in 

1952, at my request, Mishin, who handled creative problems, sent graduates with a 

good university education to Department No. 5, which was responsible for control 

dynamics problems. He did this with the consent of Korolev, who understood that 

in the field of theoretical mechanics, universities provided greater basic preparation in higher mathematics and physics than the Bauman MVTU, MAI, or the 

Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute. Our design and testing departments were 

staffed with an abundance of their graduates.

University theoreticians quickly got involved in the solution of practical problems and were recognized as having a mathematical background superior to that 

of their bosses, who had a strictly engineering education. Over the course of many 

years of work I found that a talented theoretician acquires engineering experience 

more rapidly, while the theoretical heights of mathematics and mechanics that universities provide remain downright inaccessible to the engineer.

In 1953, three theoreticians arrived almost simultaneously in the dynamics 

section that Georgiy Stepanovich Vetrov supervised: Igor Fedorovich Rubaylo, a 

graduate of the Moscow State University (MGU) physics and technology department; Leonid Ivanovich Alekseyev, a graduate of Rostov University; and Yevgeniy 

Fedorovich Lebedev, a graduate of Gorky University.

The personnel department settled each newly arrived employee in a dormitory 

for “young specialists,” and then, without giving much consideration to their individual goals, sent them to NII-88 department chiefs or to Korolev in OKB-1. The 

subsequent fate of each person, to a great extent, was determined during those first 

days of wandering from office to office.

We had a rule at OKB-1: each young specialist must go through Korolev’s office. 

Lebedev recounted: “I’m sitting in Korolev’s waiting room. I wait more than an 

hour. The secretary says that Ustinov is meeting with Korolev, and that I might not 

get in to see him. She took a chance and let me in to see Mishin. Once Mishin had 

an idea of my background, he sent me to Svyatoslav Lavrov, who at that time was 

15. EPAS—Eksperimentalnyy polet Apollon-Soyuz—was the Russian name for the Apollo-Soyuz 

Test Project (ASTP).

Over the course of three years (from late 1950 through late 1953), as the old 

song goes, the department’s primary staff went through “fire, water, dust, and fog” 

on the expanses of the Kapustin Yar firing range and on the Novostroyka firing rigs 

near Zagorsk. The department workers loved their work. They were sympathetic 

to production difficulties, factory problems, and contractors and worked well as a 

team. Personnel from NII-88 and new young specialists joined the department, and 

its ranks grew rapidly.

In 1954, the department grew so much that we made arrangements with Mishin 

and proposed to Korolev that it be converted into a three-department “complex.” 

Department No. 5 held onto the development of guidance systems, onboard and 

ground electrical equipment, antennas, supervision over all types of radio engineering, onboard telemetry, and measurement system sensors. Once again they set up 

design Department No. 18 and tasked it with the independent development of 

onboard and ground instrumentation and drafting. Design Department No. 4 was 

set up to develop all sorts of control surface actuators, drives, and other mechanisms. Korolev demanded a discussion over the structure of these three departments 

and the candidates for the posts of department chiefs and primary subdivision chiefs 

in each of the departments. If he personally did not know the individual very well 

or was not sure about him, it was impossible to convince him that this person be 

hired.

In early 1954, Igor Yevgenyevich Yurasov was appointed as my deputy. He had 

already gotten his feet wet in his research work at NII-88, but gladly broke away 

from his dead-end theorizing and immersed himself in our urgent and always eventful affairs. His involvement gave me the opportunity to shorten my stays at the 

firing range.

In 1954, Oleg Voropayev and Valentin Mukhanov arrived from Bauman Moscow 

Higher Technical Institute (MVTU). I sent Voropayev to Vetrov’s dynamics sector. 

He did not object to design and theoretical work. Almost every young specialist 

dreamed of this. Soon he became the lead specialist in Korolev’s OKB for missile 

dynamics and control systems. He distinguished himself with his ability to visualize 

outwardly complex phenomena and find their inner simplicity. Many years have 

passed since then. Two chief designers and two general designers have come and 

gone, but Voropayev served continuously as director of the dynamics department 

until his well-deserved retirement in 1992.

Mukhanov was very upset when I offered him work on control surface actuators in the design bureau rather than in the research laboratory. It got to the point 

that I gave my word to transfer him from the design department after six months if 

it became unbearable for him there. That request never came. Mukhanov became 

engrossed in the work of the control surface actuator design team and in optimizing 

their parameters. He was one of the leading specialists in this field. Young specialists reluctantly went into design work, and more than once I had to resort to that 

stratagem: to give my word that “if you don’t like it, I’ll transfer you in six months.” 

As a rule, no one took advantage of my promise.
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the chief designers and everyone who began working with them in 1946–47.17

Here I should put in a good word for Ivan Utkin, who was the first Central 

Committee Party organizer and arrived at NII-88 in 1947. After graduating from 

the physics department of Moscow State University, Utkin dreamed of a career as a 

scientist and entered graduate school. The Central Committee unexpectedly summoned him and informed him that as a Party member he would be going to the 

newly created missile institute, where he would head the Party organization. A good 

university education, good-natured temperament, and dreams of scientific work 

were hardly required of a Central Committee Party organizer. After devoting three 

years to administrative Party work, Utkin had not, however, earned the confidence 

of the Party’s upper echelons that would have enabled him to rise in the ranks of the 

central offices.

As soon as OKB-1 was set up within NII-88 in 1950, Utkin begged Korolev to 

take him on. When I arrived in Yangel’s department, Utkin had already set up the 

measurements laboratory. Soon, this laboratory developed into a department that 

managed to acquire a staff of capable, energetic radio engineers. With the formation 

of new missile design bureaus and factories, the problem of radio telemetry measurements became so acute that it exceeded the OKB’s capabilities.

Korolev belonged to the category of managers who thought on the scale of the 

national interests as opposed to financial considerations of the day. When Utkin 

and I approached him with the idea of creating a specialized scientific-research institute of telemetry for the entire industry, he assessed the proposal’s prospects right 

away and said that he would release Utkin and all his specialists to such an organization. And so, at the very entrance to the city of Kaliningrad (now the city of 

Korolev) from Yaroslavskyoe highway, a state-of-the-art scientific-research institute 

was founded, without which it would have been unthinkable to test a single modern 

missile.18 Its first director was Ivan Utkin. He was replaced by Oleg Shishkin, who 

would become the last minister of general machine building. After Shishkin’s departure, Oleg Sulimov became the institute’s director, while Oleg Komissarov became 

chief engineer. They had begun their careers at the OKB-1 telemetry laboratory in 

1950 under my supervision.

In the fall of 1953, at the GTsP there was a demonstration of missile technology for the managers of various ministries. Among the invitees were aviation 

industry general designers, including A. N. Tupolev. Ustinov and Nedelin were the 

gracious hosts. I had not seen Tupolev since 1937, when he came to the Air Force 

17. Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskiy (1857–1935) was, of course, the “founding father” of 

Russian cosmonautics.

18. This was the NII Izmeritelnoy tekhniki (Scientific-Research Institute for Measurement 

Technology), which today is known as NPO Izmeritelnoy tekhniki (Scientific-Production Association 

for Measurement Technology).

filling in for drafting department chief Bushuyev on design and theoretical projects. 

Lavrov sent me to Vetrov, who was in charge of dynamics. Vetrov suggested I have 

a look at a NII-4 report in which they were studying ideas for launching a missile 

with a cluster configuration. Next, I was supposed to analyze the launch dynamics 

of a missile, which by that time already had a configuration and parameters close to 

those of the future R-7 intercontinental missile.”16

In 1954, Lebedev was developing the dynamic procedure for launching the R11FM ballistic missile from a rolling submarine. None of the “brass” had checked 

his calculations, but the engineers who had developed the special rig that simulated 

a submarine’s roll believed the young specialist and were not surprised that everything turned out brilliantly. They weren’t elated because they never expected any 

other outcome. It is difficult for today’s engineers to understand how, without a 

single computer, specialists took on the responsibility for the critical solutions of 

control problems for missiles carrying nuclear warheads, launched from the ground, 

from a rolling submarine, from a submerged submarine, or from a silo.

Both the old and battle-seasoned personnel and the new young specialists worked 

at a very intense pace. I wouldn’t say that the stress was generated from the top. The 

often unrealistic schedules themselves had inflexible deadlines; all kinds of criticism 

circulated among Party and business leaders, but these “signs of the times” did not 

have much of an effect on the mood in the organization.

Korolev, whose lead we took, made no concessions for youth. This was a good 

incentive for everyone who had come straight from college. Korolev loved to lecture 

time and again: “Youth is not the main shortcoming.”

The overwhelming majority of engineers worked with genuine enthusiasm. The 

technical problems that needed to be solved “come hell or high water” also distracted 

them from their uncomfortable living conditions and the difficulties of daily life on 

the other side of the front gate. They went to work not just because they had to, but 

primarily because it was interesting. Despite poor conditions at the firing range, no 

one had to be persuaded to drive or fly in for a temporary assignment there.

Of the first missile decade, the last three years were certainly the most interesting in terms of science and engineering. The people who joined the missile programs during 1954–56 to a great extent determined the subsequent development of 

our cosmonautics program. While these people were still relatively young, someone’s 

quip caught their fancy: “According to personal history forms, our personnel fall 

into one of two categories: they are either Tsiolkovskiy’s best students or individuals 

whose youth isn’t their main shortcoming.” “Tsiolkovskiy’s best students” referred to 

16. Author’s footnote: I will write later about Rubaylo and Lebedev’s contribution to the theory 

for the dynamic configuration of the R-7 missile—which to a great extent determined the missile’s 

longevity—when I describe the history of the R-7 itself. (See Chapter 16.)
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wasn’t everywhere, or for very long, that scientists and designers could demonstrate 

their own will and work confidently without looking over their shoulders at the allpowerful state and Party apparatus.

In February 1956, NII-88 Party activists held a meeting on the results of the 

20th session of the CPSU.20 All present were surprised that Colonel General Serov, 

Lavrentiy Beriya’s former deputy for counterintelligence, delivered the report on 

behalf of the Central Committee. This was the same Serov who had arranged for 

the German specialists to be sent from Germany to the USSR in 1946, and in 1947 

had been a member of the State Commission on A4 missile launches. Serov’s report 

depressed his audience. The people could not imagine that such horrible crimes 

had been committed in their country at the will of a man whom each in attendance 

believed to be great, infallible, all-powerful, wise, and gracious.

In March 1953, I was at the firing range in Kapustin Yar. We were getting ready for flight tests on the R-5 missile. Suddenly, in the assembly and testing 

building the Moscow call-sign resounded over the loud speakers with the official 

announcement of Stalin’s death. Combat officers, men who had gone through the 

war, whom I had known from Germany and would never have suspected of sentimentality, broke down in tears! Unashamed of our tears, we turned to each other 

with the question that was being asked by millions back then: “What will happen 

now? How will we live?” Such was the hypnotic force that Stalin’s name possessed. 

After all, we heard the announcement of Stalin’s death while standing next to the 

missile we were developing on his instruction. Everything that had been created for 

missile technology both here at the firing range and in our country had been his 

will, aimed at protecting the country and each of us from the inevitable aggression 

of American imperialism. Those were our thoughts at that time in 1953.

Three years later much had changed. Stalin’s name was no longer worshipped. 

But what Khrushchev reported to the 20th session and Serov was telling us soon 

after stunned us much more than the announcement of Stalin’s death in 1953. After 

Serov finished his report, the dead silence of the auditorium was broken when a 

woman cried out in a loud voice:

“Ivan Aleksandrovich! Explain to us, where were you? Who were you, what were 

you doing? You probably shouted ‘Hail Stalin!’ loudest of all. What right do you 

have to talk about Beriya’s evil deed, if you were his deputy?”

Everyone looked at the elderly woman standing in the middle of the auditorium. As I later heard, she was from the metal working shop. Serov remained silent 

20. The Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 was one of the most famous sessions of the Soviet 

Communist Party. During the meeting of all the assembled delegates, Party Secretary Nikita Khrushchev 

publicly denounced the late Stalin and his cronies and enumerated a list of their unimaginable crimes, 

putting into motion a series of events that would result in the first stages of de-Stalinization of Soviet 

society and culture.

NII Shchelkovsko airfield, where we were preparing Levanevskiy’s N-209 aircraft 

for the transpolar flight to the U.S. At that time, as a government official and chairman of the State Commission for transpolar flights, he had painstakingly studied 

the aircraft’s preparation.

Boris Konoplev had met with Tupolev both before and after the war to discuss 

aircraft radio issues. He diverted me over to the car where the rotund and weary 

Tupolev was sitting. Tupolev had already been shown the R-1, R-2, and R-11 missiles. Konoplev announced, leaving no room for objections, the “old man” would 

now see the R-5. The “old man” was then only 65 and would continue living and 

working until he was 84! Konoplev drove Tupolev up to the R-5 standing on the 

launch pad and, with his ever-present enthusiasm, began to explain the advantages 

of the radio control system. When Tupolev learned that the missile would cover a 

distance of 1,200 kilometers in 12 minutes, he smiled skeptically and said, “That’s 

impossible.”

The demonstration launches took place several hours later. The R-5 was also 

launched. During the launches I was at the Don telemetry system receiving station. 

Konoplev had stayed with Tupolev and later he told me that the “old man” was so 

amazed that he was ready “to throw in the towel on his airplanes and build missiles.” Luckily, that didn’t happen. Tupolev could be quite content with the work 

of his former graduate student Korolev, who was then only 47 years old. Neither of 

them yet knew that Korolev would attain posthumous worldwide fame as great as 

Tupolev’s.

Back then, Tupolev believed he had a monopoly on nuclear bomb–carrying airplanes. After the launches, at a dinner for a very select group, when Ustinov and 

Nedelin in strictest confidence let it slip that Korolev was supposed to retrofit the 

R-5 to carry an atomic bomb, Tupolev said, “That’s dreadful business. What if it 

falls on our own territory?” We, too, understood that this was dreadful business and 

developed interlock systems in case the missile went off course.

These episodes in autumn 1953 have also stuck in my memory because, after 

seeing me in the assembly and testing building, Ustinov rapidly approached me, 

gave me a firm handshake, and asked, “Is everything all right?” I assured him that 

everything was “quite all right.” He wished me all the best and returned to the crowd 

of distinguished visitors. I understood that my two years of disgrace had ended. In 

part, the general thaw after Stalin’s death and Beriya’s arrest contributed to such 

a change.19 A period was dawning when slanderers and careerists had their tails 

between their legs. The top-level leadership’s ubiquitous suspicion and distrust of 

the managerial staffs was being replaced by sober assessments of business qualities, 

talents, and real achievements. Unfortunately, even during the Khrushchev thaw, it 

19. Three months after Stalin’s death in March 1953, the post-Stalin Politburo had Beriya arrested. 

Six months later, in December, Beriya was tried, sentenced to death, and shot on orders from the new 

leadership.
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direct line.

“I could go directly to Korolev, but I am afraid he might do something rash. I 

have a personal request of you. My nephew Yuriy Dukhovnov is working at your 

facility. For some reason, he isn’t getting on with his immediate boss for theoretical 

problems. I don’t want him to lose his job with you all, especially since he is also 

enrolled at night school in the mechanical engineering and mathematics department at MGU.”

I must admit that I personally knew nothing about Pashkov’s relative, but I 

carried out his request. My conversation with Viktor Fedotovich Gladkiy was very 

difficult. He accused Dukhovnov of being unable and unwilling to work with an 

organization that had its own traditions.

I had three more conversations with Pashkov on this subject. Unfortunately, the 

time came when Gladkiy and I no longer had any administrative power, and under 

the pretext of staff reduction in 1992, Yuriy Dukhovnov, who was a member of the 

American Mathematical Society, was dismissed, supposedly “voluntarily.”

Yuriy Dukhovnov lived for many years with Georgiy Pashkov’s family, and, as I 

understand, was very close to him. Firsthand and with his approval, I have included 

new information that I have found out about the life and work of Georgiy Pashkov 

in this new edition of my memoirs.

Pashkov was born in 1909. He began his working career as a lathe operator. He 

graduated from the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, was a correspondence 

course graduate student of the same institute, and in 1948 defended his candidate’s 

dissertation. In what were for our generation almost standard career phases, everything seemed normal. After the repressions of 1937–38, there was an acute shortage 

in the managerial ranks of the central state offices. During the period of 1939–48, 

Pashkov headed the second department of USSR Gosplan, that is, its armaments 

department. Actually he served as Gosplan Chairman Nikolay Voznesenskiy’s deputy 

for defense industry planning and development of armaments.

I first became acquainted with Pashkov when he was in Bleicherode as part of 

a government commission during the summer of 1946. He was actively involved 

in distributing responsibilities for the future development of missile technology 

between ministries and in dividing the German missile stock of the Institutes Nordhausen and RABE.

Not only I, but even future Chief Designers Korolev, Glushko, and Ryazanskiy 

were a bit surprised at how attentively and virtually without objection Artillery 

Marshal Yakovlev, Minister Colonel-General Ustinov, Institute Nordhausen chief 

Major General Gaydukov, and other masters of our future destiny received the 

modest man dressed as a civilian.

During the war, Pashkov often made visits to Stalin’s office with his boss Voznesenskiy, the Gosplan chief, and Beriya, who was in charge of domestic intelligence, 

including scientific and technical intelligence. But he also had several “face-to-face” 

meetings with Stalin. The first meeting took place at his personal request in late 

1942. Pashkov asked Stalin to let him go to the front in order to avenge the death 

for a long time. The audience waited, also in silence. Finally, Serov stood up and 

replied:

“I am certainly guilty in many respects. But so are all of you sitting here. Didn’t 

you praise Stalin at all of your meetings? And how many times did each of you stand 

up and applaud to exhaustion when you heard Stalin’s name at your conferences and 

meetings? Now the Party wants to free itself from this cult. It is difficult for all of us, 

and let’s not keep score with one another.”

There was no discussion or debate. As the meeting broke up, we departed feeling 

ambivalent: depressed by the horrifying facts that had been exposed, but hopeful 

that now everyone could breathe easier. Perhaps this might even lead to the end of 

the Cold War.

Many years later I struck up a conversation with a quiet, modest, elderly colleague who had worked in our secret documentation department. I had heard that 

he was hired by OKB-1 at Serov’s personal request. I asked him what he knew about 

Serov’s activity as Beriya’s deputy. It turned out that during the war he had been 

Serov’s aide-de-camp. He related several episodes describing the exceptional fearlessness of Serov at the front during the most trying ordeals. Together they had gotten 

into such messes that it was a wonder they had emerged alive. Serov had no direct 

involvement with repressions, but, of course, he knew a lot. He was not afraid of 

Beriya, and it isn’t clear why Beriya put up with him.21

After my first book, Rockets and People, came out in Russia in 1994, I was 

justly criticized for not mentioning or for saying very little about the accomplishments not only of my immediate colleagues, but also upper management. I must 

agree with this criticism. My only excuse is that some of the people worthy of inclusion in this book are beyond the grasp of my memory and my literary and physical 

capabilities. Nevertheless, I shall try to insert additional information into this new 

publication of my memoirs, starting with the life of one of the leading managers of 

our rocket and space industry.

In 1959, Yuriy Filippovich Dukhovnov was sent to work with us. He had graduated from MVTU after serving in the army. He had a difficult relationship with his 

immediate boss. At that time, I was a deputy chief designer and chief of Branch No. 

1 (“the second territory”), where Viktor Gladkiy’s department was located. Gladkiy, 

who Pilyugin used to call “Mr. Rough,” was in charge of problems of rigidity, elasticity, and the fundamentals of strength in missile hulls and large spacecraft designs.22

I don’t remember exactly when, but in 1963, Military-Industrial Commission 

(VPK) Deputy Chairman Georgiy Nikolayevich Pashkov called me via the Kremlin 

21. In the post–Cold War era, historians and scholars who have explored Serov’s life have illuminated 

much of his callous disregard for the value of life. See for example, Michael Parrish, “The Last Relic: 

Army General I. A. Serov, 1905–90,” The Journal of Slavic Military Studies 10 no. 3(1997):109–129.

22. “Gladkiy” in Russian means “smooth.”
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Managers and Colleagues

175

ligence agents of Nazi Germany.

In 1948, Stalin summoned Voznesenskiy, Malyshev, Zhukov, Vasilevskiy, and 

Ustinov to his office. He picked up a file on his desk and said: “These are the letters 

of Academician Petr Kapitsa. He writes that Beriya is a good organizer but doesn’t 

have a very good grasp of physics. Recommend a man for the post of Beriya’s deputy 

on these matters.” No one said a word. Suddenly Ustinov uttered, “I know such a 

man. Georgiy Nikolayevich Pashkov.”

Stalin smiled and said, “I approve of this candidate.”

At that time Pashkov was carrying out some routine assignment for Stalin in 

Germany. Summoned back to Moscow, Pashkov flew in and set out to look for his 

car at the airfield. Suddenly he was approached by two sturdily-built young men 

in civilian clothes. They said, “Come with us. You need to get into this car.” They 

pointed to a black ZIM.25

Pashkov understood that these people were from the KGB. All three sat down in 

the back seat—Pashkov in the middle, and the KGB guys on either side.

“Those devils,” thought Pashkov, “They didn’t even let me say goodbye to my 

family.”

They drove past the Gosplan building straight to the KGB building on Lubyanka. However, rather than leading him into an interior prison cell, they took him 

directly into Beriya’s office. Here, Beriya himself apprised Pashkov of the decree 

signed by Stalin transferring him from Gosplan to the KGB.

In 1954, to centralize the planning and management of all scientific-research 

and experimental design projects in the armaments and the defense industry sector, 

Khrushchev personally formed the managerial staff of the VPK, the Commission on 

Military-Industrial Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers. Dmitriy Ustinov 

was appointed chairman. His first deputy was KGB representative Georgiy Pashkov.26

Thus, in 1948, Ustinov recommended Pashkov as Beriya’s deputy, and, in 1954, 

enriched by his wealth of KGB experience, he brought him into the Kremlin, above 

all, to manage missile building. Pashkov spent over 15 years in that post.

At various large conferences Pashkov was always very reserved and all of his 

speeches were extremely brief. Many times I had to visit him in his Kremlin office. 

In face-to-face conversations or with other VPK colleagues he was far less laconic. 

But at the same time, not once did I hear hurtful insults directed at anyone.

Sometimes his reticence was frustrating. But chief and general designers, their 

25. ZIM—Zavod imeni Molotova (Molotov Factory). ZIM refers to a model of car manufactured 

there. 

26. Recent evidence suggests that the predecessor to the VPK, the Special Committee on 

Armaments for the Army and Navy, was established in April 1955, not in 1954. It was renamed the 

VPK in December 1957. In 1955–57, the Committee was headed not by Ustinov but by Vasiliy 

Mikhaylovich Ryabikov. Pashkov served as deputy chairman of the Special Committee in 1955–57 

and then of the VPK in 1957–70.

of his brother who had died during the battle of Kharkov. Voznesenskiy had refused 

Pashkov’s request, and now only Stalin could reverse his decision. Stalin heard Pashkov out in silence and calmly said, “We will avenge your brother’s death. But we 

need arms to reckon with the fascists. You and your comrades will provide them for 

the army.”

The second face-to-face meeting took place in 1945. Pashkov was included in 

Artillery Marshal Yakovlev’s government commission and not just with the broadranging rights of a Gosplan representative. The commission served as his “cover” for 

carrying out a secret assignment to meet with the now legendary Soviet agent Kim 

Philby.23 Through Pashkov, Stalin gave Philby the assignment to copy documents 

from the file of von Braun, who surrendered to the Americans in May 1945. Thanks 

to Kim Philby’s efforts, supposedly the mission was a success.

I am just surprised that none of the individuals who were actually interested in 

that file ever saw it! However, during the first years after the war, I had the opportunity to learn that the KGB leadership sometimes shelved scientific and technical 

materials that were obtained through the efforts of its foreign agents.

During their third meeting, Stalin gave Pashkov a very delicate assignment. As 

everybody knows, Joseph Kennedy, the older brother of future U.S. President John 

F. Kennedy, was a captain in the U.S. Army Air Force. At the end of the war, he was 

the commander of a sabotage group that was assigned to destroy an industrial site, 

which according to intelligence information was involved with the development 

of new types of aircraft technology. To carry out this assignment, Joseph Kennedy 

received an airplane packed with explosives. Several miles before reaching the target, 

the crew was supposed to switch the aircraft into automatic control mode on course 

to dive toward the target. The crew was supposed to bail out and parachute into an 

area where underground resistance members were waiting for them. Several miles 

before the bail out zone, however, the airplane exploded under mysterious circumstances. The crew perished, and the sabotage was not carried out.24

During this period, the Kennedy brothers’ father, Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., was 

the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. He went to the USSR Ambassador to Great 

Britain Mayskiy and also to Churchill and Stalin requesting assistance in an investigation of the causes for the explosion. Stalin sent Pashkov to meet with Kim Philby 

and, if necessary, to call in additional agents to uncover the causes for the loss of the 

American sabotage group. Thanks to the efforts of the agents and Philby personally, 

the assignment was fulfilled. The individuals who had placed a detonator with a 

timing mechanism on the aircraft during its preparation were identified as intel23. Harold Adrian Russell (Kim) Philby (1921–88) served in the British Secret Intelligence Service 

while simultaneously being a spy for the Soviet KGB during the early Cold War. He was quite possibly 

one of the most successful spies in the history of espionage.

24. Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr. (1915–44) was killed on 12 August 1944 when his naval B-24 

airplane exploded over the coast of England. He was involved in a mission to destroy V-1 and V-2 

launch sites in German-occupied territory in France.
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176

deputies, ministers, and other figures of the defense-industrial elite knew they had 

to go through Pashkov in order to solve problems of funding, deadlines, and recruitment of subcontractors and to push through anything that required the help of the 

central authority.

His great wartime experience planning for the military industry, his joint work 

with “economic dictator” Voznesenskiy, and six years working in the KGB, which 

gave him access to all the secrets of immediate developments and a wealth of information about the state of military technology abroad, had made Pashkov a highly 

competent government administrator; he managed the most important state programs in the missile and space technology sector and in associated industries using 

the principles of mobilization economics.

He demanded that his staff and the managers of large programs develop a detailed 

general schedule from the conception of the idea until the product was put into service that overlooked nothing and clearly described everyone’s responsibilities.

I have failed to fulfill my wish to write about “managers and colleagues” in a 

single chapter. I was intimately involved with too many interesting, talented, and 

enthusiastic colleagues and managers. The life and work of each of them has in one 

way or another remained as a contribution to world cosmonautics. But who has the 

capacity to recall and write about each of them?
Chapter 10

NII-885 and Other Institutes

In this chapter, I write about the organizations that designed and built guidance 

and control systems for Soviet missiles in the postwar period. The most important of 

these was NII-885. The same decree that gave rise to NII-88 also created NII-885, 

the head institute for long-range ballistic missile and air defense guided missile guidance systems. The Ministry of Defense factory on Aviamotornaya Street in Moscow 

was selected as the NII-885 facility. A large group of specialists in the field of relay 

technology and telephone and telegraph equipment worked at this factory. Many of 

them had been evacuated in the spring of 1942 from the Krasnaya Zarya Factory in 

besieged Leningrad. To begin work on missile technology instruments, the factory 

had absolutely state-of-the-art equipment and highly skilled workers, who had also 

been evacuated from Leningrad and had settled in Moscow. Two weeks after the 

13 May 1946 decree was issued, many telephone and telegraph control engineering specialists were sent to Germany and turned up at the Institute RABE. Among 

them were Pilyugin’s future deputy Georgiy Petrovich Glazkov, Abram Markovich 

Ginzburg, and Yakov Stepanovich Zhukov. Upon their return from Germany, they 

held key engineering posts under Pilyugin’s supervision at NII-885.

While they were still in Germany, it was announced that NII-885, which was 

being established at the Ministry of Defense factory, was being transferred to the 

Ministry of the Communications Systems Industry (MPSS). This ministry assigned 

its own director to the new institute. Unlike our Director Gonor, this man had 

absolutely no knowledge of missile technology.1

At first he relied on Mikhail Ryazanskiy for everything. The latter had been 

appointed chief designer and deputy scientific director. For the first three years 

Pilyugin did not officially have the chief designer title and was referred to as deputy 

chief designer. Actually, management of development at NII-885 was neatly divided 

between Pilyugin and Ryazanskiy.

NII-885 received its share of German specialists from Germany. They had been 

separated from our German specialists who came to work in Podlipki as soon as 

1. N. D. Maksimov headed NII-885 in 1946-49.

177
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NII-885 and Other Institutes

179

they arrived in the Soviet Union. They settled down in Monino, where a sanatorium 

building had been made available for them. It was too far and costly to transport 

the Germans to Aviamotornaya Street in Moscow. For that reason they worked in 

Monino and specialists from NII-885 gladly commuted to see them at the sanatorium.

The NII-88 and NII-885 organizations worked very closely together, in terms of 

both design and everyday routine work. For example, I was a member of the NII885 scientific technical council. Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin were in Podlipki almost 

every week, participating in scientific-technical council sessions or meetings of the 

Council of Chief Designers. We consulted with them not only on technical issues, 

but also on organizational matters, including personnel problems.

From today’s perspective and a common sense perspective, it is incomprehensible why the subsidiary branches of the NII-88 and NII-885 institutes and their 

German specialists were completely isolated from one another when their main staff 

people enjoyed such close contact. Back then this was attributed to “top priority 

governmental interests for the absolute preservation of state secrets.” Presumably the 

security services demanded such arrangements.

The group of German specialists who worked at Glushko’s OKB-456 was isolated in precisely the same way from our NII-88’s German branch on the island of 

Gorodomlya; we were, in fact, totally unaware of the German group at NII-885 in 

the electrical industry. One can’t blame only the security services for this arrangement. If the chief designers and three or four ministers had demanded that all the 

Germans be combined for the benefit of a project, the government absolutely would 

have accepted such a proposal.

It wasn’t that being considerate was alien to our chief designers and the ministers 

standing over them. A German team that was too strong could generate serious 

competition for our own developments. And, above all, this group would have to 

be provided with an experimental and production base. But at whose expense? Of 

course, at the expense of Korolev, Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, and Glushko, whose production capabilities were already limited.

Once, I had indiscreetly expressed the idea of a merger to Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin. I proposed that all the German guidance specialists be transferred from our 

branch in Gorodomlya to NII-885 so that they could develop a guidance system for 

the missile that Gröttrup was designing. They both pounced on me and demanded 

that I not dare come out with such an idea at NII-88, much less at the ministry. If 

that’s the way friends reacted to this idea—and they really were my friends—then 

naturally I never broached that subject anywhere again.

While equipping my guidance systems laboratories, I, as NII-88 deputy chief 

engineer, consulted with Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin, who were remodeling the factory 

areas for laboratories. We even started a competition to see who could acquire the 

best laboratory setup.

Ryazanskiy complained that Minister Ustinov, a former artilleryman, was helping me more than their “switchboard operator” minister. However, soon thereafter 

Sergey Mikhaylovich Vladimirskiy was appointed their deputy minister and the 

immediate supervisor of guidance systems operations in the Ministry of the Communications Systems Industry. He was a very energetic and knowledgeable man 

and, in every sense of the word, a decent man. He was appointed after NII-885’s 

historic fire, which destroyed almost the entire new laboratory facility.

One early Sunday morning in the summer of 1948, I was awakened by a telephone call from Director Gonor.

“There’s been a great disaster. Ryazanskiy’s institute has burned down. I’m taking 

Korolev with me, and I’ll be by to pick you up. Be ready soon.”

When we drove up to the grounds of NII-885, we got a sense of the disaster by 

the dozens of fire trucks. The fire was already out, but steam mixed with smoke 

was rising up over the factory grounds. The administrative building was completely 

packed with managers of all ranks. Sooty and dirty, Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, Boguslavskiy, and another five of their colleagues were busy writing explanatory memos listing the laboratory equipment that had been destroyed.

The administrative building housing the managerial offices was unharmed, but 

the factory had burned. The production shops and newly created laboratories had 

been hard hit; the collapse of the burning ceiling and roof had damaged them. The 

roof was held up by timber joists, and the ceilings had been coated with resin for 

waterproofing. It was the perfect fuel for a fire. When we struggled through the 

debris into the flooded shops and laboratories we sized up the scale of the disaster. 

They sent someone to find Gonor, Korolev, and myself and led us into an office 

where Zubovich, Vetoshkin, and the MPSS managerial staff were waiting.

“Lev Robertovich,” said Zubovich, turning to Gonor, “Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin 

will be coming over to your place. They’re going to look around Chertok’s laboratories. I want you to give them everything they ask for without any arguments. 

Is that clear? We will assist them with machine tools and other factory equipment 

ourselves.”

A week later we started to dismantle and transfer instruments and rigs from my 

departments to NII-885. A month later, the sparkling clean and orderly factory 

shops and restored laboratories of NII-885 were up and running as if no fire had 

ever occurred. They found that the culprit for the blaze was a soldering iron that was 

had been turned on in one of the shops over the weekend.

I visited NII-885 almost every week. I needed to coordinate layouts, check up on 

instruments being prepared for missiles, and let off some steam from the daily grind 

with Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, and Boguslavskiy. We had some heated arguments about 

the integrated guidance system.

Even during those first years I advocated a purely autonomous inertial guidance system for long-range ballistic missiles. I started up arguments on this subject, 

having first studied the prospects in Viktor Kuznetsov’s shop for increasing the precision of gyroscopic command instruments. Ryazanskiy argued that my proposals 

were unrealistic. Pilyugin tried to stay out of the arguments, but privately he agreed 

with me. At our next one-on-one meeting he said, “Don’t get Mikhail started again. 
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181

It’s still early, and there’s no need to offend him. And don’t get Sergey set against 

radio control. It’s not time yet.”

At the same time, Pilyugin was very jealous of my ideas and work on astronavigation, since this directly encroached on his prospects. Unlike Pilyugin, Kuznetsov 

was very interested in this work and promised any assistance from his production 

operations when needed.

By late 1948, the structure of NII-885 had already taken shape. Laboratories 

and shops for the development and production of onboard and ground equipment 

for missiles were up and running at the former telephone and telegraph equipment 

factory. Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, and Boguslavskiy formed an alliance with other specialists, “buddies” from the Institute RABE. They had to endure many battles with 

ministry bureaucrats, defending their structural concept and placement of managerial personnel.

Right off the bat there was a split into two disciplines similar to what had occurred 

at NII-88: long-range ballistic missiles and air defense missiles. Ryazanskiy held on 

to his post as chief designer for long-range ballistic missile guidance. At the same 

time he served as first deputy director and chief engineer, and therefore he was also 

responsible for air defense missiles. Govyadinov was involved exclusively with air 

defense missiles as chief designer of the guidance system. Like Sinilshchikov in our 

operation at NII-88, Govyadinov thought that this field was being stifled. There 

were similar conflicts on this subject at both institutes.

NII-885 was directly subordinate to communications equipment industry 

Deputy Minister Sergey Vladimirskiy. At their respective ministries, he and Vetoshkin supported in every way a policy for forcing out air defense missile developments 

to the Ministry of Aviation Industry. Ultimately, this happened and both NII-885 

and NII-88 halted their developments in the field of air defense missiles. In 1950, 

this project moved to KB-1 in the Third Main Directorate under the Council of 

Ministers.2

This certainly pleased Pilyugin because it freed up production facilities for his 

projects and, in addition, transferred talented specialists to him. Among them was 

Mikhail Samuilovich Khitrik, who subsequently became Pilyugin’s deputy. He was 

one of our country’s leading scientists in missile guidance systems.

From the very beginning, projects on long-range ballistic missiles were split into 

three areas at NII-885: inertial guidance systems, radio guidance systems, and radio 

telemetry systems. By mid-1948 Pilyugin’s department had a staff of over 500 and 

had been converted into a complex of specialized laboratories and departments. 

Georgiy Glazkov became Pilyugin’s first deputy. We had become accustomed to 

seeing him at the Institute RABE, where he constantly studied the operating prin2. The Third Main Directorate (TGU) of the Council of Ministers was a top secret body organized 

in February 1951 to manage development of the Moscow air defense system code-named Berkut. KB1 was the primary systems integrator (and designer of missile control systems) within TGU.

ciples and layouts of general electrical diagrams. In Germany we had considered 

him the main Soviet specialist to have figured out all the fine points of the layout of 

relay automation of the A4 missile’s “ground-to-air” integrated circuit.

Abram Ginzburg, who had also gone through the Institute RABE with Glazkov, 

supervised the integrated laboratory. He possessed a unique “circuit memory” and 

the gift for being able to react quickly to the unpredictable behavior of complex 

relay circuits. When he needed to send for or find Ginzburg, Pilyugin’s memories 

took him back to the historic bankobus in the autumn of 1947, where we used to 

hold our meetings by the firing rig in Kapustin Yar. He repeated the words of General Serov: “Show me this Ginzburg.”3

 Ginzburg really made his mark in the field of 

integrated design developments, and, in 1952, he was appointed chief designer of 

the Kommunar Factory in Kharkov.4

The Kommunar Factory traced its lineage from a labor commune of homeless 

children established by the renowned educator Makarenko. At this factory they 

mastered the production of FED cameras—replicas of the German Leica—and also 

electric drills.5 All of this extremely necessary and useful production would be shut 

down or squeezed to the side in order to begin making equipment for the R-1 and 

many other missiles.

The Kommunar Factory became a series-production facility for the majority of 

Pilyugin’s developments. But this was just the beginning of Kharkov’s relationship 

with missile technology. The government of Ukraine, where the series production 

of R-1 missiles was already under way in Dnepropetrovsk, had future plans for R-2 

production and wanted very much to have “its own” production, without having to 

rely on Russian contractors. Moscow encouraged such an initiative. Soon thereafter, 

a very powerful cluster of missile instrumentation OKBs and factories sprouted up 

in Kharkov. Chief Designer Ginzburg became a highly regarded figure in the town 

and in the ministry. But he didn’t forget his first firing tests.

Many years later Ginzburg and I ran into each other in Kislovodsk at the entrance 

to the Krasnyye kamni (Red Stones) sanatorium. I pointed my camera to take a picture of him with the sanatorium in the background and joked that now I could 

show all my friends “this Ginzburg.” He confessed that he still got horrible chills 

up his spine when he recalled Serov’s voice saying, “Show me this Ginzburg.” In the 

early 1990s I wanted to revise my memoirs with Ginzburg’s reminiscences. He had 

a good sense of humor and at one time had promised to tell me a lot of interesting 

things about the establishment of the missile instrumentation industry in Kharkov. 

Alas! I was unable to do it. Abram Ginzburg had moved to the U.S.

3. See Chapter 2.

4. This plant was also known as Factory No. 897.

5. FED stood for Feliks Edmundovich Dzerzhinskiy, who was the founder of the predecessor to 

the KGB.
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183

Makushechev, another specialist who went through the Institute 

RABE in Bleicherode, was appointed supervisor of the NII-885 laboratory for the 

coordination of operations with gyroscopes and control surface actuators. Actually, 

this was an external relations inspection laboratory, that is, its goal was to keep track 

of what Kuznetsov and Chertok were doing, so that they wouldn’t come up with any 

“independent actions” that were harmful to NII-885. Was this intermediate control 

necessary? Makushechev’s laboratory became a source of conflicts. Viktor Kuznetsov 

and I convinced Pilyugin that military acceptance was already monitoring us and 

one more supervisor would only interfere with our work. Ultimately, under our 

pressure Pilyugin adapted that laboratory for internal needs.

Pilyugin immediately established his own autocratic, totalitarian regime for 

autonomous systems. Not all of Pilyugin’s associates liked his autocracy. There were 

obstinate individuals who had their own ideas on various technical problems that 

differed from the chief designer’s way of thinking. One of these recalcitrant types 

was Nikolay Semikhatov, who managed the stabilization controller laboratory and 

was responsible for developing all sorts of transducer amplifiers. Pilyugin’s differences of opinion with Semikhatov on technical issues affected their personal relationships, but benefited missile technology.

Pilyugin showed no enthusiasm for Korolev’s ideas and projects on the development of submarine-launched missiles and disapproved of his young deputy Finogeyev’s enthusiasm.6

 After Korolev handed over the development of naval missiles to 

Makeyev, he recommended that Pilyugin follow his example.7

Without any misgivings, Pilyugin agreed to Semikhatov’s departure to a newly 

established firm for the development of naval missile guidance systems. Now the 

manager of a new independent organization, Semikhatov exhibited engineering 

talent and extraordinary organizational skills. Within a short period of time under 

his management Semikhatov set up an instrumentation institute in Sverdlovsk with 

its own pilot plant.8 Enterprises in the Urals became the primary facilities producing submarine-launched missiles. Nikolay Semikhatov received every conceivable 

governmental award in this field and attained all the academic degrees and titles; he 

even became a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He created his own 

scientific and technological school of long-range submarine-launched missile guidance. Even today, these missiles compose the primary armament of the submarine 

fleet.

Semikhatov devoted 45 years of his life to solving the most difficult problems 

of accuracy, reliability, safety, and the operation of flight control systems for mis6. Vladlen Petrovich Finogeyev (1928–) served as Pilyugin’s deputy in 1957–70.

7. In 1955, Korolev distributed the development of submarine launched ballistic missiles to a 

branch in Miass under Makeyev’s tutelage.

8. Nikolay Aleksandrovich Semikhatov (1918–) served as Chief Designer of SKB-626, the primary 

supplier of guidance systems for naval ballistic missiles.

siles launched from submarines cruising at full speed. By the late 1970s, the Soviet 

Union was on equal footing with the U.S. in terms of the strength of the submarine 

component of its strategic nuclear missile forces. All submarine missile guidance 

systems from the very first to the last were purely autonomous; that is, radio systems 

were not used to increase the target striking accuracy.

The situation with radio systems turned out to be more complicated. 

Ryazanskiy entrusted the reproduction of the German Viktoriya lateral radio correction system to our new colleague Mikhail Borisenko. From the very beginning, 

this was a bone of contention between the two managers of radio developments at 

NII-885, Borisenko and Boguslavskiy.

Yevgeniy Boguslavskiy had begun to develop what was for those times the 

advanced Don radio telemetry system in place of the very low-capacity German 

Messina and its domestic modification, Brazilionit. The Don system was used widely 

after the R-1 firing range tests in 1949. It found a secure niche on all subsequent 

missiles up until the first intercontinental missile, when it was replaced by the Tral

system developed by the OKB MEI. The Tral had an even greater information 

handling capacity.

The transfer of Boris Konoplev from NII-20 appreciably enhanced the radio 

engineering program at NII-885. During 1948–49, he served as chief designer of 

Shown here at a meeting is Chief Designer Nikolay Pilyugin (1908-82), the founding patriarch of guidance systems for early Soviet ballistic missiles. He is flanked by two senior 

industrial managers of the Soviet space program, Vasiliy Ryabikov (left) and Sergey Vetoshkin 

(right).

From the author’s archives.
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NII-885 and Other Institutes

185

ance. Resonance phenomena had occurred in the platform’s elements, and engine 

vibrations caused oscillations of its substructure. The new engine had been boosted 

appreciably compared with the RD-100 engine of the R-1 missile. Therefore, the 

intensity of the vibrations had also increased.

Despite Tsetsior’s self-criticism, Pilyugin believed that the control surface actuators were to blame. In his opinion, the linear part of their performance was too 

small for the guidance principles underlying the stabilization controller developed 

by NII-885. I contended that no amount of linearity would help us as long as he, 

Pilyugin, was going to saturate the commands controlling the control surface actuators with interference. The vibrations caused such high-frequency oscillations of the 

sensors on the gyro-stabilization platform that interference blocked the legitimate 

signal, and the entire stabilization controller became a nonlinear system. Moreover, 

I chided Pilyugin for replacing the electronic tubes in the transducer amplifier with 

static amplifiers without having thoroughly studied the transient phenomena occurring in the electrical circuits containing iron-core windings. I maintained that doing 

away with the tubes was a progressive measure, but the static amplifiers could introduce much stronger nonlinearity than the control surface actuators.

It was a very heated argument. While preparing for the next R-2 launch, Pilyugin and I debated the issue so loudly right on the launch pad that the chief of the 

launch control team was forced to announce: “Since you are disturbing the peace 

and using inappropriate language during prelaunch tests, I request that you step 

away from the missile.”

Pilyugin found Korolev and asked for his help. But Pilyugin had already explained 

his version to Korolev before our dispute, and Korolev had not given his approval to 

develop the new, more powerful control surface actuators; instead, he had advised 

that Pilyugin work it out with me. Now it was up to him to resolve the conflict. I 

explained that we were developing new control surface actuators strictly for future 

use, but their series production would be no easy task for our factory. It would take 

several months; the schedule for the R-2 flight tests would be disrupted.

In those days there were as yet no computers making it possible to conduct 

an experiment under laboratory conditions. The first simulator, Dr. Hoch’s Bahnmodel, was not put into production after he left for KB-1. Pilyugin had just begun 

to develop his own electronic simulators. Korolev had to compensate for the shortcomings of research technology with his own intuition and will. He made a decision, 

which many years later served as a model to us for resolving seemingly dead-end 

situations. “Given the information at our disposal, no one is justified in asserting 

categorically the cause of the dynamic instability. Therefore, we are making the decision to hold all the suspects accountable.”

Right there on the launch pad Korolev announced: “Boris, you’re going to make 

new control surface actuators with our factory and you’re going to coordinate their 

performance data with Nikolay. Nikolay, you will show us the performance data of 

your transducer amplifier using static amplifiers and if their performance is worse 

than the tubes, then take it in stride and redo it. As far as the gyro-stabilizing platthe R-3 missile guidance system. However, his arrival at NII-885 put quite a strain 

on rapport between the managers.

Konoplev thought that he was fully qualified on all problems of missile radio 

engineering and had no patience for Ryazanskiy’s guidance. Soon he took over all 

the radio engineering projects in the institute. The strained situation was one of the 

reasons why Ryazanskiy accepted the offer of Ustinov and Rudnev and took the 

vacant position of NII-88 chief engineer after Yuriy Pobedonostsev left for a teaching position in 1950.

NII-885’s frequently replaced directors had to spend a great deal of time resolving conflicts between Konoplev, who was striving for the “radiofication” of guidance, and Pilyugin, the system’s actual manager. They usually dragged me, and then 

Korolev, into heated arguments over these problems. Korolev sympathized with all 

the warring factions, since all of them were top-notch, brilliant specialists, devoted 

to their work. But diverse viewpoints on the prospects for the development of guidance systems aggravated personal relationships. You couldn’t accuse any of them of 

being dishonorable.

Not wanting to complicate his personal relations with Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, 

Konoplev, or Boguslavskiy, Korolev resorted to a very wise tactic if a technical matter 

needed to be decided in favor of one of them. Once he had considered the situation 

and prepared proposals to resolve the problem, he assigned me or another one of 

his deputies to get involved in the conflict. If the conflict couldn’t be resolved with 

our participation, all of us turned to Korolev with complaints against each other. 

He took on the role of arbiter. Here, much to the delight of the subcontractors, he 

pounced on his own people, who supposedly weren’t reporting to him objectively or 

hadn’t sorted it out. Everything usually ended with decisions that appeased everyone, while Korolev, slyly smiling with obvious pleasure, signed them.

One such conflict arose over the control surface actuators for the R-2. The first 

flight tests on R-2E missiles, which we had used for the experimental development 

of principles for the R-2 in 1949, showed a dynamic stability problem in the stabilization controller. For the first time, as an experiment, in place of the classic gyro 

horizon and gyro vertical we installed a gyro-stabilized platform that Kuznetsov and 

Tsetsior had developed.

Although the platform was very similar to the one that Kuznetsov had demonstrated to us in Berlin at the Kreiselgerät factory, Tsetsior assured us that his 

development was better. He had studied all the German achievements, found the 

weak points there, and reworked a lot of things. This was not a copy but indeed his 

own original development. Installing his platform in the R-2 pressurized instrument 

compartment caused the designers a lot of trouble. We ran a risk, because unlike 

the R-1 layout, the R-2 instrument compartment was located right by the engine, 

a source of vibration and powerful acoustical effects that could be transferred along 

the airframe.

The first R-2 missile with the new platform crashed. Our interpretations of the 

causes differed. Tsetsior himself attributed it to the platform’s lack of vibration toler-
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forms are concerned, as regrettable as it might be, I have already come to an agreement with Kuznetsov without your input, to return to the gyro vertical and gyro 

horizon. Apparently we’re not quite ready for [Ginzburg’s] platform. But so that you 

won’t all be offended, I have decided to replace the duraluminum tail with a steel 

one. Our strength experts think this will reduce the intensity of the vibrations in the 

instrument compartment.”

As a result of these decisions, flight tests on the first series of R-2 missiles were 

broken into two phases and conducted from October 1950 through July 1951. In 

1952, Pilyugin put his first electronic simulators into operation, substantially facilitating decision-making “under conditions of uncertainty.”

The arrival of talented young people captivated by new problems played a 

major role. In the late 1940s, a group of engineers who had graduated from MAI 

came on board at NII-885. They included Georgiy Priss, Nina Zhernova, and 

Mariya Khazan. Soon Priss became the leading specialist and supervisor of integrated circuit development for the electroautomation of all the guidance systems 

for Pilyugin. Zhernova had a rare combination of feminine charm and an intuitive 

understanding of the dynamic processes of the stabilization controller. She brilliantly mastered research technology using the still faulty electronic simulators and 

possessed the ability to predict the behavior of a guidance system under different 

conditions.

I had to participate in the review of various accidents a number of times where 

Zhernova had been tasked with analyzing the behavior of the stabilization controller. She provided objective findings that did not always coincide with Pilyugin’s 

views and were sometimes contrary to the departmental thinking of the entire firm. 

In such cases, Zhernova asked for time to repeat the research and simulation.

After numerous flight simulation sessions on a rig incorporating an electronic 

simulator, actual control surface actuators, and a transducer amplifier, Zhernova 

and Khazan spread out still-wet oscillograms on huge tables to prove that they were 

right.

When Mikhail Khitrik arrived in Pilyugin’s collective, all research on motion 

control dynamics was transferred to him. He could combine profound theoretical research with practical recommendations for equipment under development. 

Khitrik established close contact with Korolev’s dynamics specialists.

When I officially transferred from NII-88 to OKB-1, Georgiy Vetrov’s group 

was already working there. It had been tasked with researching stability problems. 

This was supposed to have been integrated research in very close contact with the 

guidance system developers.

The chief developer of the guided missile did not have the right to categorically dictate his requirements to the guidance system developer. Success could be 

achieved only if the missile were designed as a single complex system. Problems of 

the structure, propulsion system, guidance system, and flight dynamics had to be 

studied in the closest cooperation with specialists from all the organizations responsible for this work. One of the most important services of the Council of Chief 

Designers was the actual support of this activity. Korolev deliberately cracked down 

on any manifestations of egotism among colleagues who considered themselves “top 

dog.” This won over specialists from contractor organizations.

This continuous working cooperation aimed at solving guidance dynamics problems did not occur overnight. Quite conscious of the need for a systemic approach, 

Korolev strove for direct contacts with the lead specialists of other organizations 

and, above all, with the NII-885 dynamics specialists.

Matters of ballistics, aerodynamics, structural loads, stability, controllability, 

accuracy, and inertia fell under the immediate purview of the chief designer. The 

guidance system chief designer also needed all of the baseline data on these problems. Therefore, Pilyugin and his people were not the end users, but active creative 

participants in the resolution of these problems.

During the development phase, integrated stands simulating the preparation and 

launch processes and in-flight operation of the entire intricate guidance complex 

were widely used. Integrated laboratories were developed for these simulators. The 

chief of the integrated laboratory was responsible for providing the entire system’s 

operating technology, for knowing the special features of the missile itself, and for 

working in close contact with specialists from the entire institute and even closer 

contact with the head design bureau. Priss was the chief of such an integrated laboratory at NII-885 dealing with the R-2, R-5, and R-5M missiles.

Pilyugin appointed the young, talented, and very energetic engineer Vladlen 

Finogeyev as chief of the integrated laboratory for R-11and R-11M missiles and the 

R-11FM naval modification. While Korolev was absorbed with arming submarines 

with missiles, Finogeyev took advantage of his special situation. Soon Finogeyev 

became Pilyugin’s deputy. He was awarded the Lenin Prize, and in 1961 he was 

named a Hero of Socialist Labor during a large award ceremony in honor of Gagarin’s launch. But Finogeyev’s brilliant persona somehow got under Pilyugin’s skin. 

Having known Nikolay Alekseyevich for a long time and quite well, it was painful for me to observe that as the years passed he began to display jealousy toward 

his deputies who enjoyed great prestige outside his institute. Probably Khitrik was 

the only member of Pilyugin’s inner circle who remained above suspicion until the 

latter’s death. The spat that occurred through no fault of Finogeyev’s resulted in his 

accepting the post of defense industry deputy minister. If Korolev had been alive, he 

would not have put up with that. It turned out that bureaucracy was not Finogeyev’s 

calling. He returned to engineering work, but in a different field.9

Vladimir Lapygin and Boris Dorofeyev arrived from MAI to work for Pilyugin 

at the same time as Finogeyev. Lapygin was one of those individuals who were keen 

on gyroscopic platforms and who supervised their development when they were 

being produced under Pilyugin after the latter broke away from NII-885 in 1963 

9. Finogeyev served as Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Defense Industry in 1970–81 and then 

Deputy Director of TsNII Avtomatiki i gidravliki (Central Scientific-Research Institute of Automation 

and Hydraulics) in 1981–2000.
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and headed NIIAP.10 After Pilyugin’s death in 1982, Lapygin was appointed NIIAP 

director and chief designer.

Having passed through Pilyugin’s school and having gained firing test experience at Novostroyka outside Zagorsk, Dorofeyev transferred to OKB-1 to work for 

Korolev. Soon thereafter he was appointed chief designer of the super-heavy N-1 

launch vehicle for the lunar expedition. Dorofeyev shared the tragedy of this project 

to the full extent.11

The first flight tests of the R-5 missile in 1954 showed that the control 

fins started to vibrate in flight, and then the entire missile. This had not occurred 

at all in simulation during the design process on analog simulators of the “missilestabilization controller” closed loop system. In those cases, engineers returned most 

meticulously to the analysis of previous launches of other missiles. Such excursions 

into the past very frequently showed that, from the standpoint of theory, irregularities in the behavior of standard control systems and oscillatory processes had also 

occurred earlier, but proper attention had not been paid to them if the flight ended 

without a crash. If the missile flew along the designated trajectory but intense vibrations developed throughout the entire hull around the center of mass, this posed a 

hazard because the missile structure experienced additional loads, especially if deviations during reentry into the atmosphere caused a high angle of attack. For future 

structural strength analyses, the load factors needed to be determined and standardized. Errors in load calculations meant unnecessary structural metal, a reduction of 

the payload mass, or reduction of flight range.

While still setting up Department No. 3 at the SKB, Korolev included the few 

load factor specialists he had in the design bureau and he pooled together strength 

analysts and designers. Viktor Gladkiy was one of the leading load factor theoreticians in Department No. 3 and later in Korolev’s OKB-1 from the very beginning of 

NII-88’s involvement in missile projects. He was supposed to calculate loads, taking 

into account acceleration forces, aerodynamics, tank pressurization, control deflection, and even vibrations. The results of calculations sometimes required that guidance specialists complicate the dynamic design to make control less rigid and more 

flexible in reducing loads. This really got on Pilyugin’s nerves, and he would start to 

argue with Gladkiy, whose name means “smooth.” After a typical quarrel, Pilyugin 

declared to Korolev, “Your Gladkiy is not the least bit smooth. He’s rough.”

The Germans who developed the guidance system for the A4, and after them 

10. NIIAP—Nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut avtomatiki i priborostroyeniya (Scientific-Research 

Institute of Automation and Instrument Building).

11. Although relatively unknown in the West, Boris Arkadyevich Dorofeyev (1927–99) was one 

of the chief architects behind the famous N-1 Moon rocket. Between July 1972 and May 1974, that 

is, until the program was suspended, Dorofeyev served as chief designer of the N-1 program. Chertok 

will describe the N-1 program in Volume 4.

our specialists who developed the R-1 and R-2 guidance systems, viewed them as 

controllable objects possessing the properties of a “solid body,” meaning that when 

exposed to loads, the missile hull would not deform at all. Such an assumption 

proved inapplicable for the R-5 missile, which was more than 20 meters long with 

hull diameter of 1.65 meters, like the R-1. The missile hull bent under the effect of 

loads from the control fins. The flexural elastic modes of the hull were transferred 

to the gyroscope bases. The gyroscopes responded naturally to these modes and sent 

commands to the guidance system, causing the control fins to shift. The loop closed 

and entered an unexpected self-oscillation mode.

In a joint effort, the OKB-1 and NII-885 dynamics specialists developed measures to limit the effect that this newly discovered phenomenon had on guidance. 

At one of the meetings that we had on this problem, I reminded Pilyugin about our 

materials resistance course at the institute. They had taught us that we could use a 

structure within the limits of its allowable elastic deformation. His comeback was, 

“We’ll rock the missile with the control fins so much that your Mr. Rough will have 

to reinforce it with steel longerons.” We introduced various filters into the system, 

but at NII-885 they continued to bad-mouth the “protection against Mr. Rough.”

Another new curse for the guidance specialists was the effect caused by filling 

the missile with liquid. The control fins’ vibrations not only bent the missile hull, 

but also disturbed the liquid oxygen and kerosene in the tanks. The fluctuations of 

the liquid surface caused additional perturbances. We needed to develop ways to 

counteract the effect of the filled tanks.

The effect of flexural vibrations and fueled tanks on stability proved very hazardous. The frequency of these vibrations fell within the guidance system’s frequency 

band. Cooperative research was set up at OKB-1, NII-885, in the scientific departments of NII-88, and the military’s NII-4 to study the new phenomena. Khitrik was 

in charge of this work at NII-885; Vetrov, Degtyarenko, and Gladkiy headed the 

project at OKB-1. At NII-4 Georgiy Narimanov made a special study of the effect 

of the liquid in the missile’s tanks.

Through their combined efforts they developed a guidance theory allowing for 

the new phenomena. During 1955–56, guidance equipment was developed that 

was supposed to ensure stabilization over the entire dynamic structure. During this 

period the R-7 missile was designed, applying the experience derived from the R-5. 

To this day, missile and guidance system designers have to consider liquidity and 

elasticity as integrated factors from the very initial design stage.

The ballistics theoreticians were in a much more advantageous position. Svyatoslav Lavrov and Refat Appazov, who had reconstructed the ballistics of 

the A4 at Sparkasse in Bleicherode with Dr. Wolf, the chief ballistics expert of the 

German arms firm Krupp, worked in Department No. 3, and later at OKB-1. Missile ballistics differs substantially from the ballistics concepts employed in artillery. 

Calculating the flight trajectory was an extremely labor-intensive business. For the 
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users of the first Strela domestic computers and large electronic calculators (BESM), 

ballistics proved to be anything but simple.12 Ballistics specialists came into play at 

the very beginning of missile design. They were also involved in the final phase of 

flight assignments for missile launch.

Range, accuracy, payload mass, aiming procedures, and adjustment of the automatic range control unit, consideration of the engine specifications, rate of propellant component consumption, and a myriad of other problems, including predicting the missile impact point in the event of possible crashes—all of this was part of 

the ballistics experts’ job.

The first missile decade saw an unofficial interdepartmental association of ballistics experts from various organizations. Employees from the Academy of Sciences 

Department of Applied Mathematics headed by Dmitriy Okhotsimskiy, military 

theoreticians Georgiy Narimanov and Pavel Elyasberg under Tyulin’s leadership at 

NII-4, the aforementioned Lavrov, Appazov, young Makarov, Karaulov, and Florianskiy in OKB-1, and the group of “guidance system” ballistics specialists headed by 

Nayshul set up in Khitrik’s department formed a sort of ideological association. The 

military ballistics experts at the firing range were also part of the mix. They didn’t 

simply follow the calculations of their industry colleagues, but actively intervened in 

drawing up the firing tables and flight profiles and tracking the flight trajectory.

One of the motives behind combining the ballistics experts from different sectors was their common interest in developing facilities for extra-trajectory measurements. It all began with the German cinetheodolites used to track launches in 

1947. By late 1956, state-of-the-art radar tracking and data transmission systems 

had already been produced. They covered the entire flight path of the future intercontinental missiles. The combined ballistics experts initiated the creation of ballistics data processing centers. With the dawning of the space age, these centers and 

their tracking stations served as the basis for the first mission control centers and the 

entire Command and Measurement Complex (KIK).13

This example of interdepartmental ballistic solidarity is very illustrative. The various disparate teams coordinated their work not because of guidelines from the top, 

but because of a natural need to unite for a more effective solution to a common 

problem. The departmental quarrels that ensued among ministers, directors, and 

other managers did not break this professional solidarity. This unity of the first generation of the scientists and engineers of the first missile decade had an enormous 

significance for our work in the subsequent space age.

The joint work of the NII-88, OKB-1, NII-885, OPM, and NII-4 was not lim12. Russian language speakers typically refer to computers with the acronym BESM (Bolshaya 

elektronnaya-schetnaya mashina), which literally stands for Large Electronic Computation Machine.

13. KIK—Komandno-izmeritelnyy kompleks. The KIK was the official name of the Soviet ground 

communications network to support the missile and space program.

ited to interaction strictly on routine experimental design projects.14 They also conducted joint scientific-research projects to predict missile technology development 

and to develop new ideas. They called in scientists from the Academy of Sciences, 

NII-4, and other organizations for these research projects, but invariably OKB-1 

played the lead role in the NII-88 system. Korolev strove by all means, both practically and legally in guideline documents, to strengthen his role as chief designer and 

OKB-1 as the head organization. He did this very tactfully, with respect to everyone 

involved in the projects—with the exception of the NII-88 management. Until 

OKB-1 split off from NII-88 and became an independent organization, Glushko 

was also jealous of OKB-1’s ever-increasing leading role and of Korolev personally.

Korolev strove to establish a completely independent organization. He wanted 

not only to escape from the guardianship of the NII-88 director, but also to separate 

completely from NII-88. It was not until 1956 that he finally succeeded. Inspired 

by this example, Pilyugin strove to acquire a great degree of independence within 

NII-885 and then to break away into an independent organization as well. But this 

did not happen until 1963. After Pilyugin’s group departed, NII-885 became purely 

a radio engineering organization.15 Mikhail Ryazanskiy was the technical director 

until the day he died in 1987.

NII-10 shared the same neighborhood on Aviamotornaya Street with 

NII-885. This organization developed command gyroscopes for guidance systems 

as ordered by the same historic decree of 13 May 1946. A high concrete wall separated NII-10 from NII-885. But, in addition, a departmental wall also separated 

them. NII-10 was subordinate to the Ministry of the Shipbuilding Industry. In 

contrast to the new NII-88 and NII-885 organizations, in 1946 NII-10 was already 

a fully operational facility for the development of new instruments and was ready 

to fulfill “party and governmental” assignments. During the first years that NII-10 

was involved with missile projects, its director was Valeriy Dmitriyevich Kalmykov, 

future USSR Minister of the Radio Electronics Industry. In addition to gyroscope 

technology for the navy, NII-10 developed naval radar, heat-sensitive radar, and 

naval radio navigational systems.

For us, the most important man at NII-10 was Viktor Ivanovich Kuznetsov. 

In Volume 1 of this series I wrote about my first encounter with Kuznetsov, in 

May 1945, at the Kreiselgerät Factory in Berlin.16 Kuznetsov, whom we all simply 

called Vitya, was such a colorful figure that I will briefly describe his engineering 

background. Vitya Kuznetsov did his thesis project at the Elektropribor Factory 

in Leningrad. By the mid-1930s, a subdivision had formed at this factory for the 

14. OPM—Otdel prikladnoy matematiki (Department of Applied Mathematics).

15. NII-885 is currently known as the Russian Scientific-Research Institute of Space Device 

Engineering (RNII KP).

16. Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1, pp. 278–279.
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development of gyroscopic instruments under the supervision of Vasiliy Nikitovich 

Tretyakov, future deputy minister of the shipbuilding industry, and distinguished 

scientist and engineer Nikolay Nikolayevich Ostryakov. Sergey Fedorovich Farmakovskiy was also developing a ship artillery fire control system at the factory.17

Young engineer Kuznetsov very quickly entered the inner circle of 

select gyroscope experts. In 1938, he received the first Stalin Prize for perfecting a fire-control system. In 1939, scientist/gyroscope experts Academician A. N. 

Krylov and Professors Ye. L. Nikolai and B. I. Kudrevich approached the government with a proposal to create a diversified scientific production center for gyroscopes to develop domestic instruments. By order of the People’s Commissariat of 

the Shipbuilding Industry a center was created in May 1940 at NII-10 in Moscow. 

In 1940, Viktor Kuznetsov was appointed chief of the gyroscope section in the new 

institute, just two years after defending his final undergraduate thesis. At that time, 

Valeriy Dmitriyevich Kalmykov was NII-10 Chief Designer.

Physics and mathematics Candidate of Sciences Aleksandr Yulyevich Ishlinskiy, 

the future world-famous scientist and member of many academies and international 

science associations, was invited to Kuznetsov’s department to provide theoretical 

reinforcement.

In October 1940, Kuznetsov departed on special assignment to Germany to take 

over equipment for naval vessels that had been ordered on contract. The Germans 

were preparing for war, but at the factories they hid nothing from him. The Gestapo 

was keeping a special dossier on Kuznetsov, which our security agency discovered 

after the war. The Germans highly appreciated his erudition and expertise.

On the morning of 22 June 1941, in Berlin, Kuznetsov was interned and taken 

to a camp where all Soviet citizens in Germany at that time were gathered. They 

offered him German citizenship. However, 22 days later the internees were transported through Austria, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria to neutral Turkey. It was August 

before Kuznetsov and the others deported from Germany managed to reach Moscow. 

He immediately left for Leningrad to join his family and was evacuated with them 

to Birsk. Through the “Road of Life,” the half-dead specialists of the Elektropribor 

Factory moved across Lake Ladoga and evacuated to Moscow.18 Kuznetsov returned 

to Moscow and rebuilt the scientific-research gyroscopic section in the deserted 

NII-10 building.

In 1943, the NII-10 naval institute was reborn. Here, Kuznetsov and Ishlinskiy 

headed a section in a special gyroscope design bureau. They succeeded in devel17. Author’s footnote: How our fates intertwine! I met Farmakovskiy in 1936 when I began visiting 

the Elektropribor Factory to place orders for the aircraft bomb sight for Chief Designer Viktor 

Bolkhovitinov’s DB-A airplane.

18. The “Road of Life” (Doroga zhizni) was the transport route across the frozen Lake Lagoda that 

provided the single access to the besieged city of Leningrad during the infamous 900-day Siege of 

Leningrad in 1941–44 when German and Finnish forces cut off all land access into the city.

oping a heavy-duty stabilizer for a tank gun. But 

Germany surrendered, and, in May 1945, wearing the uniform of a Red Army colonel, Kuznetsov 

flew to Berlin, where he had been interned in June 

1941. This is where I had my first encounter with 

Kuznetsov.

The decree of 13 May 1946 switched the focus 

of Kuznetsov’s work from ships and tanks to missiles. From Berlin he came to see me at the Institute RABE. Together we traveled by automobile 

to Peenemünde. He was actively involved in the 

reconstruction of German gyroscope technology 

and arranged for supervision of gyroscope production at the Zeiss factory in Jena and their simultaneous reproduction at NII-10 in Moscow. The 

gyroscopes Gorizont, Vertikant, and Girointegrator

(there were just three to begin with) were guidance 

system components, and their official customers 

were Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin. However, Korolev, 

who had a knack for quickly appraising a person’s 

intellectual potential, made Kuznetsov a full-fledged 

member of the Council of Chief Designers. Soon, 

Kuznetsov was appointed chief designer of gyroscopes both for the R-1 missile and 

for all the subsequent missiles for which Korolev was chief designer. In 1953, a 

special design bureau was created at NII-10 on the basis of Kuznetsov’s section. In 

1955, this design bureau was reorganized into a gyroscopic stabilization institute 

with Kuznetsov as its chief designer.19 Korolev agreed with Kuznetsov’s decision to 

decline the combined positions of institute director and chief designer. “Vitya is not 

cut out for administrative work. If he had consented, we would have lost a chief 

designer,” he said.

Despite his seeming naiveté, kindness, and openness, Kuznetsov had a knack for 

selecting, drawing in, promoting, and protecting people; above all, he paid attention to engineering talent. He also had a certain innate sense of decency that protected his team against the intrusion of schemers and careerists.

During those hot days at the firing range, I often had to meet at various councils 

and meetings and have regular personal contact with Nikolay Khlybov, Zinoviy 

Tsetsior, Georgiy Geondzhan, Oskar Raykhman, Mark Effa, and Izrail Blyumin. 

They were all close co-workers of Kuznetsov whose engineering and human qualities commanded my respect. To this day, Kuznetsov’s deputies Illariy Nikolayevich 

19. The institute was known at the time as NII-944.

Chief Designer Viktor Kuznetsov 

(1913-91) was the main gyroscope specialist among the 

Council of Chief Designers. During his career, he worked at the 

NII-10 and NII-944 institutes.

From the author’s archives.
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Sapozhnikov and Valentin Ivanovich Reshetnikov help me in my work in the academic section of the Council on Motion Control. On the occasion of Kuznetsov’s 

90th birthday, I had the honor, along with Sapozhnikov and Reshetnikov, to take 

part in a historical film dedicated to his memory.

In 1965, Kuznetsov’s institute of gyroscopic technology became part of the 

newly created Ministry of General Machine Building. Minister Sergey Aleksandrovich Afanasyev loved to hold up Kuznetsov as an example. The latter had assured 

him that “there would be no squabbling and intrigue in our ranks.” He created a 

unified, efficient, close-knit organization that combined designers and researchers 

with a highly disciplined production culture. Our domestic cosmonautics effort is 

particularly indebted to Viktor Kuznetsov. With the dawning of the space age, command instruments for spacecraft attitude control and navigation became one of the 

primary tasks of the Scientific-Research Institute of Applied Mechanics (NIIPM), 

the new name conferred on NII-944 beginning in 1965.20

“According to an ancient legend, the Earth rests on three whales. They ensure 

the Earth’s proper orientation vis-à-vis the Sun, Moon, and Stars. Over the centuries 

humankind has realized that the whales themselves are well stabilized in space. In 

our nation, NII-885, NII-10, and NII-627 are the whales that stabilize and provide 

electricity for missiles and spacecraft. In their work, the first two whales mentioned 

[NII-885 and NII-10] must obey Maxwell’s equations, theoretical, and celestial 

mechanics. As for the third one, NII-627, which is just twenty years old today, 

knowledge of Ohm’s law is sufficient for its difficult work.”

With these words I began my congratulatory speech on the occasion of the 20th 

anniversary of NII-627, which was renamed the All-Union Scientific-Research 

Institute of Electromechanics (VNIIEM) in 1959.21 My first meeting with NII-627 

director Andronik Gevondovich Iosifyan took place in 1946 in Germany. He had 

come to the Institute RABE for just one day to find out which mechanical converters—“Umformers” and electric motors for missiles—he would need to manufacture 

by order of the minister of the electrical industry.

I visited NII-627 during the first month after my return from Germany. I was 

told that the address was at “Khoromnyy Cul-de-sac” and that “the only access pass 

office [would be] there.” Upon arriving, I found myself on palatial grounds paved 

with granite slabs. When I climbed the granite and marble steps of the main entryway, opened the heavy carved doors, and entered the main building, I continued to 

be amazed by the magnificent and deeply artistic beauty of the surroundings. The 

walls, ceiling, stairs to the second floor, and doors—everything drew you in and 

shouted “feast your eyes while you are here.” An old friend of mine from our student 

20. NIIPM—Nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut prikladnoy mekhaniki. Kuznetsov’s team was 

originally part of NII-10 in 1946–55 but then separated into the independent NII-944 in 1955. 

Author’s note: I plan to describe NIIPM’s work separately.

21. VNIIEM—Vsesoyuznyy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut elektromekhaniki.

days at MEI, Yevgeyiy Meyerovich, met me.

“How do you work here?” I asked him, pointing to the ceiling of the stateroom 

into which he had led me. The ceilings in this hall and the offices that I visited were 

colorfully ornamented with images of ideally beautiful nude female bodies. You 

could linger over the pictures admiring them as if you were in a museum.

“We’re already used to them,” explained Iosifyan, when I found myself in an office 

where the walls were adorned with French Gobelin tapestries. “We very quickly find 

a common language with everyone who comes here on electromechanical business. 

The fine art that surrounds us has a humanizing effect even on bureaucrats from the 

ministry when they come to do various and sundry inspections and audits.”

I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered old acquaintances at NII-627 from 

my prewar work. Aleksandr Goldobenkov had been responsible for delivering electric generators and generator regulators for the N-209 aircraft before its transpolar 

flight in 1937. Teodor Gustavovich Soroker was the chief designer in the electric 

machine laboratory of the All-Union Electrical Engineering Institute (VEI).22 He 

had designed all sorts of alternating current electrical machines that Factory No. 

293 had ordered for my long-range “B” bomber project that was supposed to fly 

using alternating current. Nikolay Sheremetyevskiy was also an old prewar school 

chum at MEI. He was now involved with new, cutting-edge synchronous servos, 

which I had needed so badly in 1939; they were needed for both the remote control 

guns and machine guns on the exotic “I” fighter that Aleksey Isayev had designed 

and on the “B” bomber, for which I had designed the high-frequency alternating 

current system.

During my meeting with Teodor Soroker at NII-627, we reminisced about our 

joint prewar developments and came to the conclusion that we had done a lot of 

interesting things. “We were ahead of our time,” said Soroker. “True, we haven’t 

been bored here at Krasnyye vorota (Beautiful Gates) either.”23 Visiting VNIIEM, I 

fought for setting deadlines for mastering the production of several devices: domestic two-unit mechanical DC-to-AC converters to power combat missile guidance 

and telemetry systems and electric motors and polarized relays for control surface 

actuators and control fin drives. We needed these for our entire missile program, 

although they were not of particular interest to the NII-627 organization at the 

time.

Andronik Iosifyan became a celebrity among specialists back in 1930 when, as a 

student at Baku Polytechnical Institute, he invented the “helically cammed electric 

gun” and began to work in the VEI machine-hardware section under Academician 

22. VEI—Vsesoyuznyy elektrotekhnicheskiy institut. 

23. Krasnyye vorota is an area in northeast Moscow where the institute is located. A major Moscow 

metro station is located there.
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K. I. Shefner.24 Our electrical engineering and automation superstars worked in 

this section. They supported my proposals to introduce alternating current systems 

into aircraft.

Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member A. N. Larionov was the supervisor 

of my diploma project. Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member K. A. Krug 

was the founder of VEI, and at MEI he directed the “fundamentals of electrical 

engineering” department.

In 1936, while trekking through the mountains of the Caucasus with my girlfriend, I carried along Krug’s heavy fundamentals of electrical engineering textbook 

in my backpack in the hopes of making up the academic incomplete I owed to Krug 

in the fall. Professor G. N. Petrov was an authority in the field of transformers and 

electric machines. When I was a student at MEI, he was deputy science director. 

Among these men, the quite young Iosifyan was appointed director of the laboratory of electromechanical servo systems for antiaircraft artillery control.

To this day, various nations continue their attempts to create electric guns. Now 

they are not for firing conventional shells, but for launching antimissile projectiles 

armed with nuclear warheads or for boosting spacecraft. They are just as far from 

practical realization as they were in the early 1930s. Iosifyan assessed the scope of 

the problems and switched his inventive enthusiasm and incredible creative energy 

to the creation of noncontact synchronized transmissions (selsyns).25 In this field, 

together with Svecharnik, he not only achieved real synchronous remote angular 

transmission, but he also patented the invention in many countries. In 1940, Iosifyan defended his doctoral dissertation, “The Theory and Practice of Non-contact 

Selsyns.” Simultaneously, Iosifyan invented a centrifugal machine gun, an artillery 

fire control system, and an electric helicopter, and, jointly with TsAGI, he was even 

designing a twin-engine electric airplane.

In 1941, Iosifyan was already the chief of the VEI’s OKB. When the Germans attacked Moscow, he and another inventor, future science-fiction writer A. 

P. Kazantsev, were inventing small electric self-propelled wire-controlled tanks.26

According to the inventors’ conception, these “land torpedoes” were supposed to 

spring out from the front gates of buildings and houses and blow up German tanks 

if they broke through into the city.

On 24 September 1941, an order of the people’s commissar of electrical industry named Iosifyan director of Factory No. 627, which occupied the building of 

the former palace at the Krasnyye vorota in Khoromnyy Cul-de-sac. During the 

war, history was the last thing on people’s minds; nevertheless, when the Germans 

24. Academician Klavdiy Ippolitovich Shefner (1885–1946) was one of the pioneers of the Soviet 

electrical engineering.

25. Selsyns are systems consisting of a synchronized generator and motor.

26. Aleksandr Kazantsev (1906–) was a well-known Soviet-era science fiction writer known for his 

space-themed works. In 1946, Kazantsev advanced the theory that the mysterious Tunguska explosion 

may have been caused by an extraterrestrial spaceship.

were driven away from Moscow, the artistic monument protective services came to 

Iosifyan requesting that during all necessary defense work he coordinate potential 

reconstruction with them.

The palace, in which the factory’s managerial offices and Iosifyan’s office were 

located, was built in the 1880s by Sergey Pavlovich Derviz, son of the railroad magnate. In 1904, the building was sold to Lev Konstantinovich Zubanov, son of a petroleum industry millionaire who owned oil fields in Baku. Foreign master craftsmen 

and top-notch artists remodeled, decorated, and painted the main building and its 

interiors. After the October Revolution the Special Technical Bureau (Ostekhbyuro) 

of the All-Russian Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) was located in the 

mansion, and later NII-20.27 All the while, the artistic splendors were unharmed. In 

September 1941, NII-20 was evacuated from Moscow and Iosifyan took possession 

of the magnificent estate. Thus, to this day, since 1941, the VNIIEM management 

has occupied the building, whose splendor the government protects.

Visiting NII-627 in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I felt like a “petty missile 

electrician.” The list of missile technology orders for NII-627 was very small compared with the creative interests of both Iosifyan and the representatives of Soviet 

electrical engineering who had gathered around him.

At the factory, scientific-research projects for the development of new electrical 

engineering materials and new principles of electrical machine building achieved a 

broad scale. During the war the small “land torpedo” tanks were involved in combat 

operations, but were not broadly used. The main project was the development and 

production of electric power sources for combat radio stations, foot- and handdriven electric generators called “soldier motors.” Iosifyan was also the chief designer 

of power sources for radar of all types that had just emerged. These projects led to 

the development of a whole series of diesel and gasoline mobile electric generators 

that were the sole sources of power for the engineering troops.

Iosifyan received his first Order of Lenin for the development of selsyns for artillery fire guidance radar stations. The mass production of demolition dynamos for 

the guerrillas was also set up. Iosifyan himself was at one time fascinated with the 

idea of creating a “flying infantry.” A special engine was supposed to help a man 

execute a flight lasting tens of meters. The future academician and Iosifyan’s successor Nikolay Sheremetyevskiy invented electric grenades. Physicists who came to 

the institute developed thermoelectric tea kettles for the guerrillas that were electric 

power sources for radio stations.

27. Osoboye tekhnicheskoy byuro (Ostekhbyuro) was a special R&D organization operating in the 

interwar years whose mandate was to develop innovative armaments for the Russian Navy and other 

branches of the armed forces. The VSNKh—Vserossiyskiy sovet narodnogo khozyaystva (All-Russian 

Council of the National Economy)—was the top economic management body for Soviet industry in 

the interwar years.
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198

On 1 May 1944, Factory No. 627 was reorganized into Scientific-Research 

Institute No. 627 (NII-627). In 1945, the most urgent task for the institute was the 

reproduction of electrical equipment and a fire control system for the Tu-4 aircraft, 

a copy of the American Boeing-29 Flying Fortress. In 1949, the first series of 28 

bombers was put into service; project managers B. M. Kogan and N. N. Sheremetyevskiy were awarded the Stalin Prize for this work.

A large project was also launched to produce new types of electric machines of 

various power ratings and mobile electric power plants and also to develop a single 

series of induction motors. These projects were economically crucial. Another major 

economic task was the development of regulating and switching equipment for a 

broad range of industrial applications.

I am citing this far-from-complete list in order to show that during the early 

years of missile technology development, rocket technology did not determine the 

main workload of NII-627 and the future VNIIEM. Nevertheless, Iosifyan was 

clearly offended that he wasn’t officially in the first Council of Chief Designers. He 

accepted all of our new proposals, and, ultimately, in the early 1960s, he became a 

de facto member of the Council.

Purely inventive and design work did not slake the creative thirst of the indefatigable “nation’s chief electrical engineer” in his pursuit of ultimate truth. Iosifyan 

was elected as a full member of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic Academy of 

Sciences and soon became its vice president. We were all certain that he would also 

be elected into the USSR Academy of Sciences. However, his innate enthusiasm 

betrayed him. Iosifyan dared to encroach upon what was for modern physicists the 

“holy of holies”—Einstein’s general theory of relativity. It would have been fine if 

he had given lectures in his tight “electric” circle, but he dared to publish his own 

research in works for the Armenian Academy. Academic physicists could not forgive 

this. On the other hand, in the field of missile technology and cosmonautics, year 

after year VNIIEM seized all the new beachheads. But that is another story and 

another chapter.
Chapter11

Air Defense Missiles 

In Chapter Five of the first book of my memoirs in Russian, Rakety i lyudi (Rockets 

and People), I ventured to touch on the history of the development of air defense 

missile systems.1 As a result, the creators of these systems sent me comments that 

justifiably argued that the scope of the operations for the creation of air defense missile systems in the Soviet Union, and later for antimissile defense, deserved a more 

precise and extensive description in my memoirs.

I hope that the creators of these unique air defense systems, and later the antimissile defense systems, will write a thorough work on the history of those developments in the USSR.2

 As far as my memoirs are concerned, for the new edition I have 

rewritten a very small part of this story, taking into consideration their criticism and 

the publications that have appeared after the first edition of my memoirs came out 

in Russia.

Karl Samuilovich Alperovich, one of the leading scientists and creators of the 

Moscow air defense system during the 1950s, rendered me essential help in revising 

the content and sequence of events on the history of the development of air defense 

systems. His memoir, Years of Work on the Moscow Air Defense System 1950-1955, is 

still the most complete account of the first guided surface-to-air missile system and 

how it was created.3 I thought I might add my own reminiscences and musings on 

this topic. I regret that they were excluded from the first edition out of space con1. See chapters “Getting Rid of Surface-to-Air Missiles” and “A Call in the Night” in the original 

Russian version: B. Ye. Chertok, Rakety i lyudi [Rockets and People] (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 

1994), pp. 270–73, 293–98.

2. A number of well-researched works have appeared in Russian recently on the history of the early 

air defense project. Probably the most comprehensive is Mikhail Pervov, Zenitnoye raketniye oruzhiye 

protivovozdushnoy oborony strany [Anti-Aircraft Rocket Armaments of the National Air Defense Forces] 

(Moscow: Aviarus-XXI, 2001).

3. K. S. Alperovich, Gody raboty nad sistemoy PVO Moskvy 1950-1955 [Years of Work on the 

Moscow Air Defense System 1950-1955] (Moscow: Art. Biznes-Tsentr, 2003). See also the earlier K. 

S. Alperovich, Rakety vokrug Moskvy: zapiski o pervoy otechestvennoy sisteme zenitnogo upravlyayemogo 

raketnogo oruzhiya [Missiles Around Moscow: Notes on the First Domestic Anti-Aircraft Guided Missile 

Armament] (Moscow: Voyenizdat, 1995).

199
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siderations. I begin with two different accounts of the “prehistory” of strategic air 

defense, in particular, on the formation of the now famous SB-1 organization.

August 1947 was the hottest month of the summer for everyone who had a role 

in the upcoming first ballistic missile launches in the USSR. Horizontal tests on 

the missiles that had been brought out of Germany and assembled from German 

components at our factory in shop No. 39 were running round the clock. I would 

often spend the night at the factory. NII-88 Director Gonor, who checked daily on 

the missiles’ preparation for shipment to the test range, warned that despite the allhands work regime, the institute’s Communist Party committee was on the verge 

of reviewing the status of operations on surface-to-air guided missiles any day now. 

Yevgeniy Sinilshchikov, Chief of Department No. 4, would deliver the main report. 

After all, he was the chief designer responsible for the reproduction of the German 

Wasserfall surface-to-air missile.

“I have the impression,” said Gonor, “that when it comes to the Wasserfall missile, we are circling around the problem, not knowing which end of it to grab. 

Sinilshchikov will accuse you of ignoring his area of work. He has every reason to 

say that work on the complex is being held up because we are not fully clear on the 

principles of guidance.”

“In that sense he’s right,” I responded to Gonor. “The issue isn’t the drawings 

for the German Wasserfall missile. They’ll have no problem drawing the body with 

the structural rings and longitudinal beams. But we still don’t have our own idea of 

the entire missile complex. In my opinion, our NII-88 is not capable of bearing the 

responsibility for that, because unlike long-range ballistic missiles where the radar 

designers play a subordinate role, in this case, with the Wasserfall, the radar team 

should be the lead organization. If they confront me in the Party committee or even 

if they reprimand me, I will still say that NII-88 in its current form is not capable of 

being the lead institute for air defense complexes.”

“I don’t advise you to take that approach,” said Gonor. “The same governmental 

decree from 1946 that assigned NII-88 to work on ballistic missiles also assigned us 

to work on the Wasserfall. When the decree was being drawn up, Vetoshkin and I 

told Ustinov to assign surface-to-air missiles to the aviation ministry, but the document that reached Stalin for his signature stated that our ministry, that is, NII-88, 

would be responsible for all types of missiles. For now, I promise to ask the Party 

committee to postpone its review of the matter until after our return from the test 

range.”

Now, I can no longer remember all the arguments that I raised during our discussion of the problem of surface-to-air missiles and the reasons why we were lagging so much in that area.

One of the important aspects of such large-scale programs is attitude, specifically 

the enthusiasm of the team as a whole. This, in turn, depends on attention and 

exactitude from higher-ups. Whereas the Ministry of Defense had shown interest in 

ballistic missiles, we sensed no interest whatsoever in the surface-to-air missiles. The 

Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) was working closely with us only on long-range 

missiles. There was no real supervisor over surface-to-air missiles—not in a military 

department and not in Special Committee No. 2.

The Party committee meeting on surface-to-air issues was postponed until 

November, but this gave me no comfort. Sooner or later, they would ask us why the 

decree signed by Stalin was not being fulfilled. All the problems of surface-to-air 

guided missiles required radical solutions. The entire staff of Department U and I 

were deeply interested in this, not only out of general patriotic sensibilities, but also 

out of egotistical ones. We were expecting a miracle. And our salvation arrived! I will 

begin in chronological order.

On one of the last days of that hot August of 1947, Vetoshkin summoned me 

to the ministry. He was quite upset and warned me that the two of us would now 

go see the minister. There we would discuss a new, interesting proposal for a guided 

missile system. I had been invited as an expert and would have to give the findings 

as to whether this design could be implemented at NII-88 and to what extent my 

staff and I were capable of participating in its implementation. “Don’t ask me any 

questions, Boris Yevseyevich. You’ll figure it out when you get there, but keep in 

mind that rash, hasty responses could have serious consequences for you.”

When we entered Ustinov’s office, I saw the chief engineer of our NII-20 radar 

institute, Mikhail Sliozberg, and optical sight developers whom I had known back 

when I was working on aircraft. Ustinov seated us all along one side of a long conference table and announced, “We’ll leave this side free. Soon some comrades will be 

coming who will report to you the gist of their proposals. Your job is to comment 

only on the scientific, research, and industrial facilities needed for implementation.”

Two men entered: an armed forces engineer colonel and a communications 

troops major. Ustinov introduced them: “Sergey Lavrentyevich Beriya” and then 

with surname alone, “Colonel Kuksenko.” Good God! How did I not recognize 

him? The famous Kuksenko, radio engineer and my idol from the ham radio days 

of my youth.4 When I was first introduced to radio engineering as a schoolboy, 

Kuksenko was already teaching us a thing or two in our ham radio club on Nikolskaya Street and was often published in radio magazines. I read everything there 

was to read. But instead of the young, well-built radio engineer that we schoolboys 

had looked on as a radio demigod, now I saw a gray-haired, heavyset colonel, who 

evidently had a hard time standing. He bowed to those assembled and hurried to 

sit down.

Young Beriya began to hang posters. Everyone grasped right away that Lavrentiy 

Pavlovich [Beriya]’s son was standing before us, and we fell silent. We were surprised 

because the posters were of diploma-level quality. Then it became clear that that’s 

4. Pavel Nikolayevich Kuksenko (1896–1980) served as Chief Designer in 1947–53 of the top 

secret SB-1 (later named KB-1) design bureau that oversaw the development of the first Moscow air 

defense system.
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what they were. Sergey Beriya was defending his dissertation for the second time in 

the office of the USSR minister of armaments. He did this not of his own volition, 

but at the instruction of his father, who had called Ustinov and “requested” that he 

assemble specialists and let them listen. But their task was not to evaluate the project, but to decide where to implement it! The project should be put before a panel 

of experts to see whether it merited implementation.

Sergey gave quite a respectable report. The subject was a naval guided cruise 

missile. The project consisted of two parts. The first part described the missile itself, 

which was ejected from an airplane and was equipped with an aircraft turbojet 

engine. That was an innovation at the time. The second part, judging by the posters 

and report, proposed a radar system to detect enemy ships and simultaneously radiocontrol the missile from the airplane on the detector beam. On the whole, despite 

evaluating the dissertation as excellent—or a five on a scale of one to five—an experienced expert would immediately have discovered naïve proposals and methods 

that had been rejected earlier.

For the sake of historical accuracy, I must say that for the first time in the USSR, 

and perhaps anywhere, Sergey Beriya and Pavel Kuksenko proposed an “air-to-sea” 

missile system that years later, in different modifications, went into service in the 

USSR and U.S. as the primary system for aviation warfare against surface ships. The 

report was followed by several questions, which Sergey asked Kuksenko to answer, 

having introduced him as the academic advisor. Kuksenko answered for Sergey, but 

it was already clear to everyone that this particular and still rough project itself was 

not the issue.

Ustinov proposed that we speak our minds as to whether the proposal was feasible and where it could best be implemented. I took the floor first. It seemed to me 

that I gave a very reasoned speech to the effect that a missile with a turbojet engine 

did not at all fall under the subject matter of NII-88. Moreover, we had virtually no 

radar specialists and, therefore, the realization of such a project would require the 

creation of a special organization, possibly using the facilities of an aviation industry 

enterprise. In contrast, Sliozberg argued that his institute had all the conditions for 

the realization of the radio engineering part of the project. Ustinov thanked everyone and adjourned the meeting. When I stopped in to see Vetoshkin, he was very 

pleased with my speech. “That will be the end of Sliozberg. Mark my words.”

On 8 September 1947, Ustinov’s decree was issued on the creation of Special 

Bureau-1 (SB-1) in the NII-20 system of the Ministry of Armaments for the development of guided air-to-sea armaments.5

 P. N. Kuksenko was appointed chief and 

chief designer of SB-1. His deputy was S. L. Beriya, who had graduated in the 

spring of 1947 from the radar department of the Military Academy of Communications in Leningrad.

5. SB—Spetsialnoye byuro (Special Bureau).

Many years later, through the stories of Pavel Tsybin and legendary test pilot 

Sergey Anokhin, I found out about the fate of Sergey Beriya’s diploma project and 

the events that followed the creation of SB-1.6 I deem it necessary to speak of this 

work because, first of all, it reflected the spirit of the time, and second, it was the 

prelude to the beginning of construction in 1950 at the small SB-1 facility of the 

enormous KB-1, which was in charge of developing unique air defense systems.7 It 

was KB-1 that inherited all work from the NII-88 on the Wasserfall missile involving both Chief Designer Sinilshchikov and myself.

The duo of Kuksenko and Sergey Beriya, who remained at NII-20, cooperated 

with the Mikoyan KB to develop the Kometa, a cruise missile that was supposed 

to strike a sea target after it separated from the carrier aircraft.8 The Kometa was 

launched from the Tu-4 carrier aircraft approximately 150 kilometers from the 

target and was supposed to enter the beam of the radar mounted on the carrier aircraft. The radar guided the Kometa to the sea target. When the Kometa was approximately thirty kilometers from the target, it was supposed to switch to homing 

mode and strike the target. This was the projected mission that Sergey Beriya and 

his academic advisor Pavel Kuksenko presented at the meeting in Ustinov’s office in 

1947. The radar portion of the system was to be developed at the small SB-1, which 

had been located at NII-20. The plan was agreed upon by Mikhail Sliozberg, who 

had announced at the aforementioned meeting that this work fell within his area 

of expertise.

NII-20 and the Ministry of Armaments did not know how to design and optimize winged vehicles. Without prolonged wrangling, the elder Beriya assigned 

the development of the winged vehicle to Mikoyan’s aviation KB and the flight 

optimization of the Kometa to the LII. Beriya summoned Engineer Colonel Pavel 

Tsybin from NII-88 to direct the Kometa flight tests. With Tsybin’s participation, 

LII converted the unmanned vehicle into a manned analog for the flight tests. To 

replace the volume and mass of the warhead, they set up a pilot’s workstation with 

manual control and modified the landing gear. The cockpit was very cramped. The 

Kometa’s turbojet engine would start up when it received a command from the carrier aircraft after its radar detected a target. After launch, the missile radio system 

received a signal reflected from the target at a range of around thirty kilometers, 

6. Pavel Vladimirovich Tsybin (1905–92) worked briefly on the development of the Moscow air 

defense system in the early 1950s before serving in several aviation design bureaus. In his later life, he 

served as a deputy chief designer at OKB-1 (now RKK Energiya) under Sergey Korolev, helping 

oversee the development of many generations of space vehicles. Sergey Nikolayevich Anokhin (1910–

86) served as one of the top test pilots at the Gromov Flight-Research Institute (LII) in 1943–64 before 

managing the training of civilian cosmonauts at OKB-1/Energiya in 1964–86.

7. In August 1950, SB-1 was reorganized into the much bigger KB-1.

8. The “Mikoyan KB” (or OKB-155) was headed in 1942–70 by Chief Designer Artem Ivanovich 

Mikoyan (1905–70), who designed some of the Soviet Union’s best fighter aircraft, including several 

generations of MiG fighters.
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thus activating the semiactive homing mode during the final flight segment.9

The pilot was “built in” to the unmanned control system to speed up the test 

phase and enable the single-use aircraft to be used multiple times. The pilot was 

supposed to monitor the system’s transition to the homing mode. He was permitted 

to interfere in the control process only if the automatic system failed. To switch to 

manual control the pilot gave a command to pyrotechnic cartridges that shot off 

the mechanical linkage between the aerodynamic control fins and the automatic 

system’s control surface actuators. At the very last moment during the normal target 

approach the pilot would take control and break away to a coastal airfield. Landing 

was the most hazardous part of a test flight. The light “bicycle landing gear” was 

supposed to withstand impact with the ground at a landing speed in excess of 380 

kilometers per hour.

Flight tests were conducted on the Black Sea in the Crimea. As Tsybin recounted, 

after each flight they had to report to Lavrentiy Beriya. Decades later, Tsybin would 

mimic Beriya’s voice with style. To the great pleasure of his audience, and nodding 

in the direction of Anokhin, Pavel Vladimirovich would say:

“All he [Anokhin] had to do was fly, report, and he was free. But I had to wait 

for the call from Moscow, sometimes not being able to leave for hours, and then 

stand at attention with the telephone receiver and answer questions that were not 

always easy.”

“And why did you have to stand at attention?” asked someone from Tsybin’s 

audience.

“That was the psychological situation, like it or not. When reporting to Stalin 

and Politburo members you stood up and gave the report standing at attention as if 

they could see you from Moscow.”

Pavel Tsybin, a superb and witty storyteller, told us about top secret flights that 

the famous test pilots Sergey Anokhin and Amet-Khan Sultan performed under his 

supervision in the unmanned vehicle.10 Anokhin and Sultan showed exceptional 

mastery; each flight involved great risks.

This naval project and all of its various updates could have been Kuksenko’s first 

and last creation had it not been for Stalin’s personal initiative.

All projects on the development of a Moscow air defense system invulnerable 

to atomic bombers had a considerably higher classification than our projects on 

long-range missiles. The most probable reason for the top-secret classification of 

these projects was the fact that they were under Lavrentiy Beriya’s guardianship. As 

chairman of the Special Committee for the development of atomic weaponry, he 

introduced the strictest regime of secrecy and attached state security officers to the 

9. In the West, Kometa was known as the AS-1 Kennel.

10. Amet-Khan Sultan (1920–71) was one of topmost Soviet test pilots. After a stellar career 

during World War II, he tested over 100 different Soviet aircraft in the postwar era. He was killed in 

an air crash.

scientists as overseers. There was nothing like that in our Ministry of Armaments 

system. Lavrentiy Beriya’s son Sergey had already been working in his father’s system 

before studying at the Academy of Communications. Which brings us to the second 

account of the “prehistory” of these systems. In an interview, Sergey Beriya gave his 

version of the beginning of operations with Kuksenko:

“Once, not long before I graduated from the Academy, my father introduced me 

to two prominent scientists, Aksel Ivanovich Berg, chairman of the radar committee, 

and Admiral Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shchukin, also a radio engineering specialist. They 

proposed to me that I work for a while with German, British, and American materials, 

select some subject, and do my dissertation on it.

...And so I did my diploma project, not without getting advice and help from experienced specialists. In my project, I proposed a cruise missile that followed a radar beam 

not 15 to 20 kilometers like the prototype, but around 150 kilometers, and during the 

final flight segment it switched to homing guidance. The diploma got a good grade and 

a recommendation that it be put into production. This recommendation might have 

remained just that, but one time Stalin was talking with Berg about some radar business 

and Aksel Ivanovich mentioned my diploma. Stalin asked that I be brought in and he 

started to inquire whether this could in fact be realized. More than anyone, it was Berg 

who convinced Stalin of the feasibility of this project, after which the decision was made 

to begin operations. This is roughly what Stalin said to me:

‘No offense, but you are young and don’t know anything yet. We need to put an oldtimer over you who would manage everything.’

I requested Kuksenko. Stalin was not inspired by his candidacy.

‘Kuksenko has already been in prison twice.’ To which my only response was, ‘That 

means he’s truly an upstanding man, since they’ve released him twice.’

Stalin looked at me and said that I’d gotten those ideas from my father.

Right after graduation from the Academy in 1947, Stalin ordered my father and 

Georgiy Malenkov to set up the design bureau. At my father’s suggestion, Dmitriy Fedorovich Ustinov, the Minister of Defense Industry, took the design bureau under his wing.

‘Why not put it under the aviation industry?’ asked Stalin. But my father thought 

that the people who developed the control system should manage the project, while the 

aviation folks could only be a sort of cab driver for this very guidance system.

Ustinov set up the design bureau on the premises of the so-called twentieth institute 

[NII-20], which was working on radar. Kuksenko was nevertheless appointed chief of 

the organization. He was also involved with management, in a constructive sense—“they 

failed to take this into account, they overlooked that, etc..”

We developed the cruise missile over a four-year period. The vehicle went into series 

production as the Kometa. It was jet-propelled with a triangular wing, that is, a winged 

missile. They sent in the obsolete cruiser Krasnyy kavkaz as a training target. They 

removed the crew from the ship, having first set the rudder so that the ship traveled in a 

circle with a 30-kilometer diameter. Several times we hit the shore with a blank shell. 

Ultimately, they asked us to show whether we could manage to sink a ship with a single 

projectile armed with an explosive charge. Not a single one of the admirals believed that 
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207

we could. But we sank the Krasnyy kavkaz on the first attempt. By the time we completed the program, the Korean War was in full swing. The Kometa had not yet officially 

been put into service, but a batch of 50 units had already been produced.

Stalin assembled the designers at the Defense Council. He invited us and aircraft 

designer Mikoyan, who had developed the vehicle for the Kometa system. Then Stalin 

asked whether we would be able to sink American aircraft carriers. At that time there 

were eight of them off the coast of Korea. We, of course, declared that we could. Stalin 

was thrilled. But my father and Marshal Vasilevskiy objected, saying that the projectiles 

could under no circumstances be used against the aircraft carriers: they would strike the 

target, but the Americans would respond with a nuclear strike against Moscow. Stalin 

was infuriated. ‘You mean Moscow is not protected?’

Right then and there we were told to leave the proceedings. We didn’t have the rank 

to participate a discussion [about the protection of Moscow].”11

Now, to the actual events involving the creation of the first Moscow-based air 

defense system. The history of the project has several versions. I am not about to 

judge which of them is the more authentic one, but it all boils down to the fact that 

the initiative for the creation of the organization that we know today as Almaz came 

personally from Stalin.12

Under great secrecy, in 1950, we passed on scraps of information to each other 

about the government decree promoting Pavel Kuksenko and Sergey Beriya to a 

higher level in the hierarchy of defense technology developers. The rumors were 

quickly confirmed. And how all of this took place actually managed to be bound 

into a single historic sequence many years later.

In 1950, the U.S. proclaimed “absolute supremacy” as its strategy in the Cold 

War. When the USSR obtained the atomic bomb in 1949, U.S. territory was still 

secure. For that reason, the military and political aspect of U.S. strategy revolved 

around using atomic weaponry against the USSR to inflict “preventive” strikes from 

the air.

After the R-1, we had already developed new medium-range missiles, and work 

had begun on super long-range bombers and fighter jets. But there was no system 

capable of reliably protecting Moscow and other important strategic centers against 

American [Boeing B-17] Flying Fortresses.

11. Author’s note: The text is cited from an interview published in the newspaper Sokol. For the 

younger Beriya’s memoirs, see S. L. Beriya, Moy otets, Lavrentiy Beriya [My Father, Lavrentiy Beriya] 

(Moscow: Sovremennik, 1994).

12. The Almaz Scientific-Production Association (NPO Almaz) is the direct descendent of the 

original SB-1 formed in 1947. During the Soviet era, it was one of the largest, most influential, 

and most secret defense industry organizations and produced various tactical and strategic weapons 

systems, including antiaircraft missile systems, antiballistic missile systems, and antisatellite systems. 

During its existence, it has been known variously as SB-1 (1947–50), KB-1 (1950–66), MKB Strela 

(1966–71), TsKB Almaz (1971–88), NPO Almaz (1988–95), AOOT Almaz (1995–96), TsKB Almaz 

(1996–2001), and NPO Almaz Named After Academician A. A. Raspletin (2001–present).

Stalin understood this and probably feared a repeat of 1941 with an atomic 

scenario. Apparently he consulted with Beriya as to who might be put in charge of 

the work on an air defense system. Lavrentiy Beriya had a competent adviser on this 

problem, his son Sergey. Probably he gave his father the idea, and the elder Beriya 

passed it on to Stalin that Kuksenko be consulted. Mind you, this is conjecture.

According to one of the latest publications, the air defense system got its start 

one summer night in 1950. It is common knowledge that Stalin liked to work at 

night and would send for people he needed as late as four in the morning. For this 

reason, the leading ministers, as a rule, did not go to bed before three or four in the 

morning.

Below I cite a version from the memoirs of Aleksandr Pavlovich Reutov.13

“One summer night in 1950, Kuksenko was summoned to the ‘nearby dacha,’ Stalin’s 

Kuntsevo apartment. The apartment’s host received Pavel Nikolayevich in his pajamas, 

browsing through a pile of papers on his couch. After a certain amount of time, tearing 

himself away from reading his documents, Stalin posed the question:

‘Did you know that the last time an enemy airplane flew over Moscow was 10 July 

1942? It was a solitary reconnaissance aircraft. And now, imagine that a solitary aircraft 

also were to appear in the Moscow sky, not a reconnaissance plane, but rather one carrying an atomic bomb. It appears that we need a completely new air defense system capable, 

even in the event of a mass attack, of preventing even a single airplane from reaching the 

site being defended.’

After this, according to Pavel Nikolayevich [Kuksenko], Stalin asked him a number 

of questions on a subject that was so alien for him. This was natural since radio-controlled missile weaponry was in an embryonic state, and for Stalin this was a new military technical field. Kuksenko emphasized that the complexity and the immensity of the 

problems here were on a par with developing atomic weapons 

After listening to him, Stalin said:

‘Comrade Kuksenko, one opinion has it that we must immediately begin creating 

a Moscow air defense system for repelling a massive attack of enemy aircraft from any 

direction.’”

In this regard, K. S. Alperovich noted in his memoirs that no one except Kuksenko himself could have said anything about the nighttime meeting with Stalin. 

Kuksenko, however, was a very private man. Two arrests and years of work in top 

secret NKVD sharashki had inured him to silence. Therefore, Alperovich believed 

that Kuksenko could not have told anyone about such a conversation with Stalin.

The only thing that one should consider credible is that Stalin personally 

entrusted Kuksenko with leadership over the program. His responsibility, however, 

was under the rigid control of Lavrentiy Beriya, whose son was officially listed in the 

new organization as a chief designer just like Chief Designer Kuksenko.

13. A. V. Minayev, ed., Sovetskaya voyennaya moshch ot Stalina do Gorbacheva [Soviet Military Power 

from Stalin to Gorbachev] (Moscow: Voyennyy parad, 1999), p. 493.
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In those days, ideas voiced by Stalin were announced in the form of governmental decrees within several days. Stalin signed such a decree on the creation of the new 

KB-1 on 9 August 1950. As a result, on 12 August 1950, Minister Ustinov issued 

the order reorganizing SB-1 into the new KB-1. Initially, Ustinov’s deputy minister K. M. Gerasimov was appointed chief of KB-1. Kuksenko and Sergey Beriya 

were named chief designers of the new system, which was given the name Berkut; 

wisecrackers claimed it to be derived from the first syllables of the chief designers’ 

surnames.14

Vetoshkin’s prophesy about the unfortunate fate of NII-20, which he had 

expressed in 1947 after the meeting that took place in Ustinov’s office, came true. 

All of the facilities belonging to the Ministry of Armaments’ NII-20 located at the 

fork of Leningrad and Volokolamsko Highways were, in fact, were transferred to the 

new KB-1. NII-20 itself was promptly moved to Kuntsevo. At the fork of the two 

highways, construction began on an enormous thirteen-story building for KB-1. 

Right away, without taking their views into consideration, the primary radio engineering scholars were taken from another organization, TsNII-108, the main radar 

scientific-research institute, headed at that time by Aksel Ivanovich Berg. The first 

leading specialist taken from Berg was Aleksandr Andreyevich Raspletin. At TsNII108 he had directed the main developmental laboratory for radar systems. Kuksenko 

and Beriya agreed to the appointment of Raspletin as deputy chief designer on the 

Berkut system and as chief of the KB-1 radar department. This appointment had 

decisive importance for the fate of the Berkut system. It was Raspletin in particular 

who had the fundamental ideas that gave Berkut its unique technical characteristics, 

unparalleled in the world.15

KB-1 would not stay long in the Ministry of Armaments system. The elder 

Beriya decided to free his son from Ustinov’s custody and to provide the Berkut 

operations with a scope comparable to that enjoyed by the atomic field in the First 

Main Directorate. Following that pattern, the Third Main Directorate (TGU) was 

created under the USSR Council of Ministers.

Vasiliy Ryabikov was appointed chief of the TGU, and his deputies were Valeriy 

Kalmykov and Sergey Vetoshkin. They were selected at Stalin’s volition to create this 

new third field (after nuclear and rocket weapons).

The already approved budget did not provide funding for the new field of air 

defense during the first year. Therefore, Lavrentiy Beriya issued an order funding 

the rapid development of operations of the TGU at the expense of the first (atomic) 

one. The chief of the First Main Directorate, Boris Vannikov, was assigned not only 

to provide funding, but also to monitor the course of operations on the Berkut 

14. The Russian word berkut also means “war eagle.” Berkut was also said to be derived from 

“Beriya” and “Kuksenko.”

15. Academician Aleksandr Andreyevich Raspletin (1908–67) was one of the Soviet Union’s 

leading designers of antiaircraft and antiballistic missile systems. He served as a chief designer at KB-1 

in 1955–67. The KB-1 organization, known today as NPO Almaz, is now named after him.

system. This I saw for myself soon thereafter, not knowing at the time about the 

events of the top-secret story described above.

None of the individuals organizing operations on the Berkut system had any 

complaints against NII-88 or NII-885, which were simultaneously supposed to 

create an air defense system based on the Wasserfall missile. In fact, neither the NII88 director, nor Chief Designer Sinilshchikov, were assigned to work on the Berkut 

surface-to-air missile. The government decree instead appointed Semyon Lavochkin, Factory No. 301 chief designer of the famous “La” fighters, as developer of the 

Berkut’s surface-to-air missile. The aircraft construction OKB-301 in Khimki, in 

terms of its capacity and competency, of course, far exceeded Sinilshchikov’s small 

Department No. 4 at the NII-88 SKB.

The development of the liquid-propellant rocket engine for Lavochkin’s missile 

was entrusted to Isayev’s OKB-2 at NII-88. Thus, Isayev remained NII-88’s only 

link with the surface-to-air missile field. Vladimir Barmin, a member of Korolev’s 

Council of Chief Designers, received the assignment to develop a launch system for 

Lavochkin’s new surface-to-air missiles.

In early 1951, Amo Sergeyevich Yelyan was appointed as the new KB-1 chief in 

place of Gerasimov. Like Gonor, he was one of the first Heroes of Socialist Labor, 

having received the high award during the war for his success in the mass production of artillery armaments at the Gorkovsky Factory. The creation of the building 

where KB-1 was founded is linked with Yelyan’s name. All of these events took place 

two years after I had been threatened with Party discipline for the failure of projects 

on surface-to-air missile control systems.

The designs for the Berkut system were so grandiose and radical that no one at 

NII-88 could even dream of them. But some talented people, including Georgiy 

Nikolayevich Babakin and his team, were assigned to the project.

In late 1948, the NII-88 Scientific-Technical Council (NTS) was assembled under the chairmanship of Gonor.16 There they heard the 35-year-old Babakin, 

the self-styled, as many believed, chief designer of surface-to-air guided missiles. 

Back then, it was customary for anyone who had anything to do with the field of 

missiles to conduct such work in closed organizations under the jurisdiction of the 

Soviet defense ministries. Babakin was from NII Avtomatiki, which was under the 

jurisdiction of the All-Union Council of Engineering Associations; that is, he was 

from a social organization.17 Nevertheless, this organization managed, through a 

contract, to receive money from the Ministry of Defense, and, guided by Babakin, 

who was extremely gifted with engineering intuition, common sense, and organi16. Most Soviet research institutes operated a NTS—Nauchno-tekhnicheskiy sovet (ScientificTechnical Council)—to review proposals and projects undergoing at the organization. The NTS 

would be staffed by both in-house scientists and outside academics and scientists.

17. NII Avtomatiki—Nauchno-issledovatel’skiy institut avtomatiki (Scientific-Research Institute of 

Automatics).
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zational talent, it was able to develop a perfectly competitive design for a surfaceto-air guided missile and its guidance system, including the ground-based radar 

component.

As with any integrated design, the new ideas gave rise to a multitude of questions 

and critical comments. This was by no means a college paper. Babakin’s team was 

made up of fully qualified specialists. According to my assessment, they had gained 

a better understanding of the flight control technology for a single surface-to-air 

missile than we had at NII-88 and than the specialists in Govyadinov’s department 

at NII-885.

I liked Babakin right away. When I had heard the supplementary reports and 

responses of his colleagues to all sorts of questions, right then and there I got an 

idea. Babakin and his entire collective needed to be taken into NII-88. He was 

capable of relieving Department U of its obligations with surface-to-air guided missile control, and, who knows, maybe he could even be put in charge of the entire 

field. My first overture to Babakin proved unsuccessful. He was afraid of losing his 

independence. Knowing our structure, he absolutely refused to be under Tritko, 

much less under Sinilshchikov. Then I started working on Pobedonostsev, Gonor, 

and Vetoshkin. Finally, after long negotiations in the ministry and State Committee 

No. 2, a decree was issued on the basis of which, in December 1949, Babakin was 

transferred along with his design group to NII-88. Here he was put in charge of the 

new department of surface-to-air missile control, thus removing a considerable load 

from my Department U. Thus, officially NII-88, now strengthened by Babakin’s 

team, continued its work designing surface-to-air guided missiles together with 

NII-885. Babakin and I not only found a common language for many technical 

problems, but our friendship soon developed to the point where we and our wives 

together went picking mushrooms in the forest.

The rumors about the decree calling for the creation of KB-1 reached us at NII88 somewhat late and evoked conflicting reactions among us. I was ecstatic. “So, 

finally, the state’s most vital problem is going to be solved in a radical way.” Babakin 

and Sinilshchikov at NII-88 and Govyadinov at NII-885 would be left on the sidelines. However, as soon as it became clear that Lavochkin had been entrusted with 

the development of the missile for Berkut, Babakin began negotiations for a transfer 

to Khimki at Lavochkin’s Factory No. 301.

By the end of 1950, under the management of the TGU, KB-1 had far surpassed 

the capabilities of NII-88 in terms of capacity, ideas, staffing, and production. It was 

senseless for Babakin to compete with that organization. At the same time, Lavochkin, who had been tasked with developing the actual missile, finally understood that 

he could not get by without good guidance specialists. Sinishchikov’s work on the 

Wasserfall missile at NII-88 lost its significance. At NII-88, it was decided to shut 

down work on surface-to-air missiles all together. At the same time, this line of work 

was called off at NII-885.

After working with us for a year and a half, in 1951, Babakin transferred with his 

team to Lavochkin’s facility and became his deputy for surface-to-air missile technology. In 1960, at the test range in the Balkhash region, Lavochkin literally died 

in Babakin’s arms.18 A few years after the death of Semyon Alekseyevich Lavochkin, 

Babakin was put in charge of his organization. While working on surface-to-air 

missile weaponry, the design bureau of Factory No. 301—under the management 

of Lavochkin, and then Babakin—was transformed from a narrowly specialized 

aviation enterprise into a scientific-production complex, which inherited Korolev’s 

projects on robotic interplanetary spacecraft in 1965. In this field, Babakin’s talent 

flourished. In 1970, Babakin was elected a corresponding member of the Academy 

of Sciences. And on 3 August 1971, just as suddenly as Lavochkin, Babakin died of 

a heart attack at the age of 57.

But let’s return to the 1950s. In early 1951, the development of surface-toair guided missiles was under way at full speed at OKB-301 on a scale worthy of this 

highly complex problem. The missile itself, as a flying vehicle, was under the system 

of the Ministry of Aviation Industry. Having in due course rejected the problem of 

long-range ballistic missiles, aviation was forced to take on the role of manufacturer 

of the new flying vehicles designed to destroy airplanes.

My second meeting with Lavochkin was in connection with this new project. 

At this point, I cannot pinpoint the precise date, but it was in February or early 

March of 1951. Late on a Saturday night I was awakened by a telephone call from 

the ministry officer on duty.

“Boris Yevseyevich, a car will be waiting for you at your home in 15 minutes. Get 

ready quickly. This is an order from the minister.” It was 2 a.m., so that meant there 

would be no Sunday for me. When I walked out of the building, the minister’s ZIS 

was already parked out front. There was no one inside but the driver. I was certain 

that I had been summoned by the minister. He loved to do this late at night, and so 

I did not question the driver. But when the car tore off down Gorkiy Street past the 

ministry I asked, “Where are we going?”

“To Khimki.”

What was going on in Khimki? Why had Ustinov sent his car for me? I didn’t 

have to rack my brain for long. We flew out onto Leningrad Highway, careened 

across the canal over the same bridge that Isayev had wanted to defend with a guerrilla band against the Germans in 1941, and rolled onto the premises of the aviation 

factory. All I knew about the factory was that it had been transferred to Lavochkin 

several years before.

I was sent into the reception room, where I found Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin. Both 

of them were in a foul mood, but when they saw me they brightened up. Pilyugin 

was smoking a Kazbek and was spinning tales about what a wonderful dream he was 

having before he received the minister’s telephone call.

18. Lavochkin died of a sudden heart attack.
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Vetoshkin emerged from Lavochkin’s office, and, having confirmed that all three 

of us were there, asked us to come in. In the spacious office at the end of a long 

table sat Boris Lvovich Vannikov. Gathered around the table were so many luminaries that we didn’t know where to look first. Way at the back, seated separately at a 

small desk, was Lavochkin, evidently accompanied by two of his deputies whom I 

did not know. At the table seated closer to Vannikov were Sergey Beriya, Ryabikov, 

and Ustinov. Next were our radio engineering elite: Aleksandr Lvovich Mints and 

Aleksandr Nikolayevich Shchukin, who were already corresponding members of 

the Academy of Sciences; Valeriy Dmitriyevich Kalmykov; and many unfamiliar 

figures. Judging by the empty tea glasses, Borzhomi mineral water bottles, sandwich 

trays, and ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts, they had been there for quite a 

while.

When we entered, Ustinov nodded in greeting, stood up, and announced, “Boris 

Lvovich, here come our specialists, whom I promised to call to help us figure out 

what’s wrong with the pyrotechnic cartridges.”

Vannikov turned to Mints and said, “Aleksandr Lvovich, this matter is your 

responsibility. Tell the comrades about it and report their suggestions to us in an hour.”

After receiving such a crucial assignment from the builder of the most powerful 

radio stations in the world, Mints accompanied us through hallways that were 

already familiar to him. We stepped into one of the design halls, where, despite 

the late hour, several men were working at drawing boards. We were met by chief 

designer of aircraft electrical equipment Fedoseyev, whom I knew from the aviation 

industry.19 He explained everything to us.

Lavochkin was developing the surface-to-air missile. Sergey Beriya was in charge 

of the entire missile control complex.20 He, Fedoseyev, had been sent here to help 

the few electricians of S. A. Lavochkin’s design bureau develop the onboard electrical system of this missile. Isayev’s engine was on the missile. Tanks of compressed 

nitrogen fed the propellant components under pressure into the engine. All the 

compressed nitrogen lines feeding oxidizer and fuel were shut off by pyrotechnic 

valves. Before startup, these valves needed to be opened in a particular sequence. 

These were one-time valves. In order to open the valve, an electrical pulse had to be 

fed to the built-in pyrotechnic cartridge. When it exploded, a path was opened up 

for the gas or propellant component. The first missiles that had passed all the electrical tests had already been fabricated. Before shipping the first experimental batch 

to the test range, some of the missiles had to undergo firing rig tests at Novostroyka 

near Zagorsk. But as soon as the pyrotechnic cartridges got into the act, inexplicable 

things began to occur. After the first detonation of a pyrotechnic cartridge, the rest 

failed and the valves did not open. Sometimes several more were tripped, but not in 

19. Aleksey Frolovich Fedoseyev served as Chief Designer of the Ministry of Aviation Industry’s 

Factory No. 25.

20. Lavochkin’s missile for the Berkut system was known as the V-300.

the specified sequence. During the last attempt, oxidizer was fed into the chamber, 

but fuel wasn’t. Experiments with the electrical system had already been going on 

for a week. One missile was knocked out of action, and they weren’t able to start 

up the engine; but when Isayev had it on the rig, that engine started up and ran 

flawlessly. There were instances when the pyrotechnic cartridges detonated for no 

apparent reason when voltage was supplied on board.

Local electricians had developed the onboard electrical system and that of the 

ground-based console for the rig tests. Fedoseyev and his colleagues discovered 

many errors and recommended that the system be redone. But the dates for the rig 

tests had already been pushed back a week. After this, the dates for the first stage 

of firing range tests were postponed. It would take another two to three weeks to 

modify the system. But Lavochkin didn’t have much time.

But now, Mikhail Ryazanskiy, the most experienced diplomat in our company, 

told Mints, “Aleksandr Lvovich! You can go relax for about an hour. During that 

time we will look into this problem, and we’ll tell you right away what we think.”

Mints gratefully withdrew, but Vetoshkin stayed behind to keep an eye on us. 

Pilyugin became livid and lashed out at Vetoshkin. “Was it worth it to bring us 

here for this? An entire week is going to go haywire now. Let them figure this out 

themselves.”

But with his usual composure, Vetoshkin quickly cooled him off. “Iosif Vissarionovich [Stalin] is monitoring our work personally! Lavrentiy Pavlovich [Beriya] has 

assured him that range tests demonstrating the destruction of an American Flying 

Fortress would take place yesterday, and it looks like they won’t even happen tomorrow. For that reason, Nikolay Alekseyevich, you’d better stop fuming and think how 

you can help so that you don’t get stuck here for a month instead of a week.”

I was absorbed in studying the electric circuit laid out on the table. After twenty 

minutes I understood that the circuit was fundamentally unsuitable for controlling 

pyrotechnical devices. It was a single-wire circuit in keeping with the principles of 

aircraft construction. All the positive wires ran directly to the pyrotechnic cartridges 

through single-contact relays without any redundancy. The body served as the negative wire.

That circuit had tormented me as far back as 1934 on the TB-3 when bomb 

racks activated by pyrotechnic cartridges had appeared for the first time. At that 

time this was considered a great achievement. The designer was Aleksandr Nadashkevich, Tupolev’s deputy for aircraft armaments. For lack of experience then, he had 

not taken into account the unreliability of the single-wire circuit, and the mock-up 

bombs suspended in the electric bomb racks came raining down at their whim. The 

airfield at Factory No. 22 was jam-packed with enormous dark green four-engine 

bombers that the Air Force representatives had refused to accept for this reason. 

Olga Aleksandrovna Mitkevich, the factory director at that time, assembled specialists, including myself, and implored us, “Do something!” Together with the TsAGI 

electricians we partially redesigned the circuit, and two weeks later the bombers’ 

acceptance process began. In honor of this occasion we threw a sumptuous banquet 
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with Trekhgornoye beer in our dear old Fili factory kitchen with the crews of the Far 

East Air Force commanded by the famous Shestakov who had arrived to receive the 

bombers.21

Now a banquet wasn’t in the cards. We could make the missile’s single-wire circuit into a two-wire circuit on paper in two days if we got enough sleep beforehand. Next we needed to develop a wiring diagram for the electrical circuit and use 

it to develop documentation for the cables. The cables needed to be refabricated, 

and, considering that many of the instruments were also single-wire, we needed to 

reconsider everything down to the substructure. This would take at least 10 to 12 

days. When everything would be manufactured, the rig layout would need to be 

assembled and we would have to hunt for errors. We would have to correct and 

modify the cables and instruments, and test them again and again—another ten 

days or so. Finally, we would have to assemble everything on the first flight-ready 

missile and conduct tests. In a word, when Fedoseyev and I made a quick estimate, 

it turned out that a radical surgical operation was absolutely necessary, but it would 

be at least a month before the missile with modified circuitry would be ready, if not 

a month-and-a-half!

I asked Fedoseyev why he had needed us to help him figure this out. He explained 

that he had understood it all completely, but they did not believe him and had forbidden him to even mention any suggestions on how to redesign the circuit. “Now 

they will start looking for someone to pin the blame on, but whose fault is it? Only 

the inexperience of the local electricians.”

After hearing us out, Vetoshkin, obviously pleased, suggested doing the following: “We were invited as consultants, so we will report our recommendations to 

Mints. After that, it’s his problem how he reports everything to Vannikov. But so 

that we don’t put Lavochkin in a difficult situation, we need to explain everything 

to him without the top brass around. Since, of all those present, Chertok knows 

Lavochkin, let him do the explaining. After that, you three—Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, 

and Chertok—have to disappear so that no one here will even remember you. And 

God forbid you should show any more initiative!”22

An hour later we returned to the meeting still in progress, and Mints reported 

to Vannikov: “Boris Lvovich! The specialists recommended by Dmitriy Fedorovich 

have provided us with some very valuable advice on the reliability problem in the 

electrical circuit with the pyrotechnic cartridges. I think that we will have to give 

them a thorough going over with Semyon Alekseyevich, draw up a schedule of 

operations for their possible completion, and after that we will give you a report.”

“When?”

21. Semyon Aleksandrovich Shestakov was one of the pilots on the TB-1 “Land of the Soviets” 

airplane, which flew directly from Moscow to New York for the first time in 1929.

22. Here, Chertok is underscoring the NII-88 group’s fear that it would be transferred full-time to 

work on the air defense project because of their expertise as consultants.

“Today by the end of the day.”

“It is now 4:30 a.m. We still need to discuss a number of issues here, and then 

we do need to get a little rest. I agree that we should have all the modifications done 

today and tomorrow, and then on Monday we will hear what you all have to say.”

My blood ran cold. I looked at Vetoshkin. He was making some kind of sign to 

Ustinov, but the latter was very pleased with Mints’ kudos regarding “his specialists” 

and did not respond. Then Vetoshkin threw off his reserve. “Permit me, Boris Lvovich! Our specialists have looked into the situation rather well, and they have found 

a fundamental shortcoming in the circuit. But as we see it, to correct it will require 

a serious design revision. But Semyon Alekseyevich is the one who should do that. 

We are prepared to explain everything to him. But he should report the schedule 

and possible timeframe to you tomorrow.”

Vannikov understood Vetoshkin perfectly, but he had to play out the performance according to all the rules. He turned to young Beriya and said, “Sergey 

Lavrentyevich, do you have any questions?”

“No.”

“Then we all thank comrade Ustinov and his specialists for their help, but I 

request that you, Aleksandr Lvovich [Mints], follow up on this work and report 

everything to us tomorrow, if necessary, together with Ustinov’s specialists.”

The three of us and Vetoshkin quickly slipped out of the office. Vetoshkin 

ordered us, “It’s a good thing Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin have their own car . . . so, 

scram! Chertok is now going to explain everything to Lavochkin, and I will wait for 

him. I won’t leave without him.”

They summoned Lavochkin with a note. I asked him to give me 15 minutes 

for the explanations. But we probably talked for an entire 40 minutes or more. He 

understood everything. He looked extremely tired, and therefore he perceived the 

extent of the calamity in a somewhat detached state. When we parted he thanked 

me and asked me to pass along his greetings to Gonor and Korolev, and suddenly, 

with a warm-hearted smile he added, “I don’t know how it was for you, but I had it 

a lot easier during the war.” I mentioned that Gonor was no longer with us.23 Apparently Lavochkin was not aware of that and my statement depressed him.

Vetoshkin practically forced me out of the building, sat me down in the ministry car, and at around 8 a.m. we raced onto Leningrad Highway. Along the way 

he lectured me, “Don’t get it into your head to call over here and ask whether your 

ideas are working. One word from Sergey, and if you catch his fancy or any of those 

academicians, and you might end up with them for a month or forever. That’s why 

for the next week you need to disappear either on vacation or on a business trip.”

After coming home, to the surprise of Katya and my sons, I drank half of a glass 

of vodka, and, after eating breakfast, to their great dissatisfaction, I flopped into bed. 

23. Lev Robertovich Gonor was removed as director of NII-88 in June 1950.
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On Monday I was sent to Leningrad for three days on a business trip—there was 

always some business going on there. It was a month later when I called Fedoseyev 

and asked how things were going. He reassured me that they had managed to avoid 

individual punishments and victims. They had modified the circuit, and tomorrow 

they would start up the rig tests again. There were a lot of other annoyances, but 

now everything was behind them: “We’ll start flying soon.”

After that episode, Babakin’s entire team transferred from NII-88 to Lavochkin. 

The fears of both Fedoseyev and other “high-ranking” consultants from Ustinov’s 

ministry that they might be moved to work under Lavochkin were allayed by the 

employment of many competent electricians at OKB-301.

In April 1951, on my latest temporary assignment to our “dear old” test 

range in Kapustin Yar, I found out that quite nearby there was a new test range 

for surface-to-air missiles. From Voznyuk they had taken the experienced tester and 

launch team director Lieutenant Colonel Yakov Isayevich Tregub. He was appointed 

chief engineer of the new test range and practically directed operations for the preparation and launch of surface-to-air missiles within the scope of all the test range 

services.

Later, in the spring of 1953, when we were working at the test range with R-5 

missiles, Tregub gave us a friendly warning that Sergey Beriya, Ryabikov, Vetoshkin, Vannikov, and Shchukin were flying into their test range. “There will be an 

interesting salute,” said Tregub. Indeed, when we got the call from Tregub’s test 

range, we ran out of our building to watch the target aircraft, a gorgeous Tu-4, 

being turned into a formless mass of debris in the sky after the missile’s direct hit. In 

all, during the spring of 1953, five target aircraft were fired on and brought down. 

Korolev, Pilyugin, and I, having come from the aviation industry, felt very sorry for 

the target airplanes as we observed the surface-to-air missile launches. But it was 

also something to admire. These missile launches supported development of KB1’s Berkut air defense system. They built two rings of surface-to-air missile defense 

around Moscow, where missile launchers were positioned. Later, in 1955, General 

Designer Raspletin’s Berkut system went into service as the famous System 25 (S25) in 1955.

My contribution to this technology was officially quantified as just one sleepless 

night, an event that Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, and I often revisited over a few drinks. 

During these reminiscences I loved to tease Pilyugin, saying that although “we both 

received medals ‘For the Defense of Moscow’ back in 1944, I was the first one to 

express the idea of two-wire electrical circuits for the missiles. Therefore, I have a 

medal for real work. Yours is just for digging antitank trenches in 1941.”

During my frequent flights in and out of Moscow, if the weather permitted and if 

my fellow passengers weren’t in the way, I would press up against the window, trying 

not to miss the moment we crossed the two rings of the Moscow missile defense. 

This was a far cry from the antitank trenches for which Pilyugin and I had received 

government decorations. When the characteristic patterns of the surface-to-air missile complex emplacements came into my field of view, I experienced something 

akin to satisfaction with my own, albeit small, involvement in this project.

Besides the sleepless night in 1951 described above, I believe I can be credited with other air defense achievements. In 1944, working with Roman Popov and 

Abo Kadyshevich at Factory No. 293, we invented a radar guidance system to guide 

the rocket-propelled BI fighter toward an aircraft. Aksel Ivanovich Berg advised us. 

Factory No. 293, in whose formation I had a hand beginning in 1940, became the 

primary facility for the development of surface-to-air guided missiles 15 years later.

After the first S-25 system—which used V-300 missiles developed by Lavochkin 

at Factory No. 301—the development of surface-to-air guided missiles was moved to 

Factory No. 293, where the chief designer was future Academician Petr Dmitriyevich Grushin. Working in collaboration with Academician Boris Vasilyevich Bunkin, 

who had been brought in by Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Raspletin and who would 

later be in charge of the Almaz organization, they developed systems on a qualitatively new technical level to knock out the most varied means of air attack.24

On 1 May 1960, the S-75 system using Grushin’s missile shot down the American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft.25 I had the opportunity to brag to my close friends 

that a missile developed in Khimki at Factory No. 293, which I mention in all of my 

curricula vitae, had shot down the American, Francis Gary Powers.

On 27 October 1962, the same Bunkin-Grushin system developed at Factory 

No. 293 shot down yet another American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, this time 

over Cuba during the Caribbean (Cuban Missile) Crisis.26 During the Vietnam War 

the S-75 system shot down hundreds of American bombers. The Soviet government generously rewarded the creators of the air defense guided missile systems with 

honors. However, although the name of the American pilot shot down near Sverdlovsk on 1 May 1960 spread over the entire world, even 30 years later, the names of 

our missile designers still remained unknown to the world.

24. In November 1953, the new OKB-2 of the Ministry of Aviation Industry (located at Factory 

No. 293) under P. D. Grushin inherited development of guided surface-to-air missiles from S. A. 

Lavochkin’s OKB-301. In subsequent years, the development of such missiles was supervised by a 

single systems integrator (the giant KB-1 or Almaz organization) led by A. A. Raspletin and then later 

by B. V. Bunkin. Actual missile development remained at Grushin’s OKB-2 (which was later renamed 

Fakel). The Almaz and Fakel organizations jointly developed the S-75 system, which downed Francis 

Gary Power’s famous U-2 spy-plane in 1960.

25. The S-25 and S-75 antiaircraft missile systems were known in the West as the SA-1 Guild and 

SA-2 Guideline respectively.

26. In Soviet/Russian vernacular, the Cuban Missile Crisis is commonly known as the Caribbean 

Crisis.

Chapter 12

Flying by the Stars

The first time I encountered an astronavigation problem was in 1937, while preparing our new four-engine DB-A bomber (assigned the polar designation N-209) 

for a flight over the North Pole to America. The airplane’s commander, Sigismund 

Levanevskiy, was not concerned about the issue of astronavigation, but navigator 

Viktor Levchenko was another story. He demanded that I, the ground crew’s lead 

engineer for electrical equipment (including navigational equipment), provide the 

aircraft with an astrodome and solar heading indicator.

We refined the solar heading indicator (SUK) as per Levchenko’s instructions 

and, with his input, selected a place for the astrodome in the navigator’s cockpit in 

the nose of the fuselage.1 As for an astral sextant, Levchenko agreed to include one 

in the equipment, but noted that he would probably not have to use it. During the 

arctic day over the pole, the stars were virtually invisible, and you couldn’t make 

them out at all through the dome (if it was dirty, fogged up, or iced over), even at 

night, until you reached the Arctic Circle.

These events came back to me 10 years later, in late 1947, when I was faced with 

the guidance problem for a cruise missile (krylataya raketa), which at that time still 

did not exist.2 In 1949, the R-1 missile with a range of just 270 kilometers had not 

yet been put into service. The R-2 missile with a range of 600 kilometers was still in 

the design process. But Korolev had already released the draft plan of the R-3 missile with a range of 3,000 kilometers. On this project he had already written: “The 

development of a cruise missile is an area with great potential in the evolution of 

long-range missiles. The realization of a cruise missile has a certain bearing on the 

successful development of long-range ballistic missiles...”3 Missiles with this range 

1. SUK—Solnechnyy ukazatel kursa.

2. In Russian the phrase krylataya raketa literally means “winged missile,” but more generally 

means “cruise missile,” that is, missiles that do not fly along ballistic trajectories but are guided by 

aerodynamic surfaces (such as wings) through most of their trajectories.

3. Here, Chertok is quoting from the introductory essay of the draft plan for the proposed R3 missile, entitled “Principles and Methods of Designing a Long-Range Missile,” which has been 

reproduced in M. V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye naslediye akademika S. P. Koroleva [The Creative Legacy 

of Academician S. P. Korolev] (Moscow: Nauka, 1980), pp. 291–318.

219
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“No.”

“Look, study the difficult job that a navigator performs. We’ll let you fly. And 

then you’ll see for yourself how hopeless this venture is. You’re just wasting your 

time.”

But the aircraft navigators’ skepticism did not change my mind. Instead of a 

human being, an automated mechanism—an automatic astronavigation system—

could perform all the operations! By no means did it have to duplicate everything 

that a person does. The problem would be solved if we succeeded in developing this 

system and combined it with an autopilot. The system would issue heading control 

correction signals to the autopilot and, upon reaching the target’s geographical area, 

it would switch the missile into a dive. Easy to say! Of course, you can’t come up 

with everything single-handedly.

First we needed to set up a laboratory. The laboratory absolutely would have likeminded individuals. It would be best if these like-minded individuals were young 

and knew nothing about the professional problems of an aircraft navigator. More 

experienced people might doubt the feasibility of the task and would only be hampered by their own skepticism. It was a good thing that I did not accept the offer to 

fly as a navigator. It is very likely that after finding out how complicated astronavigation was, I would have abandoned my adventurous undertaking.

No, I didn’t consider myself sentimental, especially after the war. But my memory 

of the N-209 crew haunted me. I shared some guilt there. If only they had had a real 

automatic navigation system! Now that we had the means and the need and could 

assign the research to an extensive staff, I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.

I went to Korolev and announced, “I have an idea! I’m going to start developing 

a navigation system for the cruise missile, under the condition that you really are 

going to make this missile.” Korolev immediately accepted the idea, but he said that 

I needed to get Yuriy Pobedonostsev’s agreement to set up the new laboratory, and it 

would be best if I managed to do that on my own without his help.4

Back in those early years, Korolev still hadn’t let go of his idea for the rocketplane that he’d been working on at RNII before his arrest.5

 Now he had the opportunity, without any of the letters to Beriya or Stalin that he had written from prison, 

to invest in the realization of an idea that was much more daring than the design 

of the stratospheric airplane from a decade before. I understood him to mean “get 

to work and then we’ll see.” He did not reject the cruise missile idea. In fact, soon 

after, he proposed the so-called EKR (Experimental Cruise Missile).6 At the time, 

4. Pobedonostsev was Chief Engineer of NII-88 at the time.

5. In the 1930s, while at RNII, Korolev proposed the development of a rocket-plane known as the 

218 (and later, the 318). A testbed for the vehicle with a different design, known as the 218-1 (and 

later, the 318-1) was developed and flown on a few test flights in 1940, while Korolev was already in 

prison.

6. EKR—Eksperimentalnaya krylataya raketa—literally stands for “Experimental Winged Missile” 

or more generally “Experimental Cruise Missile.”

still couldn’t reach the U.S. from our territory, but all the American air bases that 

were home to the Boeing B-29 Super Fortresses in Europe and Asia would come 

within reach.

Which missile would be most efficient for the task: ballistic or cruise? We needed 

to analyze both. By the same token, alternative flight control systems also had to be 

examined. While discussing these problems, Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin announced 

that they were going to start developing ballistic missile control systems together 

with Kuznetsov or with the new NII-49 naval gyroscopic organization in Leningrad. 

The cruise missile needed to be controlled over its entire trajectory all the way to the 

target. This was a very difficult task, and NII-885 was not yet prepared to handle 

it. The principles that the Germans proposed in the A9 and A10 designs were inadequate. Radio control over enemy territory would be knocked out of action by jamming, while autonomous control still generated completely unacceptable errors.

In fact, the normal drift of the gyroscopic system (the Kreiselgerät firm’s best 

gyroscopic platform at that time), one angular minute per minute of time, yielded 

a position error of 1 mile, that is, 1.8 kilometers. The best gyroscopic systems, even 

with air suspension, might have drift as high as one degree per hour. If a 3,000-

kilometer flight lasted two hours, then the position error for a purely autonomous 

system might even exceed 200 kilometers. Who needs a missile like that?

But this evidence did not divert Korolev from his “cruising” ideas. Back in his 

SKB Department No. 3, he found individuals eager to grapple with potential layouts for the cruise missiles. One of them, Igor Moisheyev, sensibly reasoned that in 

two or three years we’d see proposals for a guidance system if we found solutions for 

the design of aerodynamic supersonic winged vehicles and energy-efficient sustainer 

engines. We continued to heatedly argue over the issue of cruise missile guidance.

That is when I remembered the N-209 aircraft’s astrodome and navigator 

Levchenko’s boasting that on a clear, starry night he could determine his geographical location with an error no greater than 10 kilometers using an astral sextant.

A navigator’s work entailed searching the night sky for “navigational” stars that 

had been previously designated for the northern hemisphere, measuring the altitude of at least two stars using an astral sextant, determining the precise time of 

the measurement using a chronometer, and then determining his coordinates using 

special, rather complicated calculations and graphic plotting using a map. An experienced navigator, using specially prepared tables and spending 15 to 20 minutes 

per session, could determine his or her location with an accuracy of within five to 

seven kilometers. To verify that, I went over to the High Command’s Air Force NII. 

Luckily, I still had a lot of acquaintances there, and they confirmed for me that there 

really were navigators, real astronavigation aces, who determined their location with 

an error of just three to five kilometers.

When I suggested in conversation with the Air Force NII specialists that we at 

NII-88 wanted to begin developing an automatic astronavigation system and dispense with a navigator, I was met with sneers.

“So you’ve flown as a navigator?”
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ground information wasn’t “clean” enough.7

We needed inventors to work in the laboratory. The situation required them to 

design and then realize a fundamentally new system, the likes of which had never 

been seen before, not even abroad. A manager/administrator was not suitable to 

head such a laboratory. We needed a manager who possessed God-given talents—a 

creative source—who at the same time was a realist. In this case, the director of such 

a laboratory would also have a systematic mindset as well as an education in electrical engineering or at least in mechanical engineering and mathematics. Should this 

person turn out to be a capable administrator to boot, then so much the better. We 

needed someone with ideas.

Where could we find someone like this? I didn’t see a suitable candidate at NII88. What’s more, even the first modest venture—creating a group to develop automatic star-tracking methods—had already raised objections among employees at 

Department U. We quickly found opponents who argued that the whole astronavigation project was a gamble.

There was also an individual who was one of those ideological government supporters. He made it clear to me that if I entrusted this promising work to him, he 

would overcome all the obstacles and work by the sweat of his brow. But, if not, he 

would publicly and by every means insist that we were trying to realize a foolhardy 

scheme in the laboratory. I didn’t heed his warnings. But he kept his word, and over 

the course of three years, one commission after another tried to track down the 

foolhardy origins of the astronavigation ideas.

During one of my ministry visits I shared my problems with Vladimir Sergeyevich Semenikhin, a specialist who worked there on antiaircraft fire control instruments and all kinds of optics. He had recently been transferred from the Zagorsk 

optico-mechanical factory to head a department in the ministry. Suddenly Semenikhin announced that he was going to help me: “I have a candidate specifically for 

that job. He fits all your parameters, except for item five on the personnel background sheet.8

 But that’s your problem. If you approve, I will be able to transfer 

him from Geofizika to Podlipki.”9 I had to go kowtow to the KGB colonel who 

was the institute’s deputy director for personnel. And that is how Izrael Meyerovich 

Lisovich became director of operations for the automatic astronavigation system for 

many years.

As for Semenikhin, he turned out to be a man with ideas. He reached the rank of 

deputy minister for radio-electronics, but soon realized that a purely administrative 

career was not for him. Semenikhin headed a large scientific-research institute, was 

7. Here, Chertok is referring to what at the time were considered dubious backgrounds (e.g., 

extended family abroad, older members of the family involved with pre-Revolutionary intelligentsia, 

former arrest records, member of persecuted minorities, etc.)

8. Item five referred to ethnicity.

9. Here “Geofizika” denotes TsKB-589, a Moscow-based design bureau that developed optical 

elements for guidance and attitude control systems.

even the R-1 missile hadn’t flown.

Korolev had a lot of complex problems in his relationships with the NII-88 

managers. If he were to start demanding that they create one more laboratory working on his projects in my Department U, Yevgeniy Sinilshchikov would protest. He 

would obtain new proof that Chertok was gaining a hold on air defense projects 

in his department and that almost all the guidance specialists were working for 

Korolev. Sergey Pavlovich was right; we needed to be circumspect in this matter. He 

was aware of navigational problems and questioned whether I had specialists in my 

department to develop such an idea.

When putting together a team of people you hope will share your ideas, it is very 

important to formulate for each of them the specific task that will constitute their 

contribution to the solution of the problem as a whole. For a creative individual, 

this “whole problem” must be rather attractive. Wasting no time, they need to seize 

the beachhead. They need to find their own solutions without waiting until all 

the methods are invented and facts discovered to fully develop the system. In this 

matter an obvious problem needed to be solved, without expecting to know what 

the whole system would eventually become. The problem was searching for, identifying, and automatically tracking stars. To begin with, as our basis, we would take 

the procedure used by navigators at sea and in the air. After finding and identifying 

the necessary stars, we needed to solve at least two more problems. First, we had to 

determine the altitude of the stars above the horizon or the angle between the direction to the star and the direction of the vertical. Then we had to insert the measurement results into the prepared calculation procedure. But then we needed to come 

up with a computing instrument that, depending on the automatically measured 

angular distances between two stars, would calculate everything, process the navigation commands for the missile’s autopilot in order to follow the optimal flight path, 

and issue the final command to dive toward the target.

And so the first task was to develop the automatic device that would track the stars 

from a stationary platform. To begin with, this would be the laboratory window. We 

needed to start with the simplest things. The first employee of the new laboratory, 

which was not yet officially entered on the organizational charts, was Larisa Pervova. 

She and I had developed an electric arc ignition during the war. Unlike many female 

engineers at that time who would only do exactly what their manager assigned, she 

showed initiative and a tendency toward independent action. In this case, while we 

in the new field were still sorting out the problem, it was a valuable quality, especially since I was only able to devote attention to this project by fits and starts.

Soon laboratory workers appeared. They procured and obtained optical measurement instruments, various photocells, and electronic multipliers and established 

contacts with the electronics and optical laboratories of other institutes. During the 

formative years of NII-88, we ran into no difficulties when it came to funding any 

new ventures. All you had to do was to show that the funds were needed for the 

future of missile technology. When it came to bringing new specialists on the job, 

difficulties arose during processing in the personnel department only if their back-
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creation of a vertical was a brand-new problem.

The same Professor Shuler, who in 1945 visited us in Bleicherode to familiarize himself with the work of the Institute RABE, back in 1923 had discovered and 

published the principle of a pendulum device that maintained the direction of the 

vertical when exposed to accelerations. Moving along a geodesic line over the Earth’s 

surface, this pendulum would have an oscillation period of 84.4 minutes! But a 

physical pendulum with such a period would have to have a suspension that was 

three times the Earth’s radius in length. We needed to find other principles.

Vasilyev-Lyulin learned from reading the literature that back in 1932, Soviet 

engineer Ye. B. Levental had proposed a gyroscopic vertical with so-called integral 

correction. B. V. Bulgakov developed a theory for it in 1938.13 But the practical 

realization of such a vertical with errors no greater than one to two angular minutes 

relative to the true vertical of a given location proved impossible. In our proposal 

(Vasilyev-Lyulin developed the ideas), the direction to the star replaced Levental’s 

free gyroscope. Right away this eliminated the then-large error of the free gyroscope. 

In Academician A. Yu. Ishlinskiy’s classic work, just the mathematical formulation 

of such a vertical takes up 14 pages.14

The third problem, developing a computing instrument that generated commands to the autopilot, was realized using a cam mechanism. It is curious that 

the conventional error of such a primitive instrument did not exceed one angular 

minute.

All the ideas and principles were tested on functional laboratory mock-ups. All 

of our research required thorough documentation, because a number of people 

were very actively opposed to it, stating that Chertok was spitefully diverting many 

specialists for a foolhardy project. The Communist Party committee and ministry 

received ever more incriminating letters, which were quite the fad in those days.

Despite the vociferous attacks of local crusaders, the first successes of our research 

and the creation of functional mock-ups of automatic astronavigation instruments 

inspired those who supported the cruise missile option in Korolev’s team. One 

must give credit to his personal objectivity and conviction. He promoted scientificresearch work on “Integrated Research and Determining the Primary Flight-Tacti13. Corresponding Member of the Academy Boris Vladimirovich Bulgakov (1900–52) was a 

major Soviet scientist in several fields, including gyroscope theory, oscillation theory, and navigation 

systems theory.

14. A. Yu. Ishlinskiy, Orientatsiya, giroskopy i inertsialnaya navigatsiya [Orientation, Gyroscopes 

and Inertial Navigation] (Moscow: Nauka, 1976). Aleksandr Yulevich Ishlinskiy (1913–2003) was 

a leading scientist behind the theory of inertial navigation for spacecraft. While serving as a senior 

scientist at NII-944, he worked closely with Korolev, Glushko, Pilyugin, and other major chief 

designers of the Soviet space program.

selected as an active member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and was awarded 

many medals and the title Hero of Socialist Labor.10 Once when we met at a routine 

gathering at the Academy of Sciences, I reminded him of the good deed he had done 

in 1947. He could not recall and then asked, “What was the outcome of that whole 

endeavor?” For cruise missile navigation that endeavor lasted 15 whole years. For 

modern cosmonautics, astronavigation is a routine practice.

The laboratory was staffed, and soon thereafter Lisovich saw to it that gyroscopic 

problems were assigned to G. I. Vasilyev-Lyulin. He proved to be a talented engineer, 

both in theory and in design. In 1949, the three of us, Lisovich, Vasilyev-Lyulin, 

and I, were awarded an inventor’s certificate classified “Top Secret.” Essentially, we 

had developed all the main principles and tested them on mock-ups in 1948 and 

1949. We proved the feasibility of automatic astronavigation using the domestic 

instrumentation available at that time.

It was still long before the time of transistors, microelectronics, and computers 

that made it possible to solve automatic control problems and complex calculations 

electronically, while ensuring reliability with multilevel fault tolerance. We were 

headed down a path of pure electromechanics, depending on the reliability of classic 

methods because of the simplicity of the ideas and design.

We tackled the development of a star tracking system first. The most complex 

problems here turned out to be those of light interference, such as from the general 

background illumination and the hazard of “fixing on the wrong star.” To track 

two stars with a single telescope we came up with a device with a swiveling mirror. 

Gyroscopic stabilization made it possible to hold the direction to the star even if it 

hadn’t been observed for some time. In the laboratory, such a mock-up using two 

collimators worked excellently on a dynamic platform and did not lose the artificial 

stars.11

After the star problem, the second problem involved inventing a vertical. An 

artificial vertical line was supposed to point to the center of the Earth. The angle 

between the direction to the star and the direction of the vertical line made it possible to determine the “altitude” of the star above the horizon and to construct 

the so-called “circle of equal altitudes.”12 If two circles of equal altitudes were constructed using two stars, then one of the points of intersection of these circles on a 

map would be the position of the aircraft, spacecraft, or missile. At that time, the 

10. Academician Vladimir Sergeyevich Semenikhin (1918–90) served as director of NII-592 

(also known as NII Avtomaticheskiy apparatury) in 1963–71 and 1974–90, during which period he 

oversaw the development of guidance systems for several Soviet ballistic missiles. He was elected an 

Academician of the Academy of Sciences in 1972.

11. Collimators are typically small telescopes attached to bigger ones used to establish precise line 

of sight.

12. In navigation lexicon, “altitude” refers to the angular distance above the horizon, that is, the 

arc of a vertical circle between the horizon and a point on the celestial sphere.
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Korolev’s proposal. In 1950, we began to develop and fabricate a functional mockup of an automatic night astronavigation system.

There was one more episode that determined the eventual fate of this whole 

project, but it happened before the events described above. In early January 1949, 

NII-88 Director Gonor called me to his office. Lately, when he called me in, he was 

always trying to prevent something. He warned me about the latest letters to the 

Central Committee or ministry and about the preparation of commissions to investigate the work my department was doing. Gonor himself treated me very kindly, 

but always hinted that “if something happened,” he wouldn’t be able to defend 

me. One time he even insinuated that it would be better if I replaced Lisovich in 

this whole “star” brouhaha with somebody else who had a “cleaner” background, 

because they would also flatly accuse Gonor of having a particular tendency in 

selecting and placing personnel.17 “Keep in mind, this isn’t coming from Vetoshkin 

or from Ustinov. There are forces that even they can’t resist.”

When I entered Gonor’s office, having prepared myself psychologically for 

another unpleasant warning, I saw that he was not alone. Sitting in the armchair 

next to Gonor’s enormous desk was a major general. I immediately determined 

that he was from the aviation industry and he had a very familiar face. When I 

walked in, he stood, gave me a firm handshake, and smiled as he introduced himself, “Lavochkin.” So that’s why his face seemed so familiar! More than once I had 

seen his picture in the newspaper; the celebrated general designer of the LaGG, 

La-5, and La-7 fighters that were famous during the war. Lavochkin was tall and 

slightly stoop-shouldered. His general’s uniform with its Hero of Socialist Labor 

star went very well with his host’s general uniform with the same gold star. Only 

the shoulder boards were different. Lavochkin had aviation shoulder boards, while 

Gonor had artillery.

As usual, Gonor smoked his favorite Kazbek cigarettes, and evidently continuing his report on the structure and projects of NII-88, he turned to me and said, 

“Semyon Alekseyevich [Lavochkin] is visiting us for the first time. I just learned that 

he knows Korolev quite well and even put engines that he and Glushko made while 

they were still in Kazan in his planes.18 I have briefed Semyon Alekseyevich on the 

structure and subject matter of our institute. And he wanted to hear first-hand from 

you about your projects.”

I was surprised that such a famous fighter aircraft designer had suddenly taken 

an interest in ballistic missile guidance systems. As best I could, I briefed him on 

the structure of Department U and the main projects that we were involved with, 

avoiding the mention of astronavigation out of caution. But Gonor, having noticed 

17. Gonor, Lisovich, and Chertok were all Jewish, and hence more vulnerable to being under 

suspicion in the early 1950s at the height of the anti-cosmopolitanism campaign.

18. During Korolev and Glushko’s wartime stint working at Factory No. 16 in Kazan, they 

developed propulsion systems for various Lavochkin fighter aircraft.

cal Characteristics of Multistage Long-range Cruise Missiles” in every way.15 The 

individual directly responsible for these operations was Igor Moisheyev, with whom 

I met regularly. He contended that “the intercontinental concept can be achieved 

only with wings.”

During this time of trouble, Korolev and his first deputy Mishin were both 

subjected to harsh criticism from a very orthodox segment of the Party committee. 

The two were accused of being conceited, filling the team with apolitical personnel 

who didn’t belong to the Party, failure to exercise self-examination, and a host of 

other sins.

During one of his meetings with me, Korolev showed a surprising awareness of 

the state of affairs in Lisovich’s laboratory. I asked how he knew all of that. Korolev 

answered that he was personally very interested in this work and therefore he had 

his own sources of information. “But keep in mind,” he said, “in your time you’ve 

taken on some people without particular attention to their personalities. You have a 

lot of scumbags in your group, and in this climate you can’t get rid of them. Once 

again the times are such that even a minister can’t always intercede.”

Korolev asked whether I knew that Vera Nikolayevna Frolova, who supervised 

work on ballistic missile gyroscopes, was going to marry Lisovich. I confessed that I 

did not meddle in the personal relationships of my staff. “That’s a mistake. I know 

everything that’s going on in your department. Let them get married. But you must 

without fail persuade Frolova to transfer to Lisovich’s laboratory. We need to support him. Believe me, she will be able to.”16 Frolova really did show combative qualities in defense of the astronavigation concept. Lisovich gained a strong co-worker 

and lifelong friend. Once again I saw that Korolev had a knack for keeping an eye 

on the behavior and relationships between people, even when they were not his 

subordinates, and his skill for intervening—always appropriately—in the assignment of personnel.

Suddenly Korolev came out with a very welcome suggestion that temporarily 

disarmed opponents of astronavigation. In order to finally determine whether the 

proposed principles were valid or not, we needed to test the system on an airplane. 

This would enable us to experimentally confirm the validity of the principles and 

the precision promised in the calculations. Institute and ministry leaders accepted 

15. The study cited by Chertok, “Integrated Research and Determining the Primary FlightTactical Chara.cteristics of Multistage Long-Range Cruise Missiles,” was part of a broader research 

project entitled “Research into the Prospects of Creating a Missile Capable of Long-Range Flight with 

the Goal of Obtaining Its Primary Design and Flight-Tactical Characteristics” initiated in December 

1950. The goal of the broader research project was to study future configurations of intercontinental 

(ballistic and cruise) missiles. The study on the cruise missiles referenced here was presented to an 

advisory group in January 1952 at NII-88, part of which is reproduced in Keldysh, Tvorcheskoye 

naslediya..., pp. 328–41.

16. Author’s note: In this conversation I was not referring to radio engineer Vera Aleksandrovna 

Frolova, whom I mentioned earlier, but another Vera Frolova who was a gyroscope specialist.
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Then Lavochkin complained that he had invited Korolev to come talk with him. 

He himself had fished for an invitation to go talk to Korolev, but “it never got any 

further than telephone conversations.” I proposed that Semyon Alekseyevich come 

with me and have a look at the laboratory and a missile launch simulation rig. He 

thanked me, saying that he wouldn’t want to make such a tour without his specialists. They might feel slighted.

When Lavochkin left, I asked Gonor straight out why he had not invited Korolev 

to the meeting. Gonor explained. In the first place, Gonor did invite Korolev, but 

Korolev immediately said that he had to leave on some urgent business. Second, 

Lavochkin himself telephoned and gave advance notice that he wanted to speak 

with the director.

Lavochkin’s visit to NII-88 had important consequences for astronavigation. 

The functional mock-up of the system for tests on an airplane was manufactured by 

the staff from the laboratory and our experimental instrument shop over a period of 

a year and a half and was ready to be installed on an Il-12 aircraft by early 1952. The 

pilot was supposed to fly the airplane so that, to the extent possible, the indicator 

needle remained in the zero position. This meant that the airplane was flying along 

the route indicated by the astronavigation system. During target approach a red 

indicator light would light up on the navigator’s and pilot’s consoles. The navigator’s 

duty was to determine the aircraft’s actual position according to ground reference 

points. It was a good thing the flights were conducted only on clear nights. By determining the actual position along the flight path when the “target” signal appeared, 

it was possible to determine the system’s error.

Nine flights were completed on the Moscow-Daugavpils (Latvia) route, a distance of approximately 700 kilometers. The tests were conducted jointly with the 

High Command’s Air Force NII throughout the second half of 1952 and the first 

half of 1953. All the laboratory’s leading specialists headed by Lisovich participated 

in these tests, which would decide the system’s fate. The flight tests brilliantly confirmed the validity of the fundamental design. During the entire time there was 

not a single failure, and the navigational error did not exceed seven kilometers. 

Subsequent calculations showed that if the gyroscopes and other elements of the 

system had been manufactured with the degree of accuracy obtainable by the technology of the 1970s, then the error would not have exceeded one kilometer! And if 

the calculations had been executed using the onboard computer technology of the 

1980s rather than an electromechanical calculator, the error would have been 10 to 

20 meters! I was not involved in these tests, but felt for my comrades, with whom I 

had begun this project in 1947.

By the time of the tests, Gonor had already been removed from his post as NII88 director. The management of Department U had been dissolved; I had been 

relieved of my duties as the institute’s deputy chief engineer, and, based on the 

highly partisan conclusions of the ministry’s special commission, they threatened to 

fire me. But Korolev came to my aid in the nick of time. As soon as he learned of the 

commission’s conclusions, he invited me in for a tête-à-tête. “You have yourself to 

my circumspection, interrupted and added: “Boris Yevseyevich failed to mention a 

very interesting project, an astronavigation system for cruise missile guidance.”

Lavochkin gave a start and listened very attentively. When I mentioned the accuracy figures—from 5 to 10 kilometers regardless of the flight time and range—he 

smirked.

“You’re giving me a sales pitch, of course, but it’s still very interesting. If you 

conduct flight tests, I will definitely request that you let me know the results.”

Then the conversation returned to the subject that the two generals were apparently discussing before my arrival. Lavochkin was lecturing Gonor (I will give the 

gist because I can’t reproduce it word for word from memory): “It’s very important 

to select talented people. You need to give them the freedom to discover their capabilities and to adjust to one another. Your organization is young, and your people 

are still learning to work together on a single general project. There will be a lot of 

squabbles, believe me. It will take another two or three years before you work it all 

out, especially with such differences in subject matter and interests.”

Lavochkin was right. More than three years passed before everything more or less 

fell into place and until Korolev finally occupied his well-deserved place as Chief 

Designer at OKB-1. Lavochkin continued:

“I was telling Lev Robertovich that I worked with Korolev when we were both 

quite young. In Krasnaya Presnya a Frenchman named Richard had a design 

bureau.19 At that time Korolev was very fascinated with gliders. There were a lot of 

talented young people there. Next he became absorbed with reactive motion. Just 

before the war I found out about his misfortune.20 And quite recently we tried to 

introduce the engines that Glushko and Korolev developed in Kazan. They flew. 

But they’re not worth it now. We realized that liquid-propellant rocket engines are 

not for airplanes.”

At that time Lavochkin had every reason to talk like that. Fighter aircraft had 

already broken the sound barrier. And this revolutionary leap for aviation had been 

made thanks to airplanes featuring turbojet engines rather than liquid-propellant 

rocket engines. In the race for the most advanced jet fighter, Lavochkin had at first 

lagged behind Mikoyan and Yakovlev, but once he had created a serious scientifictechnical facility at the new factory in Khimki, he not only began to work on a more 

advanced fighter than his competitors, but he also agreed to develop and produce air 

defense missiles.21 Lavrentiy Beriya’s son Sergey acted as the official administrative 

guru for the control systems for them.

19. Paul E. Richard was a French engineer who briefly worked in the Soviet Union in the late 

1920s and early 1930s as an aviation designer at the Experimental Section-4 (OPO-4) also known as 

the Naval Experimental Aircraft Building All-Union Aviation Enterprise (MOS VAO). Korolev briefly 

worked for Richard during his schooling years.

20. Lavochkin was referring to Korolev’s arrest and incarceration in 1938–44.

21. Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yakovlev (1906–89) designed a diverse array of Soviet military and 

civilian aircraft during his tenure as head of OKB-115.
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Flying by the Stars

231

that if our new bombers even managed to fly across the ocean or over the pole carrying a nuclear payload, there was very little chance of them dropping it or hitting 

the target. The flight crews participating in a possible attack on the U.S. would 

be doomed. It is clear that the loss of a hundred or so of our airmen didn’t alarm 

Stalin very much. What disturbed him was that, basically, Soviet military technology could not inflict any damage on U.S. territory, while all the Soviet Union’s vital 

centers were within reach of the American B-29 Super Fortresses, and according 

to intelligence information, they were especially vulnerable to the new long-range 

heavy jet bombers.

Intelligence turned up one more piece of news. The U.S. had supposedly started 

developing the Navaho long-range unmanned drone aircraft. The scanty information about this program confirmed that the Navaho was a cruise missile with a range 

of around 4,000 to 5,000 kilometers.24 Consequently, if there were several hundred 

of these Navahos, the Americans were capable of striking almost the entire territory 

of the Soviet Union with atomic bombs from their European and Asian military 

bases surrounding it, without risking the lives of their own airmen. We discussed 

this at all of our meetings with tremendous concern. In those days the possibility of 

a new war seemed quite real.

That is why the scientific-research project “Prospects for the Development of 

Long-range Missiles” was particularly significant. Korolev was not yet ready to give 

preference to one of the two possible options: ballistic or cruise. Our affiliation with 

the Ministry of Armaments required us to develop a ballistic missile. At the same 

time, Ustinov, who had made this type of missile his own in 1945, was not opposed 

to transferring the development and production of air defense guided missiles to 

the aviation industry. The burden on the ministry and the degree of responsibility 

might be too great if he held onto both technologies. He even acquiesced to the 

transfer of his first deputy Ryabikov to work in Special Committee No. 3, which 

had been entrusted with managing all issues of radar defense and air defense missile 

control complex.

If cruise missiles proved to be a promising field for intercontinental ranges, then 

the development and production of such missiles would also be transferred to the 

aviation industry. And then, what would the Ministry of Armaments be left with 

after expending so much effort on the development of the missile industry? Who 

would need these R-1 and R-2 missiles that carried their 800 kilograms of TNT 

300 and 600 kilometers? Actually, Korolev had already begun working on a missile 

with a 1,000- to 1,500-kilometer range. But that, according to the strategists in our 

ministry and our main customer, the GAU, was not the correct approach.

Korolev understood all of this perfectly. Obviously he would not be able to 

manage two fields, and if the aviation industry felt like taking the cruise missile 

24. The projected range of the U.S. Air Force’s Navaho (XSM-64 version) was about 5,600 

kilometers. A later version, the XSM-64A, was designed to fly about 10,000 kilometers.

blame for what happened to you. You need to use your head when you select people, 

and get rid of all the rotten apples promptly. Look how things are going with me. 

My people support each other. Nobody writes denunciations. Attacks only come 

from the outside. But it’s different with your department. That’s why I have already 

made arrangements where I need to. You are transferring over to me in OKB-1 with 

a demotion in rank. I’m appointing you deputy chief of Department No. 5. We’re 

going to set up our own guidance department, and we’ll be independent of the NII. 

Your boss will be Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel. You don’t know him. I don’t know him 

either. I don’t think he’ll be with us long. I don’t think he understands what you’re 

doing and he doesn’t have our experience. But, judging by everything, he is a decent 

man. Ustinov sent Yangel to us. I took advantage of that and arranged with Ustinov 

to have you transferred to me. By the way, I think he was happy with the proposal 

because he hinted that he couldn’t do anything more. He asked me to pass that 

along to you so that you wouldn’t be offended.”

“Outside” forces brought Professor Petr Krasnushkin to NII-88 to manage 

Department U, my creation. He was a specialist in the propagation of very long 

radio waves. This area of radio engineering had virtually no relation to our project. 

But once Krasnushkin had discovered our renegade astronavigation laboratory, he 

immediately announced that he was developing a high-precision navigation system 

for cruise missiles using very long radio waves.

In January 1952, Korolev spoke at a presidium session of the institute’s scientific-technical and academic council devoted to summing up the scientific-research 

work on the subject “Integrated Research and Determining the Primary Flight-Tactical Characteristics of Multistage Long-range Cruise Missiles.”22 This subject was a 

component of the larger scientific-research project (NIR) entitled “Prospects for the 

Development of Long-range Missiles.”23 At this session, NII-1 Director Academician M. V. Keldysh and TsAGI chief theoretician Academician S. A. Khristianovich delivered reports on problems of aerodynamics, engines, and multistage missile 

configurations.

This meeting decided the fate of the future carrier of intercontinental weapons. 

In the early 1950s, the Cold War was in full swing, stimulating the development and 

production of many promising weapons. We already possessed the atomic bomb, 

but the successes of the nuclear specialists were to a certain extent one-sided. The 

U.S. remained our primary opponent in a possible third world war. An ocean away, 

it remained untouchable.

The experience of developing new air defense missiles and jet fighters had showed 

22. For an edited version of the report, see Keldysh, Tvorcheskoye naslediye . . ., pp. 328–41.

23. NIR—Nauchno-issledovatelskaya rabota—literally stands for “Scientific-Research Work” but 

represented a specific phase of initial R&D in the Soviet engineering sector. The complete title of the 

NIR was “Research into the Prospects of Creating a Missile Capable of Long-Range Flight with the 

Goal of Obtaining Its Primary Design and Flight-Tactical Characteristics.”
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233

And then Korolev cited very convincing arguments against the system Krasnushkin proposed. The successful flight tests completed in 1953 removed all doubt as 

to the astronavigation system’s performance. By that time we had also received the 

encouraging results from Bondaryuk’s experiments with the SPVRD. The time had 

come to make a decision on the subsequent fate, not just of astronavigation, but of 

the whole cruise missile project. After much agonizing discussion, deliberation, and 

reflection, Korolev capitulated. Having come to terms with Keldysh, he decided to 

stop his work on the cruise missile project and transfer the entire thing to the Ministry of Aviation Industry (MAP).

A government decree on the development of cruise missiles placed responsibility on NII-1 to develop an astronavigation system to ensure the required precision 

of the main stage in its flight toward the designated target. Mstislav Vsevolodovich 

Keldysh was appointed scientific director for the development of cruise missiles. 

Now, as chief of NII-1, he was responsible for developing an astronavigation system 

in a branch of NII-1 specially created for this purpose. Lisovich’s entire laboratory 

was transferred from NII-88 to MAP’s NII-1 branch. Lisovich was finally named 

The Burya missile (with the internal designation ‘350’) was the first Soviet intercontinental 

cruise missile. Developed as an alternative to the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile, the 

Burya was launched nearly 20 times between 1957 and 1960 before being cancelled.

Asif Siddiqi.

away from us, let them take it, but let it end up in good hands. After all, this missile had a lot of purely aviation-related problems. Keldysh, Khristianovich, and all 

the TsAGI elite understood this perfectly. Although, like me, Korolev’s first deputy 

Vasiliy Mishin had gotten his start in the aviation industry, he hadn’t become a fan 

of the new cruise missile field. In general, in Korolev’s team, the cruise missile fan 

club had a very small membership. And that was understandable. The absolute 

majority of specialists were up to their ears in routine work on ballistic missiles.

But Korolev would not have been the greatest chief designer if he had allowed 

himself to make a superficial report on the cruise missile problem. Therefore he 

gave it serious consideration. He proposed a two-stage cruise missile with a range 

of 8,000 kilometers and a launch weight of around 90 to 120 metric tons. The first 

stage had a powerful liquid-propellant rocket engine to execute a vertical liftoff, 

accelerate, and gain altitude before separation from the second stage. By that time, a 

vertical liftoff had been put to the practical test on ballistic missiles many times and 

did not require complex launch facilities.

The second stage of the missile was winged and acted as an engine that was 

supposed to operate over the entire flight path. He proposed a supersonic ramjet 

engine (SPVRD).25 Mikhail Makarovich Bondaryuk, the developer of this engine, 

had achieved significant success.26 But large ground rigs that were not yet available 

were needed to perfect the engine. Nevertheless, calculations showed that at a cruising altitude of 20 kilometers, the required range could be achieved at a velocity of 

up to Mach 3.

Korolev had thoroughly analyzed two alternative navigation options: an astronavigation option and a radio option. He wrote:

“The primary advantages of the astronavigation method is that flight range and 

duration have no bearing on guidance accuracy and no need for communication with 

ground stations... The research conducted in this field shows the absolute feasibility in 

the near future of creating such a system, operating for the time being under nighttime or twilight conditions. So far, the primary drawback of this proposed option is the 

uncertainty about how to solve the problem of guidance under full daylight conditions at 

altitudes up to 20 kilometers...

The primary difficulty in creating the elements of an automatic astronavigation 

system is, above all, the very high degree of precision required of them...

Later this year, mock-ups of the primary fundamental units of the astronavigation 

system will be tested on an airplane. These tests should provide answers to many extremely 

important questions, and above all, should confirm the feasibility of achieving the necessary accuracy.”27

25. SPVRD—Sverkhzvukovoy pryamotochnyy vozdushno-reaktivnyy dvigatel.

26. Mikhail Makarovich Bondaryuk (1908–69) served as chief designer of OKB-670, the leading 

Soviet organization developing ramjets.

27. Keldysh, Tvorcheskoy naslediye . . ., pp. 340–41.
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Flying by the Stars

235

designated stars, during nighttime and daytime, and kept them in its field of vision 

for several minutes.

There were still many problems. But they were all overcome, and the flight equipment sets were delivered without delaying the beginning of the Burya flight tests. 

The first flight test vehicles went into production at the same time as the prototype 

at aviation Factory No. 1 in Kuybyshev, which produced 19 missiles. The flight tests 

did not begin until 1957.31

The Burya cruise missile obeyed its stellar navigator on its first flight. But in one 

flight after another it wasn’t possible to determine the terminal range and target 

precision. The SPVRD engine was operating stably, but actual fuel consumption 

exceeded all ground calculations. The complex gas-dynamic processes that took 

place in that wily tube, as we referred to it, hadn’t been studied sufficiently. Not a 

single missile reached the target. The fuel was used up well in advance.

For the nation’s high-ranking military and Party leadership these tests were a 

good reason for terminating the project. By this time Korolev’s intercontinental 

Semyorka and its updated R-7A had already been put into service.32

The development of the Buran cruise missile began in Vladimir Mikhaylovich 

Myasishchev’s OKB-23 sometime after the Burya. When the Burya began to fly, 

the Buran had only just come off the drawing board and gone into production at 

aviation Factory No. 23, now known as the M. V. Khrunichev Factory. The Buran 

was supposed to be a significantly more powerful missile. Glushko was developing 

the liquid-propellant booster engines of the first stage. In all, four engines were 

installed, each with 57 metric tons of thrust on the ground. As in the Burya, the 

sustainer engine was Bondaryuk’s SPVRD.33 With a launch mass in excess of 152 

metric tons, its flight range with a 3,400-kilogram payload was calculated to be 

9,150 kilometers. The cruising altitude was 18.2 kilometers. At that altitude the 

sustainer engine was supposed to have a specific impulse of 1,690 kg/kg.f. At that 

time, unlike a liquid-propellant rocket engine, this value could not be confirmed for 

a ramjet engine on the ground. The experience of the Burya showed that the specific 

impulse was lower than promised.

Therefore, in 1958 when the decision was made to terminate the Buran project, Myasishchev’s organization took it in stride. They developed the new super 

long-range and super high-speed M-56 bomber, which outstripped the later famous 

Boeing B-52 in all parameters. But another danger was hanging over Myasishchev’s 

design bureau. With Nikita Khrushchev’s help, Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey 

had decided to incorporate Myasishchev’s organization to work for his own missile 

31. The first attempted Burya launch took place on 1 August 1957 but the flight never took place 

due to a pad abort. The vehicle successfully lifted off for the first time on 1 September 1957.

32. The Semyorka (“old number seven”) or R-7 ICBM was formally declared operational on 20 

January 1960. The improved R-7A reached operational status on 12 September 1960.

33. Glushko produced the RD-213 for the Buran while Bondrayuk developed the RD-018A 

ramjet engine.

chief designer of the automatic astronavigation system. The resources he had to 

work with were considerably more extensive than in Podlipki. In 1955 the work 

force in his design bureau exceeded 500.

In 1954–55, flight tests were conducted on the newly fabricated aircraft mockups. This time they used the Tu-16 aircraft. In four flights with a range of 4,000 

kilometers, at an altitude of 10,000 to 11,000 meters, with an average speed of 800 

kilometers per hour, over a flight time of five to six hours, the system had errors 

ranging from 3.3 to 6.6 kilometers.

The decree on the development of intercontinental cruise missiles armed with 

nuclear warheads was issued in 1954. It called for work to be conducted simultaneously on two missiles: the lighter Burya (Storm), which was assigned to Semyon 

Alekseyevich Lavochkin, and the heavy Buran (Blizzard), assigned to Vladimir 

Mikhaylovich Myasishchev. Academician Keldysh was appointed scientific director 

of both these projects.28 By this time, Keldysh was a member of Korolev’s Council 

of Chief Designers. Thus, he was the most knowledgeable scientist on all the crucial scientific and technical problems that needed to be solved in order to create an 

intercontinental nuclear warhead carrier. Lavochkin’s deputy, doctor of technical 

sciences Naum Semyonovich Chernyakov, was named chief designer of Burya.

As Korolev had proposed, the Burya multistage missile had a first stage with a 

liquid-propellant rocket engine. Isayev produced it out of a cooperative effort that 

had formed in Lavochkin’s team. Bondaryuk, who had been working under Keldysh, developed and delivered the SPVRD sustainer engine for the second winged 

stage.29 The total launch mass of the Burya exceeded 90 metric tons. Here, the 

full mass of the actual cruise missile was more than 33 metric tons. The system 

was designed for a range of 8,000 kilometers at a speed of Mach 3.1. The cruising 

altitude was 17,500 meters. During target approach the missile made an evasive 

maneuver, climbed to an altitude of 25,000 meters, and executed a nose dive. It was 

already assumed that the missile would carry an atomic bomb. Based on the astronavigation system’s flight test results, the maximum error relative to the target center 

should not exceed 10 kilometers. Flight at supersonic speeds caused a significant 

increase in the temperature of the missile hull. For that reason, unlike an aircraft 

astronavigation system, this system needed to be mounted under a transparent, but 

heat resistant astrodome.

At Lavochkin’s suggestion, the Dal (Distance) antiaircraft guided missile system 

developed at OKB-301 was used for supplemental astronavigation system reliability 

tests.30 In the five flight tests performed, the system successfully “picked out” the 

28. The decree (no. 957-409) was issued on 20 May 1954 and ordered OKB-301 (Lavochkin) to 

develop the “350” Burya and OKB-23 (Myasishchev) to develop the “40” Buran.

29. Isayev developed the S2.1100 engine (later replaced by the S2.1150) while Bondaryuk 

produced the RD-012U ramjet engine for the Burya.

30. Lavochkin’s Dal was an advanced antiaircraft defense system designed to protect Leningrad. 

Despite extensive testing, it was never operationally deployed.
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As usual, the main organizational concerns for conducting the five-day conference fell on the Russian Academy of Sciences S. I. Vavilov Institute of Natural 

History and Technology. Despite this academic institute’s miserable economic situation, its limited scientific staff coped with the difficult assignment, including the 

most difficult aspect, accommodating foreign guests with a minimum expenditure 

of hard currency and a shortage of automobiles and gasoline.

At first this conference seemed like an unavoidable waste of time for me, tearing 

me away from work and from writing these memoirs. But as the program developed, I could see that it would be exceptional. The program of two plenary sessions 

and sections on the “History of Missile and Space Technology” called for reports on 

subjects that two or three years earlier would have been completely inconceivable. 

The reports, particularly those scheduled in the historical section, were sensational 

because the subject matter of some of them had been “top secret” until very recently, 

and of course, none of them could have been presented to an auditorium full of 

visiting American scientists and foreign press correspondents.

The first report in the historical section had three co-authors: I. M. Lisovich, 

Academician A. Yu. Ishlinskiy, and myself. The report was about the history of the 

development of the astronavigation systems and a description of the first of those 

systems tested in the USSR on the Burya intercontinental cruise missiles. The whole 

world knew that the first intercontinental ballistic missile—Korolev’s R-7—had 

appeared in the USSR back in 1957. This missile became the first factor of the real 

nuclear threat for the U.S. After a series of modifications, the world knew the R-7 

as a spacecraft launch vehicle. From 1957 through 1969, that is, until American 

astronauts landed on the Moon, by all parameters the R-7 remained the most reliable rocket in the world for manned flights.

This was the missile still in service in 1962, our only intercontinental missile 

that was almost launched against the U.S. during the Caribbean (Cuban missile) 

crisis. This is particularly worth recalling, as I was an unwitting witness to those 

events. The R-7 missile, which proved to be a champion in terms of the number of 

official world records in space, was also a record holder in terms of longevity. It had 

more than 45 years of operation in various modifications! (Originally, people had 

predicted operation for another 10 to 15 years.) In our age of technical revolutions, 

this is certainly a remarkable record.

However, not only abroad, but even among our missile specialists with clearances 

for top-secret projects, only a very narrow circle knew that the famous Semyorka had 

a strong competitor for the delivery of a nuclear warhead, the Burya multistage 

intercontinental cruise missile. Burya flight tests began before the R-7 flew, but they 

were halted in 1960.

Almost none of our missile and space specialists knew that the world-famous 

modern Buran winged space vehicle had a top-secret namesake that was also a cruise 

missile. It did not manage to make a single flight, but was discontinued in production after the first successful flight of the ballistic Semyorka. The biographies of the 

now famous creators of aircraft and missile technology Korolev, Keldysh, Lavochprojects. But that is an entirely different dramatic page in Soviet aviation history.34

Nikita Khrushchev decimated the aviation industry, asserting that now the sector 

was not at all necessary. Missiles could do everything. The Strategic Rocket Forces 

had already been established, and they had no need for cruise missiles. At that time, 

Lavochkin and his new first deputy Georgiy Babakin were absorbed in the problems 

of air defense and missile defense missiles. Lavochkin spent most of his time at the 

firing range in the Balkhash region. He put up no fight in Burya’s defense, and soon 

a Politburo decision terminated this project.

During this period, a group of chief designers appealed to Khrushchev in a letter 

requesting that he grant permission to continue the project. The Burya and Buran 

project scientific directors Academician Keldysh and Minister of Defense Malinovskiy supported this request. Khrushchev announced that it was a useless project. He 

instructed CPSU Central Committee Secretary Frol Kozlov, who was second after 

Khrushchev in the Party hierarchy, to have a meeting of all the interested parties and 

explain to them the error of their views.

At this meeting, Lavochkin’s deputy Chernyakov attempted to report on the 

launch results. Kozlov interrupted him. “Here you are boasting that your missiles 

reached a speed of 3,700 kilometers per hour. Our missiles already have a speed in 

excess of 20,000 kilometers per hour.” Chernyakov understood that technical arguments were futile. When Malinovskiy appeared, Kozlov scathingly admonished him 

for defending the request to continue the projects: “After all, Nikita Sergeyevich 

said that this was useless.” The Defense Minister could find no better defense than 

the phrase: “The designers misled me.” And so you see, the fate of intercontinental 

cruise missiles was decided at such a high governmental level and at such a low scientific and military technical level.

From 30 March through 3 April 1992, a scientific conference devoted to 

the International Space Year was held in Moscow. The initiative for this conference 

came from the Machine Building, Mechanics, and Control Processes Department 

of the Russian Academy of Sciences, many academic institutes, the Gagarin Committee, the Interkosmos Council, the Yu. A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, 

the Central Scientific-Research Institute of Machine-Building (the former NII-88, 

now TsNIIMash), our NPO Energiya, and a number of other social and scientific 

organizations.

By decision of the Academy of Sciences presidium, Academicians V. S. Avduyevskiy and B. V. Rauschenbach were named co-chairmen of the organizational committee of this very imposing conference. Rauschenbach, who was highly experienced 

in such matters, appointed me and the recently retired TsNIIMash director Yuriy 

Aleksandrovich Mozzhorin as organizational committee deputy co-chairmen.

34. Myasishchev’s OKB-23 ceased to be an independent entity in October 1960 and was attached 

to Chelomey’s OKB-52 as a branch.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

238

kin, and Myasishchev made no mention of Burya or Buran. This gap needs to be 

filled.

Burya and Buran were cruise missiles that literally flew by the stars. 

These programs have long since been forgotten. But flying by the stars went from 

being a series of unique experiments to being an everyday occurrence in the world 

of rocket-space technology. Navigation “by the stars” has found broad application 

in combat missiles and peaceful space technology. After breaking through a layer of 

water and clouds, ballistic missiles launched from submarines find their bearings by 

the stars to ensure accuracy. The guidance system for the Ye-6 spacecraft, designed 

for a soft landing on the Moon, used the stars Sirius and Canopus for astronavigation.35 Star trackers have become an essential piece of equipment on the most 

diverse types of spacecraft. The names of those who developed the first astronavigation systems will be forgotten, but as long as cosmonautics exists, flying by the stars 

will continue.

35. The Ye-6 is better known as the second-generation Luna probes that were launched between 

1963 and 1966. A Ye-6 probe (Luna-9) made the world’s first survivable landing on the surface of the 

Moon in 1966.
Chapter 13

Missiles of the Cold War’s First Decade

The vast majority of Soviet historians and political writers who wrote about missile and space technology tried to skip over the decade of 1946 to 1956 as quickly 

as possible and break out into the realms of space. There are several reasons for this 

focus. The first, as I see it, was that during that period in the Soviet Union work was 

being conducted with the utmost intensity to develop the first combat missile complexes, that is, new types of armaments. The country’s best scientific and technical 

forces had been mobilized for these top-secret projects. Only in the 1980s did the 

opportunity arise to write openly about this period. The second reason was more 

mundane: anyone who knows the history of that period either could not or did not 

want to write about it. Unfortunately, the majority of those who started the missile era are no longer alive. The third reason had only to do with the professionals, 

that is, the writers and journalists. For them the history of this period did not hold 

the sensations and mind-boggling wealth of achievements that showered down like 

manna from heaven beginning in 1957 after the launch of Sputnik, the first artificial 

Earth satellite.

With few exceptions, historians and biographers of Korolev also speak very sparingly about his work during that period, and, evidently due to a lack of “baseline 

data,” they make virtually no mention of the work of other scientists, engineers, scientific leaders, and promoters of the development of new technologies in industry. 

During the first postwar decade, only two nations, the USSR and the U.S., worked 

in the field of missile technology. When the Cold War started, our totalitarian state 

was cut off from contact with American science by the Iron Curtain. We were forced 

to develop and produce much of what could be routinely bought in the West. And 

we learned to do it no worse, and sometimes even better. The vigorous development 

of cosmonautics in subsequent decades depended upon the foundation that was 

created during this period.

By the end of the first postwar decade, hundreds of thousands of people had 

already been drawn into the creation of this foundation. For some, work in this 

field did not require an abrupt restructuring of their lives; for others, work in missile 

industry “p.o. boxes,” design bureaus, or far away in the swirling winds of the missile 

test range was just the beginning.

239
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Missiles of the Cold War’s First Decade

241

The drawing shows the gradual progression of Soviet ballistic missiles from the R-1, a copy 

of the German V-2, to the R-2, to the R-5M, the first Soviet ballistic missile capable of 

carrying a nuclear warhead. The R-3 missile was an ambitious long-range project that was 

abandoned in 1951 although it allowed Soviet engineers to adopt and abandon certain key 

technological paths.

Peter Gorin.

There were no millions killed on battlefields during the Cold War. But at our 

workplaces—the design bureaus, laboratories, classified shops, and test ranges—

there was no less heroism than that shown by the people who created weapons for 

the front during the war. Not only my generation, but the entire populace of the 

former Soviet Union has a right to be proud of achievements both before and after 

the war, and the collapse of the Soviet Union should not justify a devaluation of 

history.

In spite of the inconsistency, lack of logic, and also at times the criminality of the 

Stalinist leadership’s policies, the bulk of the intelligentsia sincerely believed in the 

absolute necessity of developing new military technologies, including weapons of 

mass destruction. No matter how difficult it might be for us, our military technology must not be inferior, but to whom? During the war it was clear: our military 

technology had to be superior to that of the enemy, Nazi Germany. But now, after 

the war? After Churchill’s speech in Fulton, Missouri, and not without “Uncle Joe’s” 

help, a new type of enemy took shape, the enemy in the Cold War.”1

The politics of confrontation between the USSR on the one hand, and the countries of Western Europe and the U.S. on the other—a course set on intensifying a 

standoff, a policy on the verge of unleashing World War III—resulted from the 

actions of the most belligerent and expansionist factions of both Stalin and his 

entourage and the Western establishment. For Stalin, the Cold War was a convenient pretext for cracking down on any dissidence in the Communist Party and 

government.

In response to hard-line voices in the West, Stalin and his entourage implemented a policy of real support for militarized science, and with cost as no object, 

promoted the development of large-scale advanced weapons systems.

The Cold War was waged at a real “hot” pace in laboratories, at test ranges, and 

at classified factories. And it wasn’t just a thin stratum of the scientific and technical intelligentsia that was aware of this. The implementation of fundamentally 

new ideas for the development of nuclear weaponry, missile technology, and radar 

equipment required the involvement of millions. The bulk of the workers, especially 

those who had experienced the superhuman stress and deprivation of four years of 

war on the home front, worked together and did not see themselves as separate from 

so-called “designers.”

Creative activity and production during the postwar years in the rapidly expanding new branches of military industry were not without conflict. There were intense 

clashes, struggles between different scientific and technical concepts, and struggles 

for the supremacy of one trend or another. These were unavoidable phenomena, 

and perhaps even necessary ones. Conflicts accompanying the rapid development of 

1. British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill introduced the term “iron curtain” in his famous 

speech on 5 March 1946, at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, where he received an honorary 

degree. He noted specifically that, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain 

has descended across the Continent.”
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The R-5M complex was a fundamental upgrade of the R-5 missile complex. 

The R-5M missile was the first missile in the history of world military technology 

to carry a nuclear warhead. The R-5M missile had a launch mass of 28.6 metric 

tons and a flight range of 1,200 kilometers. It had the same degree of accuracy as 

the R-5.

The R-1, R-2, R-5, and R-5M combat missiles were single-stage, liquid-propellant missiles. Their propellant components were liquid oxygen and ethyl alcohol. 

Korolev was the chief designer of all four missile models, and Glushko was the chief 

designer of their liquid-propellant rocket engines.

In 1953, at NII-88, we began to develop missiles using high-boiling propellants 

such as nitric acid and kerosene. Isayev was the chief designer of the engines for 

these missiles. Two models of missiles using high-boiling components were put into 

service, the R-11 and the R-11M.

The R-11 had a range of 270 kilometers, with a launch mass of just 5.4 metric 

tons. It was armed with a conventional explosive warhead with a mass of 535 kilograms and was put into service in 1955.6

 The R-11M missile was already the second 

missile in our history to carry a nuclear warhead. In modern terminology, this was 

an operational-tactical nuclear missile. In contrast to all preceding missiles, the R11M was placed on a mobile tracked vehicle-mounted launcher. Because of a more 

up-to-date preprogrammed guidance system the missile had strike accuracy within 

an 8- by 8-kilometer square. It was put into service in 1956.7

The last combat missile of this historical period was the first submarine-launched 

missile, the R-11FM. In terms of basic specifications it was analogous to the R-11, 

but with a fundamentally altered guidance system and adapted for launch from 

submarine launchers. Thus, from 1948 through 1956, seven missile complexes were 

developed and put into service, including two nuclear missile complexes and one 

naval complex. In order to do all of this, it was necessary to produce experimental 

missiles and conduct preliminary flight tests on them. For example, to optimize the 

principle of warhead separation, the R-1 missile was used as a basis to develop the 

R-1A missile, which was launched several times. Before the R-2, the R-2E missile 

was created, and before the R-5, the experimental R-2R was created. When the 

development of an intercontinental missile was already under way, its many systems 

had first been tested on M5RD and R-5R series missiles.

Korolev did not forget about his meeting with Sergey Vavilov in 1947.8 Korolev 

initiated an extensive research program on space, the upper atmospheric layers, and 

the behavior of living organisms during high-altitude rocket launches. Thus, we 

6. The R-11 missile was better known by the U.S. DoD and NATO as the SS-1a and Scud, 

respectively.

7. The R-11M missile was known by the U.S. DoD and NATO as the SS-1b and Scud-A, 

respectively.

8. Academician Sergey Ivanovich Vavilov (1891–1951) served as President of the USSR Academy 

of Sciences between 1945 and 1951.

new technology exist regardless of the social structure of society.

The history of NII-88 at that time is very revealing. The staff of that institute, 

along with its factory, and the entire cooperative missile effort over a 10-year period 

performed work that served as the basis for subsequent missile and space triumphs. 

In order to form the most general idea of the scale and scope of the operations that 

were carried out in our country for the birth of a new mighty and deadly force, 

nuclear missile weapons, one should examine the list of projects conducted at this 

leading missile enterprise and, above all, the projects conducted by Korolev’s team, 

who were part of the institute until August 1956.

Work at full capacity on the first domestic R-1 missile began in 1948. 

Already by autumn of that year the first series of these missiles had undergone 

flight testing. Flight tests on the second and third series took place during 1949–50, 

and, in 1950, the first domestic missile complex using the R-1 missile was put into 

service.2 The launch mass of the R-1 missile was 13.4 metric tons. It had a flight 

range of 270 kilometers and a conventional explosive warhead with a mass of 785 

kilograms.3 The R-1 missile engine was an exact copy of the A4 engine. For the first 

domestic missile we required a striking accuracy in the dispersal rectangle of 20 

kilometers for range and 8 kilometers laterally.

A year after the R-1 missile was put into service, we completed flight-testing on 

the R-2 missile complex. It was put into service with the following specifications: 

launch mass—20,000 kilograms; maximum flight range—600 kilometers; warhead mass—1,008 kilograms.4

 The R-2 missile was equipped with radio-controlled 

course correction to improve lateral precision. Therefore, in spite of its longer range, 

it was just as accurate as the R-1. The R-2 missile’s engine thrust was increased by 

boosting the R-1 engine. In addition to range, there were substantial differences 

between the R-2 and the R-1 missile: the implementation of warhead separation 

concept, incorporation of a load-bearing tank into the body design, and the transfer 

of the instrument compartment to the lower part of the body.

In 1955, testing was completed on the R-5 missile complex and it was put into 

service.5 The R-5 had a launch mass of 29 metric tons, a maximum flight range of 

1,200 kilometers, and a warhead mass of around 1,000 kilograms, but it was possible to carry another two or four suspended warheads for launches with ranges of 

600 to 820 kilometers. The missile’s accuracy was increased thanks to the use of an 

integrated (preprogrammed and radio-controlled) guidance system.

2. In the absence of original Soviet designations for missiles, Western agencies such as the U.S. 

Department of Defense (DoD) or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would assign their 

own names in classified documents. The R-1, for example, had the DoD designation SS-1 and the 

NATO designation “Scunner.”

3. The Russian phrase vzryvchatoye veshchestvo (VV) literally means “explosive matter.”

4. The R-2 missile was known as the SS-2 and Sibling by the DoD and NATO, respectively.

5. The R-5 missile (and its nuclear variant, the R-5M) were known as the SS-3 and Shyster by the 

DoD and NATO respectively.
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Missiles of the Cold War’s First Decade

245

when they showed us the film Serebristaya pyl (Silver Dust). This was one of the first 

semifictional films dealing with the horrors of a future war. The “silver dust” represented radioactive powder that was dispersed over a large area through high-altitude 

detonation of specially developed aerial bombs. The radiation dose was lethal for 

everything living in the zone affected by the silver dust. No protective clothing or 

gas masks saved the population. The contaminated Earth was deadly throughout 

the entire “half-life” period.

The film was created in consultation with specialists who had studied the effect 

of nuclear explosions. They were intending to show that it was not at all necessary to 

drop atomic bombs from airplanes, an idea that anticipated the idea of the neutron 

bomb with which every nonliving thing would remain intact and unharmed, while 

the people would die, and after a certain amount of time, without having to fight, 

the victor could occupy the territory with all its resources preserved. There is an old 

adage about a “dream come true.” This was a “film come true.”

According to the designers’ conception, the warhead container mounted on the 

R-2 Geran missile contained a radioactive liquid. When detonated at a high altitude 

this liquid was supposed to disperse, settling in the form of lethal radioactive rain. 

Generator differed from Geran in that the same radioactive liquid was also placed in 

the warhead container but in a large number of small containers rather than a single 

chamber. Each of them was to burst above the Earth independently.

During launch preparation of the first Geran, a turbid liquid trickled out of the 

top of the missile standing on the launch pad. Evidently, the chamber containing 

the lethal liquid had sprung a leak. The entire launch team hurried to get away 

from the missile. But what were they to do with it? Voskresenskiy, never at a loss in 

critical situations during a launch, ambled up to the missile. With the launch crew 

watching where it had taken refuge a hundred meters away, Voskresenskiy climbed 

up the erector to the height of the tail section so that everyone could see him. He 

gracefully stretched out his hand and ran his finger down the side of the missile 

through the liquid trickling down. Then, turning to the dumbfounded spectators, 

he stuck out his tongue and placed his “radioactive” finger on it. After climbing 

down, Voskresenskiy sauntered over and said, “Guys, let’s get to work! It tastes like 

crap, but it’s harmless.”

He was convinced that the liquid just simulated the atomization process, and he 

was not mistaken. Nevertheless, that evening at the hotel he availed himself of an 

additional shot of alcohol to “neutralize the substance and to allay the terror” that 

he had endured. Geran and Generator were not continued.

The first missiles with nuclear warheads, the R-5Ms, were already in series 

production at the Dnepropetrovsk Factory (later Yuzhmash and then Factory No. 

586) and were set up for combat duty in the Far East and in the Baltic region. Thus, 

the creation of the notorious nuclear missile shield began in 1956 with the R-5M 

missile, which was referred to in production and drawing documentation and also 

in unclassified documents as “article 8K51.”

developed the R-1V, R-1D, R-1Ye, R-2A, R-5A, and R-11A missiles for various 

payloads. For design bureaus, production, testers, and test-range services, these were 

independent developments that were sometimes more labor intensive than combat 

missiles. Institutes under the Academy of Sciences developed instruments that were 

installed in the missile payload containers that could be recovered with the aid of 

parachutes. With the launch of these missiles, for the first time we obtained data on 

the makeup of primary cosmic radiation and its interaction with materials, determined the physical and chemical makeup of the air at different altitudes, the spectral makeup of solar radiation, the absorptive capacity of ozone, and so on.

Long before Vostok launch vehicles, dogs and smaller creatures had already flown 

in combat payloads. In contrast to the later famous Layka, who perished in space, 

the “missile” dogs successfully landed with the aid of parachutes, but without any 

publicity in the mass media.9

Thus, in the Soviet Union over a period of 10 years (through 1956, inclusively), 

at NII-88 alone, Chief Designer Korolev, with the direct involvement of chief 

designers from cooperating enterprises Glushko, Pilyugin, Ryazanskiy, Barmin, 

and Kuznetsov—members of the old Council of Chief Designers—and new Chief 

Designers Isayev and Isanin, developed and tested 16 types of liquid-propellant 

guided ballistic missiles with flight ranges up to 1,200 kilometers and flight altitudes in excess of 200 kilometers.

Except for the naval R-11FM, all the missiles were launched from launch sites at 

the Kapustin Yar State Central Test Range. The total number of launches over this 

period exceeded 150. Of these launches, 30 missiles were armed with conventional 

explosive warheads and one missile had a real nuclear warhead. Back then we were 

much too daring. Under present-day conditions the launch of such a missile would 

be impossible not only for the obvious political reasons. We, the missile specialists, 

never found out the environmental consequences of that launch in 1956.

In 1953, there were two more experimental launches that left us with an unpleasant aftertaste. The R-2 missile had already been put into service under the code 

name “article 8Zh38” and was considered more or less reliable.10 However, its 

combat effectiveness, which in terms of its impact was only marginally superior to a 

one-ton aerial bomb, was the weakest point of all missiles of that time. There was no 

nuclear warhead for missiles until 1956. Neither then nor many years later did we 

found out the true authors of the experiments conducted to modify the R-2 missiles 

under the code names Geran (Geranium) and Generator.

It all started in the crowded conference room at our hotel at the test range, 

9. Dogs were killed during flight or on landing on 4 (out of the 29) suborbital launches carried out 

under the biological program carried out in 1951–58.

10. Typically, all Soviet armament systems were given a secret code in the form of a “number-letternumber” designation such as 8Zh38 (“Zh” is a letter of the Russian alphabet). These designations 

were assigned by the Main Artillery Directorate (GAU) in the development phase and used in all 

production documentation to disguise the true nature of the weapon systems to both subcontractors 

and people outside the program.
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In 1956, OKB-1 Chief Designer Korolev left NII-88 and obtained full independence. Within 10 years he had a monopoly in the development of long-range ballistic missiles. In the next decade of the Cold War, new leading organizations would 

emerge. They would be directed by Mikhail Yangel, Vladimir Chelomey, Aleksandr 

Nadiradze, and Viktor Makeyev.
Chapter 14

On the First Missile Submarine

Recounting the story of German missile technology in Bleicherode in 1946, Helmut 

Gröttrup mentioned a project he called ridiculous and unrealistic. As soon as Germany’s top-ranking military leaders determined that the V-2 (A4) missiles had just 

barely developed a knack for flying and decided to begin firing on England, some 

enthusiasts proposed developing a system for the underwater delivery of missiles to 

the shores of America to fire on the U.S. mainland.

A small group was created in Peenemünde to design the system with the participation of submarine specialists. The system consisted of submarines towing V-2 

missiles in containers. The submarine containers would somehow be stabilized or 

placed on the bottom at a depth of no more than 100 meters and about 100 to 150 

kilometers from the U.S. coastline. The submarine was supposed to have a crew that 

prepared and launched the missiles.

A simple calculation done by the Peenemünde specialists showed that this idea 

was absolutely impractical. In addition to the container holding the missile, the 

submarine needed to tow liquid oxygen tanks across the ocean under the water. 

These tanks were so large that the cost of the entire system was several dozen times 

greater than the damage that the missile warhead was capable of inflicting, even if it 

reached the center of New York City. Dornberger and Wernher von Braun opposed 

this reckless project, and it was laid to rest.

After flight tests on the first series of the R-1 missile, that is, the domestic copy 

of the German V-2, our Navy command approached Korolev with the proposal 

to develop a version of the missile to be installed in specially adapted submarines. 

According to Vasiliy Mishin’s story many years later, he quickly convinced Korolev 

that the plan was unrealistic, and he was absolutely right. It was completely unfeasible to adapt an R-1 or some similar missile that required storing liquid oxygen for 

many days or even weeks during a submarine voyage.

The situation changed radically with the development of the R-11 missile. To 

this day veterans in the field of missile technology argue about who first came up 

with the idea of using the R-11 missile as a weapon on a submarine. Without getting caught up in these arguments, I can confirm that, despite the large number of 

skeptics, including Pilyugin and Ryazanskiy, Korolev consistently supported this 

247
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On the First Missile Submarine

249

Korolev had a passion for developing new ideas and demanded the same degree 

of passion from his close associates. But, in such an unusual undertaking, he needed 

new strong allies among the sudaki, the shipbuilders.2 Chief Designer of TsKB-16, 

Nikolay Nikitovich Isanin, proved to be Korolev’s ally. He was an experienced shipwright who had begun to study submarines after being schooled in the construction 

of heavy cruisers and liners. During the war he worked on the most popular type of 

vessel at that time, torpedo boats. Isanin became the chief designer of diesel submarines just two years before he met Korolev. He boldly took on the task of adapting 

the V-611 submarine as a carrier for R-11 missiles, which had been assigned the 

designation R-11FM in its naval version.

When they initialed the draft of the government decree, both chief designers 

Korolev and Isanin took on a great responsibility. Indeed, the R-11 missile had not 

even been fully developed in its land-based version. And how was a crew supposed 

to launch it at sea from a submarine, where there was no escaping to a bunker? What 

if, as happened with us on land, the missile did not lift off from the rocking launch 

pad and the engine spewed hot propellant components into the submarine? But 

both chief designers were bold optimists.

Outwardly, nothing in particular set Isanin apart from other naval engineers 

with whom we were beginning to meet, but right off the bat he was quite prepossessing. Despite his self-effacing, natural modesty, he had a composed and solid confidence when making crucial decisions. After my first encounters with him in 1953, 

I had the feeling that we had known each other for a long time. He quickly studied 

Korolev’s character and developed very amicable relations with him, although Isanin 

used to good-naturedly poke fun at Korolev’s trademark short temper. I must admit 

that these jokes endeared Isanin even more to those of us who were close associates 

of Korolev.

After the submarine project was handed over to Viktor Makeyev in 1956, I had 

no business contact with Isanin for many years, but at Academy of Sciences meetings we always found many subjects in common to discuss. In conversation he 

was just as amiable and ironic. During boring, formulaic reports, we would often 

slip out of the conference hall and reminisce about days gone by. All the while he 

smoked like a chimney and poked fun at the new procedures just as good-naturedly 

as before.

According to our calculations, modifying the R-11 missile for a naval version, 

plus developing new naval testing and launching equipment instead of the old 

ground-based equipment, would take three to four years. Korolev did not even 

want to hear about a timeframe like that.

Being opposed to the Navy mania, Nikolay Pilyugin entrusted the solution of 

all guidance problems to Vladilen Finogeyev. We were won over by Pilyugin’s tall, 

2. The word sudak is a slang expression referring to shipbuilders. It is a play on words using the 

word sudak, which means pike perch, and the prefix sudo, which means ship.

idea and perhaps was even the first to propose it. Korolev approached the development of a missile for the Navy with genuine enthusiasm, pushing aside other seemingly urgent business, including a variety of other projects and responsibilities, in 

favor of it.

At a scientific and technical conference held in St. Petersburg in February 1991, 

in honor of the 35th anniversary of the world’s first launch of a ballistic missile from 

a submarine, some said that the idea of arming submarines with ballistic missiles 

had been put forth by naval officers as far back as 1952. In particular, the initiative of a group of enthusiasts headed by Engineer Rear Admiral N. A. Sulimovskiy 

and Engineer Vice Admiral L. A. Korshunov was mentioned. The naval officers’ 

proposal, unfortunately, could not be implemented using the older R-1 or R-2 missiles. It became feasible to develop a modified long-range ballistic missile launched 

from a submarine only after the development of the R-11, which used high-boiling 

propellants and was designed for mobile launch. Unlike land-based infantry commanders, naval officers were very enthusiastic about this new type of weapon. I have 

already written about the degree of skepticism that many combat generals expressed 

when comparing the effectiveness of conventional armaments and missiles. Naval 

officers were considerably more far-sighted and proposed creating a new class of 

ships, missile-carrying submarines possessing unique capabilities. A submarine 

armed with torpedoes was designed only to strike enemy ships, while a submarine 

armed with ballistic missiles would be capable of striking, from the sea, land-based 

targets located hundreds of kilometers away, and in the future even thousands of 

kilometers, while remaining invulnerable.

The first successful launch of a land-based R-11 missile took place on 21 May 

1953. Flight tests had identified the need for a large number of modifications, but 

Korolev did not want to lose time and simultaneously coordinated the design specifications for the naval version of this missile with the naval officers and ship builders.

While Stalin was alive, he alone made decisions as to what new military technology should be developed, when, and by whom. After his death, there was a brief 

hiatus in the issuance of decrees for the development of new types of armaments. 

However, on 24 January 1954, the USSR Council of Ministers issued the decree 

“On Carrying Out Experimental-Design Work to Arm Submarines with Longrange Ballistic Missiles and the Development of a Technical Design for a Large 

Submarine Armed with Missiles Based Upon This Work.” The decree assigned the 

work to:

• Central Design Bureau-16 (TsKB-16) (later renamed Malakhit) headed by 

Chief Designer N. N. Isanin—for all work on the submarine1;

• NII-88 OKB-1 headed by Chief Designer S. P. Korolev—for the missile armament.

1. TsKB—Tsentralnoye konstruktorskoye byuro.
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On the First Missile Submarine

251

apprehensive about leaks in the lines and the corrosive power of the propellant 

components he had selected for the propulsion unit.

The submarine selected for modification as the first naval ballistic missile carrier belonged to the V-611 series of diesel submarines. The subs in this series were 

built to operate on ocean routes and in the areas of remote enemy naval bases. The 

preproduction submarines of this design went into service in 1953 and were built 

until 1958. In all, 26 V-611 submarines were built.3 The primary weapons of the 

submarines were 533-mm torpedoes housed in the bow and stern sections. The 

submarine was equipped with radar to detect and identify surface and air targets and 

sonar systems to detect foreign submarines and surface ships. Its maximum diving 

depth was 200 meters. In its missile version, the main modification of the V-611 

design involved cutting two vertical tubes into the solid hull in the centerline plane 

behind the conning tower.

Korolev hadn’t forgotten about safety. He understood that a haywire missile on 

a submarine could have catastrophic consequences for the entire crew. He proposed 

providing the capability to jettison the missile overboard or to flood the tubes in the 

event the missile didn’t launch normally.

Another problem was purely naval in nature. When the submarine surfaced, 

it would inevitably be subjected to rolling. Launching missiles from a rolling pad 

rather than from a launch pad standing firmly on the ground did not immediately 

fit into our land-based ways of thinking about targeting technology and the subsequent behavior of the missile. The behavior of the liquid contained in the tanks was 

also cause for concern. Finally, how would the missile hit the assigned target area if 

we didn’t put the exact coordinates of the launch site into previously prepared ballistic calculations and tables? An entire team of surveyors worked at the firing range 

on the steppes. They precisely fixed the launch site to geographical coordinates, 

determined the line of fire, and after the launch, reported the deviation of the point 

of impact from the calculated point with accuracy to within meters. But how could 

we do this on a stormy sea?

All of this proved relatively easy for the sailors. The institutes of the sudaki handling these projects patiently explained how to adapt naval navigational technology 

to our joint tasks. Arefyev proposed principles of prelaunch orientation and the 

idea of integrating the missile guidance system with the submarine’s navigational 

complex. The axes of the onboard gyroscopes were aligned with the axes of the ship’s 

navigational complex before launch. The missile would launch from the surface, 

having a momentary angle of inclination and angular velocity determined by the 

sway. After launch, the gyroscopes, having recorded the prelaunch setting, would 

correct the missile first vertically and then “lay” it on the programmed flight path 

in the firing plane. The implementation of these principles required developing a 

3. These Soviet diesel electric submarines were known in the West as Zulu class submarines.

fair-haired, very dapper and energetic young deputy immediately. We dealt with 

him on guidance issues without addressing Pilyugin. Viktor Kuznetsov, whom we 

considered an old “sea wolf,” understood better than the others which new and 

difficult problems would need to be solved using gyroscopes. There were disputes 

and debates, but with Kuznetsov’s approval, the entire problem of command instrumentation development was assigned to the Leningrad-based NII-49, where by that 

time the chief designer was young Vyacheslav Arefyev.

Of the remaining members of the Council of Chief Designers—after Korolev, 

Pilyugin, and Kuznetsov—Vladimir Barmin had not much to do with the submarines. It was clear that the shipbuilders themselves could work on their own launch 

systems. Also, because the missile didn’t have any radio flight control system, Chief 

Designer Ryazanskiy only had to provide the telemetry system, and even then, only 

if we didn’t select the system of OKB MEI headed by Academician Kotelnikov. 

The chief designer of the R-11 missile engine was Isayev rather than Korolev’s traditional associate Glushko. Thus, except for Korolev himself, from his Council of 

Chief Designers, only Pilyugin was involved with the development of the submarine missile. And still, without the traditional Council’s support, Korolev fearlessly 

and without hesitation plunged under water.

But it wasn’t just enthusiasm and desire that drove Korolev. From conversations 

that he had with his closest compatriots, one could conclude that in addition to 

everything else, it was the idea of a safety net in case we really blew it and missed 

our deadline for the development of the first intercontinental missile. In fact, if 

the intercontinental missile was not ready within the 1956–57 timeframe, then we 

would remain defenseless against the real threat of nuclear attack.

To begin with, we could mount missiles with conventional warheads on diesel 

submarines, and then ... after all, we had already modified the same R-11 missile 

for the atomic scenario. So what if its range was just 200 kilometers? If tens of 

submarines carrying missiles approached within 100 to 150 kilometers of the U.S. 

coast, then that would somehow compensate for our failure to develop the intercontinental missile that we were obliged to do in 1956. But the jury was still out on 

this missile, although we already had complete confidence in the R-11; we had a real 

submarine, but the main thing was that we had outstanding sailors, shipbuilders, 

and military men.

The most important thing that we first had to resolve was how we would launch 

the naval R-11, from the surface or from underwater. Isanin convinced Korolev 

that we needed to break up our development process into two stages. In the first 

stage, we would modify existing submarines or those already under construction 

for surface launch. To do this, we would retrofit at least two vertical tubes equipped 

with special elevating devices into the solid hull of a submarine. The tubes would 

be covered with hatches that would be opened before launch. The missiles in a 

primed state would be in the dry tubes, ensuring their failure-free operation after 

a prolonged underwater cruise that could last more than a month. This problem 

of long-term storage was not a simple one for Isayev either. He had always been 
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252

On the First Missile Submarine

253

to that generated by a storm measuring four points on the Douglas scale.4 Here, the 

deviation amplitude was as high as ±22 degrees.

Eleven missiles were launched under rolling conditions from Rudyak’s rig with 

the naval control system, and surprisingly all of them were successful. By this time, 

the first submarine had already been retrofitted with two tubes rigged with “knees 

and elbows.” The naval officers were quite actively involved in all the operations on 

the White Sea. Experienced submarine officer, Hero of the Soviet Union, Captain 

2nd Class Khvorostyanov commanded the open sea firing range that had been set 

up and the special unit that had been organized. The time had come to go out to 

sea.

Severodvinsk was the base for the first missile submarine. In the early 1950s, 

it was still named Molotovsk. This coastal city had all the necessities: a shipbuilding factory, a base for ground-based missile storage and testing, a submarine crew 

base, and, most importantly, an atmosphere that was “maximally conducive” to our 

work.

For the first sea tests, seven missiles equipped with the new naval control system 

were set up. The testing and launching ignition systems in the naval Saturn and 

Dolomit versions were developed jointly with us and NII-885 and by the naval institutes MNII-1 and NII-10. Telemetry receiving stations were erected on the shore to 

monitor the flight while special ships conducted observation and communications. 

Onboard telemetry transmission and orbital control equipment was installed in the 

nonseparating missile payload and operated on a slot antenna.

The first R-11FM missile launch from a Northern Fleet B-67 submarine built 

according to the V-611 design was carried out in the White Sea on 16 September 

1955, at 5:32 p.m. Korolev and Isanin personally directed these tests.

N. N. Isanin served as chairman of the State Commission on the first submarine missile launches, and S. P. Korolev was his deputy and also technical director. 

According to the missile tradition that had developed under Korolev’s influence, the 

naval launching team included V. P. Finogeyev and V. P. Arefyev, by dint of their 

status as chief designers; Novozhilov, as the primary designer of the launch contraption; and OKB-1 lead designer I. V. Popkov. In addition to this civilian contingent 

on the team, Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral L. A. Vladimirskiy attended the 

first launch. The commander of the first missile-carrying submarine was Captain 

1st class F. I. Kozlov. A. A. Zapolskiy was in charge of the launch team.

Seven launches on the White Sea were successful, three of which were launched 

after prolonged storage. The launches were performed when the submarine was 

stationary and when it was moving at a speed up to 10 knots with swells measuring 

2 to 3 on the Douglas scale.

4. The Douglas scale is an international scale of sea disturbance and swell ranging from 0 to 9. It 

is named after Sir Henry Douglas (1876–1939), former director of the British Naval Meteorological 

Service.

special shipboard coordinate converter that connected the submarine’s navigation 

instrumentation complex and its motion control system with the missile’s onboard 

control system. Two special institutes of the shipbuilding industry performed this 

work.

At the sailors’ suggestion, the project was named Volna (Wave). The all-hands job 

to develop the first R-7 intercontinental missile, the first to carry a thermonuclear 

warhead, began in 1954. OKB-1 associates close to Korolev, surprised at his intense 

interest in the naval project, wisecracked that the “little R-11 heaved up such a 

mighty ‘Wave’ that it might wipe out the big R-7.”

There were many skeptics. Perhaps that was precisely what inspired Korolev 

and Isanin, who, rather than conducting the experimental-design work authorized 

by the decree, decided to develop a submarine with real missiles and conduct real 

launches within what was by today’s standards an unimaginably short time. The 

naval officers supported them. That was the only way to pave the road for a new 

type of weaponry in the navy.

Despite Korolev’s attitude, the sudaki postponed the second phase, that is, 

launching from underwater. They argued that in order to do that, they would have 

to come up with a new submarine design; it would really take at least three or four 

years before they could successfully perform the first launch from an underwater 

position. The naval command agreed with this strategy and ordered all the services 

involved in the first phase to go “full steam ahead.”

The creation of a rig to test and develop the missile launch equipment under 

rolling conditions became an urgent task. The naval TsKB-34 was assigned the 

task of developing and creating a dynamic rig. NII-49 and NII-303 developed the 

control equipment for the dynamic rig. However, TsKB-34 Chief Designer Ye. G. 

Rudyak announced that the deadline specified by Korolev for the creation of the rig 

was unrealistic. Then Korolev decided to build the first somewhat simplified model 

of the rig using his own resources. Korolev gave our chief ground-segment specialist 

Anatoliy Abramov the super-urgent assignment of developing a similar rig as soon 

as possible. Isanin decided to help, and TsKB-16 fabricated a launch table for the 

rig with mechanisms to raise and turn it. The rig designer, Abramov’s deputy P. V. 

Novozhilov, pulled off the assignment (no one knows when he slept), and in April 

1955, they conducted the first three test launches at Kapustin Yar.

Despite the exceptionally complex situation in preparation for the R-7 missile 

range tests, Korolev sent his main tester Leonid Voskresenskiy to Kapustin Yar to 

direct launches of the R-11FM from the rig. The rig simulated the procedure of 

raising the missile into the upper section of the tube for a surface launch. At the 

firing range they nicknamed the rather dynamically complex structure the “elbows 

and knees” contraption. Three launches of missiles with the R-11 guidance system 

were sufficient to determine that the submarine mock-up would withstand the 

engine’s fiery plume. Later, a significantly more advanced dynamic rig came along, 

also Rudyak’s creation. The electric drives could simulate rolling action equivalent 
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On the First Missile Submarine

255

sion to hear and read different variations, oral and written, of the stories he told us 

that night. I don’t want to retell what I heard, so as to avoid getting into arguments 

with the authors of numerous publications and films about Korolev. I suppose it’s 

not particularly important now, since for the most part the facts line up, and each 

author paints the details in his own colors. It would be nice if there was a conscientious historian who, after studying all the stories, publications, and documents, 

would do a special study of the period in Korolev’s life from 1937 through 1945, 

without introducing his own personal speculation.5

 The hospitable naval command met us in Severodvinsk. Representatives of the 

Northern Fleet showed the expertise of their crews, who independently conducted 

the missiles’ electrical tests, fueling them, and loading them into the tubes of the 

submarines standing at the pier of the Severodvinsk shipbuilding factory. I admired 

the efficient and well-coordinated work of the naval sailors. It was just a little over 

a year since the base and submarine crew had begun to master the missile business, 

but they worked with much greater confidence than their land-based colleagues.

 Only when the submarine was ready to put out to sea did Korolev announce that 

he had made an arrangement with the command. They were permitting him, Finogeyev, and me to join the cruise. Participation in the submarine cruise was essential 

for Korolev. He steadfastly held to the principle “it is better to see something once 

than to hear about it 100 times.” Besides us, lead designer of the R-11FM missile 

Ivan Vasilyevich Popkov was required to take part in such cruises. He and several 

industry representatives were part of the crew as official submariners. Finogeyev and 

I hypothesized that Korolev was not reporting to the fleet high command, but had 

received permission only from the local command. Therefore, our participation in 

the cruise was unknown until a couple of hours before we shoved off.

When I saw my first missile submarine up close it didn’t seem like a large ship. 

Until we made our way into its compartments, I couldn’t understand how they 

crammed all the complex missile launching equipment and additional missile team 

in there.

The submarine departed from the pier early in the morning, and soon thereafter 

the command to dive was given. I, of course, was interested in everything because 

my conception of the goings on inside a submarine when it dove and cruised underwater came only from literature. Korolev was in his element on the submarine. 

5. For one of the best accounts of Korolev’s time as a prisoner, see Yaroslav Golovanov’s magisterial 

Korolev: fakty i mify [Korolev: Facts and Myths] (Moscow: Nauka, 1994). Korolev moved through many 

different locations during his incarceration in 1938–44. From June 1938 to August 1939, he spent 

time in various prisons in and around Moscow. From August to December 1939, he was at labor camp 

in Kolyma in northeastern Siberia. From March to September 1940, he was imprisoned in Moscow 

before being transferred to Tupolev’s sharaga prison design bureau (TsKB-29), where he remained until 

November 1942. Finally, from November 1942 to July 1944, he was incarcerated at Factory No. 16 in 

Kazan as part of another sharaga. He was officially released from prison in July 1944, although he was 

not formally rehabilitated until 1957.

Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Admiral Vladimirskiy, Marshal 

Nedelin, and commanders of fleets and flotillas were invited to the final launch 

in September 1955. The process of the submarine’s surfacing, opening the tube 

hatches, raising the missile using the contraption, and, finally, the effective launch 

at the precisely specified time evoked thunderous applause from the guests on board 

the destroyer. And that marked the beginning of the arming of our fleet with longrange ballistic missiles.

In November 1955, despite the happy ending of the first naval tests, Korolev 

announced to Finogeyev, Abramov, and myself that he was going to take us with 

him to Severodvinsk. He explained that he wanted one more chance to study the 

preparation and launch process in detail. In his words, we needed to gain a better 

understanding without all the extraneous hoopla. We gladly accepted his command, 

especially since we wouldn’t be flying, but rather taking the fast train from Moscow 

to Severodvinsk via Arkhangelsk.

It was the first time I had been to the naval firing range. Korolev and Finogeyev 

had been there several times and had been on the submarine. They considered me 

a greenhorn. The night I spent on that train is well preserved in my memory. We 

occupied two sleeper compartments. The four of us gathered in one of the compartments over a bottle of cognac. Afraid to interrupt Korolev, we listened as he 

dispassionately related stories about his journey to Kolyma and back. This was the 

first time I had heard him personally speak about this part of his life. Usually, he 

very much disliked recalling and talking about this painful period. I don’t know 

what came over him during that nighttime journey. After his death, I had the occaThe R-11FM was the world’s first submarine-launched ballistic missile. This photo shows the 

missile launched during a test in 1955.

From the author’s archives.
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On the First Missile Submarine

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Everything turned out fine! The hatches opened and the joyful commander 

emerged, congratulating us on the successful launch. Reports had already come 

from the impact point. Now they were verifying the coordinates. The telemetry 

stations were receiving, and according to preliminary data the flight had proceeded 

normally. This was the eighth or ninth R-11FM launch from this first missile submarine.

After the launch, our stress dissipated immediately. Finogeyev, who had participated in launches from this submarine before, smiling broadly, asked me: “So, feel 

better now?” “Yes,” I answered, “that’s no concrete bunker launch for you.” Indeed, 

the psychological stress at a naval launch can in no way be compared to the launch 

of a ground missile.

The submarine returned to base, and we were all invited to a submarine dinner 

party. Our mood and that of the officers in the cramped crew’s quarters over dinner 

was excellent. Korolev whole-heartedly praised the herring and navy-style macaroni. 

The commander joked that he himself could not remember tasting such delicious 

navy food. Korolev promised that in three years it would not be necessary to surface. 

It would be possible to launch missiles from a submerged submarine.

This all happened long ago; many of those conversations and jokes can no longer 

be retrieved from memory. But I still remember very well that rare sensation of 

bliss. And it wasn’t personal, but something shared, bringing together and rallying 

completely diverse people. Perhaps this originated from Korolev, whom I couldn’t 

ever imagine as happy. Here on the submarine, sitting at the dinner table after the 

launch he radiated that feeling. Neither before that time, nor after it, do I remember 

him being that happy.

From Severodvinsk we set out for Arkhangelsk on the factory motor boat. It was 

storming and the three of us got seasick. The ship’s rocking didn’t affect Korolev, and, 

teasing us, he offered us a swig from his bottle, but we couldn’t manage to swallow. 

Finally we made it to the airport, where our airplane awaited. The crew was pleased 

that we would be able to get some rest at the hotel. The weather prevented us from 

flying out of Arkhangelsk, and we couldn’t fly into Moscow due to fog. Despite 

our departure being justifiably forbidden, Korolev could not calm down. It was 

absolutely out of the question that we would spend the night in the airport or stroll 

around Arkhangelsk (which we, having never seen it, would not have been averse to 

doing). He set out to find the airport director, got through to the Air Force Commanding General via high-frequency communications, and somehow convinced 

him that we should be granted permission to depart. An hour later, we took off, and 

after landing at our own airfield in Podlipki (now the head institute TsNIIMash is 

located on the former airfield there), we found that there was no fog.

Soon thereafter many of us experienced the bitter feeling of parting 

with our romantic naval project. After realistically weighing the possibilities 

and delving even deeper into the problems of intercontinental missiles, Korolev 

came out with the proposal to create a special design bureau for naval missiles. He 

recommended Chief Designer Viktor Makeyev for the job. The Central Committee 

He went straight to the conning tower, where he studied the submarine’s control 

engineering and looked through the periscope. He didn’t forget to warn us, “If you 

walk around the ship, don’t crack your head open.” Despite the warning, I repeatedly bumped into various and sundry mechanism parts protruding where I didn’t 

expect them and cursed the designers for the narrow bulkheads that separated the 

compartments from one another.

All the equipment to set up launch control was located in the special “missile” 

compartment. It was very tightly packed with consoles and racks holding naval 

electronics. Before a launch, this compartment was supposed to accommodate six 

men at their battle stations. When the submarine surfaced and the tube hatches 

were opened, only the metal of those tubes would separate the men from the cold 

sea. It was impossible to move to other compartments after the sounding of battle 

quarters. All the hatches were battened down. The missile compartment combat 

team was in charge of the entire preparation, and they conducted the launch from 

the submarine’s central station.

Four hours into the cruise, when it began to feel that in the submarine’s cramped 

quarters we were bothering everyone and they were fed up with our questions, the 

command was given to surface. Korolev, who tracked down Finogeyev and me in 

the torpedo compartment, told us that now all three of us were supposed to be by 

the tube from which they were going to raise and launch the missile. Why did he 

require such a demonstration of bravery? Should something happen to the missile, 

whether in the tube or even in the upper section, we would be goners. To this day, I 

do not understand why the submarine commander permitted Korolev to sit by the 

tube during launch. If a catastrophe occurred, it wasn’t the commander’s head that 

would be knocked off. Admittedly, afterward, a submariner said, “If something had 

happened, there would have been no one left to accuse.”

At the 30-minute alert, the commander’s “battle quarters” command was sent to 

all the submarine compartments and, for good measure, the klaxon was sounded. I 

was reminded of my youth in the Komsomol.

6

 In 1932, on the battleship Marat in 

Kronstadt, the ship’s combat training was demonstrated to us, the young “captains.” 

We had heard the same klaxon and the same “battle quarters” command.

 Exchanging clipped sentences, the three of us sat uncomfortably, jammed up 

against the cold metal of the tube. Korolev clearly wanted to “showcase” himself and 

his technology, as if to say, “Look how much trust we have in our missiles’ reliability.” In the tube, you could hear scraping and rumbling as the “knees and elbows” 

mechanism elevated the missile. We grew tense in anticipation of the engine’s 

startup. I expected that the roar of the engine and plume of flame shooting into the 

tube would be terrifying. However, the launch was surprisingly quiet.

6. Komsomol was the informal name for the All-Union Lenin Communist Union Youth (Vsesoyuznyy 

Leninskiy kommunisticheskiy soyuz molodezhi, VLKSM), a large Communist youth organization formed 

in 1918 to foster social and youthful activities that celebrated Communist rule. The Komsomol was 

dissolved in 1991.
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On the First Missile Submarine

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naval affairs. But that wasn’t really 

the issue. Would naval missiles be 

an OKB-1 project or not?

Korolev’s closest member on 

the Council of Chief Designers, 

Nikolay Pilyugin, had already 

announced that he was completely 

turning over development of naval 

missile guidance systems to his 

former colleague Nikolay Semikhatov in the Urals. And all of the 

high-ranking government officials 

concurred and promised to assist 

the new chief designer of guidance 

systems.

When I found out that Makeyev 

had been appointed as an independent chief designer, I asked Mishin, 

“Did S.P. consult with you?”

“No, he didn’t ask me. I don’t 

know who he talked with.”

Mishin was miffed that in 

making such an important decision 

Korolev had not even informed his 

immediate first deputy. When, 

after assembling all of his deputies, 

Korolev announced his decision 

approved by the State Committee 

and the Communist Party Central Committee, we remained sullenly silent. We 

understood that this decision had not been easy for him.

Emerging from Korolev’s office, we found Makeyev in the reception room. 

Korolev had invited him for one last conversation. Leonid Voskresenskiy immediately brightened: “Well, Viktor, now you are going to be the one ‘sea soul’ for all of 

us, and we are off to choke on the dust out on the steppe.”

It was a prophetic wish. Makeyev’s heart really was with the sea. Nineteen years 

after that event, in 1974 at the regular meeting of our academic department in the 

Academy of Sciences, Academy Corresponding Member Viktor Makeyev accepted 

warm congratulations from his Academy colleagues on the occasion of his 50th 

birthday in October. Smiling furtively, Pilyugin revealed the secret of Korolev’s position at that time:

“Back in 1955, Sergey called me up, and I talked him into giving in and naming 

you chief designer and turning over all the naval projects to you.”

The first U.S. experimental nuclear submarine Nautilus was developed in 

On the left is Viktor Makeyev, the Chief Designer 

of all Soviet strategic submarine-launched ballistic 

missiles during the Cold War. On the right is Chief 

Designer Aleksey Isayev, who produced a number 

of sustainer rocket engines for Makeyev’s missiles. 

Isayev’s organization also developed engines for 

Soviet air defense missiles, launch vehicle upper 

stages, and spacecraft.

Asif Siddiqi.

of the Communist Party and Council of Ministers accepted the proposal. Ten years 

later in the small town of Miass in the Ural Mountains, a mighty machine-building 

KB headed by General Designer Viktor Petrovich Makeyev was up and running, 

spawning urban development.

Korolev’s decision to hand over the responsibilities of chief designer of submarine missiles to Makeyev took some time and was a very difficult one.

Makeyev was the “lead designer” for the land-based versions of the R-11 and 

R-11M missiles. A government decree assigned their series production to machinebuilding Factory No. 385 in the town of Zlatoust in the Urals. Korolev’s first step 

was to propose that a branch of OKB-1 be set up at Factory No. 385. The chief of 

this branch would also serve as Korolev’s deputy chief designer. He offered this post 

to Makeyev, the young, energetic former director of the Soviet Union’s delegation 

at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki and former NII-88 Komsomol committee 

secretary, who had been highly successful as the lead designer of all the R-11 and 

R-11M missile modifications.

Makeyev was already 31 years old. He was no longer Komsomol age. However, 

they remembered him well in the Central Committee of the All-Union Lenin Communist Youth Union (VLKSM) and he had come to the attention of the Communist Party Central Committee. Probably, in the long run, he could make a career in 

the Central Committee office or in the Council of Ministers.

Korolev failed to assess Makeyev’s potential ambition. Abandon Moscow for 

small-town of Zlatoust in the Ural Mountains in order to be Korolev’s deputy? 

Constantly squabble there with the local factory director and grovel before municipal bureaucrats, all the while listening to Korolev’s rebukes via high-frequency communication that he had once again missed a production deadline and the military 

acceptance team was dissatisfied with the quality? To be asked, “What on Earth is 

my deputy doing out there—and he better be on his toes”? “I didn’t send you there 

to sip tea with jam!” This was one of Korolev’s standard scoldings. Such prospects 

had no allure for Makeyev. In response to Korolev’s offer, he took the risk of declaring: “I’ll go to the Urals only as a chief designer. I won’t go as a deputy.”

The government had already made its decision to transfer production of R-11FM 

missiles to Zlatoust. If another chief designer showed up there, then all subsequent 

modifications of this missile and the development of new ones would be his responsibility. The naval project would inevitably be transferred to him.

Korolev wavered. The State Committee of Defense Technology that Khrushchev 

had created to replace the Ministry of Defense Industries had already granted him 

approval to organize a branch in Zlatoust.7 If he wished, in place of Makeyev he 

could find another, less ambitious candidate for the post of deputy chief designer for 

7. In 1957–58, Khrushchev enacted decentralization reforms in Soviet industry. As part of this 

reform, several major ministries were transformed into “State Committees.” The Ministry of Defense 

Industries which oversaw the missile program was reformed into the State Committee of Defense 

Technology.
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On the First Missile Submarine

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the R-13 missile and its missile-carrying submarines was issued during the second 

half of 1955. Design series 629 diesel submarines developed by TsKB-16 and design 

series 658 nuclear submarines developed by TsKB-18 were armed with the D-2 missile complex.8

Viktor Makeyev was already the chief designer and would soon also be the general designer of the D-2 project. Nikolay Semikhatov was the chief designer of the 

onboard and ship-based guidance systems for all the submarine ballistic missile 

complexes. However, despite the qualitative advantages of the D-2 over the groundbreaking D-1, the D-2 did not solve the primary problem: just like our first R-11M 

missiles, the R-13 missiles were launched from a surface position.

A year after the first historic surface launch, the government issued a decree 

stipulating the conduct of experimental operations to develop the capability for 

underwater missile launch. NII-88’s OKB-10, headed by Chief Designer Yevgeniy 

Vladimirovich Charnko, was designated as the head organization. Our OKB-1 was 

involved in projects to modernize the R-11FM missile. Korolev’s deputy Anatoliy 

Abramov and Isanin’s designers retrofitted the tubes and got rid of the “knees and 

elbows,” and Semikhatov redeveloped the entire guidance system. The first underwater launch of the modernized R-11FM missile from a B-67 submarine took place 

on 10 September 1960. During that time Korolev’s entire “band of warriors” was up 

to its ears in work preparing for the first manned flights and the new R-9 combat 

intercontinental ballistic missile.

I was in Mishin’s office when a smiling Korolev came in and began to congratulate us. Accepting his congratulations, Mishin nevertheless couldn’t restrain himself 

and said, “Sergey Pavlovich! This really isn’t our work anymore. Sure, Abramov 

helped them, but we don’t do underwater launches.”

Such an attitude on the part of his deputy offended Korolev.

“How can you not understand?! If it hadn’t been for our R-11 and our surface 

launches, this underwater launch wouldn’t have happened. We share the success. It’s 

just too bad that we no longer work with the Navy guys, but Makeyev, after all, isn’t 

a stranger either; he’s one of us. You two mark my words; he’s going to go far.”

I don’t want to quote Korolev from memory; I’m paraphrasing what he said. He 

spoke with emotion and great conviction. Then, for the first time, he revealed that 

after the successful testing of the first domestic nuclear submarine Leninskiy Komsomol, the government decided to build a nuclear submarine fleet armed with missiles 

and thermonuclear warheads.

8. Typically the Soviets designated the entire submarine-launched missile system in the form “Dnumber,” with the actual missile retaining the old “R-number” designation for designers and the 

“number-letter-number” designation for the military and production personnel. In the absence of 

knowledge about Soviet designations, in the West, the D-2 missile complex was codenamed SS-N-4 

(by the U.S. Department of Defense—DoD) and Sark by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

(NATO). The D-1 system (with the R-11FM) was never assigned a designation by either the DoD or 

NATO.

1954. The first Soviet nuclear submarine, Leninskiy Komsomol, was commissioned 

in 1958. These submarines did not yet carry ballistic missiles. In 1959, Polaris A-1 

missiles were installed on the American nuclear submarine George Washington. Our 

667A design nuclear submarine carrying 16 missiles with a range of 2,500 kilometers reached operational status only in 1967! But by the time Makeyev celebrated 

his 50th birthday in 1974, we had bridged the gap in the total number of nuclear 

submarines armed with nuclear warhead missiles! We had 120 atomic missile submarines against the Americans’ 90. This was a tremendous achievement for our 

shipbuilding industry.

Reminiscing about his talk with Korolev in late 1955 about Makeyev, in a conversation over tea and cookies in the guest room at the institute on Griboyedov 

Street, Pilyugin noted that he was a diabetic and that Corresponding Member of the 

Academy Makeyev and Academician Isanin both had heart trouble; in view of the 

fact that this locale didn’t serve cognac, we should toast Korolev’s wise memory with 

tea and cookies! During this improvised academic tea party, Academician Nikolay 

Isanin said that there were only two among us who had participated with Korolev 

in the submerged, cruising, and first submarine-launched missile firings: “Chertok 

and I.”

Since that memorable cruise in November 1955, I have never again had the 

occasion to be on a missile submarine. From the stories of acquaintances who have 

participated in cruises on modern nuclear submarines, the living conditions are anything but easy. Back then we were on a very short cruise on a diesel submarine. For 

the first time I got the sense of how much easier it was to work as a ground-based 

missile specialist. No matter how difficult it was on the ground and in all sorts of 

bunkers and silos, the living conditions on a submarine were a hundred times more 

difficult.

Our OKB-1 together with TsKB-16 and a small group of naval officers in the 

1950s laid the foundation for a completely new type of strategic naval force. In 

present-day strategy and policy, missile-carrying nuclear submarines play as important a role as the land-based Strategic Rocket Forces. The creators of the submarine 

fleet and naval missiles and the naval submariners deserve the highest respect, and 

we should remember their heroic service not only when we hear the sensational 

accounts of submarine accidents.

The B-67 submarine was the first missile-carrying sub. It may not have been 

the first launch, but in 1955 I had the good fortune, yes, indeed, the good fortune, 

to make, albeit brief, an underwater cruise on that submarine and to participate 

in a missile launch along with Korolev and Isanin. After our cruise in November 

1955, the B-67 submarine was commissioned into the naval fleet as an experimental 

training vessel. The experience gained made it possible to retrofit submarines with 

missile launchers and to build another six submarines of this series, assigning it the 

designation AV-611. The first submarine missile complex was commissioned under 

the designation D-1. This was the first and last project that Korolev’s OKB-1 performed for the Navy. The decree for the development of the new D-2 complex with 
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On the First Missile Submarine

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According to the rules of etiquette at that time, we did not marvel at Makeyev’s 

achievements. But when Makeyev told us that, after emerging from under the water 

and breaking through the clouds, the first naval RSM-40 intercontinental missile 

determined its position according to the stars and hurtled toward the target with the 

help of an onboard computer, I thought, sure, we had star-guided flights 20 years 

ago, but, of course, not from underwater.

The developer of the system’s electro-optical unit was the Geofizika Factory’s design bureau in Moscow on Stromynka. Beginning in 1959, together with 

Rauschenbach, we collaborated closely with Geofizika to develop spacecraft guidance systems. I attempted to explain astronavigation in the chapter “Flying by the 

Stars” (Chapter 12). But all of our spacecraft astronavigation problems now seemed 

trifling to me compared with submarine missiles’ “flight-by-the-stars” problems.

Pilyugin and Kuznetsov were up to their ears in problems developing groundbased combat complexes for the Strategic Rocket Forces. Nevertheless, you could 

sense jealousy in their responses in conversations with Makeyev, who was praising 

Semikhatov. Pilyugin considered Semikhatov his pupil. Now Semikhatov had surpassed his alma mater in terms of using computer technology and increasing the 

accuracy of his intercontinental missiles. However, the achievements of Makeyev 

and Semikhatov did not so much evoke a feeling of jealousy as admiration of the 

fact that now, in terms of the number of intercontinental missiles, the naval component would be a reliable backup and reserve for the ground-based strategic nuclear 

forces.

Submarine missiles, including the engines developed by Isayev, were produced 

in large numbers at the Krasnoyarsk Machine Building Factory. The manufacturing 

processes were new for Siberian factories, and this required the highest production 

standards and strict quality control. Through the fault of the factories, serious mishaps occurred during flight tests and missile firing exercises.

During evening strolls with Isayev along the “Walkway of Heroes,” he once 

remarked that we could make a splendid feature film about missile submarines that 

would have all the intense emotion of the film Ukroshcheniye ognya (Taming the 

Fire), a film for which we were both consultants.13

He described one of the incidents when, in his words, “I felt like blowing out 

my brains and the brains of those Krasnoyarsk slobs.” During one of the RSM-40 

missile development launches—in the midst of the prelaunch preparation on the 

submerged submarine—they overfueled a propellant tank and it blew up. It’s a good 

thing the submarine commander kept his cool and ordered an emergency surfacing. 

It turned out that at the factory they had failed to remove the temporary plug from 

the inlet of the tube to the tank’s pressure sensor.

At the ministerial board meeting Minister Sergey Afanasyev indignantly described 

13. Ukroshcheniye ogonya (Taming the Fire) was a fictional film loosely based on the inside history 

of the Soviet space program that was released in 1972. The film was directed by Daniyl Khrabrovitskiy 

who, in conceiving the film, consulted with many “secret” designers, including Chertok.

“Makeyev took a stab at a range up to 3,000 kilometers,” said Korolev, “More 

power to him!”

Five years later, already a Hero of Socialist Labor, Makeyev flew in for Korolev’s 

funeral. At a meeting of a close circle of Korolev’s deputies, Sergey Kryukov and I 

tried to persuade him to become our chief designer and return to Moscow.

He asked us directly to give up any such notions.

“I’ve been saddled with the entire D-5 complex.9 You can’t imagine what that 

entails. For the first time we and the sudaki are going to put 16 missiles with submerged engines on a nuclear submarine! We have more problems than you and 

those cosmonauts all put together! We still don’t know when we are going to fly, but 

they are already after me to put the intercontinental missiles on the submarines.

“No, you are all nuts! Get this! Sixteen missiles, well, OK, maybe 12 intercontinental missiles on a single submarine. So the sub doesn’t need to stray far from her 

own shores. She can deliver a massive blow with a salvo right from her base so that 

rocket troops with all their silos and bunkers won’t be needed any more!”

The D-5 nuclear submarine complex that Makeyev told us about began to enter 

service in the fleet as early as 1967. Seven years later, 34 such vessels had been built. 

They received the official title “strategic missile submarine cruiser.” The general 

designer of these submarine cruisers was Sergey Nikitich Kovalev.10

Two general designers, Kovalev and Makeyev, headed the “Naval Council of 

General Designers.” It included guidance complex designer Semikhatov, rocket 

engine designer Isayev, chief designer of nuclear power plants Fedor Mikhaylovich 

Mitenkov, the top scientific director for the development of nuclear submarines and 

future President of the USSR Academy of Sciences Anatoliy Petrovich Aleksandrov, 

and many more chief designers of dozens of systems.11

The pilot 667A submarine with tubes for storing, preparing, and executing the 

launch of RSM-25 missiles was built in 1967. The first missile submarine cruisers 

carrying RSM-40 intercontinental missiles were produced in 1974.12

In 1968, Makeyev and I were elected corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the department of mechanics and control processes. Members 

of this same department included Nikolay Pilyugin, Viktor Kuznetsov, and Vasiliy 

Mishin. Department meetings were usually held twice per year and, as a rule, on 

Griboyedov Street at the Institute of Machine Science. Since neither Pilyugin nor 

Kuznetsov had yet been involved in the development of submarine missile guidance 

systems, the three of us interviewed Makeyev; during these formal conversations we 

could not conceal our engineering curiosity about his work.

9. The D-5 was known in the West as the SS-N-6 or Serb. Makeyev began development of the 

system in 1964, and the missile was accepted into service less than four years later.

10. Academician Sergey Nikitich Kovalev (1919–) was the leading designer of strategic missilecarrying nuclear submarines in the Soviet fleet.

11. Fedor Mikhaylovich Mitenkov (1924–) oversaw the development of nuclear energy units 

12. The RSM-25 and RSM-40 submarine-launched ballistic missile systems were known in the 

West as SS-N-6 (Serb) and SS-N-8 (Sawfly) respectively.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

264

another edifying case. During the attempt of a routine missile launch, everything 

was proceeding normally until they started the engine. The missile had not managed to emerge from the tube when the engine died. The tube flooded, the submarine surfaced, and they delivered the missile to the base. There, while examining the 

propellant tank they discovered rags that had stopped up the throat of the outlet 

pipe. An investigation of this affair led to the culprit, who explained that during 

assembly the process instructions called for special cloths to be used to clean the 

tank’s interior surfaces and to thoroughly wipe everything. He had followed the 

instructions to the letter. When asked him why he had left the cloths in the tank, 

his calm response was that the instructions said nothing about removing the wipes.

By the 1970s Krasnoyarsk Factory began to move out from the danger zone. 

They started to arm submarine cruisers with missiles that had multiple warheads. 

Each warhead was a unit with its own nuclear charge and its own individual selfcontained guidance system for a specific target.

I got together with Makeyev for the last time on 25 October 1985 in the Gorbunov Palace of Culture back in my hometown of Fili. He died the same day—on 

his 61st birthday. When you stand for five minutes in a graveside honor guard, for 

some reason you remember things that the everyday hustle and bustle has made you 

forget and will make you forget again. The brief obituary published by the central 

press said nothing specific about the actual work of two-time Hero of Socialist 

Labor, member of the Communist Party Central Committee, deputy of the Supreme 

Soviet, Academician V. P. Makeyev. In 1966, the great Korolev’s work was declassified two days after his death. The feats of Academician Makeyev, a “Korolev school” 

alumnus, however, remained unknown. At the end of 1985, the Soviet Navy had 

200 nuclear submarine cruisers armed with General Designer Makeyev’s ballistic 

missiles. It is up to historians to assess the scientific, technical, and political outcome 

of the “submarine race” between the USSR and the U.S. in the 20th century.14

14. For a recent overview in English, see Norman Polmar and Kenneth J. Moore, Cold War 

Submarines: The Design and Construction of U.S. and Soviet Submarines (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 

2004).
Chapter 15

Prologue to Nuclear Strategy

As we set about developing new missile complexes, we took great pains not to waste 

our R-1 experience. But as we worked on new tasks, new ideas emerged that sometimes went counter to the principles we had used in the R-1. More often than not, 

our experience led us to the conclusion that we’d been doing things all wrong. As 

we made the transition to new projects, when failures occurred, we no longer had 

the excuse that the Germans had conceived it that way and we had been forced to 

reproduce it. Now, we were required to know precisely who was responsible for reliability and safety.

A missile complex is the product of creative teamwork. For this reason it would 

be wrong to say, for example, that a missile developed at OKB-1 had crashed due 

to failure of an engine developed at OKB-456. In those days, when we experienced 

success we never played up our leading role, and when we suffered failures through 

the fault of our subcontractors, we did not use them as scapegoats. But we did 

demand reciprocity. If it was your fault, then own up to it, find the cause of your 

system’s failure, but don’t try to make excuses, shifting the responsibility to make 

yourself look good across the board. The Council of Chiefs worked in this style 

from the very beginning.

We did not achieve a qualitative leap in reliability during the development of the 

first domestic R-2 missile. Despite the wealth of experience we had gained during 

the production and launching of the R-1, reliability problems were solved intuitively. Much later, dozens of guidelines, hundreds of regulations, and all sorts of 

standards would emerge, regulating the process for developing all missile technology hardware from the initial technical proposals to the procedures for acceptance 

into service.

For modern-day launch vehicles, the degree of reliability estimated using statistical methods based on many launches is 90% to 95%. This means that on average, 5 

to 10 launches out of a hundred may fail. One must pay a very high price to achieve 

such reliability, and, of course, it is based on the priceless experience of the past. 

Before we made the transition to launching the first preproduction R-2 missile 

series, we tested the reliability of our new ideas on experimental R-2E missiles. 

Six of them were manufactured, and five were launched in 1949. Of those five 

launches, only two could be considered successful. But we gained experience that 

265
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The launches were conducted from a launch pad mounted directly on the ground. 

They placed two panel trucks containing the Don telemetry system receiving equipment next to the FIAN shed one kilometer from the launch site in the direction 

opposite the trajectory of flight. They gave this observation post the sonorous name 

IP-1, Tracking Station 1.3 All the automobiles bringing guests and the review team 

to the launch gathered at this point. Just in case, firing range chief Voznyuk ordered 

that several special trenches be dug in front of the station.

At the R-11 launches I was no longer responsible for communications from 

the bunker and collecting readiness reports via the field telephone. After completion of the prelaunch tests I gladly stationed myself in the IP in anticipation of the 

upcoming spectacle. It never occurred to anyone that the missile might fly not only 

forward along the route toward the target but also in the opposite direction. For that 

reason, the trenches were unoccupied. Everyone preferred to enjoy the sunny day on 

the lush steppe not yet scorched by the sun.

The missile lifted off at precisely the appointed time. Thrusting out a reddish 

cloud and resting on a glaring fiery plume, it lunged vertically upward. But about 

four seconds later it changed its mind, pulled a sort of airplane barrel-roll maneuver, and went into a dive headed, it would seem, straight for our fearless retinue. 

Standing straight up Nedelin loudly shouted, “Lie down!” All around him everyone 

dropped to the ground. I considered it humiliating to lie down before such a small 

missile (it was just five metric tons), and leapt behind the shed. I took cover just in 

time. An explosion rang out. Clods of earth knocked against the shed and the vehicles. That’s when I really got scared. What had happened to those who hadn’t taken 

cover? To make matters worse, now everyone might be covered with a red cloud of 

nitric acid vapor. But no one was injured. They got up from the ground, crawled 

out from under cars, shook themselves off, and looked with amazement at the toxic 

cloud being carried away by the wind in the direction of the launch. The missile had 

fallen just 30 meters short of the crowd. Analysis of the telemetry recordings did not 

enable us to unequivocally determine the cause of the mishap, and it was blamed on 

a stabilization controller failure.

There were 10 first-phase missiles launched in the spring of 1953, of which 3 

were failures. The oxidizer tank on one of the missiles disintegrated, and another 

missile burned up due to a leak in the propellant lines. But the primary shortcoming 

of this series of missiles was the engine’s low specific thrust versus its design thrust. 

For this reason, it didn’t reach maximum range when fired; there were launches that 

fell short by 50 kilometers. Because of this fundamental shortcoming, we sometimes 

did not devote proper attention to other problems, with the excuse that “this is 

experimental development, after all.”

The second phase of testing was conducted in the spring of 1954. By this time, 

Isayev had modified the entire engine system. Of the 10 missiles launched at a range 

3. IP—Izmeritelnyy punkt—or literally “Measurement Point,” but more commonly “Tracking 

Station.”

enabled us to launch 30 R-2 missiles during 1950–51. Of these 30 launches, 24 

were successful by the standards of that time. All the failure cases were analyzed, 

and appropriate measures were taken to improve reliability. Nevertheless, during 

launches of the mass-produced R-2 missiles in 1952, 2 out of 14 missiles failed to 

reach the target. The R-2 missile was accepted into service even though an objective 

assessment showed that its reliability was no higher than 86%.

In 1955, the first R-11 tactical missile using high-boiling propellant components 

was put into service. This was a worthy replacement for the R-1. Unlike the R-1 

and R-2 missiles, the R-11 did not carry the “birthmarks” of the German A4. It 

was purely a domestic development. Given its mobility (it had a mobile launch), 

the R-11 to some extent also replaced the R-2. Thirty-five launches were conducted 

before it was accepted into service. Of those, six could be considered failures. Thus, 

in 1955, the military put into service a missile that had a reliability of 83%.

At that time, the R-5 missile was the record holder in terms of range for a singlestage missile. Its conceptual design was completed in 1951. During flight tests conducted in 1953, 15 missiles were launched in two phases. Of these, only two failed 

to reach the target. Its reliability finally began to slowly approach the 90% level. 

And this happened despite the fact that many ideas incorporated in the R-5 missiles 

were new.

There are numerous works on the theory of reliability, and often they include 

a classification of failures according to their causes: structural, production-related, 

operational, and “miscellaneous.” Under our conditions the numerous entries in the 

“miscellaneous” category included “not-in-your-wildest-dreams” failures.

In this regard, a prime example was the explosion of R-1 and R-2 missile warheads when they entered the atmosphere.1

 But there were two indirect causes for 

“not-in-your-wildest-dreams” failures: poorly developed telemetry technology and 

the ones we considered “unpremeditated sloppiness.” I will provide an example 

of the former. During R-11 missile flight tests there were two failures generalized 

as “stabilization controller failures.” But our modest telemetry capabilities could 

not reveal what, where, and why it had failed. We saw only that commands had 

proceeded from the gyroscopes, and the control surface actuators had started to 

do something inexplicable. Luckily, the first of these failures—and we had already 

chalked up quite a few—did not cause any casualties.

In April 1953, at the Kapustin Yar firing range on the Volga steppes, resplendent 

with the flowers and sweet smells of springtime, we began flight tests on the first 

phase of the R-1l. Nedelin and his retinue of high-ranking military officers flew in 

for the first tests of the new tactical missile that used high-boiling propellant components.2

1. See Chapter 8 of this volume.

2. Marshal Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin (1900–60) served in various senior military posts through 

the 1950s, during which time he effectively directed strategic missile procurement for the Red Army. 

In 1959, he was named as the first Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces, the new 

branch of the armed services established to operate strategic missile divisions.
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equipment for that.

The control surface actuators were removed from all the missiles and returned to 

the factory. But to what frequency should the control mechanism be “tuned”? We 

did not know the true inflight vibration frequencies and intensities, and telemetry 

at that time couldn’t give us an answer. After reflection, conjecture, and consultation 

with the engine specialists, we did some redesigning to ratchet the natural frequency 

to above 800 Hz. After that, there were no more accidents due to stabilization controller failure.

This “resonance” resulted in a three-month delay in testing. But this harsh lesson 

was not in vain. We sat down right away to develop a procedure and equipment for 

measuring vibration. For onboard equipment, we introduced the requirement that 

each instrument and assembly be tested to see whether there was a possibility of 

resonance-induced failures or deviations from the norm within a very broad range. 

Domestic industry had not yet produced vibration stands for frequencies higher 

than 500 Hz. The events described gave us the opportunity to obtain funds to 

import test stands reaching frequencies as high as 5,000 Hz.

Proceeding from the principle that “God helps those who help themselves,” we 

checked the possibility of a similar “resonance” failure of the R-1 and R-2 control 

surface actuators. It turned out that they, too, could be disabled when exposed to a 

vibration frequency close to 300 Hz. Without panicking, we decided to modify as 

soon as possible the control surface actuators during the series production process 

and to replace them on all manufactured missiles. When several mysterious failures 

of years past were reinvestigated, one could assume that they had the same cause but 

we simply hadn’t known that at the time.

We drew one more conclusion for future investigators into failure and accident 

causes. If someone expressed a hypothesis concerning a probable cause for a failure, 

we required that this failure be simulated on the ground. For example, that is how 

we dealt with oxygen valves when we surmised that they failed to open due to freezing of a lubricant that they didn’t need. It was worse if, during missile preparation 

on the ground, the failure self-corrected. A self-correcting failure does not recur 

during repeated checks and during all sorts of tests intended to induce it. In such 

cases, we repeated a cycle of horizontal and vertical tests many times and thought 

that “there are no glitches, the testers imagined something.” If, after this, the missile 

was launched anyway, then more often than not this defect manifested itself in flight 

and caused an accident.

Having learned the law of the “universal vagaries of missiles” (that is how the 

witty folk of those romantic times explained the occurrence of certain failures), we 

lived by the rule: if you cannot precisely determine the cause of a self-corrected failure during preparation of the missile at the firing range, then at least replace all the 

suspect instruments and even the cables and repeat the tests. This was by no means 

always possible.

Manufacturing defects most often resulted in failures with disastrous consequences. A break in the soldered joint of a wire at the point where it attached to 

of 270 kilometers, 9 reached the target, and 1 pulled a stunt very similar to the 

incident I described above. Admittedly, this time the missile took off to the left for 

12 kilometers. We could no longer be content with the findings generally stated as 

“stabilization controller failure.”

At the next session of the accident investigation commission I reminded folks of 

the jokes where doctors say that only a coroner can determine the actual cause of 

death. Control surface actuators had solid cast housings, and when a missile landed 

on soft ground they might remain intact. If we searched for them, then we might 

be able to prove that at least the control surface actuators were not the cause of the 

“stabilization controller failure.”

We found the point of impact and, despite the lingering strong scent of toxic oxidizer, we removed the missile’s well-preserved remains. Outwardly, the control surface actuators actually looked quite presentable. We put them on a test bench in the 

laboratory at the firing range. Two worked normally, and two didn’t feel like obeying commands. When we opened them up, we discovered that in both of the nonfunctioning control surface actuators, there was a break in the steel wire that acted 

as a linkage connecting the armature of the electromagnetic relay with the control 

valve of the hydraulic system. After replacing the linkage wire, both control surface 

actuators were fully operational. Why and when had the linkage wires broken? My 

colleagues Kalashnikov and Vilnitskiy unequivocally stated that it was caused by the 

shock of impact. Well, if that’s it, let’s do a direct experiment. We arranged to drop 

control surface actuators from an airplane without parachutes. When we finally 

found them, we brought them to the laboratory, cleaned them off, and tested them. 

As the military controller reported, they were “completely normal.” In other words, 

impact was not the cause of the breakage.

I hypothesized that the breakage was due to vibration. On the R-1 and R-2, these 

same linkage wires in the control surface actuators did not break because the vibration in Glushko’s oxygen engines was probably not as strong as in Isayev’s engine.

Isayev was outraged and said that was impossible since his engine had a thrust of 

just 9 metric tons, while the R-2 had 35! A more powerful engine shakes more. After 

hashing it over we put the actuators on the vibration stand. But at the firing range 

we couldn’t get a vibration frequency to exceed 100 Hz. The actuators withstood 

the maximum intensity the rig was capable of producing. Then I sent a radiogram 

to Podlipki: “Urgently need to conduct vibration resistance test on control surface 

actuators in range up to 500 Hz.” A day later we received an unexpected response: 

“The actuators fail at a frequency close to 300 Hz.” The cause was the natural frequency of the string that we call the linkage, which according to calculations is close 

to 300 Hz. If an external effect has that frequency, then resonance sets in and the 

string breaks.

That’s it! And there we were, not realizing during vibration testing that we had 

to expose the control surface actuators to prolonged vibration at that frequency. We 

took our complaints to Isayev, “So when you conduct firing tests, do you measure 

the vibration frequency and intensity?” Of course not. He didn’t have the right 
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of General Sokolov and all those whom he had enticed to observe the launch from 

the surface. Among them were Barmin and Goltsman.5 About 10 minutes later the 

observer at the periscope reported, “Fire trucks are coming.”

Three fire trucks rolled up and streams of water rushed at the burning missile. 

The warhead did not explode.

Goltsman related that during the launch, he, Barmin, and several other brave 

souls were standing next to General Sokolov about 50 meters from the launch site. 

When the missile toppled over and the fire started, Sokolov gave the command, 

“Everybody follow me!” They ran to the trenches, tumbled down into them, and lay 

in anticipation of the explosion until they had determined that the fire brigade was 

busily going about its business among the remains of the missile.

When the fire had been extinguished and the ground had cooled down, General 

Sovolov clambered out of the trench and ordered that a guard be stationed and for 

everyone to leave. Korolev, Voskresenskiy, and I were allowed, as members of the 

accident investigation commission, to inspect the accident site. About 15 minutes 

after we began our inspection, we determined the cause of the accident without any 

analysis of the telemetry recordings. Voskresenskiy discovered a tank that was filled 

with a sodium permanganate catalyst to break down hydrogen peroxide. The filler 

hole on the tank was open! The plug, which required many turns to screw in, was 

missing. Thus, after the tank was filled the plug was not screwed in. The required 

pressure could not be generated in the open chamber. Sodium permanganate was 

not fed to the gas generator.

The turbopump assembly, which is set into rotation by the hot steam/gas mixture formed by the decomposition of the hydrogen peroxide, received this fluid only 

to start the engine’s operation, and then it stopped. The engine died, and the missile 

collapsed on the launch site. Sloppiness or sabotage? Of course, a security service 

representative was involved in the inspection. And it just had to happen that he was 

the one who found a wrench in the missile’s remains. Picking it up, he asked, “Is this 

tool supposed to fly too?”

As I recall, the State Commission hushed up this scandal. In any event, no one 

was repressed.6 Their punishments were limited to administrative reprimands. 

Explosion experts questioned at commission meetings explained that there was not 

supposed to be an explosion. The detonating fuse was set to respond only to an 

electrical command to shutdown the engine. That is why there was no explosion 

when the missile toppled over; in the end, the firefighters had time to cool off the 

warhead with water and everything turned out all right.

5. Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Goltsman served as Chief Designer of OKB-686 (later GOKB 

Prozhektor), which developed power sources for several generations of Soviet ballistic missiles.

6. During the Soviet era, it was common to use the word “repressed” to describe a person’s arrest, 

incarceration, or execution by the Soviet security services (such as the NKVD or KGB).

a connector plug caused a command transmission failure, which meant the loss of 

stabilization or a failed command to shut down an engine. In the best case, a radio 

control instrument might fail in flight, which wouldn’t affect the actual progress of 

the flight.

A classic example of a failure caused by “flagrant sloppiness” was a case that 

entered the annals of missile folklore. According to schedule, the launch of a combat 

R-2 missile was coming up. The warhead had been armed not with an inert payload and smoke mixture but with a real TNT charge. State Commission Chairman 

General Sokolov told Korolev that he wanted to observe the launch from a trench 

and invited along several other men.4 That was a safety rule violation. Trenches had 

been dug not far from the launch pad to provide shelter for the launch team in case 

it didn’t have time to take cover in the bunker. When a missile was launched with a 

warhead, the entire launch team was supposed to take cover in the bunker.

I was in the bunker in communication with all the firing range and radio control 

services, verifying their readiness. That time, special safety measures consisted only 

in a stepped-up security guard, which had driven all curious loiterers a little further 

away from the launch. Voskresenskiy and Menshikov were standing at the periscopes. Voskresenskiy loudly barked the commands: “Ignition! Preliminary! Main! 

Liftoff!” The roar of the engine filled the bunker, but stopped short followed by an 

unusual premature silence. “The missile is falling...” A few seconds of silence ... 

“Fire on the launch pad!”

Suddenly Korolev, who had been standing next to Voskresenskiy, dashed for the 

exit, grabbed the fire extinguisher in the passageway, and ran up the steep steps leading out of the bunker.

“Sergey, get back!” yelled Voskresenskiy. Korolev did not stop, and Voskresenskiy darted off to catch up with him. Up there in the roaring flames of the gigantic 

bonfire fed by the mixture of alcohol and oxygen lay the missile payload containing 

a metric ton of TNT. Despite the dangers, some force compelled Menshikov, the 

chief of the launch team, and I to exit the bunker.

When we ran out, Korolev stopped. The hot wind prevented him from moving 

further. Voskresenskiy was trying to take the fire extinguisher away from him. He 

managed to do so and banged the fire extinguisher on the ground. A white stream 

squirted out, but it was impossible to get closer to the fire because of the unbearable 

heat. Voskresenskiy threw the fire extinguisher aside, grabbed Korolev by the arm 

and started to drag him toward the bunker. When he saw us he shouted, “What are 

you guys doing here? Everybody in the bunker! It’s going to blow!” Breathing heavily, Korolev and Voskresenskiy were the last to return to the bunker. An oppressive 

silence fell over us. We waited for the explosion and wondered what had become 

4. Andrey Illarionovich Sokolov (1910–76) served as director of NII-4, the leading R&D institute 

within the Ministry of Defense responsible for defining requirements and projections for strategic 

missile development.
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reports, which Vadim Chernov then tried to interpret from a theoretical standpoint. 

Arkadiy Ostashev provided a practical explanation for these processes. Kolya Golunskiy rapidly advanced up the career ladder. He alone had the authority to interact 

with the telemetry developers and with firing range service personnel and also the 

sole right to report to management on these issues.

The presence of such constant, vigilant monitoring was crucial for the entire 

process of increasing the missiles’ reliability. After a successful launch, the systems’ 

developers were always very optimistic. Their satisfaction, public recognition, and 

accolades for the missile’s good behavior in flight were sometimes ruined by the 

telemetry specialists’ subsequent reports, which showed that it was a miracle that 

the missile hit the target. In such cases, if the comments had to do with Pilyugin’s 

or Glushko’s systems, they would usually go into a rage, demand reverification, and 

declare to Boguslavskiy, “your Don [telemetry system] is lying again. The missile 

flies just fine, but the telemetry is recording who knows what.”

But the union between the telemetry developers and telemetry recording analysts was rarely proved wrong. Even after the successful outcome of an R-5 flight, 

when the telemetry recordings detected inflight vibrations that were inexplicable in 

amplitude and frequency, Pilyugin accused the measurement system, offering the 

hypothesis that it had been affected by electromagnetic blasts that had nothing to 

do with the guidance system. After a thorough analysis they determined that the 

measurement system had not been in error. Yevgeniy Boguslavskiy, who had been 

working with Golunskiy’s team for several days analyzing the last launch and all the 

preceding ones, triumphantly announced, “Nikolay [Pilyugin] is my friend, but the 

truth is more precious. The telemetry recordings correspond to the behavior of the 

missile and the guidance system.”

After numerous debates in the Council of Chiefs and various and sundry other 

echelons, reliability policies were developed that altered traditions born out of seven 

years of our missile work. The primary move was to introduce redundancy into the 

guidance system. From the gyros down to the control surface actuators, all of the 

electrical circuits had a backup. In the gyros the potentiometers were modified so 

that any single break at any point would not deprive the system of controllability 

in any of the channels. Redundancy was introduced into the amplifier-converter 

so that two loops would be in parallel operation for each of the three stabilization 

channels.

The failure of any loop would change the system parameters, but these changes 

would remain within a range that ensures stability. Instead of four control surface 

actuators, we installed six. The relay windings in the actuators were redundant, and 

each of them had its own path to the amplifier-converter. According to our model, 

the failure of one control surface actuator would not cause a loss of controllability. 

The model, however, generated many disputes. Skeptics believed that despite the 

positive results of simulation in the laboratory, if a control surface actuator failed in 

actual flight, a crash would nevertheless be inevitable.

Pilyugin and I proposed launching one missile in the schedule of upcoming flight 

We often recalled that incident, when in 1953 we first began to meet with 

the developers of the atomic and then the hydrogen bombs. Korolev and Mishin 

received an invitation to the atomic bomb tests at the firing range in the Semipalatinsk area of Kazakhstan. They returned completely shaken. Mishin told us that if 

you don’t see the results of the explosion with your own eyes, it is simply impossible 

to imagine.

At this point we were tasked with the problem of making a qualitative leap in 

the reliability and safety of this formidable warhead’s delivery vehicle. Recalling the 

incident when Korolev dashed up to the smoldering missile with his useless fire 

extinguisher, Voskresenskiy, half joking and half seriously, suggested that to begin 

with we should move the launch site about 20 kilometers away from the bunker, 

and that the launch of a missile carrying an atomic warhead should be radio-controlled, “to teach Sergey not to run off with the fire extinguisher again.” The science 

fiction–like idea about radio-controlled launches was realized 35 years later but out 

of quite different considerations.

This incident with the fire took place three years before the government issued 

its decree on the development of the R-5M missile, the nuclear warhead carrier. 

The R-5M missile was designed on the basis of the R-5, which we were supposed to 

revamp so that it could be a reliable atomic bomb carrier.

Based on our own many years of experience, as well as that of the Germans, we 

knew that no orders and entreaties would guarantee the reliability of all the electrical equipment, the onboard cable network, and control instruments, since any 

single failure such as a broken wire, loss of contact in a plug and socket connector, or 

random short circuit would cause a missile to crash. Furthermore, the single-stage 

R-5 was a statically unstable flying vehicle. Unlike the R-1 and R-2, it had no stabilizers. Only after a thorough analysis and study of the behavior of this long missile 

in flight did we begin to understand the hazard of disregarding the elastic vibrations 

of the entire structure and the effect of liquid-fueled tanks. The guidance system 

also needed to have a significantly greater margin of resistance and controllability in 

terms of its dynamic characteristics than its predecessors.

The development of a multichannel telemetry system was a new and powerful 

means for optimizing reliability. Constant vigilance was required of the telemetry 

monitoring service and its specialists, even if outwardly the flight had ended quite 

successfully. The “film report” procedure became an indispensable feature of the 

launch preparation process and of the analysis of launch results. Sometimes a careful 

examination of the films performed by the trained eyes of telemetry experts after a 

launch revealed glitches, over which, like it or not, the chief designers would have to 

rack their brains in pursuit of explanations.

Nikolay Golunskiy and Olga Nevskaya, who later became husband and wife, 

were virtuosos at hunting down difficult-to-explain fluctuations in the readings of 

various sensors recorded on motion picture film. Nevskaya had a service record that 

dated back to the Brazilionit era.7 We were accustomed to Lelya Nevskaya’s calm 

7. Brazilionit was the Soviet modification of the German Messina radio control system.
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debris showered down, I felt sorry for the airplane. This hydrogen bomb carrier 

could not pose a threat for the U.S., our potential enemy.

At the very end of 1953, there was a meeting of the Central Committee Presidium, at which Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Malyshev, the new head of the atomic 

agency (the Ministry of Medium Machine Building) and simultaneously deputy 

chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, made a statement about the latest 

achievements in nuclear weaponry development.8

Two resolutions were passed at this meeting. The first had to do with the development and testing of a new thermonuclear bomb. Unlike the hydrogen bomb 

that was detonated on 12 August, this one was to be suitable for transport. Andrey 

Sakharov proposed the idea for this new “article.”9 The second resolution committed 

our ministry (at that time it was called the Ministry of Defense Industry) to develop 

an intercontinental ballistic missile for the thermonuclear warhead and tasked the 

Ministry of Aviation Industry with developing an intercontinental cruise missile. 

But until there was an intercontinental missile, this same Council of Ministers resolution proposed that we develop the R-5M missile, identical to the R-5 missile, but 

with a nuclear warhead.

Andrey Sakharov wrote about these resolutions in his Memoirs:

In essence, this meant that the weight of the thermonuclear charge, as well as the 

dimensions of the missile, had been fixed on the basis of my report. The program for 

an enormous organization was set in this manner for many years to come. The rocket 

designed for that program launched the first artificial satellite into orbit in 1957, and 

also the spacecraft with [Yuriy] Gagarin aboard in 1961. The thermonuclear charge 

that provided the original rationale for all this, however, fizzled out, and was replaced 

by something quite different.10

What constituted an intercontinental missile was still not very clear at that time. 

By that time we had conducted very meticulous, but still only exploratory work. 

First and foremost I should mention the design of the R-3 missile. The N-3 project 

and its subsequent refinement in the T-1 project were a continuation of the quest 

for ways of achieving intercontinental ranges. The T-1 project entailed the study 

of various layouts, making it possible to develop a two-stage ballistic missile with a 

8. In 1953, the First, Second, and Third Main Directorates of the USSR Council of Ministers, 

which managed the nuclear weapons, uranium procurement, and air defense programs, respectively, 

were consolidated into the “super” Ministry of Medium Machine Building headed by V. A. Malyshev. 

Between 1953 and 1955, this ministry managed all strategic weapons development in the Soviet 

Union.

9. Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov (1921–89) was a Soviet nuclear physicist and “father” of the 

Soviet hydrogen bomb who would later become an outspoken advocate for human rights and reform 

in the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

10. Andrey Sakharov, Memoirs (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), p. 181.

tests with a control surface actuator that was deliberately disconnected. Mrykin supported us, but spitefully asked, “You’re not going to insist that this missile have an 

atomic warhead on it, I hope?” We promised we wouldn’t insist. We allowed ourselves to joke around like this until we started dealing with the legendary nuclear 

experts.

Now that we are faced with the fact that a nuclear missile war can 

not only destroy a government, but could also annihilate life on Earth, it is 

instructive to recall the history behind the emergence of the term “nuclear missile 

weaponry.” A nuclear weapon was used for the first time by the Americans in 1945. 

The R-1 and R-2 missiles were put into service in 1950 and 1951, respectively. And 

it wasn’t until 1953 that fully practicable ideas appeared for combining the two 

types of armaments, which earlier had been developed completely independently. 

After these two achievements of the human mind and modern technology were 

combined, all the previously existing principles of war developed by many theoreticians were only of historical interest.

The practical beginning of the development of the R-5M missile was the first 

step toward turning a missile into a weapon of mass destruction. In August 1953, 

Malenkov, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, delivered a report at a session 

of the USSR Supreme Soviet. His report contained many new statements on foreign 

and domestic policy. At the end of his speech, he said that the USSR had everything 

for its defense; it had its own hydrogen bomb.

We had already had our first contact with the nuclear experts, as we had started 

designing the R-5M missile, our atomic bomb carrier, but we had not yet heard 

anything from them about this new weapon, the hydrogen bomb. And it was not 

our custom to ask questions that a person was forbidden to answer. Tests on the first 

hydrogen bomb in the USSR were conducted on 12 August 1953. It was impossible to hide this from the world. Physicists had already learned to record each test 

nuclear explosion no matter where it took place.

But we could not help but ask ourselves, and one must assume that we were not 

alone in asking, how would this bomb be delivered to its target? In 1953, air defense 

missiles were being developed fairly successfully. From our firing range in Kapustin 

Yar we had the opportunity to observe the effectiveness of Lavochkin’s new surfaceto-air guided missiles, which were being tested at the air defense firing range about 

30 kilometers from us. As targets, they used airplanes controlled by autopilot after 

the crew had bailed out.

Once, we saw a Tu-4 flying at high altitude. It was a reproduction of the American Boeing B-29, the last model of the Super Fortress. These were the aircraft that 

dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We had been warned in 

advance about the testing of Lavochkin’s new surface-to-air missiles. In the bright 

rays of the morning sun, I could not make out the missile’s hurtling flight. But 

when, against the backdrop of the clear blue sky, instead of the distinct contour of 

an airplane a formless gray cloud appeared, from which some sort of shimmering 
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88. I remember a meeting in late 1953 with Samvel Grigoryevich Kocheryants and 

General Nikolay Leonidovich Dukhov. Kocheryants worked in the now famous, 

but then top-secret city of Arzamas-16, where he was directly involved in the 

design of the atomic bomb.13 Dukhov had received the title Hero of Socialist Labor 

during the war. He was the chief designer of heavy tanks, including the IS tank.14 In 

Moscow he was assigned to head the design bureau and factory that were developing 

and manufacturing all of the electroautomatic controls for the atomic bomb and 

later also for the hydrogen bomb. Viktor Zuyevskiy, the leading specialist on atomic 

electroautomatic controls, was in charge of developing the general electrical system 

and integrating it with the missile’s system. For that reason, my dealings were first 

and foremost with him.

In Arzamas-16 they were developing the warhead itself and its mechanical 

framework. The later famous physicists Yuliy Khariton, Yakov Zeldovich, Andrey 

Sakharov, Kirill Shchelkin, Samvel Kocheryants, and many others lived and worked 

in Arzamas-16 itself. We couldn’t exactly understand the division of responsibilities among them at that time. But we clearly understood that there was a division 

between great theoreticians, who were removed from the pedestrian problems of 

reliability, and engineers/unskilled workers, who were responsible for the construction down to the last nut and bolt.

In his memoirs, Andrey Sakharov described who was who among the physicists, 

with descriptions of their essentially human qualities. Evidently, he had little contact with the designers and those who actually manufactured, assembled, and tested 

the “article” with their own hands. At that time, for secrecy’s sake everything was 

called an “article” (izdeliye). That’s what we called our missile, and that’s what the 

nuclear experts called their atomic and hydrogen bombs.

Besides the simple “article” concept, there was also the more complex “article 

in its entirety.” It turned out that Dukhov was responsible for the “article in its 

entirety” since the “article” equipped with the nuclear explosive could only be actuated by the second part, a case stuffed with all sorts of automatic electronic control 

devices. The entire “article in its entirety” needed to be contained in the R-5M payload section. And to do this required the joint work of designers from Arzamas-16 

and our group headed by Sadovyy.

At our institute, Sadovyy’s group was treated like a delegation from a foreign 

country. It had special rooms closed off from other work rooms and had its own 

top-secret records management system so that documents containing nuclear secrets 

would not make their way around every “Department No. 1” (information security 

departments) and dozens of administrators.

13. Arzamas-16 was the closed city where one of the Soviet Union’s two major nuclear weapons 

laboratories was founded.

14. The IS, named after Joseph [Iosif] Stalin, was a series of wartime heavy tanks such as the IS-1, 

IS-2, and IS-3.

range of 7,000 to 8,000 kilometers.11

The R-3 missile design was never realized. Perhaps that is for the best. It would 

have taken a great deal of manpower, and the 3,000-kilometer range that was envisioned for it would not have made it substantially better than the actual R-5 missile 

and its nuclear modification, the R-5M.

Work on the N-3 project was officially finished in 1951. In the findings, Korolev 

wrote that “the most reliable path to achieving a flight range of 7,000 to 8,000 

kilometers is to create a two-stage ballistic missile ...” However, the thermonuclear 

warhead that Sakharov proposed in 1953 could not be delivered to a range of 8,000 

kilometers by a two-stage missile that had a launch mass of 170 metric tons. I am 

not able to judge to what extent Andrey Sakharov personally determined the design 

and weight of the warhead intended for the first intercontinental missile. But certainly, Sakharov’s actions required the development of the missile we designed under 

the code number R-7. And so, Sakharov’s name must also be mentioned in the history of cosmonautics!

We were first exposed to nuclear secrets in 1953. Korolev formed an especially restricted group to work on the first nuclear missile payload. Officially this 

group, which was headed by Viktor Sadovyy, was part of the design department 

subordinate to Konstantin Bushuyev.12 Correspondence with the nuclear experts 

was classified at least “top secret.” But, in addition, papers also appeared stamped 

“Critical.” But documents weren’t the only sources of “critical” government secrets.

Nuclear weaponry was developed in closed cities where not only simple mortals 

but even we who had access to top-secret projects were denied entry and passage 

without orders. These cities did not appear on a single geographical map. It wasn’t 

until the 1990s, from a plethora of sensational publications, that the public was 

able to piece together an idea about the work conditions of the country’s best physicists, scientists of other specialties, and finally, of the workers, servicemen, and their 

family members in those cities.

Our first personal contacts with nuclear experts began with their visit to NII11. Here, Chertok is referring to a set of research projects that preceded the development of the 

final ICBM. In 1948–53, various Soviet organizations engaged in three major R&D projects designed 

to study a single-stage missile (the R-3) with a range of 3,000 kilometers, a missile using storable 

propellants, and exploratory work on an intercontinental ballistic missile. These study projects were 

known as N-1, N-2, and N-3, respectively. On termination of these R&D themes, two new R&D 

studies were performed in 1953–55, T-1 and T-2, focused on future intercontinental ballistic and 

cruise missiles, respectively. All five of these studies were carried out simultaneously and in coordination 

by several leading missile development organizations, including NII-88, NII-4, and institutes of the 

Academy of Sciences. The research led directly to the eventual creation of the first Soviet ICBM, the 

famous R-7.

12. Konstantin Davydovich Bushuyev (1914–78) served as deputy chief designer in OKB-1 in 

1954–72, during which period he managed several important human spaceflight projects. In 1972–

75, he served as Soviet chief of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP).
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the launch vehicle and all of its onboard and ground-based systems and to check 

out the documentation ensuring reliable operation. We began flight-development 

tests in the spring of 1955, just a year and a half after the R-5 missile flight tests 

ended. Fourteen R-5M missiles were presented for the first phase. In addition to 

redundancy in the guidance system, other measures were implemented in this series 

to enhance its reliability. The engine underwent numerous firing rig launch tests in 

extreme modes that substantially exceeded the nominal. The onboard instruments 

were first shaken and “fried and steamed,” eliminating anything that might have 

stirred doubts during laboratory and factory tests.

We also developed a new emergency Automatic Missile Destruction (APR) 

system.16 If, as a result of inflight malfunctions, the missile were to stray sharply 

away from the target or threaten to strike our own territory instead of the enemy’s, 

it needed to be destroyed in flight. But! The question was how to destroy it without scattering the radioactive fallout where it wasn’t supposed to go. I was personally responsible for developing the APR system. Nikolay Dukhov, chief designer 

of the atomic “article in its entirety,” reassured me that “all you have to do is give 

us an electrical signal indicating there’s a problem and that the missile needs to be 

destroyed. We’ll take care of the rest.”

The atomic bomb contained a rather powerful charge of conventional explosive, 

which was used as the detonator for the atomic explosion. How could we actuate 

this detonator without destroying the atomic warhead? Korolev wanted me to provide the answer to this question. I asked Korolev to request an explanation from the 

inventors, confessing that the nuclear experts had not explained this secret to me.

Korolev scolded me for not adhering to his philosophy; he added, in that case he 

would raise an objection to using an APR system. Anything could set off this dangerous system; and then we would be guilty of causing a nuclear explosion! Since all 

first-phase flight tests were conducted without a nuclear warhead, the APR system 

could fly without a fuss and have its reliability verified in telemetry mode.

The development of separating payloads for the R-2 and R-5, which were 

designed to carry a conventional TNT warhead of 800 to 1,200 kilograms, was 

not particularly complicated. Ivan Prudnikov was the chief developer of payload 

sections. His direct boss was Korolev’s deputy, Konstantin Bushuyev. Our factory’s 

job was to manufacture the conical steel housing, apply the thermal-protective coating, and run the cable from the control system to the percussion fuse, which was 

installed only at the launch site.

To rig the payload sections with explosives, engineers sent them to “powder” 

factories, where this operation did not pose a complex technical problem. All of the 

performers understood everything right down to the size of the crater that should be 

produced in the impact zone by a warhead rigged with conventional explosives.

16. APR—Avtomaticheskiy podryv rakety.

We were faced with developing a process for the joint testing of two “articles in 

their entirety” after their integration, along with a whole multistage engineering 

operations plan at the launch site. Korolev delegated this work to Voskresenskiy’s 

young deputy, Yevgeniy Shabarov. Why not to Voskresenskiy himself? Here, for 

the umpteenth time, I witnessed Korolev’s knack for selecting the right people for 

the job. Voskresenskiy was a top-notch tester, endowed with exceptional intuition. 

Someone aptly encapsulated his personality, remarking that if he had been a pilot, 

he would have taken risks like Valeriy Chkalov.15 Guerrilla operations like that of 

Voskresenskiy were, however, absolutely inadmissible in relations with the nuclear 

experts. Besides the basic operations, the process also needed to be formalized concisely and methodically.

What would happen if a missile containing an atomic bomb toppled over at the 

launch site during preparation because of something akin to the sloppiness mentioned earlier when they failed to seal the tank containing sodium permanganate? 

The nuclear experts’ work procedure called for a triple check of all assembly and 

testing operations. The head of assembly or testing would hold the instructions 

and listen as the tester read aloud the steps of an operation. For example: “Unscrew 

five bolts securing such-and-such a cover.” The performer of the operation would 

unscrew them. A third participant in the operations would report: “Five such-andsuch bolts have been unscrewed.” The controller, a military acceptance representative, would report that he accepted the operation’s execution. A notation to that 

effect was made in the appropriate document. Only after this could the entire team 

move on to the next operation. Work went slowly and scrupulously, with the mandatory reading aloud and mandatory reporting aloud about the execution of an 

operation and a notation to that effect in a special process logbook.

We did not usually have these strict formalities in the missile industry. When 

Shabarov told Korolev about this whole procedure, the latter decided that since 

we were going to be working together, we needed “to show them that we were just 

as good.” As far as our own work was concerned, for the R-5M missile we needed 

to revisit all the instructions on the preparation procedure at the engineering and 

launch sites and also implement a triple check procedure. The primary operator 

was to be from the military (an officer or a soldier); he would be monitored by 

another officer from the appropriate firing range division and, always, an industry 

representative.

There were to be two phases of testing on the R-5M, which had been assigned 

the military designation 8K51: flight-development tests and qualification tests. 

During the flight-development tests, the intent was to optimize the reliability of 

15. Valeriy Pavlovich Chkalov (1904–38) was one of the greatest Soviet pilots of the interwar years, 

who gained fame during the 1930s when the Soviet government used worldwide aviation exploits to 

legitimize its various claims to greatness on an international and domestic stage. He completed the first 

nonstop Moscow-to-U.S. flight over the North Pole in a single-engine ANT-25 in June 1937.
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bombs. In our case, they could not take on responsibility for normal separation 

from the missile and integrity of the payload section along the descent path until it 

hit the Earth’s surface.

During their first meetings with Korolev, Khariton, Kocheryants, and Dukhov 

announced that the conditions that would affect their “article”—vibrations, loads, 

temperatures, and atmospheric pressure—needed to be cleared with them and we 

must guarantee the proper conditions, not only in flight, but during all instances 

of ground preparation. We learned for the first time that the “article” had problems 

with low temperature. It turned out that on days when the temperature dropped 

below freezing it was necessary to put an insulating cover on the payload section and 

maintain a specific temperature. Even the payload’s interior layout was the object 

of joint study.

“Our automatic electronic controls are a lot more complex than your APR,” said 

Viktor Zuyevskiy after his first encounter with our system. “We’re not going to connect with your onboard power sources. We’ll have our own independent sources. 

But we have to obtain information from the control system so that the safety inhibitors can be removed stage by stage and our system can be prepared for activation.”

We imagined in the most general terms the form of an airborne atomic bomb 

from the secret lectures that a general from the engineering aviation service, specially invited by Korolev, presented to us in 1953 at the firing range. He spent a 

great deal of time trying to explain the principle of the explosive chain reaction. 

But when it came to describing the specific technology of combining two or more 

pieces of uranium-235 of noncritical mass into one supercritical mass, he proved 

“incompetent.”

Bushuyev and the immediate designers of the R-5M payload section, Prudnikov 

and Vorontsov, and Sadovyy, who maintained a direct communications link with 

Arzamas-16, coordinated the dimensions and fixtures of the individual payload 

parts on paper down to hundredths of millimeters, but no one explained to them 

what would be inside. When it came to interfacing the electrical connections and 

our missile systems, I dealt with Dukhov, Zuyevskiy, and their colleagues at what 

had once been the aviation industry’s Factory No. 25.

The creators of the atomic bomb, including Yu. B. Khariton, at first underestimated the problem of creating automation and all the electrical instrumentation 

for nuclear warheads. A search for facilities to develop these systems resulted in the 

selection of aviation industry instrument Factory No. 25. The chief designer at this 

factory was A. F. Fedoseyev, whom I already knew through our work developing the 

electrical circuitry for the Lavochkin surface-to-air missiles, and the factory director 

was the first Hero of the Soviet Union, polar pilot A. V. Lyapidevskiy.

Yu. B. Khariton considered it unacceptable to develop, in a ministry other than 

his own, the automation controlling a nuclear explosion. The all-powerful Beriya 

was no longer around, but, nevertheless, Khariton, with Malenkov’s aid, managed to 

A fundamental difference between a missile warhead and an aerial bomb was 

the requirement to destroy the missile in flight if it decided to fly somewhere “out 

of bounds” rather than into the target area. The aforementioned APR system was 

developed for this very event. Aleksandra Melikova and Aleksandr Pronin developed 

the logic and electrical circuitry for this “scary” system. Semyon Chizhikov was 

directly responsible for developing the automatic control instruments. The APR 

system was considered particularly “scary” because its false, or as the instructions 

stated, “off-nominal,” actuation could lead to the detonation of the warhead on 

the missile’s normal flight trajectory in the best case and, in the worst case, at the 

launch site during launch preparation. After heated arguments and analysis of failed 

launches during flight tests and of the many criteria for determining accident rates, 

only two were selected: premature shutdown of engine operation and missile deviation by more than seven angular degrees from the specified value of any of three 

angles monitored by the gyroscopes.

Multistage inhibitors were removed as each launch preparation phase was completed; over the course of the flight they provided protection against a false command. The first inhibitor was called “arming APR system.” This meant that right 

before the launch, power was fed to the system’s main buses, allowing it to execute 

its task if this were required. In principle, until the missile lost contact with the 

launch system, the APR command could not be transmitted. The second inhibitor 

was provided by the “liftoff contact” signal. The third protective inhibitor was time. 

Regardless of the nature of the failure, an explosion was not supposed to be possible 

until a specific second of the flight. There were very many disputes as to precisely 

what moment that would be. For the R-5 missile we set an inhibitor for the 40th 

second.

During flight-development tests of missiles not equipped with a warhead, the 

APR execution command was replaced with the Emergency Engine Shutdown 

(AVD) command in the event that the missile with its engine running deviated 

significantly from the specified impact zone.17

After they had familiarized themselves with our achievements in safety engineering and test procedures, the nuclear experts announced that, when a nuclear 

warhead was present, they would take over the development of all types of emergency and nominal detonation and all inhibitors, right down to the detonating 

fuses. Nuclear warheads were complex systems, and we weren’t allowed to come near 

them. As for the payload section, if they had had the appropriate manufacturing 

facility at their disposal, they would have completely taken over the manufacture of 

the entire payload section. In any event, that is what they did with airborne atomic 

17. AVD—Avariynoye vyklyucheniye dvigatelya.
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required not only official interactions, but also good old-fashioned, face-to-face 

shop talk. Now the nuclear experts were forced to share their professional secrets 

with us.

The preparation and launch of history’s first ballistic missile carrying a nuclear 

warhead in February 1956 provided good training in interaction between missile 

specialists and the developers of nuclear warheads. This association marked the 

beginning of the era of nuclear-tipped missiles, the hottest weapon of the coldest 

war.

We introduced the concept of “combat readiness” into the R-5M preparation 

procedure, and for each of them we developed a process-oriented plan of actions 

for the missile teams. The preparation process called for conducting all sorts of 

tests before the warhead was attached at the launch site. The missile was hauled 

out to the launching pad like a “headless horseman.” They assembled and prepared 

the warhead for integration with the missile in a special building with particularly 

high security. The new secret building for the firing range, which we had made our 

“home,” was erected three kilometers from the R-5M launch site. A tall fence surrounded the area around the building. This first nuclear facility at the missile firing 

range was guarded by special troop subunits of the KGB that were formed during 

Lavrentiy Beriya’s tenure as the head of the entire nuclear project. The nuclear personnel stayed in a separate hotel constructed for them. For that reason, aside from 

our on-the-job contact, we almost never ran into the nuclear experts. Even when it 

came to the motor transport service that the firing range services provided for us in 

full, they had their own.

The missile’s payload section was equipped with various sensors and a telemetry 

system to determine the conditions that the warhead would be exposed to in flight. 

Once and for all, the prepared payload section containing the nuclear warhead was 

placed inside a special thermally insulated vehicle that delivered it to the launching 

pad. Integration with the missile took place right at the launch site.

The missile arrived at the launch site in a special transport assembly along with 

the firing table. This assembly placed the missile and payload in a vertical position. 

After performing the laying operations and installing the onboard batteries, they 

checked out the “ground-to-missile” power switchover and, just in case, the “abort 

launch” system. Next came the fueling operations, and then the standby-for-launch 

command was issued. One had to be able to perform all of these operations reliably 

not just during the day, but also at night using portable lights.

Flight-development tests were conducted from January through July 1955. Of 

the 17 missiles launched, 15 missiles reached the target. Two missiles deviated by 

more than the seven degrees permitted and the engine was shut down by the APR 

system.

Five missiles were submitted for qualification tests. The payload sections of four 

were equipped with functioning mock-ups of a nuclear warhead. Essentially these 

were not mock-ups since they were equipped with everything that was required for 

a nuclear explosion except for the products initiating the chain reaction. Ground 

have Factory No. 25 transferred from the Ministry of Aviation Industry to the Ministry of Medium Machine Building. The factory was converted into KB-11’s Branch 

No. 1.18 Nikolay Dukhov became the director and chief designer of Branch No. 1 

in 1954. When in 1954 I first visited the site that I had earlier known as Factory 

No. 25, Fedoseyev and Lyapidevskiy were no longer there. Former chief designer 

of super-heavy tanks, three-time Hero of Socialist Labor Nikolay Dukhov mastered 

what was for him a completely new field of technology extremely quickly.

Despite all the prohibitions, the nuclear experts were forced to reveal their basic 

“secrets” to us. It turned out that there was no uranium in the atomic bomb! It 

was the plutonium that exploded! The plutonium was produced from uranium in 

nuclear reactors. The process for obtaining plutonium was complex and labor intensive, resulting in a large number of fatalities from radiation exposure. Even many of 

the leading specialists who first developed the chemical process for extracting plutonium were exposed to life-threatening doses of radiation. And all of this was taking 

place, not at Arzamas-16, but in the Urals in another closed city.19

To make a warhead, they formed a sphere from a noncritical mass of plutonium. 

They then surrounded the sphere with a solid spherical mass of TNT or a mixture 

of TNT and another conventional explosive. The surface was finished with great 

precision and contained a large number of fuses that were supposed to be actuated 

synchronously with a time scatter of microseconds. The explosion of the conventional explosive was directed so as to form a converging spherical blast wave that 

squeezed the globular mass of fissionable plutonium and converted it into a supercritical state. However, this did not guarantee a chain reaction. In order to start a 

full-fledged chain reaction, one more detonator was needed. This was the neutron 

detonator, which “sprayed” neutrons inside the collapsing sphere.

The complex electrical device needed for the neutron triggering of the blast was 

the “neutron gun.” High voltage, up to 20,000 volts, was used to trigger all the detonators. The weight of the entire nuclear warhead was determined not by the weight 

of the active plutonium but of the heavy steel hull, the interior walls of which acted 

as neutron “deflectors.” The automatic controls, safety inhibitor electrical elements, 

and communications with the missile guidance system were contained in a separate 

unit inside the payload and were connected with the missile’s electrical circuitry via 

a pressurized plug-and-socket connector on the bottom of the payload container.

During flight tests the nuclear “article in its entirety” was first tested without 

plutonium. Coordinating the test conditions and analyzing the results inevitably 

18. KB-11, formed in 1946, was the leading design bureau assigned to develop the first Soviet 

atomic and thermonuclear weapons. It was located at Arzamas-16 near the industrial city of Gorky 

and headed by Yu. B. Khariton.

19. The Soviet government set up a competitor organization in competition with the original KB11 in 1954. The new organization, NII-1011, was established at a closed facility in Chelyabinsk-70, and 

competed through the 1960s with KB-11 for contracts to develop new generations of thermonuclear 

weapons.
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to the problems of the R-7 intercontinental missile, 

at a small gathering, Korolev remarked “with great 

secrecy,” “Do you know what they told me? The 

yield of the blast was greater than Hiroshima.”

Ryazanskiy joked grimly, “And you’re not afraid 

that someday they’ll try us as war criminals?”

The R-5M missile was put into service in March 

1956. Many years later I met up with Lieutenant 

General Academician Yevgeyiy Arkadiyevich Negin. 

He had been elected to the Academy of Sciences in 

our department of mechanics and control problems. 

All of his nuclear science and technology colleagues 

were in the physics and power engineering departments. He usually didn’t associate with any of us. 

Nevertheless, I managed to get him to talk with me 

about the events of 1956. Regarding the yield of the 

warhead carried by the R-5M missile launched on 2 

February 1956, he said that the missile head carried a 

warhead with a yield of less than 3 kilotons, whereas 

they only put warheads of 80 kilotons or more on 

missiles that went into service. Several years later, 

instead of nuclear warheads, they started to come 

out with thermonuclear warheads with equivalent 

yields up to one megaton for the R-5M missiles that 

had already been put into service and were on duty 

in the Baltics, Crimea, and Far East.

Soon after the first successful launch of an R5M missile with a real nuclear warhead, Korolev 

and Mishin were awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor. Another 20 NII-88 employees, including 

me, received the Order of Lenin. The enthusiasm 

that our entire team had for our work was strengthened by the government decree awarding an Order 

of Lenin to NII-88.

We had a real celebration on our street during this time, when work on the development of the first R-7 intercontinental missile was in full swing. Glushko, Barmin, 

Ryazanskiy, Pilyugin, and Kuznetsov received the gold stars of Heroes of Socialist 

Labor. A large number of individuals who were involved in projects in almost all of 

the subcontracting organizations were generously awarded orders and medals.

During work on the R-5M and R-7, Korolev often arranged social gatherings 

with leading and crème de la crème of the nuclear experts. We joked that he invited 

an “exclusive group of narrow-minded people” to a party with famous scientists. 

Mishin, Bushuyev, Prudnikov, and Sadovyy from our institute were also usually at 

The R-5M was the first Soviet 

ballistic missile capable of 

carrying a nuclear warhead. 

In February 1956, the R-5M 

was launched with a live 

nuclear charge as a test of its 

reliability.

Asif Siddiqi.

personnel checked out the integration with the missile’s systems, the preparation 

process, and the inflight operating reliability of all the automatic controls. Launches 

began in the cold January of 1956. Four launches proceeded normally. The last 

launch, the fifth, was the worst of the worst. Korolev was on edge because of delays 

with the missile preparation. By no means did he want to let Nikolay Pavlov, who 

had supervised the preparation of the payload section and warhead, report to State 

Commission Chairman Nedelin that the warhead was prepared for rollout, but that 

the missile specialists were causing a launch delay.

As deputy technical director, I was responsible for missile preparation at the 

engineering facility. There we had conducted stand-alone tests on all the systems 

and integrated horizontal tests on the entire missile with the electrical equivalent of 

the payload section. Leonid Voskresenskiy had the same title and was responsible at 

the launch site for preparatory operations and launch execution.

Korolev delegated Shabarov to maintain contact with the nuclear experts’ facility and to observe them throughout the preparation of the entire payload section. 

Shabarov was admitted to that “Mecca” only after warhead deputy chief designer 

Yevgeniy Negin arrived at the firing range. That night, I reported to Korolev about 

a glitch that occurred during tests on the stabilization controller. I recommended 

replacing the amplifier-converter and repeating horizontal tests, but that would 

require another three to four hours. He answered, “Take your time. Their neutron 

gun failed, too.” My knowledge of nuclear technology wasn’t sufficient to grasp 

what that meant and how much time we had gained.

I reported to Korolev that all the glitches had been eliminated and asked, “How 

are they doing with their gun?” He said, “Drop by and I’ll explain.” Despite the late 

hour, Voskresenskiy and Shabarov were sitting in Korolev’s hotel room, which also 

served as his office. They had already reported for the umpteenth time on readiness 

and the operational procedure in effect at the launch site after the payload section 

containing the nuclear warhead arrived there in the “specially guarded vehicle.”

Korolev had received very scanty information from Negin as to what a “neutron 

gun” was and why it was capable of holding up a launch. He understood only that 

the nuclear experts were reassuring themselves and were checking out all their automatic controls again and again.

On 2 February 1956, for the first time in history the R-5M carried a missile 

armed with a nuclear warhead through space. After flying the prescribed 1,200 

kilometers without breaking up, the warhead reached the Earth in the Kara-Kum 

desert near the Aral Sea. The impact fuse went off and the surface nuclear explosion 

marked the beginning of the nuclear missile era in human history. No publicity 

followed this historic event. American technology did not have the means to detect 

missile launches. Therefore, they recorded the nuclear explosion as a routine nuclear 

weapon ground test.

We congratulated one another and wiped out the entire champagne supply, which 

until then had been zealously protected in the pantry of the executive dining room. 

Later, after we had returned from the firing range and had once again readjusted 
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to a very narrow segment of the academic community, this was a victory signifying 

that they believed in him, that they were placing their bets on him. Back then, it was 

impossible to be elected to the Academy of Sciences against the will of the Central 

Committee. Moreover, if the Central Committee felt that someone absolutely must 

be elected, then the academicians were persuaded to implement such decisions.

At this same general assembly of the Academy, the scientific director of Arzamas16, essentially the most important chief designer of nuclear warheads, Yuliy Borisovich Khariton was elected an Academy member. Khariton’s deputy, Kirill Ivanovich 

Shchelkin, and Nikolay Leonidovich Dukhov were elected corresponding members. 

The general assembly also elected doctor of physical and mathematical sciences, 32-

year-old Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov, straight into the ranks of full academicians 

without first passing through the traditional corresponding member ranks.

All of the nuclear experts at the Academy meeting had been decorated with one 

or two of the gold stars worn by Heroes of Socialist Labor. Before 1953, when the 

opportunity arose, enemies of Korolev and Glushko used to reproach them that all 

their work was nothing more than the reproduction of German technology. Their 

inclusion in such a glittering constellation was to a certain extent an advance payment. No one else from among the Council of Chiefs members was elected to the 

Academy of Sciences in 1953. Of the scientists who had collaborated with us, only 

Vadim Trapeznikov and Boris Petrov were elected corresponding members. The 

1953 elections marked the beginning of the establishment within the Academy of 

Sciences of a powerful coalition of rocket scientists who had worked in the militaryindustrial complex.

From the standpoint of “fundamental” Big Science, our work differed from that 

of the nuclear experts. We began to develop our own school of missiles, relying on 

technology, production engineering, and pure engineering science. As soon as we 

delved into projects involving the intercontinental missile, we ran up against problems requiring fundamental research, which in academic circles they liked to call 

Big Science.

At the beginning of their careers, almost all of the nuclear experts were theoreticians, servants of pure science, or experimental physicists. They worshipped science for science’s sake, above all because mankind had to know why the world 

was arranged this way and not any other way; they wished to discover its building 

blocks. And then when they had figured out that the conversion of a substance 

into energy—which could be theoretically explained on paper—could be realized 

in practice, they had to recruit engineers and throw themselves into the problems 

of technology.

the gatherings that I often attended there. Several times Yuliy Borisovich Khariton, 

Kirill Ivanovich Shchelkin, and Nikolay Leonidovich Dukhov attended. They were 

always accompanied by “secretaries,” that is, KGB officers, whose lives were on the 

line to keep their charges safe and out of trouble.

Not once during our joint work did I have the opportunity to meet with Sakharov. In his memoirs, Sakharov writes that he had been at our facility and met with 

Korolev:

... after we returned to the Installation, Malyshev organied a series of ‘excursions’ for 

us, including a trip through a ballistic missile plant where I met [Sergey] Korolev, the 

chief designer, for the first time. We had always thought our own work was conducted 

on a grand scale, but this was something of a different order. I was struck by the level 

of technical culture: hundreds of highly skilled professionals coordinated their work on 

the fantastic objects they were producing, all in a quite matter-of-fact, efficient manner. 

Korolev explained things and showed us some films.20

On 23 October 1953, Korolev and Glushko were elected corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences. For Korolev, who was at that time known 

20. Sakharov, Memoirs, p. 177.

This famous picture, known as the “Three K’s”, has been prominently reproduced in many 

Russian books for it shows the three scientific giants of the Soviet military-industrial 

complex: (from the right) Sergey Korolev, Igor Kurchatov (the “father” of the Soviet Abomb), and Mstislav Keldysh (later President of the USSR Academy of Sciences). On the 

extreme left is Korolev’s first deputy (“first among the deputies”) Vasiliy Mishin. In most 

reproductions of the photograph, Mishin’s image was typically cut out, especially during 

Mishin’s “banishment” from public view prior to the late 1980s. The image dates from July 

1959 when Korolev, Mishin, and Keldysh visited Kurchatov’s institute.

From the author’s archives.

Chapter 16

The Seven Problems of the R-7 

Missile

The creation of an intercontinental missile carrying a thermonuclear warhead 

required large capital investments for constructing new production facilities and 

test rigs and for searching for a new firing range.1

All the work on the new missile stemmed from a Communist Party and government decree issued in 1954. Specialists from all of the affiliated ministries pored 

over the draft of the new resolution before its submission to the Central Committee 

and government. As always, they wanted to anticipate all eventualities, maximize 

the return on the investment, and overlook nothing and no one. However, many 

years of experience had shown that no matter how thoroughly such resolutions were 

prepared, several days after they were issued, it seemed that something had always 

been left out. That’s when you heard the comforting words, “Wait for the next one. 

You are not the only ones who are forgetful.”

The Council of Ministers and Central Committee resolution on the development of the R-7 intercontinental missile was issued on 20 May 1954. The first 

launch of the first missile took place on 15 May 1957. What a lot we had to accomplish over those three years! In May 1954, we didn’t even have a draft plan! Now it is 

difficult for me to imagine how we managed to do a job like that. After all, we were 

working on the R-11, R-11FM, R-5, and R-5M missiles at the same time.

By early 1956, we had not yet performed the first test of a missile carrying a 

nuclear warhead, and just a year later, in 1957, we were already taking a stab at a 

missile carrying a thermonuclear warhead!

Beginning in 1954, we were confronted with one difficult scientific, technical, 

or organizational problem after another. We hadn’t, however, identified or even recognized all of these problems during the time we were drawing up the R-7 missile’s 

draft plan. The design was issued in 1954, in record time.2 We acknowledged the 

need for many new modifications on the already developed design of the missile, as 

well as during subsequent experimental research.

1. Author’s note: The mass of the warhead along with its payload container was 5.5 tons.

2. The R-7 draft plan was officially signed on 24 July 1954.

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precise velocity measurement would be performed with only the control engines in 

operation. Upon reaching the specified velocity, they would shut down with virtually no aftereffect burn. Glushko, however, refused to produce control engines. He 

had enough to worry about with the main engines, and he was already in danger of 

missing the deadline for completing them. At Vasiliy Mishin’s initiative, we invited 

Mikhail Melnikov, Ivan Raykov, and Boris Sokolov to join OKB-1 to develop control engines. The three of them had gotten stuck at NII-1 with Keldysh after Isayev 

had left with his engine specialists.4

Our factory was already producing engines, but only Isayev’s high-boiling component liquid-propellant engines for antiaircraft missiles and the R-11. We needed 

once again to set up the production of low-thrust liquid-oxygen engines and create 

a ground station for all sorts of tests, including firing tests. I should note that back 

in Bleicherode, Pilyugin and I had dreamed of a system without jet vanes.

Mishin was all for this idea and took it further. If you can do away with jet vanes 

in the central sustainer, then why keep them on first stage strapon boosters? We came 

to a revolutionary decision: there would be absolutely no graphite jet vanes on the 

missile. The missile’s entire ascent would be guided by the control engines, which 

would use the same propellant components as the main engines and would receive 

power from the same turbopump assemblies. Glushko had developed essentially a 

single engine with four combustion chambers for the first and second stages. Now 

to this engine on the second stage, we added four more small vernier thrusters, and 

on the first stage, two small chambers on each engine of the strapon boosters. The 

draft plan had called for three jet vanes and one aerodynamic fin on each strapon 

booster for control. We decided to replace both the jet vanes and aerodynamic fins 

on the strapon boosters (with control engines) only after defense of the draft plan. 

At that time, it was a revolutionary design.

Instead of a single combustion chamber, which we were accustomed to dealing 

with on any missile, all of a sudden there were 32! This design is almost 40 years 

old. But not only is it not aging, it is now experiencing a third youth. Thirty-two 

chambers required systems to control the preparation of turbopump assemblies for 

startup, the opening of dozens of valves in the required sequence, and the simultaneous ignition and subsequent operation in all modes.

Our responsibility for the coordination of operations in the OKB-1—OKB456—NII-885 triangle increased dramatically. OKB-1 developed the general 

hydraulic system; NII-885, the general electrical system; and OKB-456, the engines’ 

layout and thrust sequence. It wasn’t easy for Glushko to agree to have another 12 

oscillating chambers hooked up to his propulsion systems! But Mishin’s uncompromising stand plus the enthusiasm of the Melnikov-Raykov-Sokolov team showed 

an unusual way out of a hopeless predicament. It also cleared the way for many 

4. Isayev’s engine group moved from NII-1 to NII-88 in July 1948.

I will allow myself to list just a few of the solutions that were fundamentally new 

for missile technology of that time. They are also illustrative in that they completely 

refute statements expressed in some Peenemünde veterans’ memoirs and some foreign publications to the effect that supposedly the Russians got the first artificial 

Earth satellite because of a launch vehicle developed with the assistance of German 

scientists. In fact, the R-7 missile is noteworthy in that developing it we were negating to a great extent our past achievements that had used German ideas.

I shall not list the problems in order of their importance. To one extent or 

another, they all required heroic work, inventiveness, collective brainstorming, and 

tremendous organizational efforts.

Problem number one. After researching and designing alternative layouts for a 

two-stage missile, a clustered version was selected. The first stage consisted of four 

strapon boosters surrounding a central sustainer, which was also the second stage.3

We had no experience firing a powerful liquid propellant rocket engine in space. 

Glushko could not guarantee that it would fire reliably somewhere out there far 

away, under unknown conditions. As a result, we decided to fire all five engines 

simultaneously under ground control. But then the central second stage would be 

operating for over 250 seconds, twice as long as the graphite jet vanes could withstand. But even if they had been made of something more fire resistant than graphite reinforced with tungsten, there still would have been two arguments against 

the jet vanes. First, their use led to a loss of range due to resistance generated at 

the engine nozzle exhaust outlet. And second, the precision of the velocity measurement affected errors in the projected range. When the terminal velocity design 

value was achieved, the control system issued a command to shut down the second 

stage engine. But it turned out that no matter how remarkable the control system 

was, after it had executed its command to shut down the engine, an uncontrolled 

residual fuel burn-off occurred, causing the so-called aftereffect burn.

Based on R-5 experience and bench tests, the scatter of aftereffect burn values 

was so great that it surpassed the scatter of control system–generated errors by several factors of 10. For that reason alone, range errors for the intercontinental missile 

could exceed 50 kilometers.

There were many suggestions made in this regard, the majority of which amounted 

to propulsion system modifications, which Glushko rejected. We eventually found a 

solution that killed two birds with one stone. Instead of using jet vanes for control, 

we decided to use special control engines. These same engines could serve as the 

last stage’s vernier thrusters. After the shutdown of the second stage main engine, a 

3. Typically, in the West such a configuration, that is, a central sustainer with a number of strapons, 

would be called a “one-and-a-half” stage vehicle, especially if at launch, both the central sustainer and 

the strapons fired simultaneously (as they did on the R-7). The Soviets (and later, Russians), on the 

other hand, refer to such designs as “two-stage designs,” with the strapons being the first stage and the 

central sustainer being the second.
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ground in the future during extremely critical situations during flight tests.

The new system was called SOBIS, the Tank Depletion and Synchronization 

System.6 Within the Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Automation and Remote 

Control was assigned to develop a theory for regulating the engines for operation. 

There, the young scientist Yuriy Portnov-Sokolov studied these problems.

Much of our manpower was devoted to the study, design development, and 

testing of sensors measuring the levels of liquid oxygen and kerosene in the tanks. 

Konstantin Marx [Marks], famous for his inventiveness, was responsible for this 

development. He had an excellent grasp of the theoretical bases of electrical engineering and was famous for the engineering art of transforming his ideas into actual 

instruments.

After numerous experiments to select the principle of measurement, we settled 

on capacitance discrete sensors. However, it turned out that the task of positioning 

points for discretely recording the propellant levels was anything but cut and dried, 

partly due to the special features of the tank design and flight program. When 

something was out of whack when they were fitting the level sensors for each tank, 

wisecrackers never passed up an opportunity to joke, “Even Karl Marx doesn’t know 

the answer.”

The development of a fundamentally new system, both in terms of tasks and 

execution, always involves a tremendous amount of trouble, but the SOBIS became 

one of those systems that were incorporated and essential to missile technology. It 

would have been impossible to imagine the R-7 missile without automatic controls 

that both optimized the propellant component consumption ratio and thrust of the 

engines and also synchronized consumption among the strapon boosters.

Having mentioned Maslov and Portnov-Sokolov, I would like to note that our 

acquaintance was not limited strictly to the job. Maslov’s wife, an artist, painted several portraits of Korolev, which after his death adorned the interiors of our institute 

and other firms. Portnov-Sokolov and I also shared a hobby, a passion for kayaking. 

Now that we no longer have the physical strength for such voyages, we are forced to 

limit ourselves to the fond memories of our paddling expeditions.

Problem number three. Not one of the cluster layouts proposed in the draft plan 

proved reliable when integrated with the proposed launch facilities. Beginning with 

the A4 (R-1), we were accustomed to a free-standing missile launched from a pad. 

But how was one to erect a cluster of five missiles on the pad without it falling apart? 

In this configuration, the load on the aft section was so great that the structural reinforcement required to ensure support exceeded reasonable limits. According to our 

calculations, given a wind speed of up to 15 meters per second, the cluster’s tremendous “sail effect” (the width of the cluster at the aft section was 10 meters) generated 

loads that threatened to knock the missile off of the pad. Korolev asked Barmin to 

6. SOBIS—Sistema oporozheniya bakov i sinkhronizatsii.

subsequent missile and spacecraft control systems.

Jointly with control surface actuator specialists Kalashnikov, Vilnitskiy, and 

Stepan, my group was supposed to develop new control surface actuators that would 

have greater reserves in terms of dynamic parameters and the capacity to overcome 

friction in the assemblies feeding oxygen and kerosene to the oscillating engines. 

The whole kit and caboodle—Glushko’s engines, Melnikov’s control chambers, and 

our control surface actuators—after being developed separately, needed to undergo 

developmental testing during joint firing! They had to tested first on the OKB-456 

rigs in Khimki and then at the Novostroyka at NII-88 Branch No. 2 in Zagorsk.

Problem number 2. No matter how hard the engine specialists tried to produce 

absolutely identical engines, they would have manufacturing tolerances for specific 

and absolute thrust values and consequently discrepancies in propellant component 

consumption. As a result, over the same period of time, each of the strapon boosters 

would consume a different amount of oxygen and kerosene. When we calculated 

all the figures, we were horrified. By the time the first stage shut down, the residual 

propellant discrepancy would reach tens of metric tons, endangering the missile 

structure and controls with asymmetrical loads and outright loss of range. It turned 

out that even when the engines were painstakingly matched up in sets with identical 

characteristics, we failed to use tens of tons of precious propellant components. Missile specialists had never before experienced such problems. We guidance designers 

came to the aid of the engine specialists and claimed that we could synchronize the 

consumption of the propellant components from all of the strapon boosters if we 

were allowed control over the total consumption and the ratio of kerosene-oxygen 

consumption in each engine. Such a system proved to be essential.

Once again the adage, “no good deed goes unpunished” held true. We were 

not only granted permission, but also obligated to develop a system to regulate 

the propellant component consumption ratio and to synchronize the consumption 

between all the strapon boosters. And for good measure, this proposal was reinforced, as was the custom at that time, by a resolution of the Central Committee 

and Council of Ministers.

OKB-12, headed by Aleksey Sergeyevich Abramov, developed the electronics for 

this system. This was the same Scientific Institute of Aircraft Equipment (NISO) 

that I had worked with during the war.5 I flew to Germany in 1945 for the first time 

with General Petrov, who was then NISO chief. Gleb Maslov, an experienced aircraft 

instrumentation specialist, was involved with the system’s theory and the design of 

its electronics. He was adept at critically interpreting a problem and embodied the 

qualities of a theoretician, a designer, and a tester. In Maslov we acquired yet another 

reliable subcontractor and good comrade, with whom we always found common 

5. NISO—Nauchnyy institut samoletnogo oborudovaniya. In 1964, NISO and OKB-12 merged to 

become the new NII Priborostroyeniya (Scientific-Research Institute of Instrument Building).
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loved offbeat proposals in practical mechanics, devoted a great deal of attention 

to this problem. Along with such innovations as control chambers instead of control surfaces, these problems began to spill over into heated discussions among the 

Councils of Chiefs.

Someone came up with the idea of doing away with launch pads and creating 

conditions close to flight conditions for the missile on the ground. Instead of erecting the missile on a pad, it would be suspended in a launch assembly resting on its 

trusses in the same location to which the strapons’ stresses were transferred, that is, 

at the point on the waist of the central sustainer where the tapered points of the 

strapon boosters met. If the historic repercussions of these decisions had occurred 

to anybody back then, and if inventor’s certificates had been issued in the names of 

the design’s creators, then Mishin, Yermolayev, and Kryukov would have had to be 

mentioned at the top of the list. Their proposal could also overturn the developments on which Barmin had already expended so much effort. The ground crews 

continued to defend their position, that is, resting the aft compartments of the 

strapon boosters on the launch assembly.

Korolev instructed Mishin to report his and his associates’ new revolutionary 

ideas to the Council of Chiefs and to Rudnev, who at that time was a deputy minister of the defense industry under Ustinov and responsible for fulfilling the resolution on the development of intercontinental missiles. NII-88 was once again subordinate to Rudnev.8

 With his participation, the Council of Chiefs reviewed the new 

and unconventional proposal for the R-7 launch system.

Mishin’s report was passionate. He proposed assembling the cluster not vertically, but horizontally in the Assembly and Testing Building. The assembled missile 

would be transported to the launch site in its horizontal state and then raised, and 

rather than being mounted on a pad, the entire cluster would be suspended in the 

launch system by the load-bearing mechanisms on the strapon boosters where they 

would be attached to the central sustainer. Using this approach, it was proposed 

that the bottom portion of the missile be lowered, since the launch pads had been 

eliminated. Now the launch system trusses would bear the wind loads, but the missile structure would not have to be strengthened; only flight loads were taken into 

consideration. In this conception, Barmin would develop a simpler integrated transporter-erector assembly. The Great Wall of China would not be needed.

The creators of the launch facility have every right to be very proud of the unique 

engineering originality of the system which they created in 1955. The strapon 

boosters on the launcher were suspended on the support booms by their nose cones, 

while the central booster rested on four points on the spherical heads of the strapon 

boosters’ nose sections. The design prevented the radial crushing forces from being 

transferred to the missile. During missile launch, the support booms would track 

8. Rudnev had headed NII-88 in 1950–52, before moving to his ministerial position under 

Ustinov.

design a wall around the launch area to 

protect against the wind. Barmin firmly 

refused this job saying, “Building the 

Great Wall of China around the launch 

pad isn’t in my job description.”

At Barmin’s design bureau they were 

working at full steam to design a “carriage” that would haul the assembled 

missile out from the Assembly and Testing Building (MIK) in a vertical position 

and erect it on four pads, one for each 

strapon booster.7 Few were inspired by 

this idea. It was complicated and expensive. Additionally, when the designers calculated the possible overturning 

moment due to variation in the strapon 

boosters’ absolute thrust and added it to 

the possible wind-generated loads, they 

were convinced that they couldn’t possibly manage without the Great Wall of 

China to surround the whole vehicle. 

At the same time the very idea of a wall 

provoked so much valid opposition that 

the general consensus boiled down to the 

short phrase, “It can’t go on much longer 

like this.” The situation was critical.

The cluster’s load-bearing system had been selected so that in flight, the stress 

from the thrust of the strapon boosters would be transferred to the central sustainer 

through the upper load-bearing connecting points. The side boosters would drag 

the entire cluster as they rested on the “waist” of the central second stage. This configuration proved to be optimal for flight conditions. The principle of connecting 

the strapon boosters with the central sustainer, the transfer of stress to it, and the 

subsequent nonimpact separation procedure, that is, the breakup of the cluster so 

that the central sustainer could easily proceed without any danger of collision, all of 

that was cleverly and creatively invented and developed. Pavel Yermolayev headed 

the design group that concocted all of this in the department that first Konstantin 

Bushuyev and then Sergey Kryukov directed.

Korolev kept a watchful and hypercritical eye on the proposals for the cluster 

assembly process and the separation system. Mishin, who even as a student had 

7. MIK—Montazhno-ispytatelnyy korpus. The MIK was the Soviet equivalent of the American 

Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).

Vladimir Barmin (1909-93), shown here in 

a picture from the 1980s, was the Chief 

Designer responsible for the majority of 

Soviet missile and space launch complexes. 

The organization that he founded in 1946 

is now known as the Design Bureau of 

General Machine Building (KB OM).

From the author’s archives.
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half after graduating from the university, Yevgeniy Lebedev had developed a simple, 

very effective, and original procedure for calculating the movement of the R-11FM 

missile relative to the launch assembly, that is, the “elbows-and-knees” contraption 

used when launching from a rolling submarine. He was the only “theoretician” who 

had been involved in the testing of a submarine launch system during the developmental testing of the design on the special rig at Kapustin Yar. This work had been a 

sort of proof for the planners and designers that design intuition and many years of 

experience were good, but if they were bolstered by calculation based on theoretical 

mechanics, then it was even better.

Among the theoreticians at NII-88, and then at Korolev’s OKB-1, the ballistics 

specialists enjoyed the greatest prestige. And it is easy to understand why. The OKB1 ballistics experts, headed by Svyatoslav Lavrov and Refat Appazov, had started 

their careers in missile technology in 1945, when the Sparkasse (Savings Bank) theoretical design group was organized at the Institute RABE.

It was self-evident that without the ballistics experts, not a single missile would fly. 

Dynamics specialists were still a long way from being recognized as being similarly 

essential, especially since, according to the distribution of duties among the chief 

designers for the missile’s inflight stability, Pilyugin was supposed to be responsible 

for the dynamics of motion relative to its center of mass.

Things were simpler when missiles were launched from a simple pad. The complex launch systems of the first R-11FM naval missile and the first R-7 intercontinental missile, however, required joint design and experimental analysis of the 

missile’s dynamics in conjunction with its launch assemblies.

Pilyugin declared with good reason that this was not his concern but rather 

Barmin’s. Officially, however, Barmin was not responsible for the missile’s behavior. 

If it had not been for Korolev’s sense of responsibility, a “no man’s land” might have 

developed. Without reservation, Korolev decided that OKB-1 would take responsibility for the end-to-end solution of the problem. Korolev’s deputy for all “ground” 

issues, Anatoliy Abramov, together with our dynamics experts, drew up the specifications for Barmin and participated in formulating the launch system.

Theoretical analyses and deliberations over the drawings could not provide complete confidence that the selected layout was reliable and free of design errors and 

that all the dynamic parameters had been correctly selected. In those days, we were 

not confident about the effectiveness of computer simulations. Besides, specialists 

needed confidence in the design before beginning the enormous task of assembling 

the entire launch facility. We needed a direct experiment before the assembly of the 

launch system began at the firing range. The question was, where and how could 

we simulate an R-7 missile launch? Our search led to the Leningrad Metal Works 

(LMZ), then still named for I.V. Stalin.10 In the enormous building where they 

10. LMZ—Leningradskiy metallicheskiy zavod.

the movement of the missile. After the support boom heads emerged from the special support recess in the nose sections of the strapons, the support booms and 

trusses would be jettisoned, swiveling on the support axes and freeing the way for 

the missile to lift off. During launch, the missile and the launch facility formed a 

single dynamic system. The missile’s movement could not be analyzed independent 

of the launch facility. The dynamics of the moving parts of the launch system, in 

turn, could not be studied without analyzing the missile’s behavior.

In terms of the distribution of responsibilities in Korolev’s OKB-1, missile 

motion control problems fell under the jurisdiction of Department No. 5, the guidance department. As I have already written, Mikhail Yangel was the first organizer 

and chief of the department, but when he was promoted to a higher post, I became 

department chief. While still working with Yangel, we began to put together a 

dynamics sector, which according to our plan would be used to study the theory 

of motion control problems during all phases, give recommendations to our design 

departments, and skillfully draw up the specification for the chief designer of the 

control system.

Georgiy Vetrov was appointed sector director. Years later he would make a name 

for himself through his historic research of Korolev’s work.9 We sent young specialists to work in Vetrov’s section, and when possible, chose specialists with the broader 

educational background granted by a university. In 1952, Igor Rubaylo joined the 

sector. He had graduated from the physics and technology department of Moscow 

State University. This was the first graduating class of the department, which, at 

the initiative of the Academy of Sciences, was converted into the Moscow Physics 

and Technology Institute. To this day I have the honor of being a professor of that 

institute.

In 1955, Rubaylo headed a group of university-educated theoreticians. The 

group included Nellya Polonskaya, who had graduated from the Moscow State 

University mechanical engineering and mathematics department, Leonid Alekseyev 

from Rostov University, and Yevgeniy Lebedev, a graduate of Gorky University. By 

today’s standards, these specialists were still quite young and “green.” But back in 

the 1950s their youth gave them no special advantages.

Rubaylo’s group was tasked to perform a theoretical analysis of the dynamics of 

the missile’s behavior in conjunction with the launch assembly. Just a year and a 

9. After his retirement as an engineer, Georgiy Stepanovich Vetrov became a historian of the 

Soviet space program. Because of his unprecedented access to formerly secret archives, his publications 

opened the way for future generations studying the topic. He also helped compile two remarkable 

collections of formerly classified documents on Korolev’s legacy in: M. V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye 

naslediye Akademika Sergeya Pavlovicha Koroleva: izbrannyye trudy i dokumenty [The Creative Legacy of 

Academician Sergey Pavlovich Korolev: Selected Works and Documents] (Moscow: Nauka, 1980); and B. V. 

Raushenbakh and G. S. Vetrov, eds., S. P. Korolev i ego delo: svet i teni v istorii kosmonavtiki: izbrannyye 

trudy i dokumenty [S. P. Korolev and His Affairs: Light and Shadow in the History of Cosmonautics] 

(Moscow: Nauka, 1998).
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The technical documentation on the launch assembly noted that the hydraulic mechanisms connecting the support booms and trusses should ensure a strictly simultaneous 

separation of all four trusses (the specific value of the possible allowable time difference 

in the pullout from the missile of the various support trusses was not indicated), regardless of disturbance forces and moments; only this would ensure launch safety. Therefore, 

all those involved with launch safety were seriously concerned, even panicked, over the 

actual scene that played out during the first ‘liftoff.’

After the first liftoff, it became clear to me that the buckling of the missile and the 

launch assembly during the fueling process—and the BDU thrust achieving the first 

intermediate level—might seriously affect the launch dynamics. At my request, before 

the second liftoff, they arranged to measure the displacement of the missile’s lower section 

from the moment they started filling the missile with water to when the last support 

boom pulled out. These measurements later made it possible to take into account the 

buckling of the missile and launch system during launch and to properly adjust the elements connecting the missile and the launch assembly in the lower load-bearing zone, 

and to correctly identify weak points in plug connectors and other types of connectors 

when preparing the missile for launch

In order to attempt to ensure that all the trusses of the upper load-bearing zone 

released simultaneously as stated in the launch assembly blueprints, before the second liftoff, we increased the pressure in the hydraulic mechanisms connecting the support booms 

and trusses. However, due to limitations in the allowable vertical response of the support 

booms to the missile, this pressure increase could not be significant, and only around 

10%. As a result, during the second liftoff we observed the same scene as during the first. 

We were now faced with an extraordinary situation.

Because of the unexpected test results during the first liftoff, S. P. Korolev, Deputy 

Minister G. R. Udarov, A. P. Abramov, Ye. F. Lebedev, G. S. Vetrov, specialists from V. P. 

Barmin’s design bureau, and rather high-ranking military acceptance officials had come 

to the second liftoff at LMZ.14 At the beginning of the meeting to discuss the liftoff results, 

V. P. Barmin took the floor. There was a sense of bewilderment in his talk that reflected 

the general feeling among those responsible for launch assembly development.

In his first speech, Barmin said nothing about possibly modifying the launch assembly 

and then testing it. He said only that according to information he had, our nation was 

approximately a year ahead of the U.S. in the development of an intercontinental missile. If even several of the first launches of the missile were unsuccessful, but at the same 

time the launch assembly was not harmed, then we would lose little ground in the race 

with America. If, however, the missile got caught on the launch assembly, fell over, and 

exploded at the launch site, then our time advantage over the Americans would disap14. Grigoriy Rafailovoch Udarov (1904–91) served as deputy minister of machine building in 

1956–57, the ministry that supervised Barmin’s design bureau. Later, he was a deputy minister at the 

Ministry of General Machine Building (MOM), which oversaw the Soviet ballistic missile and space 

programs.

assembled major caliber gun turrets for naval ships we found suitable height, the 

proper depth, and all the requisite hoisting cranes.

In June 1956, the launch system, instead of being sent to the firing range, arrived 

at LMZ, where it was assembled and optimized under the leadership of Barmin 

with the participation of the factory workers. Specifically for this experiment, our 

pilot factory fabricated full-scale mock-ups of all the boosters of the missile, which 

were assembled at LMZ. In Leningrad, the missile met up with its launch assembly 

for the first time. After the assembly was erected, test “launches” began. Instead of 

engines, the factory crane lifted the missile.

Korolev sent Anatoliy Abramov and Yevgeniy Shabarov to Leningrad to help 

Barmin set up the labor-intensive experiment. A month before the missile liftoffs at 

LMZ, Igor Rubaylo was sent to make sure that sufficient measurements were taken 

and to analyze the launch dynamics.

The experimental work at LMZ in the winter of 1956 had surprising outcomes. In the 1994 publication of my memoirs, at Yevgeniy Lebedev’s prompting, 

I described the experiment of 40 years before.11 Later, in 2001, Igor Rubaylo, who 

was Lebedev’s boss in 1956, supplied a different version. In the late 1950s, I visited 

LMZ only once and was not able to recall whether I had seen Rubaylo or Lebedev 

there. Abramov, Shabarov, Barmin, and other living witnesses were gone. What is a 

memoirist or historian to do in such a situation?

For this new edition, I have decided to cite the description of events from late 

February to March 1956, according to Rubaylo’s version. This version seems more 

credible to me than the one in the first edition of my book. I cite the description of 

operations at LMZ based on the text that was kindly passed on to me by Candidate 

of Technical Sciences, senior scientific associate, and distinguished RKK Energiya 

specialist, Igor Rubaylo.12

“Two liftoffs were performed. The first one was conducted on the unfueled missile 

(mass = 26 metric tons) without simulating the combined effects on the missile of the disturbance forces, moment generated by wind, and the moments resulting from the thrust 

differentials between the various Strapon Propulsion Units (BDU).13 The second liftoff 

of the missile filled with water (mass = 260 metric tons) was performed with lateral force 

exerted on the missile from a weighted cable connected through a pulley.

Already as they were lifting the unfueled missile, the support booms came out of the 

missile by themselves (after each boom pulled out, the total vertical reaction on the missile decreased, it hovered, then after several tenths of a second, the next boom pulled out, 

etc.).

11. B. Ye. Chertok, Rakety i lyudi [Rockets and People] (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1994), p. 

400.

12. RKK Energiya—Raketno-kosmicheskaya korporatsiya ‘Energiya’ (Rocket-Space Corporation 

Energiya or RSC Energiya). Energiya is the current name and incarnation of Korolev’s old OKB-1.

13. BDU—Bokovaya dvigatelnaya ustanovka.
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the launch system was disassembled and shipped off to the firing range. However, no 

matter how much Barmin’s and our specialists racked our brains, we couldn’t come up 

with something radical that would guarantee the simultaneous separation of the trusses 

stipulated in the design documentation. The launch assembly had already been fabricated, and the parameters of the missile and the propulsion systems had been nailed 

down.”

Problem number three was granted the right to a definitive solution at the firing 

range.

Problem number four. Varying thrust from the strapon boosters during the 

buildup could lead to very great destabilizing moment values. Because the strapon 

boosters were not rigidly attached longitudinally to the central sustainer, it was 

possible for any strapon booster to come off the cluster at launch if the thrust of its 

engine was less than the others. This meant an inevitable disaster and launch pad 

destruction.

Korolev demanded that Glushko synchronize the thrust of all the engines during 

their build-up. Glushko categorically refused. Indeed, our synchronization system 

was designed to regulate thrust in flight at steady-state output. The engine specialists 

were unable to control the buildup transient. Neither full start, nor slow build-up, 

which causes a hang-fire liftoff, solved the problem. The principles of the selected 

launch system had to be changed. One idea was to conduct a “forced” launch. To do 

this they would have to somehow hold the central sustainer by the “tail” until it was 

certain that all of the strapon boosters had achieved buildup. When the total thrust 

substantially exceeded the weight of the cluster, the command would be transmitted to the locks, unlocking the center’s “restraint,” and the missile would suddenly 

take off.

A second alternative proposal was to use a special automatically generated launch 

sequence. First only the strapon boosters would fire. They would be allowed to 

build up sustained thrust to an intermediate stage that was less than the weight of 

the entire cluster. Here, the destabilizing moment resulting from the thrust variation at the intermediate stage would be counteracted by the reactions of the launch 

system supports. The central sustainer would be permitted to build up to full thrust 

after the stable operation of all the strapon booster engines had been electrically 

monitored. As the central sustainer engine gained thrust, the missile would begin 

to lift off and it would safely separate from the launch system. In flight, the strapon 

booster engines would build up to full thrust nominal mode. This second proposal was thoroughly calculated and analyzed. But Glushko’s consent was required 

to introduce the special intermediate stage and delay during the central sustainer 

engine’s buildup to full thrust.

There was no unanimous opinion on the selection of the alternative version. In 

Department No. 5, all those interested in making the final decision for Korolev’s 

subsequent approval assembled in my office: Kryukov, Bushuyev, Voskresenskiy, 

Abramov, Shulgin, Yermolayev, Vetrov, Rubaylo, and Lebedev. The very makeup 

of the meeting underscored the importance of the issue under discussion. All the 

pear. He asked all those attending the meeting to keep that in mind.

A. P. Abramov, who spoke after Barmin, attempted to postpone discussion and a decision on the matter in order to have time to calmly think through the situation and find 

a solution. He said that in view of the limited scope of the measurements and their poor 

quality, it was impossible to analyze the results within a short period of time. However, 

the measurement specialists’ team leader Lyudmila Georgiyevna (I don’t recall her last 

name) quite decisively rejected his claims against the measurements. She announced that 

not only had all the measurements written in the program been performed and interpreted, but also additional measurements had been inserted in the program between the 

first and second liftoffs at the request of OKB-1 representative Rubaylo.

Not one of the attending specialists who had worked on the launch assembly design 

and calculated the missile’s motion dynamics in relation to the launch assembly elements 

had any specific proposals. Then S. P. Korolev took the initiative. He consulted briefly 

with his specialists and asked if it might be possible within a certain period of time working jointly with Barmin’s representatives to find some solution. We could only answer, 

“We can probably come up with something.” Then Korolev asked Barmin.

‘If we complete the launch assembly tests at LMZ now, and make whatever modifications are required during the couple of months while they’re getting the firing range 

ready to begin assembling the launch system, then would we be able to carry out the same 

launch simulation at the firing range that we did at LMZ?’

After consulting with his specialists, Barmin replied that, if the missile needed to be 

modified, simulation could be performed using the erector that transports the missile 

from the Assembly and Testing Building, mounts it on and removes it from the launch 

assembly. At that point, Korolev proposed writing down the following in a protocol:

- complete phase of tests on article liftoff from launch assembly at LMZ; disassemble 

launch booster assembled at LMZ and deliver to firing range;

- perform system modification by March [1957]; eliminate operational deviations;

- at firing range begin final phase of construction and equipment assembly at launch 

site and, after assembly of the launch booster, conduct additional launch simulations at 

the firing range using an erector and perform all necessary measurements.

The meeting participants affiliated with Barmin and OKB-1 agreed with this proposal, but then their senior military representative, Colonel Yuriy Fedorovich Us, took 

the floor. Holding in his hands the design draft of the launch assembly, he quoted: ‘Under 

exposure to wind effect and perturbing factors, launch safety is ensured when the hydraulic mechanisms in the upper load-bearing zone [of the strapon boosters] ensure a strictly 

simultaneous separation of the support trusses.’ He said that he could not sign the protocol 

on the completion of tests at LMZ since it was unknown whether a way would be found 

to ensure that the trusses would separate simultaneously, thereby guaranteeing launch 

safety.

Korolev, however, knew how to convince the colonel that if he refused to sign the 

protocol, then he would lose his prestige with army and national leaders, since “the brass” 

would sooner agree with Korolev, Barmin, Udarov, and their specialists. Colonel Us gave 

in and signed the protocol. The protocol was signed and approved. It wasn’t long before 
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mate, anthropomorphized system, and not on a purely electromechanical structure. 

Thus, the commands now familiar to millions of television viewers “Key to ignition” and “Launch” were born long ago during that inspired technical outburst.

Before the very end of 1956, work at LMZ continued nearly around the clock to 

optimize the missile and launch system. In the process, the number of drawing and 

design errors, as well as all kinds of glitches found in the operational documentation 

exceeded several hundred.

At LMZ, hundreds of designers, assembly personnel, design engineers, and servicemen swarmed about filing, welding, reassembling, and writing, debating, and 

deliberating. They had completed almost six months of work in Leningrad. The 

launch equipment had been disassembled and shipped to the new firing range for 

final assembly. There, on the firing range launch system they would have to run 

and test hundreds of electric cables and pneumatic and hydraulic lines connecting the missile’s systems with the ground testing equipment during the preparation 

process.

The first firing tests of the individual boosters on the rig that had been reconstructed at NII-229 showed how difficult it was to anticipate everything without 

testing. The beginning of firing tests in 1956 on only individual boosters immediately revealed many defects. Preparing for the general firing tests of the whole cluster 

of boosters, scheduled for early 1957, was like preparing for a final exam.

Problem number five: Production. For a single R-7 missile launch, it was necessary to manufacture five boosters, each of which surpassed the former single-stage 

missiles in terms of labor intensity. Each booster was tested independently. Next we 

assembled the cluster and conducted many days of horizontal tests on it in the new 

assembly building. Assembly and testing shop No. 39 became the factory’s most 

popular shop, and assembly foreman Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Ivanov became the most 

esteemed shop foreman.

Guidance specialists were the most essential specialists there. Without the presence of control system design engineers, the electrical tests at the factory’s controlled-testing station did not go well at first. The testers and systems developers 

were merged into integrated brigades and jointly worked out the test process that 

later had to be transferred to the firing range. Officers from the new missile unit 

from the new firing range also participated in this work. During World War II, 

fold-away beds would be placed right in the shop locker rooms in factories so that 

workers could take short rest breaks. In shop No. 39 they recalled this, and added 

a peacetime upgrade in comfort. They furnished bedrooms for the testers so that 

those living far away could sleep right there at the factory.

The first missile cluster for tests on the firing rig at NII-229 and the second 

standard cluster for the first launch were released in December 1956. The factory 

manufactured a full-scale test cluster before that and shipped it to Leningrad and 

then to the firing range.

Many new engineering processes were adapted at the factory for the sake of the 

R-7. A new instrumentation production building was built and equipped. They creparticipants, with the exception of Kryukov, favored the simpler version, which to 

us also seemed the more reliable one: the forced retention of the missile by the “tail” 

of the central sustainer and the opening of the locks by electrical command after 

the steady buildup of the side units. Kryukov said that Korolev might have another 

opinion.

When we reported to Korolev, it turned out that Kryukov was right. Korolev 

rejected the version calling for the missile to be held by the tail, arguing that it was 

unreliable and required the development of a complex electromechanical device. It 

turned out that he and Glushko had already talked via the “Kremlin hot line” and 

Glushko had given his consent to introduce the new intermediate stage. Soon we 

heard Korolev’s routine command, “full steam ahead!” The true author of the new 

dynamic launch sequence was still unknown.

I am writing about this at such great length, knowing that I risk wearing the 

reader out with technical details. I am trying to show that when a large group of 

people is involved in intense creative work—during the course of which lots of 

problems arise requiring innovative and unconventional thinking—the names of 

the actual authors, the ones who were the first to express the idea that saved the day, 

are usually lost. In such situations, only the shamelessly immodest and particularly 

ambitious filled out inventor’s certificates, and as a rule they would invite their 

immediate supervisor to be co-author.

Later, plans, that is, target figures, were sent out to the departments for inventor’s 

certificates. So as not to be among those lagging behind, the departments strove to 

lay a claim to any sort of claptrap before the All-Union Committee on Inventions.15

But during those gung-ho Korolev years of the birth of the R-7, such activity was 

viewed as a distraction from our primary work and was not encouraged.

It was up to us guidance specialists to develop the launch automatics for the new 

system. The process required a “cautious” launch sequence for all the engines, beginning with the purging operations, ignition, build-up, and escape from the launch 

system. The entire sequence of operations, which was rather complex for those 

times, was to be executed by the control system, with many protective interlocks.

The engineering teams of Korolev, Barmin, Glushko, and Pilyugin worked 

extremely closely. Despite constant quibbling on hairsplitting issues, a general atmosphere of truly creative enthusiasm prevailed. Staying late into the night, in Podlipki, Khimki, or on Aviamotornaya Street, we discussed a wide range of processes 

that culminated in the decisive moments of the launch. The gas dynamic processes 

in 32 engines needed to be tied into a single monitored sequence with the missile’s 

motion dynamics and the launch system mechanisms.

We had the feeling that we were working on the creation of some kind of ani15. During the Soviet era, the All-Union Committee in the Sphere of Science and Inventions, 

offered services similar to a patent registering body in the West. The committee (which held many 

different names at different times) was subordinate to the USSR Council of Ministers.
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to experience failures that we called “foreign particle” failures. The designer was 

forgiven for them, but production would hear about them. This mysterious “foreign particle” had a knack for shorting out two contacts in close proximity to one 

another in an instrument. This led to the most surprising effects. A particle would 

get into the slide valves of control surface actuators, causing them to deflect the 

control engines to the maximum extent without receiving a command. A “foreign 

particle” even found its way under a valve seat, causing the valve to continue to “let 

off” high pressure when it wasn’t supposed to. These particles could explain more 

than 50% of all the glitches that we had chalked up on the ground during testing 

and preparation. We waged a relentless struggle for cleanliness and production discipline. Alas, the strictest orders in this regard could not have changed the situation 

in one or two years.

All of the teams were really governed by a genuine, sincere desire to do good and 

conscientious work. Although there were no pep talks for workers, they were very 

enthusiastic in their work, all of them united in tackling a problem that just might 

decide the fate of humankind. And for all that, minutiae like “foreign particles,” 

dirty contacts, and loose connectors were capable of nullifying the work of thousands of people and wasting unknown billions of rubles during the last phase.

The engine specialists were in the worst situation. After all, it was impossible to 

provide redundancy for an engine and its hydraulic fittings. But even if you could 

imagine that you might sometime succeed (and later on the N-1 rocket we really did 

succeed, and this is also done on spacecraft), then a different hazard would appear. 

For example, for inexplicable reasons the engines had the habit of switching from 

a normal vibration mode into a high-frequency mode. Usually, the high-frequency 

pulsations led to the explosion of the combustion chamber and an engulfing fire. 

Here, increased redundancy did not lead to increased reliability! Then we understood the need for—and began to demand from ourselves and our subcontractors—

the most thorough, multistage, and comprehensive ground optimization.

In addition to ground optimization, we carried out experimental missile 

launches. One such experimental missile was the M-5RD, essentially an R-5 missile 

on which we tested out both the principle and equipment for regulating the engines 

for the R-7 and new inertial navigation equipment. The R-5 missile used a new 

automatic stabilization control system that used a system for correcting the missile’s 

center of mass position based on information from off-range and lateral acceleration 

transducers. To optimize the trajectory and increase range accuracy we tested an 

Apparent Velocity Regulation (RKS) system on the M-5RD. This system’s sensors 

acted via amplifiers on the drive regulating engine thrust. On this same missile we 

checked out the operating principles of the tank depletion control system, the fuel 

and oxidizer tanks’ liquid level damping system, and the slosh amplitude measuring 

system. In all, five M-5RD missiles were manufactured and launched. The launches 

took place at GTsP from July through September 1956.

August through September was considered the “mild” season for the Kapustin 

Yar region. The heat subsided; magnificent Astrakhan tomatoes and the season’s first 

ated a separate clean room that was pristine by the standards of that time.

Instead of the usual 4 control surface actuators on a missile, each R-7 required 16! 

And they were all structurally new, were more powerful, and had redundant electrical systems. The new control surface actuators, new SOBIS instruments, APR, and 

measurement systems required the development of new test consoles, instructions, 

and assembly guidelines. Transistor circuits were also used for the first time. We sent 

a stream of new drawings to the factory. Another stream of comments would come 

back, saying “that won’t work.” Hundreds of change notifications were issued, causing deadlines to be missed. I was torn between the factory and my departments and 

subcontractors. I’m not about to hide the fact that no one had to twist my arm to 

make me fly to Kapustin Yar, where the R-5M tests were completed in 1956. And 

we still had to test the M-5RD and R-5R.

Problem number six. According to the most optimistic calculations, a two-stage 

missile consisting of five smaller missiles had to be five times less reliable than a 

single missile! Except for the R-5M, a single failure in the control system usually 

led to one accident or another on all of our missiles. Consequently, if the reliability 

of each booster was even brought to 0.9 (90%), then according to the probability 

theory, the reliability of the entire cluster would be 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 × 0.9 = 

0.59, or 59%! But that result needed to be multiplied at least two more times by a 

factor of 0.9, taking into consideration the reliability of the interunit mechanical, 

electrical, and dynamic linkages in the cluster itself and the reliability of the launch 

system, which was a very complicated mechanical complex with hundreds of electrical and hydraulic lines. Given all that, we arrive at the absurd value of 0.425 or 

42.5%. Thus, according to optimistic calculations, using fundamental concepts of 

probability theory, we calculated that out of every 10 missiles, at least 5 would strike 

the wrong target.

Those systems that were in any way related to electricity were in the most vulnerable position for failure. We started to provide backup everywhere we could. Here, 

for the first time, besides simple redundancy we used “voting” principles at the most 

critical points. Such systems are broadly used today; they are called majority voting. 

For example, we installed three longitudinal acceleration integrators. An integrator 

transmitted the engine shutdown command only after receiving two confirmation 

signals. The failure of one of the three instruments was allowed. It was rather simple 

to use the “two out of three” principle in relay contact circuits. It substantially 

increased reliability but complicated preparation and testing. We had to make sure 

that we were sending into flight a missile that had all three voting instruments or 

systems that were fit as fiddles. In those places where voting didn’t work, we were 

limited to redundancy. Each chief designer of each system was required to strictly 

follow the principle that any single failure anywhere in any instrument must not 

lead to a system failure. This was so much easier said than done. It was even more 

difficult to verify that, given any failure—such as a breakage or a short circuit—

there really would be no system failure.

On the first test equipment sets—still not yet the flight models—we began 
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impact would not cause harm. But the most important requirement was that there 

must be, at the very least, 7,000 kilometers between the launch site and the warhead 

impact site.

The selection of the flight path and firing range area was traditionally the military’s business. But Korolev could not to come to grips with the fact that this was to 

be done without his or his deputies’ input. He assigned Voskresenskiy to participate 

in this operation, and authorized me to handle conflict resolution, if any should 

arise over the placement of RUP sites.

It was natural that Voskresenskiy, after poring over maps, was inclined to put the 

beginning of the flight path at good old Kapustin Yar and the end at Kamchatka.18

That provided a range of 8,000 kilometers but put the impact fields for the first 

stage strapon boosters over population centers; additionally, one of the RUPs would 

have to be located on the Caspian Sea, and then in Iran. We shifted over the map 

to the Stavropol Territory.19 After determining that the first stage impact fields fell 

on the Caspian Sea, we dreamed that our future work at the firing range might take 

place under resort conditions. Now I bitterly recall with what derision the irate 

team of radio specialists rejected our proposal. Ryazanskiy telephoned Korolev and 

sniped that he dreamed of conducting launches from the mineral water spas of the 

Caucasus just as much as Voskresenskiy and Chertok, but his radio link couldn’t get 

through “all those mountains.”20

In a fit of agitation, Korolev informed us that a reconnaissance commission had 

been set up to select the firing range site. GTsP Chief Vasiliy Ivanovich Voznyuk 

would be in charge, “So stop fantasizing.” Korolev delegated Voskresenskiy to establish contact with the commission and, to the extent possible, to influence its work 

so that we wouldn’t be driven into the Arctic. Having lost hope for the Stavropol 

option, Voskresenskiy and I halted our initiative.

Voznyuk’s commission studied four options:

• in the Mari ASSR21;

• in the Dagestani ASSR;

• east of the city of Kharabali in the Astrakhan region; and

• in the semi-desert of Kazakhstan by the Tyura-Tam station in the KzylOrda region on the bank of the Syr-Darya River.

18. Kamchatka is a huge peninsula about the size of Japan on the very eastern end of the Russian 

landmass. Still sparsely populated, the peninsula contains Russia’s largest volcanic belt.

19. The Stavropol Territory is located in the northern Caucasus between the Black and Caspian 

Seas and borders the nation of Georgia on the south.

20. This is a reference to a poem by Mikhail Yurevich Lermontov (1814–41), the leading Russian 

romantic poet and author of the famous Geroy nashego vremeni (Hero of Our Time), published in 

1840.

21. ASSR—Avtonomnaya sovetskaya sotsialisticheskaya respublika (Autonomous Soviet Socialist 

Republic)—was the subordinate geographical and political unit within the larger Soviet republics such 

as Russia or Ukraine.

watermelons began to appear everywhere. On top of all that, the fishing was superb 

and the living conditions were quite tolerable. It was no wonder that the number of 

people who wanted to improve the reliability of the future R-7 by participating in 

experimental M-5RD launches was always more than necessary.

The second experimental rocket, the R-5R, was developed on the basis of the 

phase three R-5 missile as a result of the special government decree issued on 20 

May 1954 and was designed to test the principles of radio control. Four missiles 

were prepared. I spent from May through June 1956—glorious spring and summer 

days in Kapustin Yar—at the launches of this experimental missile in the company 

of Boris Konoplev, who represented the interests of NII-885, and Yevgeniy Panchenko, who was then an engineer captain and representative of the Main Directorate of Reactive Armaments and would later become a general.16 The primary 

goal of the tests was to check out the principle of the radio measurement of missile 

velocity in pulse operating mode in the super high-frequency (centimeter) band and 

to determine the effect of the engine exhaust jet on the operation of the SHF interrogator and responder links. The program consisted of three launches. I dissuaded 

Konoplev from insisting on a fourth. Korolev supported me.

Problem number seven: The firing range. The selection of a firing range for 

the testing of intercontinental missiles proved to be anything but simple. The R-7 

draft plan specifically called for a radio-control system. At the request of Ryazanskiy, Borisenko, and Guskov—the primary system developers—two Radio-Control 

Ground Stations (RUP) had to be placed symmetrically along both sides of the 

launch area at a distance of from 150 to 250 kilometers.17 One of these two stations 

was the main base station and the other was the relay station. For accurate range 

control, a third station was needed, situated 300 to 500 kilometers from the launch 

site. This station would take precise missile velocity measurements using the Doppler effect and would issue engine shutdown commands when the design values 

were reached.

Thus, as we used to say, the launch site had a “radio moustache” and a “radio 

tail.” Immediately after launch, there had to be a direct line of sight between the 

radio-control station antennas and the onboard antennas mounted on the second 

stage. For that reason, the use of mountainous terrain was ruled out. The second 

condition was the need to expropriate the land in the areas where the first stages 

might land. The flight path had to pass without encroaching on large populated 

areas so that, in the event of an emergency shutdown of the engines, the missile 

16. Boris Mikhaylovich Konoplev (1921–60) was one of the leading guidance systems chief 

designers in the Soviet missile program and worked in several different institutions such as NII-20, 

NII-885, NII-695, and OKB-692. He was killed in the so-called Nedelin Disaster in 1960. The Main 

Directorate of Reactive Armaments (GURVO) was the procurement agency for missiles within the 

Red Army’s Main Artillery Directorate (GAU).

17. RUP—Radioupravlyayushchiy punkt—literally stands for “Radio-Control Point,” but more 

generally denotes “Radio-Control Ground Station.”
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309

This renaming was done to “confuse” 

enemy intelligence services and to keep 

secret the true location of the intercontinental missile launch site.23 When, before 

the next scheduled TASS report, someone proposed designating the new site as 

Baykonur instead of its true geographical 

name, not only did Korolev, Keldysh, and 

the entire Council of Chiefs have no objections, they even supported this sham.24

In April 1955, Lieutenant General Aleksey Ivanovich Nesterenko was 

appointed the first chief of NIIP-5. Before 

this, Nesterenko had already worked in 

the missile field as chief of the Academy 

of Artillery Sciences NII-4. This was the 

first scientific-research institute within the 

armed forces dedicated to studying missile 

armaments. Later he was head of the faculty of reactive propulsion at the Artillery 

Engineering Academy.

I had been acquainted with General 

Nesterenko during his stint as NII-4 

chief in Bolshevo, which was close to our 

NII-88.25 A massive number of multicolored combat ribbons decorated his chest, 

enabling him in peacetime to rest on his 

laurels, to bask in the tranquility of a general’s dacha and an easy staff job somewhere. It turned out that he belonged to the 

category of the obsessed; there were quite a few of them in the military.

The assistance of artillery Marshal Nedelin, who at that time was deputy defense 

minister, as well as Nesterenko’s personal connections, contributed to the fact that 

by late 1956, the NIIP-5 garrison had been staffed with a very good cast of military 

specialists.26 I knew some of them from the GTsP; soon I would have to get to know 

many of them quite well, and then over the course of many years share in the hard23. Ironically, U.S. intelligence services had a very good idea about the location of the new firing 

range by 1957.

24. TASS—Telegrafnoye agentsvo Sovetskogo Soyuza (Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union)—was 

the official (and only) media agency during Soviet times.

25. Bolshevo is a suburb very close to Podlipki (later Kaliningrad, now Korolev) where both NII88 and OKB-1 were located.

26. Nedelin served as deputy minister of defense (for reactive armaments) in 1955–59.

Mikhail Melnikov (1919-96) was the 

leading engine designer in Korolev’s 

design bureau and was responsible for 

producing a series of reliable engines that 

were later installed on important upper 

stages. These include engines for the Blok 

L on the Molniya booster and the Blok D 

on both the N-1 and the Proton launch 

vehicles.

From the author’s archives.

After heated arguments, reconnaissance flights, and trips to the sites, the fourth 

option, the Kazakhstan option, was adopted. In our opinion, they should have taken 

the option in the Astrakhan region that Voznyuk originally proposed. The proximity of GTsP, the already familiar climate, and the Volga delta removed a whole series 

of problems that would occur when setting up a firing range at a new site.

The fourth option was the most complicated in all respects due to the extremely 

difficult climatic conditions: temperatures as high as 50oC (122°F) in the shade and 

dust storms in the summer, and winds with temperatures as low as minus 25oC 

(–13°F) in the winter. Not only was it desert terrain, but according to health service 

data, it was a breeding ground for the plague, transmitted by millions of ground 

squirrels. In no way could we imagine conditions for a “civilized” life. The closest 

regional centers, Kazalinsk in the west and Dzhusaly in the east, were more than 

a hundred kilometers away from the potential new housing construction site. The 

first two to three years at Kapustin Yar, GTsP military specialists and officer staff 

were accommodated along with their families under very difficult conditions in the 

cottages of local residents. And still, at the very least, there was someplace to lay 

one’s head, prepare the food, and bathe the children. There was no shortage of fresh 

fish, black caviar, and watermelons; there was plenty of meat, milk, and vegetables 

in the collective farm market. And for the provision of the entire garrison, Stalingrad was just 70 kilometers away. But at the newly selected site in Kazakhstan there 

was nothing, absolutely nothing.

We were supposed to start the R-7 tests in 1957. According to the most conservative estimates, in all, more than 1,000 military and civilian specialists were 

supposed to participate in them. To the numbers of servicemen, you needed to 

also add their family members, and over and above that, all the public amenities, 

medical, cultural, and transportation services. Then we had to figure out how many 

construction workers were needed for all the aforementioned individuals to have 

living quarters, roads, production buildings, workshops, and communications systems. Even before site selection, plans for the future included the construction of 

an oxygen plant, its own powerplant for a reliable power supply, a hospital, bakery, 

radio stations, tracking and radio measurement stations, etc., etc.

Based on the results of Voznyuk’s commission, on 12 February 1955, the USSR 

Council of Ministers passed a decree approving the site and measures for the construction of Ministry of Defense Scientific-Research and Test Firing Range No. 5 

(NIIP-5).22 This name is long forgotten. The firing range is known to the world 

today as the Baykonur Cosmodrome.

The name “Baykonur” was created after 1961, when the press needed to refer to 

a launch site in official communiqués on the latest space triumphs. There really is 

a Baykonur city located 400 kilometers northeast of the Baykonur Cosmodrome. 

22. NIIP—Nauchno-issledovatelskiy ispytatelnyy poligon.
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The Seven Problems of the R-7 Missile

311

skiing or kayaking, depending on the season.29 Military personnel were deprived 

of these normal pleasures of life. After agreeing to go to the new firing range, the 

officers and their families had to abandon populated areas and work for several years 

under extreme conditions and develop virgin land in Kazakhstan that was much 

wilder than what Kazakhstan’s own grain farmers faced.30

Upon arrival at their new post, the first officers lived in the old railroad cars of 

the same special train produced for the military by order of the Institute Nordhausen that had been so useful in 1947 in Kapustin Yar; in 1955 these special trains 

again came to the rescue, this time in Tyura-Tam. The rank-and-file and noncommissioned officers were housed in tents. During the day, the railroad cars and tents 

warmed up to +45oC (113°F). Nearby, they built dugouts where personnel could 

escape the heat during the day. Troop trains were constantly arriving carrying construction materials, military construction brigades, and new officers. Also beginning 

to arrive were the families, who had no idea of the living conditions. They were all 

housed in the old railroad cars and hastily constructed dugouts. A lucky few got the 

first prefabricated huts.

Nearby was the Syr-Darya River, still deep for the time being. Its murky water 

was, however, not potable. The problem of pure fresh water was one of the most 

acute. Artesian wells provided brackish water and it needed to be specially treated. 

Even now, many years after the beginning of firing range construction, the water 

supply problem for the population and for production needs has not been completely resolved. There have been instances when, staying at the most comfortable 

cosmodrome hotel, washing up meant sparingly using bottled Borzhomi or Narzan 

mineral water obtained at the snack bar.

Was it necessary to set up a firing range in such a hell-hole only because originally, 

according to the map, it was convenient to position three radio-control stations that 

proved to be superfluous just five years after construction began? I am certain that 

in 1954, and even in early 1955, if we had had a better feel for the prospects for 

developing inertial navigation systems, Voznyuk’s commission would have selected 

the Astrakhan region. Now the heroic firing range construction campaigns are the 

stuff of legends. Under other conditions, without a doubt, everything would have 

been considerably easier. But every cloud has a silver lining.

The town of Leninsk—recently declassified—sprouted up on the banks of the 

Syr-Darya.31 The Baykonur Cosmodrome, the missile firing ranges surrounding it, 

29. The Sandonavskiye bani (Sandunov Baths) were famous and ostentatiously decorated baths 

built in the early 19th century on the Neglinnaya River that were very popular with Russian nobility 

in the imperial era. The baths are still open today.

30. The reference to “virgin lands” alludes to a massive national program initiated in the mid1950s to plow and irrigate huge portions of Soviet central Asia for grain cultivation. The Virgin 

Lands project, sponsored and supported by Nikita Khrushchev, ultimately proved to have negative 

consequences to both the land and its inhabitants.

31. The original settlement known as Zarya was renamed Leninsk on 28 January 1958.

ships of work, the joys of our first missile conquests and space triumphs, and the 

tragic accidents. It seems to me that until recently, our media, which are dominated 

by the work of professional writers, journalists, and screenplay authors, have failed 

to appreciate the self-sacrificing work and heroism of the military engineers.

In most narratives on missile technology and cosmonautics—whether nonfiction, memoirs, or fiction—cosmonauts, chief designers and their associates, and 

flight directors seen in the lush interiors of mission control centers are the ones that 

stand out. Rarely does an officer standing in a bunker at a periscope or as an extra 

pressing the buttons on some obscure control panel flash onto the movie or television screen.

Jumping ahead, I will mention that in 1970 Deputy Commander-in-Chief of 

the Strategic Rocket Forces Colonel General Mikhail Grigoryevich Grigoryev and 

I agreed to act as consultants for the film Ukroshcheniye ogonya (Taming the Fire),

written and directed by Daniyl Khrabrovitskiy.27 The screenplay included numerous 

missile launches with their various aftereffects. I insisted that everything should be 

authentic: the officers and soldiers should be dressed “by the book.” Khrabrovitskiy 

responded, “That’s out of the question.” To my astonishment, Grigoryev agreed with 

him. Those who saw this film might have been pleasantly surprised to see the launch 

site personnel in gorgeous, multicolored costumes that look more like Olympic 

team outfits. The few initiated mercilessly reviled me, “How could you agree to such 

a sacrilege?!” But this desecration struck the fancy of Ustinov—Communist Party 

Central Committee secretary at that time—and the staff of the Central Committee 

defense industries department, which endorsed the film and permitted its release.28

Khrabrovitskiy spelled it out for me in no uncertain terms that “if we had portrayed 

everything as it really was, the film never would have appeared on the screen.” I realized that he was right and waved it off; at least, the movie tried to come close to a 

true portrayal of the technology. In that regard, Khrabrovitskiy certainly succeeded 

with the frames depicting the failed R-7 launches and blastoffs. I would like to note 

that for all the plot shortcomings in Taming the Fire, to this day it remains the only 

feature film in which a director tried to portray the creative process of developing a 

missile in all its dramatic variety.

For us “civilians,” our stay at the new firing range with all its hardships and difficulties was a temporary assignment. To a certain extent, it was even a romantic and 

exotic experience. We knew that in a month or so we would return to the civilized 

world, where we would find a familiar climate and our dear old central Russian 

landscapes. If we felt like it, we could go to the Sandunov Baths and on Sunday go 

27. Daniil Yakovlevich Khrabrovitskiy (1923–80) was a famous Soviet Jewish writer and director 

who contributed to a number of films in the 1960s and 1970s. Mikhail Grigoryevich Grigoryev 

(1917–81) served as first deputy commander-in-chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces in 1968–81. 

Before that he had served as the first chief of the Mirnyy (Plesetsk) firing range in 1957–62.

28. Ustinov served as Secretary of the Central Committee for space and defense industries in 

1965–76, that is, as the effective head of the Soviet missile and space program during that period.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

312

and the combat missile positions spread out many hundreds of kilometers over the 

vast steppes. Missiles of different designs are launched independently from dozens 

of launch sites. Sovereign Kazakhstan became the proprietor of an absolutely unique 

autonomous region called the Baykonur Cosmodrome. After the collapse of the 

USSR, Baykonur began an uncontrollable process of self-destruction. On the eve 

of the 21st century, the future of Baykonur, the first space port in human history, 

seemed uncertain.

However, the example of the northern firing range in Plesetsk shows that problems can also be solved piecemeal.32 Instead of a single grandiose firing range, larger 

in area than a country like the Netherlands, it would be better to have several specialized, smaller firing ranges that don’t require the expropriation of so much of the 

Earth’s surface and would be less expensive. But what’s done is done. Veterans of 

Tyura-Tam have a right to be proud of their contribution to the transformation of 

the desert that, in Korolev’s vivid words, was the “edge of the universe.”

32. The original firing range at Mirnyy close to the town of Plesetsk was founded in January 1957 

as the Scientific-Research and Test Firing Range No. 53 (NIIP-53). Later, in August 1963, a portion 

of the range was converted into a space launch center. Since 1966, the majority of the world’s satellites 

have been launched from the Plesetsk site.
Chapter 17

The Birth of a Firing Range

At the time that the decree for the creation of NIIP-5 was issued in February 1955, 

to the best of my recollection, the chief designers, headed by Korolev and their primary deputies, were at the well-settled Kapustin Yar State Central Firing Range. On 

21 January, we successfully began factory flight tests on the R-5M missile. Despite 

glitches in the flutter of the small and, in my opinion, unnecessary control fins, our 

mood was optimistic. We modified the fins, increased the rigidity of the drive, and 

executed two more launches, introducing malfunctions right down to the shutdown 

of one of the control surface actuators. The missiles reached their targets as if they 

hadn’t noticed the malfunctions we had deliberately inflicted. We felt optimistic. 

Despite the harsh winter, we lived and worked under what were for those times 

comfortable conditions.

One evening after a successful launch, we gathered in the hotel’s cozy dining room 

“for managerial staff.” Smirking, Korolev raised his champagne glass, announcing 

that a decree calling for a new firing range in the Kara-Kum Desert had been issued, 

and that we here were relaxing in Vasiliy Ivanovich Voznyuk’s domain perhaps for 

the last time. Voskresenskiy could not pass up an opportunity to needle Ryazanskiy:

“Mikhail Sergeyevich, this is all because of your demands that we place the radiocontrol stations hundreds of kilometers from the launch site. We’d just gotten ourselves set up almost like Europeans, and now once again, without a decent night’s 

sleep, we’re going to have to shoot out of our tents in the morning and expose our 

naked butts to the icy wind!”

The next day in the midst of our routine cares we forgot about the new firing 

range. We didn’t know that one of these days in the Kyzyl-Kum Desert, at the 

heretofore completely unknown whistle-stop of Tyura-Tam, 2,500 kilometers from 

Moscow and 1,000 kilometers from Tashkent, Lieutenant Igor Nikolayevich Denezhkin had disembarked with a platoon of soldiers from a train that stopped for 

three minutes. They were the first to ask the railroad employees for lodging and 

announced that in a day or so hundreds of railroad cars would begin to arrive with 

cargo and many, many soldiers.

The secret decree from 1955 declared construction of the new missile firing 

313
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The Birth of a Firing Range

315

cences about the first three truly heroic formative years of the “future shore of the 

Universe.” While re-editing this chapter, I made use of Gurovich’s memoirs in order 

to travel back in his “time machine” to the bleak steppe where he had been required 

to establish the first space port in the world within a two-year period.

Thermometer readings in the sun during the day in this desert were off the scale 

at over 60oC (140°F). Glacial gales blew in the winter at wind speeds up to 30 to 

40 meters per second. In the early spring the desert blossomed and you felt like 

taking deep breaths of air. But as soon as the sun heated up the earth, dust storms 

started. Dust filled the folds of your clothing, your eyes, ears, and lungs. Dust was 

everywhere.

In the early spring, tiny yellow tulips on the thick clay crust covering the surface were a delight to the eyes. It seemed easy to race over this vast expanse in an 

automobile in any direction. In Kapustin Yar we really did race around in Jeeps 

and “Gaziks” over the “steppe asphalt.”4 Here, after trucks rolled over the “steppe 

asphalt,” it was pulverized. Deep ruts filled with dust formed and the trucks sank 

in up to their bellies. The dusty roads of the battered desert got to be two to three 

kilometers wide.

In two years it was necessary to create conditions for people to lead a normal 

life. Thousands of specialists were supposed to live there permanently with their 

families. However, first and foremost, there was a demand that the builders fulfill 

the “Primary Objective,” building the engineering facility and launching site for the 

first R-7 intercontinental missile.5

A special institute planned and developed documentation for the builders to 

erect the launching site at Site No. 1 and the engineering facility at Site No. 2. The 

project chief engineer, Aleksey Alekseyevich Nitochkin and a team of design engineers moved from Moscow to the desert to quickly resolve the issues.6

A town sprouted up from prefabricated barracks and wooden cabins. The twoyear construction plan included apartments, a general data processing center, headquarters building, officers’ residences, a department store, a chain of other stores, a 

bread factory, a hospital and outpatient clinics, hotels, a heating and power plant, 

a complex water supply system from the muddy Syr-Darya River, and a sewage 

system (with particularly strict sanitation regulations).

The future town was named Desyataya ploshchadka (“tenth site” or Site No.10). 

It would become a real oasis in the desert; hundreds of thousands of trees would be 

planted along the streets. Parks, boulevards, and riverside recreational areas would 

be built. For the plants to survive, water had to be brought in to each of them.

4. Gaziks (Gaziki) were vehicles produced by the Gorkiy Automobile Factory (Gorkovskiy 

avtomobilnyy zavod or GAZ).

5. The phrase Tekhnicheskaya pozitsiya (TP) literally means “Technical Position,” but in the context 

of the missile industry more typically means “engineering facility.”

6. Nitochkin officially served as a senior engineer in TsPI-31 (Central Planning Institute No. 31) 

in Moscow.

range—the future cosmodrome—to be of paramount importance, ranking with 

national tasks for the postwar reconstruction of cities and villages destroyed by the 

war. The governmental decree tasked the Ministry of Defense with construction 

of the firing range. In prior times, tens of thousands of Gulag prisoners had built 

closed cities, factories, and nuclear industry silos. But after the elimination of the allpowerful chief caretaker of the nuclear industry, Lavrentiy Beriya, the Gulag empire 

had crumbled. After the war, the Ministry of Defense not only retained its military 

construction potential, but substantially increased it. The minister of defense had 

a deputy who was involved solely with construction. At that time, the deputy was 

Aleksandr Nikolayevich Komarovskiy, a talented engineer, splendid organizer, professor, and Doctor of Technical Sciences. He was a sort of commander-in-chief of 

an enormous army of military builders. Almost all the officers of this army were war 

veterans.

Another Ministry of Defense deputy, Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin, acted as the 

construction “client.” During the war he had commanded the artillery of the 3rd 

Ukrainian Front. In 1953, he took command of all the artillery forces from Chief 

Marshal of Artillery Nikolay Nikolayevich Voronov and had already anticipated the 

great future of missile armaments. Colonel Engineer (later Colonel General) Georgiy Maksimovich Shubnikov was tasked with direct supervision of construction in 

the desert.1 He was faced with moving from comfortable Tashkent to the desert, 

where he would take charge of and bear full responsibility for meeting deadlines and 

ensuring the quality of a great construction project, the importance of which for the 

future of humankind no one could really imagine at that time.

A few landmarks stood at the tiny Tyura-Tam stop: a small brick building proudly 

bearing the sign Vokzal, a modest water tower for steam engines, a dozen or so trees 

barely clinging to life, several cottages for the station personnel, and five mud huts 

with local Kazakhs living on who knows what.2 Endless desert was all around.

In the spring of 1955, an avalanche of freight and people descended on the 

tiny station. Lieutenant Colonel Ilya Matveyevich Gurovich, who arrived in this 

desert in April 1955, devoted 20 years of his life to the construction of the future 

Baykonur cosmodrome. In 1966, with the participation of the Council of Veteran 

Baykonur Builders, Gurovich’s daughter succeeded in publishing the book Before 

the First Launch, at her father’s behest.3

After retiring from his post as chief builder of Baykonur due to illness in 1975, 

General Gurovich, a highly cultured man, left behind valuable and vivid reminis1. Georgiy Maksimovich Shubnikov (1903–65) officially served as chief of the 130th directorate 

for engineering work of the Ministry of Defense.

2. In Russian, a small train station in an outlying community is a stantsiya while a major station 

serving a city is a vokzal.

3. I. M. Gurovich, Do pervogo starta [Before the First Launch] (Moscow: A.D.V., 1997).
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The Birth of a Firing Range

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bly and Testing Building that the builders had already handed over to be fitted 

out, and the on-going rush jobs at the launch site. When Korolev first visited the 

sites with Shubnikov, an obscure engineer from the Spetselektromontazh concern 

named Bakin and a young radio and telephone communications specialist named 

Pervyshin were working there.9 Years passed. Boris Vladimirovich Bakin became the 

USSR Minister of Assembly and Special Construction Work while Erlen Kirikovich 

Pervyshin became the USSR Minister of Communications Systems.10

In our view and according to all guidelines, 1957 was supposed to be the 

year of the birth of the first R-7 intercontinental missile. The R-7 designation did 

not appear in technical documentation. None of the unclassified drawings, correspondence, or even the numerous secret documents referred to it as a missile, but 

rather an “article” with the designation 8K71. Only CPSU Central Committee and 

Council of Minister decrees, resolutions of the Commission on Military-Industrial 

Issues, and the ministers’ orders issued in furtherance of these decrees and resolu9. Spetselektromontazh—Spetsialnoye elektricheskoye montazh (Special Electrical Assembly)—was 

one of many specialized organizations within the government tasked with construction operations for 

civilian and military industry.

10. Boris Vladimirovich Bakin (1913–92) served as Minister of Assembly and Special Construction 

Work in 1975–89. Erlen Kirikovich Pervyshin (1932–2004) served as Minister of Communications 

Systems in 1974-89 and then Minister of Communications in 1989–91.

Without proper paved roads, transportation at Tyuratam in the early days was a mix of 

horses, trains, and automobiles. Shown here is a soldier waiting on a horse-driven carriage 

outside of the housing area at Site No. 10 in 1957.

From the author’s archives.

The engineering facility and launching site were located more than 30 kilometers from the town. At the facility, the construction work was the most intense. 

Construction workers from organizations specializing in “special steel structures,” 

electrical networks, wire and radio communications, and assembling radio receiving 

and transmitting centers could not begin work until the main construction workers 

had completed their project. But the builders weren’t finished with their work until 

a railroad line was extended from the town’s railroad station, choked as it was with 

railcars packed with equipment, and until an ordinary concrete road was paved 

from the concrete factories and construction warehouses to the firing range’s missile 

pads and all its necessary sites.

Construction continued around the clock! Tens of millions of cubic meters of 

land were redeveloped, hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of concrete were 

poured, tens of millions of bricks were delivered to various sites, and hundreds of 

kilometers of pipe of various diameters, thousands of reels of all sorts of cable, and 

lots and lots of things unmentioned in historical literature were brought in.

On 14 August 1956, OKB-1 split off from NII-88 and became an independent 

enterprise. Soon after, in late August, OKB-1 Chief Designer Korolev flew to the 

firing range for the first time, one and a half years after construction had begun. 

There still was no airfield near the firing range. For the first two and perhaps even 

three years, we flew as far as the regional center of Dzhusaly on Il-14 or Li-2 airplanes.7

 From Dzhusaly we had to rattle over the dusty off-road for another three 

hours to Tyura-Tam in Gaziks or in the best case in Pobedas.8

An “OKB-1 expedition” was already working at Site No. 2 in the summer of 

1956. This group was supposed to receive, lay out, and set up communications and 

transport for all the missile specialists. Korolev took on this responsibility. At Site 

No. 2, five structures were assembled from prefabricated wooden units. These were 

five barracks, which the builders considered to be comfortable hotels, each for 50 

individuals equipped with public lavatories with cast iron pots to answer nature’s 

call. These were designed for soldiers who were allotted three minutes to sit on the 

throne. According to Gurovich’s memoirs, Shubnikov told the disgruntled Korolev, 

“our officers live worse.” And this was true. Korolev responded, “I don’t care how 

your officers live; my staff isn’t going to live like that. Fix these hotels up a bit better. 

My people are golden.” Shubnikov promised to comply, but replied, “With regards 

to people, Sergey Pavlovich, if your people are golden, then my builders are surely 

steel.” On his return several days later, Korolev arranged for the air shipment of toilets, lampshades, linoleum, paint, and a lot of other things for Site No. 2.

 Soon, for the first time, Korolev and Shubnikov inspected both the Assem7. “Il” represents “Ilyushin,” while “Li” denotes “Lisunov.” The Li-2 was the Soviet version of the 

American Douglas DC-3.

8. The Pobeda (Victory) was a luxury car produced by GAZ.
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The Birth of a Firing Range

319

and tests at the engineering facility, including the preparation of all the testing equipment. Voskresenskiy was supposed to concentrate on the as yet neglected, but also 

most crucial area, the preparation of everything needed for launch. Abramov, who 

supervised Barmin’s work on the construction of the launch system, was assigned to 

step up all assembly and construction operations to put the unconventional launch 

facility into operation.

Before we got there, Yevgeniy Vasilyevich Shabarov, who was then the aide to the 

chief designer for testing, had been at the new firing range for a long time. After 

returning from a temporary assignment, he gave us a detailed rundown of the state 

of affairs in a meeting in Korolev’s office. Thus, we were apprised of the procedures 

at our new habitat.

I would like to mention that in such ticklish matters as the distribution of 

responsibilities and the best placement of specialists along the entire frontline of 

operations, Korolev never held to the principle of having only his “own” people 

everywhere. If he noticed among the subcontractors an outstanding specialist whose 

human qualities caught his eye, he would press to arrange for that person to be 

entrusted with a critical portion of the work.

In February 1957, we, Korolev’s deputies, gathered for the first time, not in 

well-settled Kapustin Yar, but in the desert of Kazakhstan. We flew from Vnukovo 

airport early in the morning on an Il-14 cargo-and-personnel aircraft. It would be a 

long flight, with an intermediate stop over for refueling in Uralsk. The firing range 

airfield was not yet prepared to receive Ilyushin transport planes, so we would have 

to make our final landing in the regional center of Dzhusaly. Its airport served the 

Moscow-Tashkent line.

After four tedious hours of flight we gladly deplaned to stretch our legs and take 

a stroll in Uralsk. To our surprise, in the drab, barrack-style airport building, we 

discovered a small cafeteria with a superb assortment of hot dishes. Voskresenskiy, 

who in our circles was considered not only an authority on fine wines, but also a 

sophisticated connoisseur of food, announced that he could not remember having 

such splendid tongue with mashed potatoes and such thick sour cream in ages. I 

proposed that we not pass up the opportunity to stopover in Uralsk again on the 

return trip to which he replied, “But will there ever be a return trip?”

We flew with stopovers in Uralsk until our flight detachment got Il-18 and An12 aircraft. It became part of our steady tradition to have breakfasts of tongue with 

a side of mashed potatoes and a glass of very thick, cold sour cream. Someone joked 

that such incredibly delicious sour cream could only be made from camel’s milk!

There was nothing like the Uralsk service in Dzhusaly. I can’t remember how 

many hours we hung around there before we finally settled ourselves on the Tashkent-to-Moscow train. We got off at the former whistle-stop, which was now the 

lively Tyura-Tam station.

Our first impression was one of sorrow and melancholy from the sight of the 

dilapidated mud huts and dirty back streets of the nearby village. But just beyond 

this first unsightly landscape, a panorama opened up with the typical signs of a 

tions mentioned the R-7 intercontinental missile by its real name. However, in our 

internal secret documentation, in accordance with the standards for maintaining 

technical documentation, most often the numbers and letters were reversed: not R7, but 7R. This was also the case for all preceding “articles.” Systems that were part 

of the whole missile complex were also assigned designations authorized for use in 

technical documentation and unclassified correspondence.

Such “triplicate bookkeeping” for the names of missiles and the dozens of systems comprising them required either a good memory or reference books, that is, 

exactly the type of notebooks that security regulations forbade. We used to joke 

that, “If we can’t figure it out, then how in the world are those poor CIA station 

chiefs going to?” Incidentally, the names Semyorka and Pyatyorka became rather 

firmly affixed to articles 8K71 and 8K51, respectively, and were widely used in 

verbal communication.11

In 1957 the Semyorka took up all of our official work time. But during our brief 

rest periods and even at home, our heads were also crammed with the problems 

this missile posed. Watching the tests on the launch system at the Leningrad Metal 

Works, the firing tests of individual boosters on rigs, and, finally, the rig tests of the 

entire cluster in Novostroyka near Zagorsk that shook us with an avalanche of fire, 

I felt as I had never felt before with any of our previous creations. It was a feeling 

of respect for this unique technical creation, pride in being directly involved in its 

development, and finally, dread for its future fate.12 Since 1947, we missile specialists had grown accustomed to the spectacles of missile launches gone awry. It was 

painful and scary, being in the immediate vicinity of the launch, to watch missiles 

burning and tumbling in flight. It was frightening to imagine that something similar 

could happen with the Semyorka. How many hopes were tied up with its subsequent 

fate! How much work had been invested in its creation! We also felt a tremendous 

responsibility. We viewed the Semyorka with its nuclear warhead, whose yield was 

still unknown to us, as a beautiful goddess that protected and sheltered our country 

from a dreadful transoceanic enemy.

Nuclear weaponry, both “ordinary” and hydrogen, had already been created. For 

the first time its fantastic power was combined with target-striking speed in our 

R-5M missile. But the U.S. still remained outside the range of our Pyatyorka. The 

Semyorka was supposed to strip the U.S. of its invincibility.

Assigning responsibility between his deputies, Korolev came to an understanding 

with Voskresenskiy and me about the upcoming work at the firing range in preparation for the first Semyorka launch. He proposed that I supervise missile preparation 

11. The Russian word Semyorka can be translated as “ol’ number seven,” that is, an affectionate 

reference to “number seven.” It is derived from the Russian word for seven (sem). Similarly, the R-5 

(or 8K51) was informally known as the Pyatorka (“ol’ number five”), derived from the Russian word 

for five (pyat).

12. Novostroyka was the informal name for NII-88 Branch No. 2, later NII-229, the rocket engine 

firing test facility.
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buildings for the future headquarters and all of its services, a three-story department 

store, and numerous two-story brick residential buildings.

From the station, we headed over to see Lieutenant General A. I. Nesterenko, 

head of the firing range. He received us with open arms and introduced his deputies, with whom we were very well acquainted from Kapustin Yar: Engineer Colonel 

A. I. Nosov, his deputy for experimental-testing work, and Engineer Colonel A. A. 

Vasilyev, his deputy for scientific-research operations. We were also introduced to 

two already quite “dusty,” as they put it, graduates of the F. E. Dzerzhinskiy Artillery Academy, Engineer Colonel Ye. I. Ostashev, the older brother of our telemetry 

specialist and tester Arkadiy Ostashev, and Engineer Major A. S. Kirillov. Yevgeniy 

Ostashev had been named chief of the first directorate, which was in charge of our 

project, and Anatoliy Kirillov was chief of the department for testing and preparing 

missiles.

Both Ostashev and Kirillov had graduated from the military academy after four 

years at war. Kirillov had commanded an artillery battery until the end of the war in 

Europe and then had participated in the war in the Far East in the defeat of the Japanese Guandong army.13 The service ribbons on the chests of Nosov, Ostashev, and 

Kirrillov spoke for themselves. Even Voskresenskiy, who had a tendency to behave 

13. The Guandong Army (or Kwantung Army) were an elite (and vicious) unit of the Imperial 

Japanese Army formed in the early 20th century, whose battles included encounters with the Red 

Army in 1938–39.

Shown here is the construction of the original Assembly-Testing Building (MIK) at Site No. 

2 at Tyuratam in 1956-57. All R-7 ICBMs were assembled within this facility, one of the 

largest at the launch range.

From the author’s archives.

great construction project. It was early morning. The sun’s warmth was spring-like, 

although it was still February. Mikhail Vavilovich Sukhopalko, who was responsible 

for taking care of all the new arrivals, met us. His job description covered everything 

from the procurement of foodstuffs, to transport, housing allocation, food service, 

and construction of cottages for the chief designers and barracks for everybody else 

at our Site No. 2.

To begin with, we drove out to the future town, which was then officially named 

Site No. 10. In general, the builders, who back then were the real bosses here, called 

every facility, “site number such-and-such.”

Thus, the launch site was called “Site No. 1.” Located one and a half kilometers 

from the launch site, the engineering facility, correspondingly, was called “Site No. 

2.” In the future, this second site would become a well-furnished hotel community 

for all the specialists involved in testing. With the birth of the firing range, people 

also quickly developed a unique range slang; they shortened and simplified certain 

standard expressions that were used frequently in everyday discourse. Thus, instead 

of Desyataya ploshchadka (“tenth site” or Site No. 10), the majority of us to this 

day say Desyatka (“the Ten”), and instead of Vtoraya ploshchadka (“second site” or 

Site No. 2, we say Dvoyka (“the Two”). Instead of saying Tekhnicheskaya pozitsiya

(engineering facility), we say Tekhnichka (the Tech) or simply TP. Over time, in 

official correspondence the term Pozitsiya (the Facility) was replaced by Kompleks

(the Complex), and so now they use TK instead of TP. But no one said “SP” for 

Startovaya positsiya (launch facility); the majority used the word Pozitsiya, while the 

abbreviation “S.P.” referred only to Sergey Pavlovich Korolev and never the launch 

facility. Sometimes, in keeping with the established pattern, we called it Yedinichka

(the One).

The military specialists, who were already longtime veterans at the firing range, 

lived at Site No. 10, the future town of Leninsk on the bank of the Syr-Darya River. 

The distance between “the Ten” and “the Two,” from main office to main office, was 

35 kilometers. Subsequently, military design engineers and builders adhered to the 

principle of placing the launch sites and engineering facilities approximately one to 

two kilometers apart. Hotels, cottages for civilian subcontractor specialists, bachelor 

officers’ quarters, and barracks for the soldiers of the troop unit attached to the missile complex were built 500 meters from the MIK. Meanwhile, for our Semyorka

and for the future missiles of Chelomey and Yangel, the rule they followed was to 

withdraw further from the future town of Leninsk and the Moscow-to-Tashkent 

rail line.

The principle in effect was “God helps those who help themselves.” Over the past 

35 years, thousands of launches of various caliber missiles from the firing range’s 

numerous launch sites have never posed a hazard to the town’s residents.

The main office of the firing range, the manual computing facility, rear services 

for the various troop units, and construction administration were located at Site 

No. 10. In the late 1950s, everything was housed in barracks-style buildings. But 

construction was under way at full speed on a multistory military hospital, modern 
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Air Force commander-in-chief.14

The railroad was the only avenue available for the delivery of missile boosters, 

propellant components for fueling, and thousands of tons of freight for the construction, and crucial activity of the ever-increasing number of sites; it was also used 

to transport people 20 kilometers to work from Site No. 10 in town every day. The 

Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Defense railway troops were responsible 

for building railroads from the Tyura-Tam station in many new directions.

Kazakhenergo was supposed to provide electric power to the firing range.15 To do 

this, it was necessary to install poles and run hundreds of kilometers of high-tension 

power transmission lines. Until that had been accomplished, special railway mobile 

power plants supplied electric power. From the very beginning of construction, 

power and water supply were critical and acute problems.

Before we could conduct flight tests a whole list of projects had to be completed. 

The builders had to finish the launch pad at Site No. 1 (for the time being they 

called it Stadion, “the stadium”). The Assembly and Testing Building at Site No. 2 

needed to be suitable for work along with all the auxiliary services including hotels, 

dining halls, first aid station, and even a store. They needed to build a good concrete 

road connecting the airfield with the town and all the sites, a wide railroad track 

to transport the future missile cluster from the MIK to the launch site, and much 

more. We learned to write telegrams and letters to the VPK, which coordinated each 

and every project, about jobs that were the most urgent and pressing, but which, 

as a rule, couldn’t be performed by the desired deadlines. In early 1957, Vasiliy 

Mikhaylovich Ryabikov headed the VPK. He had known us since our Bleicherode 

days, and we did not pass up the opportunity to notify him when deadlines for 

putting projects into operation and for making necessary deliveries were missed. In 

order that the reaction would be rapid and the information we were “ratting out” 

wouldn’t be put on the back burner, we had to use a specific phrase, which became 

a classic: “And despite our repeated appeals, the delivery dates (or dates for putting into operation or completing construction) continue to be disregarded, which 

threatens to disrupt the fulfillment of CPSU Central Committee and Council of 

Ministers decree number such-and-such, dated such-and-such.”

When a situation really did reach the point of “threatening to disrupt,” Korolev 

could come down very hard on the alleged guilty party at meetings, especially if the 

inquiry had taken place in his presence. He really disliked signing reprimands with 

such wording to the higher echelons. However, if he thought that there was no other 

recourse, he would first call up and warn the offender: “Keep in mind that I will 

be forced to go to so-and-so or so-and-so.” Often, after one of these conversations 

14. The Soviet position of minister of defense combined the positions analogous to the American 

secretary of defense and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Several deputy ministers of defense served 

the “head” minister, each one heading a service such as the Air Force, Navy, or Ground Forces.

15. Kazakhenergo (Kazakh Energy) was the energy producing authority in Kazakhstan.

in a patronizing chip-on-the-shoulder way toward those in the military, spoke in a 

deferential and tactful manner.

Nesterenko complained that the builders were behind schedule in handing over 

the MIK for the installation of equipment. But the main hall was ready to receive 

the missile. The most precious acquisition for the MIK was a crane manufactured 

by special order. No other domestically produced crane had such a precise, finetuned degree of play; now the missile could be assembled with millimeter precision. 

“The rest you’ll see for yourselves. For the time being, our lives are difficult. At 

Site No. 2, however, there’s a whole passenger train with all the conveniences for 

the chief designers and their main personnel; it has everything, except, I beg your 

pardon, toilets. Take it or leave it, but you have to go outdoors. No more than a 

month from now, individual cottages will be ready for the chiefs and hotel-barracks 

for the rest.”

We drove over to “the Two.” On the left they were putting in the concrete road to 

Sites Nos. 1 and 2. We overtook dump trucks that had fresh mortar dripping from 

their sides, trucks carrying all manner of boxes and building materials, and vans carrying military construction workers. It reminded me of the military roads in the rear 

areas of armies, the same work-weary drone of hundreds of trucks, each hurrying 

along with its cargo. Here there were no rumbling tanks and guns, but soldiers were 

sitting at the steering wheels of all the vehicles and in the cabs.

Unlike the nuclear cities, our NII-229 near Zagorsk, or many other secret facilities, there were no prisoner construction workers here. The army did the construction work. And, we soon realized, the military builders had the knowledge and skills 

to do it all.

We, Korolev’s deputies, having arrived for the first time at the new firing range 

where intercontinental missile launches were to begin in three months, had to deal 

with issues for which we bore no direct responsibility. But the universal sense of 

responsibility for everything that in one way or another affected our projects, unrestricted by any bureaucratic directives, made us take an interest in problems from 

the most diverse branches.

The firing range was not subordinate to the minister of the defense industry, 

much less to Korolev. Firing range Chief Lieutenant General Nesterenko was immediately subordinate to Deputy Minister of Defense and Chief Marshal of the Artillery Nedelin. The army of builders, who were actually creating the largest scientific 

and testing missile center in the world in this desert, were subordinate to another 

deputy minister of defense. For that reason, the chief of firing range construction 

was not officially subordinate to the firing range chief. Tracking missile flights over 

virtually the nation’s entire territory required precise and reliable communications 

work. The chief of the signal corps, who was also a deputy minister of defense, 

was responsible for setting up the communications system at the firing range and 

outside its boundaries. In order for the airport at the firing range to finally begin 

operating, it was necessary to approach yet another deputy minister of defense, the 
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allies. Behind their backs, in private conversations with us about construction work 

at the firing range, Korolev particularly cursed high-ranking managers for the trying 

conditions in which they had placed the builders. But he always spoke respectfully 

of Shubnikov and his deputy Ilya Matveyevich Gurovich.

Once Ryazanskiy complained to Korolev in my presence that there was a lot 

of substandard construction work at what we called “the third elevation,” where 

they were erecting IP-3—the orbital radio tracking station—and the AVD-APR 

(Emergency Engine Shutdown and radio-controlled Emergency Missile Destruction) command radio-link station.16 Officially, we were supposed to go to the firing 

range chief, and Ryazanskiy requested that Korolev call up Nesterenko. But Korolev 

telephoned around until he found Shubnikov. He related Ryazanskiy’s complaint to 

him and, after listening to his response, thanked him kindly.

“Here’s the thing, Misha [Ryazanskiy],” said Korolev, “You need to deal directly 

with the construction workers about all construction issues, rather than going 

around the barn to get to the front door. I have excellent relations with Shubnikov. 

He’ll do everything necessary, but now at the “third elevation” there’s a water storage reservoir and they’re starting to build an oxygen plant. You’ve got a very difficult 

situation on your hill. So don’t waste any time. Go meet with Shubnikov yourself; 

he’ll send out all the necessary directives, and if you like, I’ll call his deputy, Gurovich, too. His name is Ilya Matveyevich, and he understands everything perfectly. 

But don’t go quibbling uselessly. Believe me, they have it even harder than we do.” 

Ryazanskiy already regretted that he’d gone to Korolev. Now he really would have to 

meet with Shubnikov or Gurovich.

I had to attend meetings where Shubnikov or Gurovich were reporting. Even the 

generals outranking them—and Marshal Nedelin himself—grumbled, but they did 

not raise their voices at the builders. It was evident that there, until the missiles took 

off from the firing range, the builders were the true bosses. During those first years 

of setting up the new firing range, their very difficult work determined the future 

outlook of our work. It seems to me that only there at the firing range did I really 

begin to understand and appreciate the military builders and their difficult work.

A quarter century after the true heroes of missile and space achievements were 

no longer kept secret and could share the cosmonauts’ celebrity, the builders were 

still left out. Celebrating their truly outstanding achievements in astronautics, the 

Americans, too, failed to praise those who had built the remarkable installations at 

Cape Canaveral. For some reason, the builders’ plight galls me. Evidently, it wasn’t 

just in the Soviet Union that builders experienced this fate.

Site No. 10, the future town of Leninsk, and the future Baykonur are very 

indebted to General Shubnikov and the entire army of builders. Shubnikov died 

in July 1965, having lived and worked in Kazakhstan for only 10 years. I recall 

16. AVD-APR—Avariynoye vyklyucheniye dvigatelya ili avariynyy podryv rakety.

the need for letter writing to higher-ups 

fell away. This working style at OKB1, instilled from the top, fostered in his 

managers a sense of involvement and 

responsibility not only for their own 

specific work sector, but for the whole 

enormous front in creating our missile 

power. The specific nature of our style 

drove me to many discussions and meetings involving the firing range builders.

Soon I determined that there were 

only three true bosses who could resolve 

almost any issue at the firing range: the 

Council of Chief Designers, which had 

trusted Korolev to defend the interests 

of each of them, firing range chief Nesterenko, and construction chief Shubnikov. In 1957, Georgiy Maksimovich 

Shubnikov was still a colonel. Tall and 

dapper, with a forthright, frank look, he 

always spoke very calmly and responded 

to the carping and fault-finding of highranking superiors with a sense of inherent dignity. His unconventional nature 

was charming. Whenever my immediate 

boss Korolev came down hard on Shubnikov for what seemed to be a trifle, I 

always felt that it wasn’t appropriate.

It was Korolev’s way sometimes to put routine demands in a very harsh form. 

Even those who had worked with him for a long time and knew how uncompromising he was toward all kinds of technical slovenliness and irresponsibility, could 

not always endure the tone of his tongue lashings calmly. Sometimes when he was 

dealing with a new individual whom he intuitively guessed to be a strong personality, you could observe his desire to test the latter’s tenacity. If this new individual did 

not hold up, if he gave in and confessed that he was guilty of everything, Korolev 

lost interest in him. If he rebuffed Korolev, harshly saying something like, “Sergey 

Pavlovich, what are you doing giving orders around here? This is none of your business,” and so on in a similar tone, their relationship was ruined for a long time to 

come.

But with Shubnikov this did not happen. Shubnikov understood that he was 

working on an assignment of special national importance and the final stage of its 

implementation had been entrusted to Korolev. The chief builder of the firing range 

did not argue and did not clash with the chief designer. Ultimately they became 

The first commander of the ScientificResearch and Testing Firing Range No. 5 

(NIIP-5) centered at Tyuratam was Maj.-

General Aleksei Nesterenko (1908-95), 

shown here in the 1950s. Earlier, Nesterenko 

had served as director of NII-4, the military 

R&D institute that defined operational 

parameters of all Soviet ballistic missiles.

From the author’s archives.
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that time numbering tens of thousands, roamed freely over the forbidden territory 

of the firing range, oblivious that the missiles that would kill them would do so, 

long before they would destroy their real targets. The hunting of saiga antelope 

became quite popular as soon as construction of the firing range began. Hundreds 

of the antelope fell victim to our first nuclear missile tests. Radio operators who had 

set up the radio-control stations near Kazalinsk told us that they had seen many 

saiga antelope skeletons in the Aral Kara-Kum Desert. Local residents reported that 

in February 1956, they were all moved out along with their livestock. But there 

was no justice for the saiga antelope. They perished during the first nuclear missile 

explosion.

Each morning we dispersed to our various sites. At the engineering facility we 

had already begun to assemble the test equipment for numerous systems. Teams 

from our factory were working to prepare the first two missile clusters for unloading 

and acceptance. The NII-885 and the Prozhektor Factory team had installed the 

test consoles, and with the help of soldiers was laying the cables to the work stations 

and to the power sources (motor generators). Other teams were testing and verifying the battery charging station and preparing a special telemetry film developing 

room. Each day on the spur lines by the MIK they were unloading railcars carrying 

new equipment.

At the “stadium,” that is, the launch complex, the builders had poured more than 

a million cubic meters of concrete. Two hundred meters from the launch facility 

a bowl was excavated where they would build the concrete control bunker. After 

they filled it in and a concrete-encased hill was built upon it, specialists told us that 

you could calmly sit and drink tea in such a bunker and take a direct missile strike. 

Nedelin, who had witnessed the tests of the first atomic and then hydrogen bombs, 

remarked that in such a situation it would be better to drink tea about 50 kilometers 

down the road.

On our first visit, Voskresenskiy and Abramov spent a lot of time at the “stadium.” The amount of installation and adjustment work was enormous. The whole 

time there was always something that they needed, someone who was late, something that wouldn’t hook up to something else. I also visited the launch complex 

often, and Voskresenskiy often visited me at the engineering facility. We had to 

discuss and resolve many issues.

The color image of launch complex at Site No. 1, or the “Gagarin complex,” has 

become just as familiar to today’s television audiences as the Mosfilm movie trademark depicting the famous Vera Mukhina sculpture Rabochiy i kolkhoznitsa (“The 

Worker and the Collective Farm Girl”).19 But in March 1957, when I first saw the 

19. Vera Mukhina (1889–1953) was the Soviet Union’s most famous sculptor and worked in many 

different styles, including Socialist Realism, Cubism, and Futurism. The sculpture “The Worker and 

the Collective Farm Girl” was probably her most famous work. It was first unveiled in 1937 and now 

stands very close to the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy (VDNKh) pavilion in 

Moscow.

that Korolev was shaken by this news. This was also the last year of his life. But 

he not only grieved, he also instructed his deputy and factory director Turkov, “If 

Shubnikov’s family wants to live in Kaliningrad, do whatever you need to, but find 

an apartment for them and set them up in it with a certificate of domicile and all 

the rest.”17 I don’t know the details, but Shubnikov’s family lives in Kaliningrad. In 

Leninsk now there is a school, a park, and a street named after him.

In October 1992, we celebrated the 35th anniversary of the launch of the world’s 

first satellite. I was in Berlin at the time and visited the memorial of the Soviet soldier in Treptov Park for the first time.18 To my surprise, I saw here numerous quotations from Stalin’s speeches inscribed in pristine gold letters on the polished granite 

slabs. Descending from the hill where the victorious soldier nestled the child he had 

saved against his stone chest, at the exit from the memorial plaza, I saw the names 

of those who had built this architectural structure engraved in a red granite frame in 

tiny black letters. The name “Shubnikov G. M.” was on the very first line. I recalled 

that during those postwar years when we were working in Germany, Shubnikov 

had restored the demolished bridges there and then built the unique architectural 

ensemble in Treptov Park in Berlin. He was involved in the construction of many 

vital military installations and, shortly before building Baykonur, he built the airport in Tashkent. So as the link to the past will not be broken, there should also be 

a memorial plaque listing the names of the builders at the now legendary “stadium” 

of Site No. 1 at the Baykonur Cosmodrome.

At Site No. 2, as Nesterenko promised, we settled into the two-berth compartments in the sleeping cars. We hadn’t even had time to have our own traditional 

arrival celebration before we received an invitation to visit the dining car. Dinner 

was plentiful and delicious. The dining-car’s waitresses and imposing director were 

perfectly courteous and affable. Their starched, snow-white uniforms were completely incongruous with the circumstances surrounding this train. Very impressed 

with this unexpected service, Lenya Voskresenskiy decided to indulge me. Employing many epithets, he introduced me to the restaurant director and asked her to 

be sure to remember that soon it would be 1 March, comrade Chertok’s (45th) 

birthday. She promised not to forget, and, indeed, we were able to celebrate the 

date with a dinner that would have done credit to a good big-city restaurant. Saiga 

antelope was the meal’s main delicacy, artfully prepared and exceptionally tender 

and delicious to eat.

Hunting for saiga antelope was forbidden. But what did prohibitions mean when 

they came from the far removed Republic authorities?! Herds of saiga antelope, at 

17. Roman Anisimovich Turkov served as the director of the Experimental Machine Building 

Factory (EMZ), the pilot plant in Kaliningrad attached to OKB-1.

18. The Treptov Park memorial was dedicated to Soviet soldiers but based on the exploits of 

Nikolai Maslov (1923–2002), a Soviet soldier who saved a little girl from certain death during the 

Berlin siege. The statue shows a soldier with a rescued girl in one hand and a sword in the other and 

was sculpted by Soviet artist Yevgeniy Vuchetich.
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ence and endure here proved to be the “ultimate education” for him. While we were 

standing in the bowl below the overhang, the officer requested that we observe a 

minute of silence:

“Three soldiers died here,” he said.

We removed our hats.

“A year ago,” he said, “was the most difficult time in the construction of this 

‘stadium.’”

“The excavation required considerably more time than we had calculated. 

Dozens of powerful motor vehicles and excavators were mobilized for the rush job. 

When one of the heavily loaded dump trucks drove out of the bowl to the surface, 

at the very top of the slope, the bolts of the rear axle shaft sheared off and it tumbled 

backward. The driver was startled, and instead of braking, he jumped out of the cab. 

The dump truck rolled down the incline into the bowl. The din of the excavators 

drowned out the shouts of the bystanders. The dump truck smashed into a group of 

men completely absorbed in their work. Three soldiers died.”

We remained silent for quite a while. Voskresenskiy was the first to ask the question that was tormenting all of us and answered it himself: “If, God forbid, we are 

the first to fire from this site at the Americans, then there won’t be a second launch. 

Not just three men, but all of us at all the sites will be able to admire the illumination [of a mushroom cloud from a retaliatory strike] in the next second. Although 

the bunker you have built for us is excellent.”

Back in March 1957, none of us could foresee that this intercontinental launch 

Site No. 1 had a great future. The bowl where we had observed a moment of silence 

in memory of the three fallen soldier/builders would withstand the fiery squall of 

the first satellite’s launch vehicle and after that, many hundreds more launches in 

this new realm of human endeavor. We couldn’t even imagine that this super-secret 

scrap of desert would be a bright and glorious spot in human history rather than a 

dark one.

Many television viewers on the planet have admired the fiery launches 

of the R-7, no longer an intercontinental missile but an interplanetary one, now 

called the Soyuz. But probably few have seen any television footage of the bunker 

from which the rocket launch commands were issued.

Unlike the one-room bunker of Kapustin Yar, the new bunker was a spacious 

five-room suite. The prelaunch test and launch consoles were installed in the largest 

hall, equipped with two naval periscopes. Everything on them was new and different from the primitive consoles of the early years of rocketry except for the firing 

key. I remember when we were just looking over the R-7 electrical launch circuits, I 

said to Pilyugin that it ought to be time to do away with this traditional key that we 

had borrowed so long ago from the German A4 consoles. He agreed with me and 

gave instructions to develop a special switch instead of the firing key. To his surprise, 

the military vehemently protested this idea. Missile units had already been formed 

launch facilities, I was anything but awestruck. I was both depressed and surprised 

by what had become of the fundamentally new and beautiful idea for a lightweight 

launch facility, the joint invention of Barmin’s and our designers, in which four 

open-work trusses were to hug the waist of a cluster of five missiles.

The general configuration of the launch system with the missile built into it was 

redrawn repeatedly until finally Korolev and Barmin approved it. These drawings 

served as guidelines for the development of the construction design documentation. 

But in addition, so many new specifications were issued to the builders and design 

engineers that the harmony of the missile’s contour with the retracting open-work 

trusses had really been squelched by millions of cubic meters of concrete. The builders poured concrete in the bowl that took the fiery shock of the rocket engines’ 

plume; they also poured concrete at “ground zero,” where the diesel engine carrying 

the transporter-erector, as well as the tankers and railcars with unknown cargo, were 

located.

In countless photographs and in televised reports to this day, the missile, surrounded by its steel crown, sits atop an empty expanse of concrete resembling an 

overhang. If you descend the steep stairs about 30 meters downward from the overhang, a panorama of the vast concrete-covered surface opens up, reminiscent of 

a hydroelectric power plant dam. The overhang with those very same retractable 

trusses that looked so beautiful in the design drafts jutted out over this concrete 

wall, which merged into the bowl.

The gas dynamics specialists had played it safe. They figured that the rocket 

exhaust’s fiery squall at a temperature as high as 3,000oC (5,432°F) would destroy 

any substructure if its surface did not match the theoretically designed profile. The 

bowl was lined with a three-meter-thick concrete venting chute, the profile of which 

was maintained to the centimeter. Four rectangular concrete pylons were erected at 

the corners of the foundation slab of the overhang. Balconies with auxiliary space 

for gear and all sorts of equipment rested on the pylons. Ninety-meter-long lightning rods soared above the whole vast concrete and steel structure. They had little 

to do with the launch process, but were forever a fixture on the 20th-century missile 

landscape.

In March 1957, workers finished installing the equipment that had arrived 

from Leningrad after undergoing tests. The launch complex was crawling with 

assembly personnel running hundreds of meters of every type of cable and pipeline 

imaginable, or welding something, chiseling concrete, or performing leak checks on 

various tanks accompanied by the hissing of compressed air.

On one of my tours around the launch complex with Voskresenskiy and Abramov 

we were joined by Yevgeniy Ostashev and a construction officer whose name I don’t 

recall. The builder said that during and after the war he had been involved in the 

demolition, restoration, and construction of so many facilities that he considered 

himself capable of building “palaces for Satan himself.” But what he had to experi-
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Three stories of laboratory/service rooms were immediately adjacent to the highbay where assembly operations were performed. Back in Moscow when they were 

planning out the rooms, people fought over each of them. Along with Nosov, Ostashev, and Kirillov, I had to make the final decision as to where which system went 

and where to run the power and communications lines. There were a lot of laboratories for all sorts of systems.

During this period, Nina Zhernova and Mariya Khazan arrived at the firing 

range and settled in on the train. Pilyugin assigned them to participate in the assembly and adjustment of the integrated stand for electronic analog simulation. They 

explained that Nikolay Alekseyevich wanted to be able to conduct all the necessary 

research with the actual stabilization controller equipment here rather than flying 

to Moscow to ask the institute about each glitch. These were good intentions, and 

from his reserves, Kirillov set aside a large room on the upper floor in the MIK for 

them known as the “Personal Laboratory of Nina Zhernova on behalf of comrade 

Pilyugin.”

Each system had its own chief designer, who in no uncertain terms demanded a 

“separate individual suite.” It didn’t matter if it was just one room and cramped, as 

long as it was private, with no unauthorized intruders. Thus, space was allocated for 

the control surface actuators, for both the Tank Emptying System (SOB) and Tank 

Emptying and Synchronization System (SOBIS) and for gyroscope instruments.21

To be on the safe side, we pressure tested each of the fittings for each system.

The assembly and adjustment of radio systems gave us the most trouble. The 

onboard radio control system equipment required such an abundance of all sorts of 

racks crammed with test units that they set aside the most spacious rooms for it on 

the second floor.

There were also disputes with the young rivals of Ryazanskiy’s radio electronics 

monopoly. Back during the tests on the R-1 and R-2 missiles in 1950–53, we used 

the Indikator-T radiotelemetry system and the Indikator-D trajectory measurement 

systems developed by young MEI graduates under the supervision of Academician 

V. A. Kotelnikov. The young, dynamic, and enthusiastic team, having gained its first 

missile firing range test experience, decided to begin developing the next generation 

of radio engineering devices. Their work blatantly and brashly intruded into the 

work of Ryazanskiy, Boguslavskiy, Borisenko, Konoplev, and of the special organization SKB-567 under the supervision of Yevgeniy Gubenko, recently created in the 

State Committee on Radio Electronics.

Back then many theoretical and practical radio electronics issues still lacked clarity. Scientists and engineers continued to debate over the attenuation of radio waves 

in the ionosphere, the influence of the engine plume plasma, antenna design, and 

sites for their installation. Unreliable radio tubes and the first semiconductor ele21. SOB—Sistema oporozhneniya bakov; SOBIS—Sistema oporozhneniya bakov i sinkhronizatsii.

and military console operators were accustomed to beginning the launch operation 

with the command “Turn key to fire!”

When the matter reached the chief of the Main Directorate of Reactive Armaments, his deputy Colonel Mrykin felt compelled to call up Korolev and request 

that the conventional firing key design be kept in the R-7 rocket launch consoles.20

Korolev asked Pilyugin, and the latter referred to my initiative. To my surprise, S.P. 

did not make a snap decision, but invited me in for a discussion. I explained that 

I had operated not so much from technical considerations as from considerations 

of prestige. The Semyorka shouldn’t have birthmarks. It was something new and 

strictly our page in the history of rocket technology. After thinking about that, S.P. 

said, “When the Semyorka starts to fly, no one will remember those birthmarks. The 

military has asked that we leave the firing key. This is, after all, also our history.”

The command “Turn key to fire!” also remained. Among the various souvenirs 

that I keep is a firing key that was given to me in 1962 by the military testers. When 

this modest, but in my view, precious gift was presented to me on my 50th birthday, 

the firing range envoy promised that 50 years hence he would present a firing key of 

the very same design that would be used to send an expedition to Jupiter.

The bunker’s second large room was for “guests.” This room was intended for 

State Commission members, for high-ranking guests, and those chief designers who 

would be in the way in the console room. Two other rooms were filled with fueling 

control and firing mechanism control instrumentation and with gear for the radio 

tracking systems. There were also hallways and auxiliary rooms for communications 

specialists and security personnel. A lot of space in one of these rooms was taken up 

with multichannel recording equipment. This system served as a partial backup for 

telemetry while the missile was still at the launch site. In addition, it recorded the 

behavior of the launch system itself during the launch process.

Only four persons could view the launch from the bunker. There were two periscopes in the console room and two in the guest room. If the missile successfully 

left the launch pad, everyone else had to manage to jump out of the bunker in order 

to admire its flight. This required charging up about 60 steep steps and running 

another five to seven meters once you’d reached the top.

The Assembly and Testing Building was the main structure of the engineering 

facility at Site No. 2. That is where we had to conduct all the operations to prepare 

the missiles before they were transported to the launch site. Diesel engines pushing 

railcars carrying missile boosters rolled freely into the large high-bay of the MIK. 

Here in the high-bay the boosters were unloaded and placed on handling trailers 

for testing and then the missile cluster was assembled from the individually tested 

boosters.

20. Anatoliy Ivanovich Semenov (1908–73) served as chief of the Main Directorate of Reactive 

Armaments (GURVO) in 1954–64. GURVO was the main missile procurement and acceptance 

agency within the Soviet armed forces in the 1950s.
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The firing range and all the tracking stations from Tyura-Tam to Kamchatka were 

equipped with them.

We installed three autonomous Tral sets on the R-7 rocket:

• in the nose section;

• in the second stage, the central Block A booster; and

• on the strapon Block D booster to monitor the parameters of all four boosters 

of the first stage.23

We called our first missiles measuring missiles; the total number of parameters 

measured exceeded 700. The mass of the entire instrumentation complex was so 

great that it reduced the missiles’ range from 8,000 to 6,314 kilometers. There was 

one more reason for reducing the range: at full range the nose section reached the 

Pacific Ocean, and we did not yet have any tracking facilities available there.

Kamchatka was the maximum range that we could achieve while leaving our 

tracks on terra firma. Therefore, we set up ground tracking station NIP-6 in the 

area of Yelizov on Kamchatka. This station on the edge of the Soviet territory was 

supposed to measure the parameters of the nose cones and receive the telemetry data 

emitted by the Tral transmitters. Soon thereafter, a second tracking station, NIP-7, 

was also opened there on Kamchatka in the area of Klyuchi.

The Bogomolov team’s “assertive” actions did not end there. In “strict confidence” Bogomolov related that he had made an arrangement with the leading radar 

factory in Kuntsevo for the joint development of a trajectory radio-monitoring 

system. Gosplan department manager Georgiy Pashkov actively supported him in 

this undertaking. This “secret” conversation took place in 1955. Korolev too, after 

a “confidential” meeting with Bogomolov, ordered that the Rubin (Ruby) transponder be installed on the R-7 at once. This innovation determined the missile’s current 

range. After the measurement results had been processed, the ballistics specialists 

were able to determine the nose cone’s points of impact with a high degree of precision.

Kama ground stations, which worked with the Rubin onboard transponder, were 

a modification of air defense radar systems. Their series production had been set up 

long before, which worked to the advantage of Bogomolov’s proposal, as opposed 

to using systems based on the highly complex and expensive RUPs. Within the 

MIK, the telemetry equipment was located in separate rooms removed from the 

other radio-emitting systems to avoid electromagnetic interference. I very much 

enjoyed the contact I had with the boys from OKB MEI who worked enthusiastically assembling and checking out their stations. Mikhail Novikov, who supervised 

the operations, spoke about the principles and layout of the systems with such pride 

that you couldn’t help but want to help him in any way possible. Our telemetry 

23. Each booster in the R-7 cluster was called a Blok (Block). The center was Block A while the 

four strapons were known as Block B, Block V, Block G, and Block D, reflecting the first five letters 

of the Cyrillic alphabet.

ments presented the biggest headaches to equipment designers. Their production 

technology simply was not ready for our strict requirements.

MEI responded to the 1954 decree for the development of the intercontinental missile with great enthusiasm. Just a year later, they developed experimental 

models of the onboard equipment and ground stations. Teams under the leadership 

of Aleksey Fedorovich Bogomolov—who succeeded Kotelnikov—developed these 

systems.

Korolev gladly agreed with my proposal to support Bogomolov and encourage competition between Bogomolov and radio industry organizations. Minister 

Kalmykov and his deputy Shokin did not approve of our initiative.22 However, 

whenever the opportunity arose we worked items into Central Committee and 

Council of Ministers decrees that obligated the Ministry of Higher Education to 

create all necessary conditions for the development of radio equipment for the R-7 

at MEI.

The government announced no official competition for the development of 

radio-telemetry equipment for the R-7. Nevertheless, designers scrambled for a 

place on board the program. Our obvious support of Bogomolov irritated Ryazanskiy. State Committees had not taken Bogomolov’s OKB MEI seriously, and when 

the occasion arose they poked fun at our patronage of this “orphanage” and as a 

countermove supported the development of Gubenko’s telemetry system in every 

way. Nevertheless we succeeded in setting up an expert commission, which decided 

to conduct comparative aircraft tests. The expert commission findings were—in a 

rare instance—fully unanimous: they recommended that the Tral (Trawl) system 

developed by the OKB MEI be used for the R-7 rocket. It was no accident that the 

Tral won the competition. The young, talented engineers used the most cuttingedge electronics achievements, which were considered to be premature in indigenous technology. Tral’s 48 measurement channels enabled us to make a comprehensive study of the missile in flight.

But having lost the competition, Gubenko, Bogomolov’s main competitor for 

the radio-telemetry system, was not left without work. The shortcoming of Bogomolov’s Tral at that time was its inability to record rapidly changing parameters 

such as vibrations and pressure pulsations in the combustion chambers. By 1956, 

Gubenko had developed a new telemetry system to record these phenomena, the 

“rapid telemetry” RTS-5. We developed vibration sensors for it and the system was 

also installed on the first R-7 rockets.

During the period 1954–56, series production of stationary and mobile onboard 

equipment and ground stations was set up at radio engineering factories. In just 

two years, 1956 and 1957, more than 50 sets of ground-based units were produced. 

22. Valeriy Dmitriyevich Kalmykov (1908–74) served as minister of the radio-technical industry 

in 1954–74, during which time the ministry was known under several different names. Aleksandr 

Ivanovich Shokin (1909–88) served as his deputy in 1954–61.
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335

cally about the future great projects that we would be conducting in what was no 

longer a desert, but a verdant steppe. That is what should distinguish a true leader. 

He sees further than everyone around him.

Four individual cabins had already been built for chief designers and were waiting 

for their new tenants. In the future, two of these cabins would be awarded memorial 

plaques. Yuriy Gagarin spent the last night before his flight in cabin No. 1, and for 

eight years cabin No. 2 became Korolev’s second residence after Moscow.

Considering the extremely difficult living conditions, Korolev arranged to have 

three cabins temporarily occupied on a “communal-democratic basis.” The new 

hotel was not yet ready, and in Korolev’s opinion, life in the barracks could diminish his deputies’ authority. All the cabins had three rooms, and therefore, three 

men were settled in each of the three cabins. Cabin No. 1 was left vacant in case 

the State Commission chairman or Marshal Nedelin wanted to take a rest or stay a 

while at Dvoyka. That’s why until Gagarin’s stay there it was called Marshalskiy (“the 

Marshal’s”). Korolev allotted a room each to Mishin and me in his cabin. Barmin, 

Kuznetsov, and Voskresenskiy settled in the third cabin. Glushko, Ryazanskiy, and 

Pilyugin occupied the fourth cabin. Thus, in terms of firing range privileges, Korolev 

placed his three deputies, Mishin, Voskresenskiy, and me, on the same footing as the 

chief designers.

Returning to the firing range two weeks later, I saw the almost green steppe of 

springtime for the first time. You felt like strolling over it instead of driving. Here 

and there were scrubby, multicolored tulips and delicate, downy dandelions that we 

weren’t used to seeing in Moscow, in what’s called the central zone of Russia. They 

tenaciously withstood the wind without scattering their fluff.

The concrete roadway had been completed. Only tracked vehicles and very 

heavy-duty trucks traveled over the steppe. Almost the entire population of the 

train had moved from the hot, cramped quarters of the railroad cars to the multiple 

rooms of the barracks, which were divided, respectively, into men’s and women’s 

quarters, and rooms assigned by department. Distribution of rooms was carried out 

spontaneously on departmental, system, and group bases. As a result, there were 

rooms for telemetry specialists, ballistics specialists, engine specialists, land-segment 

specialists, assembly workers, and so on.

 The barracks-like administrative building for the as yet modest administrative 

detachment completed the rectangular perimeter of the barracks housing complex. 

There was already a telephone for high-frequency communications installed in it 

and a large room for meetings and occasional film showings.

We rapidly cultivated a unique firing range lifestyle, filled not only with work, 

but also evening strolls along the concrete roadway, picking tulips, and all sorts of 

practical jokes. There was an atmosphere of optimistic expectations; good-natured 

humor lightened the hard work and difficult living conditions.

Soon we were pleased to learn that Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Ryabikov had been 

named chairman of the State Commission on R-7 missile tests. This was especially 

good news to those of us who had received him at the Villa Frank in Bleicherode 

specialists headed by Nikolay Golunskiy and Vladimir Vorshev very quickly came 

to an understanding with the OKB MEI engineers so that subsequently they were 

all considered part of the same “gang.”

The first flight-ready R-7 missile arrived at the firing range engineering facility on 3 March 1957, with its full complement of five boosters. It carried factory 

number M1-5, and in conversation we referred to it as number five or simply Pyataya

(the Fifth). They began off-loading the boosters and placing them on the handling 

trailers. On 8 March a large group of designers headed by deputy “lead designer” 

Aleksandr Kasho flew in. They brought with them a long list of modifications that 

needed to be introduced based on the results of the firing rig tests.

The operations on the heatshield of the aft compartments promised to be the 

most labor-intensive. During the firing rig tests the aluminum alloy skin of the aft 

structure burned through in many places. Even the feedback potentiometers of the 

control chambers and cables burned. They would have to sheathe the exterior of the 

aft compartments with thin sheets of chrome-plated steel and wrap the interior with 

a layer of asbestos to protect all the vulnerable parts.

I had spent almost a month at the firing range. In late March I was given the 

opportunity to briefly abandon the hotel in the hospitable train and return to 

Moscow while the first cycle of modifications was under way.

I flew into the firing range for the second time with Korolev in April 1957. For 

the first time we landed at the new Lastochka airfield, the future Baykonur airport, 

destined many years later to attain international fame. Many of our colleagues were 

flying on this airplane. Korolev felt that he needed to send as many of his employees 

as possible through the firing range school so that they could get a sense that “We’re 

not here to sip tea with jam.”

As we were getting into the vehicles, Korolev seated me in his Gazik. For the first 

time, I rode with Korolev over the steppe of the new firing range. The roads were 

already producing clouds of dust and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to remind 

Korolev that if it hadn’t been for Ryazanskiy’s requirements for the placement of the 

radio-control stations we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into this semidesert. Sergey 

Pavlovich surprised me with a very effusive response: “Good grief, Boris, Boris! You 

totally irreparable and rusty electrician! Take a look and feast your eyes on the limitless space that surrounds us! Where else can you find such a perfect playground? We 

are going to do great things here. Believe me and stop your belly-aching.”

He told me this, turning around from the front seat. His usually preoccupied 

or even stern expression glowed with youthful and delighted animation, unusual 

for Korolev. It is precisely this atypical image of his face beaming with delight that 

is etched in my memory. Almost a half century after that memorable trip with 

Korolev, while editing this chapter it dawned on me for the umpteenth time that 

Korolev had a knack for foreseeing the future better than all his compatriots. We 

were dogmatists—enthusiasts—we created the first intercontinental carrier missile 

for a hydrogen bomb. And we really were convinced that if it were used for its 

express purpose, there would be no next launch. But he, Korolev, talked enthusiasti-
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336

in 1945. The commission included Marshal Nedelin (deputy chairman), technical 

director of testing Korolev, members assigned as deputies to Korolev, (Glushko, 

Pilyugin, Ryazanskiy, Barmin, and Kuznetsov), and, finally, regular members Peresypkin (deputy minister of communications), Mrykin, Vladimirskiy, Udarov, Nesterenko, and Pashkov.24

24. The R-7 State Commission was officially formed by decree on 31 August 1956. Such bodies 

as state commissions were temporary bodies formed to oversee testing of particular weapons systems. 

They were typically headed by a civilian (in this case Ryabikov, whose actual job in the government 

was Chairman of the powerful State Committee for Reactive Armaments for the Army and Navy) but 

staffed with a combination of designers (such as Korolev), scientists (such as Keldysh), military leaders 

(such as Nedelin), and industry representatives (ministers or deputy ministers such as Ustinov). A State 

Commission would oversee the entire testing phase and then certify the weapon as ready for operation 

in the Soviet armed forces. Once certification was done, the State Commission would be dissolved. 

Note that State Commissions and State Committees were entirely different administrative organizations. 

The former were usually temporary and fluid in membership while the latter were permanent and 

more rigid.
Chapter 18

15 May 1957 

On 30 March 1957, the last rig firing tests on the R-7 flight article were conducted 

at what used to be a branch of NII-88, but today is called NII-229, outside Zagorsk. 

The tests revealed many new glitches that needed to be taken into account during 

modifications on the very first R-7 (missile No. 5), which was at the firing range. 

A difficult lot fell to the factory brigade. They had to perform operations in the 

MIK bay that, back at the factory, would have been performed by specialized shops. 

The operations that they hadn’t managed to do at the factory were completed by 

a brigade from shop No. 39 under Tsyganov’s supervision. They worked together 

smoothly and amicably, bringing with them all the materials, tools, and alcohol in 

excess of any and all norms for “flushing and cleaning.”

Reinforcing the heatshield of the aft units of the booster was the most troublesome operation of all. This work had begun before I flew back to Moscow. The 

piping of the oxygen lines was replaced in order to eliminate stagnant areas where 

liquid oxygen would heat up, come to a boil, and cause shaking known as a “water 

hammer.” A fire prevention process of purging the aft compartments with nitrogen 

was also introduced. The ballistics experts, who had already made use of the first 

computer, recalculated the trajectory. As a result, at the last moment the final stage 

shutdown time of the control chambers’ thrust had to be changed in the timing 

units.

The list of modifications was long. The chief designers of the systems attacked 

missile lead designer Kasho, announcing that according to the latest results of the 

factory tests they needed to replace this or that instrument. While the missile was 

being transported from Podlipki to the firing range, unloaded, and prepared for 

testing, some defect was discovered in each system at the very last moment of the 

final factory tests. At the factory, these units could be replaced quickly, without any 

formalities. But here at the firing range engineering facility you could “jump onto 

the last car of a departing train,” only after I gave the order. After that, the lead 

designer would have to explain the change. The final decision was up to Korolev. 

Before approving a document calling for a routine replacement, the system’s chief 

designer or his deputy would collect as many authorizations as possible. After this, 

they would personally appeal to Korolev, who demanded strong arguments in favor 

337
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339

flight article in the Assembly and Testing Building seemed trivial compared with 

the experiment to “yank” an engineering mock-up of the missile out of the launch 

complex. This experiment was scheduled after the failed experiments with missile 

“liftoffs” using a crane at the Leningrad Metal Works, where we had been unable 

to demonstrate that the upcoming “real” launches would be safe, since the launch 

system support booms had not simultaneously released from the recesses on the 

missile’s load-bearing ring.

The technical conditions for the launch assembly stated that the hydraulic mechanisms connecting the support booms and trusses should simultaneously separate all 

four trusses despite disturbance forces and moments. This was one of the conditions 

that ensured launch safety. In Chapter 16, I wrote that, as a result of the negative 

results of the experiment at the Leningrad Metal Works, at Korolev’s recommendation, engineers decided to conduct another simulation at the firing range after all 

the modifications ensuring launch safety had been implemented. A large number 

of unknown elastic deformations of the launch system and missile elements, which 

had been impossible to calculate, had caused the original failure of all four trusses 

to separate simultaneously and release the missile’s support ring at the waist. At 

Barmin’s direction, the missile erector was specially modified to conduct the missile 

liftoff experiment at the firing range.

In late April, State Commission Chairman Ryabikov and Marshal Nedelin flew 

to the firing range just in time for the new tests.

“We didn’t manage to put on our circus act without the brass,” complained 

Barmin. “This is all because of your boys who came up with all these fancy measurements to take.”

Indeed, our dynamics specialists Vetrov, Rubaylo, and Lebedev initiated a process 

of monitoring the experiment, such that installing and tuning the instrumentation 

required a great deal of time. On the day the decisive experiment was conducted, 

Ryabikov, Nedelin, and Korolev arrived at the launch site. Barmin supervised the 

experiment. Voskresenskiy and I had arranged to drive to the launch site together, 

but at the last minute I heard Kasho’s voice coming over the phone from the MIK:

“There’s smoke coming out of the instrument compartment of the central booster. 

We’ve aborted the tests. We need a decision immediately. I haven’t reported to S.P. 

yet.”

“Smoke” was a tester’s most terrifying word. Voskresenskiy dropped me off at the 

MIK, and then he drove to the launch site.

“I’m not going to tell Korolev anything. When you’ve figured it out, you can give 

him the report.”

This “smoke,” the source of which in fact turned out to be ground engineering 

electrical connectors rather than the missile, kept me from attending the launch 

site “circus.”

Many years later, Igor Rubaylo agreed to fill the gap in my memory. In March 

1957, he participated in the experiments at the Leningrad Metal Works, where 

Korolev personally had sent him to supervise the installation of the launch assemof the replacement or modification. Finally, it would be announced that further 

replacements and modifications would be permitted in the event of failures or serious glitches, but only based on test results.

Glitches occurred on an hourly basis during horizontal electrical tests. It wasn’t 

easy to report to Korolev about each glitch and have to explain causes, to boot. And 

to make matters more complicated, he would demand that he be called about any 

glitch, even at night. Voskresenskiy was more decisive and persuaded Kasho and me 

to buck this system; otherwise, later at the launch site it would be impossible to get 

anything done.

Late one night after the failure of yet another instrument (most likely it was the 

Tral or one of the radio control instruments), I decided to replace it immediately 

and reported this to Korolev after waking him up with a phone call. A half hour 

later, referring to my decision, Kasho repeated the same report over the phone. 

Another half hour later Voskresenskiy woke up Korolev with a third phone call and 

said that he was very troubled by these failures and by the instrument replacement 

that Chertok was performing.

In the morning, when he appeared at the MIK after his sleepless night, Korolev 

summoned us and said: “I know that you arranged to teach me a lesson. To hell 

with you. Let’s set up this procedure to make a detailed entry about all glitches in 

the logbook. Every morning when I arrive, Kasho will call in whomever necessary if 

he can’t explain it himself, and I will sign the logbook after you.”

Radio control system instruments caused the largest number of glitches. Ryazanskiy grew haggard from having to frequently explain the situation to Korolev.

Throughout the entire cycle of horizontal tests, after introducing new procedures, we racked up such a number of instrument replacements, modifications, 

and glitches that we were down in the dumps. The deadline for launch before the 

May Day holidays became completely unrealistic.1 After consulting, we decided to 

propose to the technical management that we conduct a second finishing cycle of 

tests, but without any freedom to make changes. Korolev agreed with us and took 

this proposal to the meeting of the chief designers. Everyone accepted it amicably, 

resigned to the fact that we would be celebrating 1 May at the firing range. Alas, no 

one would be able to use the complementary tickets to see the military parade from 

the viewing stands on Red Square.

At the meeting of the technical management, Korolev announced that all modifications would be halted completely during the finishing cycle of tests and that, as 

director of testing at the TP, I was absolutely forbidden to discuss any new proposals 

without reporting to him personally.

However, all of my problems during the horizontal tests of the missile’s first 

1. Although not celebrated in the U.S., May Day is a holiday in many countries of the world, 

recognizing the contributions of the labor movement. During the Soviet era (and continuing to the 

present day), May Day (May 1) was one of the most important national holidays in the year.
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340

15 May 1957

341

within a short period of time), or in the calm atmosphere within the OKB walls, because 

for this we needed to take into consideration the system’s elastic properties under axial 

and transverse force loads and the effect of vibration on the operating engines

Therefore, the launch safety findings that our group prepared, stated simply that at 

the speed that would be generated during the actual launch, the degree of asynchrony in 

the release of the support trusses would be negligible and would not be capable of appreciably disturbing the missile’s motion relative to its center of mass. OKB-1 management 

and Barmin, let alone military acceptance, did not demand analytical documentation 

supporting this assertion only because so little time remained before the launch. If there 

had been another six months until the launch, as was the case after the mockup liftoffs 

at Leningrad Metal Works, these claims, which were not corroborated by the appropriate 

analytical documentation, would hardly have satisfied military acceptance. And even if 

such documentation had been prepared, there would have been any number of opportunities for it to be challenged.

Indeed, it didn’t seem possible to evaluate how the transverse disturbance forces and 

moments would affect the missile’s position relative to the load-bearing trusses supporting 

it when the strapon thrusters were building up to the intermediate stage, precisely when 

a large portion of the launch assembly deformation was occurring. Consequently, vibrations could also occur in the whole system at the time. After all, tests at Leningrad Metal 

Works and at the firing range showed that the ‘lock’ in the upper load-bearing flange 

would fall apart long before the first truss would pull out.

Despite the analysis group’s signing of the launch safety findings, many still had 

qualms about the safety of the launch. Representatives from the middle echelon of military acceptance approached me several times and tried to find out how confident I was 

in the safety of the launch. I told them 200%. V. P. Barmin invited me to his room and, 

holding our findings out before him, asked, ‘Comrade Rubaylo, were the tests performed 

sufficient to be confident in the safety of the launch? Or, perhaps, do we need to pull 

the article out of the launch assembly a couple more times? Then you will return to your 

young wife another two or three weeks later.’ (Somehow he found out that I had gotten 

married six weeks before leaving for the firing range.)

 I answered that I was 100% confident in the safety of the launch and that additional experiments would, in fact, yield nothing new. My confidence was based on the 

fact that during all three ‘liftoffs’ of the missile from the launch assembly, after the release 

of the first support truss there were no hitches between the missile elements and the 

launch assembly, despite the tremendous asymmetry of the missile relative to the launch 

assembly.

Despite the fact that the launch safety findings had been drawn up and signed by the 

analysis group and then signed by the entire management, there was not 100% confidence in the safety of the launch. And only actual launches could dispel these apprehensions.

Marshal Nedelin was not mistaken when he said, “Boys, we’re pinning all our 

hopes on you.”

For more than 40 years all sorts of versions of the Semyorka have lifted off 

bly and its testing and to check Barmin’s documentation with regard to dynamic 

parameters. He remembered:

“And so the day came when we were supposed to wrap up our many years of work on 

the design, manufacture, assembly, preliminary tests, and modifications of the launch 

assembly. At the very last moment before missile ‘liftoff,’ when the service trusses and 

assembly workers’ ladders had already been taken away, someone noticed from below that 

one of the temporary mounting blocks that had been needed for the preparatory operations, but that was supposed to be removed before liftoff, hadn’t been removed. (All such 

elements were painted red or had a red flag). And right in front of the top brass and a 

large number of specialists, a serviceman—a captain, still wearing his overcoat and boots 

and without any safety equipment—climbed up the support trusses to the upper loadbearing flange, removed the mounting block and climbed back down. This operation 

exacerbated the tense atmosphere as the attendees awaited the experiment results.

And then finally, the erector operator received the command to begin missile ‘liftoff.’ 

Soon, from the entire configuration consisting of the missile, the four trusses of the loadbearing launch system ring surrounding the missile’s ‘waist,’ and the erector boom, one of 

the trusses broke free and the rest began to shift around horizontally. As the missile was 

‘lifted off,’ each of the trusses pulled out individually and randomly instead of simultaneously.

All present were clearly dismayed. Marshal Nedelin simply waved his hand and said, 

‘That’s it. The missile is totally screwed,’ and he departed ‘ground zero’ and headed for his 

car. However, Korolev and Barmin kept their cool. Before calling a meeting, they tasked 

the group of specialists to conduct a thorough analysis of the telemetry results in order to 

check the coincidence of the actual truss separation speeds with the predetermined values 

and prepare their remarks. There were four men in this group: Vetrov and Rubaylo from 

OKB-1, Barmin’s senior engineer Zuyev, and the senior lieutenant from military acceptance. No middle management from our team, Barmin’s team, or military acceptance 

were there.

Despite the fact that the processing and deciphering of the measurement results were 

conducted as a matter of urgency, our group’s analysis of the measurement results was not 

completed until two days after the tests had been conducted. We were working at Site 

No. 10. One of those evenings Marshal Nedelin dropped in on us, asked how things were 

coming along, and said, ‘Boys, we’re pinning all our hopes on you!’

We compared the relationships of the launch system elements’ motion parameters from 

the experiment with the design data and found some surprising results. In particular, the 

measurement results revealed that one of the elements of the upper load-bearing ring had 

not been properly secured, but this could not affect the overall liftoff picture. I was, just 

as my colleagues likely were, feverishly looking for a way out of this very convoluted mess. 

We had been analyzing the measurement results for two or three days before it occurred 

to me that in a real launch, due to the tremendous speed of the missile’s liftoff, in all 

probability, the likelihood that the support trusses would fail to release simultaneously 

was negligible. It was not possible to perform specific numerical calculations to evaluate 

these time intervals for an actual launch either under firing range conditions (especially 
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culpable, having approved the phony requisition signed by Nikolay Golunskiy and 

somebody from the military. What to do? To get alcohol in those days, people wrote 

requisition invoices “for flushing optical axes” and “antenna directional diagrams.” 

Strict prohibition of alcohol was in effect at the firing range. Vodka was not for 

sale. But to reward those who particularly distinguished themselves on the job, they 

allowed alcohol to be dispensed free of charge from the auxiliary supplies.

After celebrating with the requisition all night, at six in the morning on 1 May, 

the telemetry specialists decided that it was time to join all those relaxing at Site 

No. 2 who were commemorating the international holiday of proletarian solidarity. 

The enterprising group together with Nikolay Golunskiy armed themselves with a 

red banner, a decanter of alcohol, a table glass, and a single lemon. One by one they 

visited the rooms of all the barracks and woke up the sleeping occupants. One of 

the revelers got up on a stool that he had been carrying with him. He pronounced 

a salutation on the occasion of the 1 May holiday, and extolled the solidarity of the 

workers and the success of our project. Then they let them have a sip of the alcohol 

and the single lemon, and proceeded onward under general guffaws of laughter or 

the swearing of their sleep-deprived comrades. Everyone chuckled good-naturedly 

about this demonstration, but in this amateur performance the firing range political office saw somewhat of a parody of the official way of conducting May Day 

festivities and made a statement to Korolev regarding the disorderly conduct of his 

employees in a high-security area.

Golunskiy and his comrades were spared exile from the firing range for want of 

specialists to replace them on the eve of a crucial launch. Korolev could do little 

more than threaten them and sternly warn that if there were any more warnings 

about their behavior he would “send this whole gang to Moscow on rails.”

The threat of sending people “to Moscow on rails,” for whatever infringement, 

was Korolev’s way of expressing extreme dissatisfaction. But sometimes he exploded 

even more violently: “Get over to the typing pool and type up an order firing you 

without severance pay and bring it here for my signature!” If the guilty party returned 

and held out the typed order for Korolev, he yanked it away from him and yelled 

so loudly that everyone trembled. “What? You want to go home and sip tea with 

jam? Get back to work immediately!” Then he treated the guilty party as if nothing 

had ever happened. Bystanders, chuckling over the star of the latest incident, were 

afraid that now he wouldn’t make it to Moscow any time soon on rails or any other 

form of transportation.

Indeed, it was considerably more difficult to fly out of the firing range than to 

fly in. Korolev introduced a procedure whereby the expedition chief was supposed 

to show him a list of passengers for every departing aircraft. If someone ended 

up on one of these lists without his knowledge, he ruthlessly crossed him off and 

demanded an additional report.

Once when Korolev was absent from the firing range, I saw lead designer Kasho; 

his face was all distorted. He had a huge dental abscess and an excruciating toothache. 

The local dentist said that Kasho needed an operation that he could not undertake. 

more than 2,000 times! But not once was there a failed launch due to the support 

trusses falling away “out of synch.” In December 1957, 28-year-old Igor Rubaylo 

was awarded the “Badge of Honor,” defended his candidate’s dissertation, and later 

received the title “Distinguished RKK Energiya specialist.” Now he lives almost 

year-round in our gardening cooperative, Pirogovo, on the shore of the bay, at the 

same time performing the duty of watchman guarding our garden plots. Alas! It has 

proved impossible to protect our dachas against robbers with the same degree of 

reliability that he provided for launch safety. I learned that first-hand.

The second finishing cycle of horizontal tests on the individual 

boosters was completed on 30 April. After arriving at the firing range, Ryabikov 

announced that we would have the day off on 1 May, but first he gathered as many 

people as he could fit into the conference room and made a report. The report was 

surprising. Ryabikov told us about the crackdown in Moscow on the “anti-Party 

group” of Molotov, Malenkov, Kaganovich, and others.2 This announcement left us 

with a bad taste in our mouths. After Stalin’s death, the liquidation of Beriya, and 

after Khrushchev’s grim speech at the Twentieth Party Congress, it seemed that a 

wise, just, and unified authority had finally gained a foothold at the very top. As we 

deliberated, we interpreted this as a clear victory for Khrushchev’s line. But now it 

meant that once again there were enemies in the Communist Party, and once again 

we would have to fight, expose, and exclude. There were already supporters of this 

anti-Party group, but Ryabikov calmed us, saying that the Central Committee had 

completely and unanimously approved the exclusion of the former Politburo members from the Party and that the unity in the Central Committee was unshakable.

How many times had we heard this and applauded the complete unity in the 

Central Committee, in the Party as a whole, and the unity of the Party and the 

people? For the country and many of the peoples of the Soviet Union these were 

now largely hackneyed abstract slogans. It was another story here at the firing range 

in Kazakhstan. Indeed, for the sake of our common goal we were a unified, tightknit, and gung-ho team—people from different departments, military and civilian, 

workers, engineers, scientists, rank-and-file employees, and high-ranking superiors.

We had made up our minds not to work on 1 May. At last we could sleep in 

and relax. We could revel in the not yet scorching sunshine or even take a trip to 

Syr-Darya river! But the break wasn’t without incident. The telemetry service team 

had received a substantial amount of alcohol “to flush out the developing machines 

and dry the photographic film.” That’s how it was worded on the requisition. I’m 

2. The “Anti-Party group” comprised leading pro-Stalinist members of the Presidium (or Politburo) 

such as Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, and Georgiy Malenkov, who, unhappy with Nikita 

Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization policies, attempted to isolate and depose Khrushchev in the summer of 

1957. Although they enjoyed a majority vote in the Presidium, they were unable to canvas sufficient 

votes in the Central Committee to oust Khrushchev. All of them were eventually forced out of political 

life by Khrushchev.
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sile No. 5 at the launch site was 110 

hours. We tried not to work at night, 

but the launch site tests on the missile 

took seven days of round-the-clock 

work. including the analysis of all the 

glitches, review of the telemetry films, 

reports, and heaps of all kinds of procedures due to our lack of experience 

and sometimes also due to mistakes.

During the tests, while Voskrenskiy 

and I were standing on the concrete 

of the launch site clearing up a matter 

with Kasho about the modification 

and replacement of a valve in the 

vernier thrusters’ feed lines, Barmin 

approached our group. After listening 

to our argument for a while, he said:

“You’re going to make a lot more 

missiles, but this is the only launch 

pad. If your ‘structure’ doesn’t take off, 

and falls on my launch assembly, then 

keep in mind that it will be at least 

two years before the next launch!”

What else could we do? We assured 

him it would take off.

“If you release our beautiful missile 

at the proper time, Vladimir Pavlovich; but, who knows, if your trusses 

don’t pull away, then our girl will 

show you something.”

Until the missile fueling process began, it wasn’t hazardous to be near the missile. 

Here and there groups of people gathered, arguing and discussing the process of the 

electrical tests and reports coming in from the console operators in the bunker.

On the morning of 14 May, diesel engines began to bring steaming tanks of 

liquid oxygen up to the launch site. Ryabikov, who had been at the site, complained, 

“This is the second time we’ve left the country with no oxygen.” Why the second 

time? It turns out that at the meeting of the State Commission in Moscow the Central Committee, that is, Khrushchev, announced the requirement to perform the 

first launch before 1 May as a gift in honor of the holiday. Nesterenko vehemently 

protested, showing rather convincingly that it would not be possible to prepare the 

firing range, launch complex, and the missile itself in the 20 days remaining before 

the holiday.

“Well, if you don’t manage, we’ll report to the Central Committee and explain 

This photograph shows the original R-7 (or 

8K71) ICBM at the single launch pad, Site 

1, at Tyuratam (now Baykonur) in 1957. 

This basic version had an unusual conical 

nosecone that was eventually abandoned 

during flight-testing in 1957-58. Note also 

the “tulip” launch structure around the base 

of the rocket.

From the author’s archives.

Then I sent Kasho to Moscow on the condition that he would return on the next 

airplane right after the operation. Kasho returned the day before Korolev’s arrival, 

but someone had already managed to snitch to Korolev that “Chertok let Kasho go 

to Moscow without reporting to you.”

When Korolev showed up in the MIK an hour after his arrival at Site No. 2, 

he demanded a report from Kasho. To his great surprise, Kasho appeared and was 

prepared to report on the status of the missile modification work. My explanations 

came next. I told him honestly what had happened, and the incident ended there.

Right after our exuberant day of rest on May Day, all the firing range 

services continued their intense preparation for the first launch. Horizontal tests 

were finally completed in the MIK, and the assembly of the five-booster cluster 

began. This operation, which was being conducted here for the first time, drew a lot 

of spectators. Senior Lieutenant Sinekolodetskiy and our factory assembly foreman 

Lomakin supervised the integration.

The slight, thin, very nimble Sinekolodetskiy, who had changed into slippers, 

balanced like a performer on the surface of the missile boosters, giving orders to 

the crane operator. One after another the special lifting mechanism picked up the 

strapon boosters and smoothly raised them up from the ground supports, and 

together with the officer in charge of moving them, floated over to the central 

booster. The entire missile cluster was placed on a handling trailer and would then 

be transferred to the erector platform. The last electrical checkouts of the cluster 

were not completed until 5 May.

At 7 a.m. on 6 May, in keeping with a tradition religiously observed to this day, 

a diesel engine rolled the erector platform through the wide MIK gates. Carrying 

the booster, it crept along the new rail line to the launch site. The missile was out 

in front of the diesel engine, with all 32 of its nozzles facing the steel trusses of the 

launch assembly waiting to take them into their embrace.

On that day a tradition was established: the State Commission chairman, the 

chief designers, the firing range chief of control, and anybody who wanted to, would 

come to the solemn ceremony to see the latest missile hauled out of the MIK. This 

first time we all followed the very cautiously moving diesel engine on foot along the 

rails all the way to the launch site. Subsequently, those entitled to use vehicles would 

skip the hikes to the launch site.

A large number of fans attended the first installation of the R-7 missile on the 

launch pad. Everyone sensed that the most crucial phase of our work was beginning; 

a phase that would determine the fate of many for years to come. It wasn’t until the 

end of the day that Barmin, having personally supervised the entire missile installation process, announced that he had completed his task and said, “now put it to 

the test!”

And the long—by today’s standards—cycle of prelaunch tests began. For the 

time being all authority was transferred to Leonid Voskresenskiy and Yevgeniy 

Ostashev. The net “machine” time of all the electrical tests on the first R-7 mis-
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When the list was being drawn up, many jockeyed to get a spot at IP-1, but 

Korolev and Nosov crossed names off without a thought, reasoning that, first, it 

was very close to the launch site, and second, extraneous people would interfere 

with the telemetry specialists’ work. I was on the list of people to be in the bunker 

and thought that my recent stair-climbing speed drill up the steep flight of concrete 

steps might come in handy.

Launch day was here—15 May. It wasn’t until that morning, before we drove out 

to the launch site, that I recalled that this was the 15th anniversary of the first flight 

of our BI-1 rocket-plane on 15 May 1942 at the Koltsovo airfield on the outskirts of 

Sverdlovsk.5 With whom would I share such a revelation? Of those who participated 

in that historic event, Mishin, Melnikov, and Raykov were also here at the firing 

range. When I reminded them, they excitedly responded; after the launch we would 

have to celebrate two events.

Look at all that had happened over those 15 years! From the primitive plywood 

BI-1 with an engine that had one metric ton of thrust to the Semyorka of the missile 

era with engines that had more than 400 metric tons of thrust! And in the future 

the Semyorka would carry a warhead capable of destroying any city. But there was 

no time to indulge in reminiscences and philosophizing.

Launch day dragged on for an incredibly long time. The first fueling was stop 

and go. Korolev, Barmin, Voskresenskiy, Nosov, Yevgeniy Ostashev, and the officers 

and soldiers conducting the fueling process emerged and disappeared in the thick 

clouds formed by the hovering oxygen. I went down into the bunker. There, Pilyugin and Nikolay Lakuzo had joined the Novostroyka officers and console operators 

from Zagorsk behind a console, trying not to bother them.

Not everyone had gathered yet in the guest room. Glushko was sitting silently 

looking cool and calm. Kuznetsov was questioning his gyroscope specialist one more 

time about the setting of the integrator that was supposed to shut down the second 

stage engine when the missile reached the designated terminal velocity.

In the radio room Ryazanskiy was conducting a routine roll call of all his remote 

radio-control stations and IP-3 at “the third elevation,” where the transmitter to 

issue the emergency missile destruction command was installed. There was no 

explosive device on this missile. Therefore, if the destruction command was issued, 

it would shut down the engines. We had electrically inhibited this command so that 

it could not proceed on board to shut down the engines before the 12th second 

of flight. This was sufficient time for the missile to get a bit farther away from the 

launch site and in the event of an emergency shutdown, it would not destroy it. At 

the same time, after 12 seconds of engine operation, regardless of what might have 

happened to the guidance system, the failed missile would not possibly be within 

striking range of any populated area.

5. See Chertok, Rockets and People: Vol. 1, Chapter 13.

why,” said Nedelin apologetically.

Nesterenko asked that the order to ship liquid oxygen to the firing range be 

cancelled: “We can store anything, but we don’t know how to store oxygen—it 

evaporates.”

Indeed, in order to fill the missile with oxygen, three times the required amount 

needed to be sent to Kazakhstan from Russia. Railroad tank cars were not designed 

for the long-term storage of cryogenic liquids. There was a very high rate of evaporation. The oxygen plant and the storage facility at the firing range had not yet been 

built. We really did leave our industry, especially metallurgy, without oxygen.

Nesterenko’s arguments had no effect. The instructions to ship oxygen to the 

firing range with delivery before 25 April were fulfilled. After 1 May, all the tank 

cars returned for a second filling, having enriched the steppe atmosphere with pure 

oxygen from the first shipment. But the second time, no one had any doubts that 

the oxygen would be used. By the end of the day all the glitches had been analyzed, 

the films had been reviewed, and the flight profile had been signed and reported to 

the State Commission. All the services—all the way from Tyuratam to Kamchatka—

reported that they were ready for 15 May.3 Along the way there were four tracking 

stations: Sary-Shagan, Yeniseysk, Ussuriysk, and Yelizovo. This is not counting the 

two local stations. The remote radio-control stations, the universal time services, 

and the firing range telemetry stations in KUNGs (large vans) were ready.4

We had all studied plans for evacuating all the services and residents of Site No. 

2, the evacuation of the actual launch team, and the list of persons who would be in 

the bunker during the launch.

On the last day before the launch, no one managed to rest or get a good night’s 

sleep. All of our time went to analyzing glitches by studying the Tral telemetry 

system films of the last repeated general tests. We needed not only to understand 

any upswing or downswing of a telemetry parameter on the film, but also to explain 

them to the State Commission. Finally, after all the readiness reports, the decision 

was made to begin fueling.

They announced strict procedures at the launch site that defined who should 

be where, when they should be ready to evacuate, and to where. A large portion 

of people who were not needed after T-minus one hour were sent to a reinforced 

area on a hill three kilometers from the launch site. The best place to observe and 

to receive immediate information in real time was IP-1, the first tracking station 

one kilometer from the launch site. Three KUNGs containing Tral equipment were 

set up there. The telemetry specialists’ cabin had direct communication with the 

bunker. Just in case, trenches had been dug, and there was an awning to protect 

high-ranking guests from the rain and sun.

3. Although the original Kazakh rendering of the location includes a hyphen (“Tyura-Tam”), by 

the early 1960s, Soviet engineers simplified the name to simply “Tyuratam.”

4. KUNG—Kuzov universalnyy normalnykh gabaritov—(All-purpose Standard Clearance Body).
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It took a lot of time to remove these explosive devices at the launch site. The 

soldier who dismantled the electrical assembly controlling the detonator reported 

that while he was performing that operation he dropped a washer that was securing the instrument inside the missile. Finding this washer was more difficult than 

finding a needle in a haystack. While hunting for it, they raked a heap of all sorts of 

trash out of the missile, but there was no washer. Finally, in order to end the hopeless search, it dawned on someone to get an identical washer from the “detonator” 

institute’s representative. They furtively attached it to a wire probe with a magnet, 

and then began to “search” for the lost washer in the missile compartment. Finally, 

they triumphantly announced: “Found the washer!” They even showed Nedelin the 

catch that had been hauled in with the magnetic fishing lure. The detonator specialist and the soldier responsible for the violation confirmed that that was indeed the 

missing washer.

Wow, that emergency system gave my comrades, the developers of the missile’s 

electrical circuitry—Melikova, Shashin, and Pronin, and myself—so much more 

trouble. Specialists wrote just as much material substantiating its reliability and 

safety alone as they did about the entire primary control system.

Ryazanskiy was supposed to think up a highly classified password that no more 

than six persons could know. After a long creative search process, he printed the 

word “Ivanhoe” in large letters on small strips of paper ripped out of a note pad and 

inserted them into special envelopes.6 And so the hero of a novel from the days of 

knighthood entered the history of Soviet rocket technology.

Soon we realized that for emergency inflight shutdown without radio it was possible to limit our options to just the autonomous portion: a seven-degree contact on 

the gyroscopes, emergency monitoring of the turbopump assembly’s rpms, and the 

pressure in the engines’ combustion chambers. These parameters proved sufficient 

to cover various emergency situations.

As for “Ivanhoe,” 20 years later in meetings with Ryazanskiy and me, OKB-1 chief 

ballistics specialist Refat Appazov, TsNIIMash (formerly NII-88) Director, Professor and General Yuriy Mozzhorin, and USSR Academy of Sciences Corresponding 

Member and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy Svyatoslav Lavrov 

delighted in poking fun at our general naiveté. Mozzhorin confessed that it was no 

picnic standing many hours on the desolate steppe in a whirlwind, waiting for the 

launch on the flight path, knowing that the missile might crash somewhere nearby 

despite “Ivanhoe.”

“How young we were, how much faith we had in ourselves!” This faith in ourselves 

soon helped us decide to keep the radio-command emergency engine shutdown 

only in the event of an emergency situation at the actual launch site. We thought 

up a terrifying scenario: the engines started up, but did not generate the required 

6. “Ivanhoe,” was a reference to the famous historical novel Ivanhoe (1819) by Sir Walter Scott 

(1771–1832).

At one of the last meetings of the State Commission, after yet another thorough review and all sorts of ballistic calculations conducted with the military (the 

firing range calculation bureau), Korolev reported that the estimated range would 

be 6,314 kilometers. We considered the primary objectives of the launch to include 

a launch procedure drill and testing the following: the first stage flight control 

dynamics, the process of the separation of the stages, the effectiveness of the radiocontrol system, second stage flight dynamics, the payload separation process, and 

trajectory of the nose cone before impact on the ground. The total thrust of the 

engines during launch would be 410 metric tons. The strapon boosters of the first 

stage would operate for 104 seconds and the central booster for 285 seconds. The 

estimated launch mass was 283 metric tons. The primary fire-prevention measure 

during launch was intensive nitrogen purging of the aft compartments of all five 

boosters.

To ensure the safety of populated areas along the missile’s flight route, an integrated emergency engine shutdown system was put in place. If the missile began to 

spin hard about its center of mass, then once it reached angles of deviation greater 

than seven degrees, the emergency contacts on the gyroscopes would close, sending 

commands for the subsequent shutdown of the engines. There was a chance that 

the missile might begin a smooth departure from the design trajectory due to the 

zero drift of the gyroscopes themselves. In that case, very great deviations from the 

route with unpredictable results were possible. We began monitoring using optical 

observations from the ground and transmitting a radio command for such an eventuality. The responsibility for making the decision to issue such a command was 

huge. Out of fright, a person could wreck a good missile and disrupt the flight tests. 

Therefore, a group of the most highly qualified and responsible specialists consisting of Appazov, Lavrov, and Mozzhorin was singled out to supervise. They would 

be located directly in the shooting plane and observe the missile’s behavior using 

a theodolite. Based on a three-way decision, they would relay by telephone to the 

bunker a password known only to them and the two launch directors, Nosov and 

Voskresenskiy. After receiving the emergency password in the bunker, they would 

press two buttons in succession. This served as a command to the radio-control 

station 15 kilometers away to broadcast the emergency signal using the directional 

antenna. An omnidirectional antenna was installed on the missile’s central booster 

to receive this signal. Even if the missile was spinning at that time, it would receive 

the signal. Highly accountable officers and industrial representatives were at the 

radio-control station. I bore personal responsibility for the onboard autonomous 

unit of the system; Ryazanskiy, for the radio link; and the firing range communications chief for the reliability of the telephone and signal communications.

During the very last days before the launch spent at the launch site, we collectively decided to convert the APR system into the AVD (Emergency Engine 

Shutdown) system. The APR system used an explosive charge in each booster of 

the missile in order to destroy them before they hit the ground, whereas the AVD 

merely shut down the engines.
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gin and his associates Georgiy Priss and Nikolay Lakuzo were on the left.

A chair had been left vacant for Korolev. The “brain bureau” was in the other 

rooms: circuitry consultants, electricians, and engine specialists to act in case something went wrong when setting up the launch circuit. Quick prompting was necessary. Inna Rostokina sorted out the most complex electrical circuits faster than all 

the men. She was the only woman who was permitted to be in the bunker during 

those hours. Worn out, bulky albums of all the systems’ electrical circuits were laid 

out all over the radio room and “filling room.” Nedelin, Keldysh, Kuznetsov, Ishlinskiy, Glushko, and Mrykin were in the guest room. The halls and passageways were 

already full of missile crewmembers who had completed their jobs at the launch site 

“ground zero.”

At T-minus 15 minutes, Korolev, Nosov, Voskresenskiy, and Barmin went down 

into the bunker. Nosov and Voskresenskiy took their places at the periscopes. Dorofeyev was in communication with the first IP, where Golunskiy and Vorshev were 

supposed to comment on the events displayed in the form of shimmering green 

columns of parameters on the electronic screens of the Tral ground station.

T-minus 1 minute. Total silence now. Habit more than memory focuses on what 

have now become standard commands: “Broach! Key to ignition! Purge! Key to 

vent! Launch!”

I noted how Chekunov pressed the red button with particular zeal upon hearing 

the command “Launch!” Gazing at the console, Yevgeniy Ostashev commented:

“The ‘ground-to-board’ command has passed.”

Voskresenskiy was glued to the periscope:

“The gantry has pulled away... Ignition ... Preliminary... Main!”

A report came from the console:

“Lift-off contact.”

Voskresenskiy exclaimed:

“Liftoff! The missile lifted off!”

The roar of five engines penetrated into the bunker.

Yevgeniy Ostashev informed us, “The console has reset.”

There was nothing more to do in the console room. Pushing, I fought my way 

upward, oblivious to the steep climb, just annoyed at how slowly the crowd of 

people ahead of me was climbing. Where did they all come from? Finally I sprang 

out. It was dark; after all, it was 9 p.m. local time!

I made out Nedelin’s imposing form next to me. The rapidly dimming exhaust 

plume blazed brilliantly against the dark sky. But what was this?! It became sort 

of lopsided. In addition to the main plume, another one had formed. The missile 

broke out of the Earth’s shadow and it glistened, illuminated by the sun, which 

was invisible to us. It was an otherworldly, unforgettable spectacle. Now we would 

see the separation! But suddenly against the black sky the lights went out. A small 

flicker was still shining and moving away from the spot where it had just been blazing so brightly.

Trying not to knock anybody down, we descended into the console room. There 

thrust; the missile remained in the embrace of the launch assembly; flames engulf 

the missile, the cables are damaged, the bunker’s communication with the missile is 

now lost, and it is impossible to send the emergency command from the console to 

shut down the engines. In this case, the launch control officer would press the two 

buttons consecutively, and the saving command to shut down the engines would be 

broadcast from the radio station at “third elevation” to the blazing missile.

Nevertheless, on 15 May, after the State Commission gave its decision to launch, 

when it seemed that everything had been thought through, provided for, and 

reported on, uneasiness and anxiety still plagued me. I’d forgotten something.

That’s it! I stopped Ryazanskiy at the launch site as he was rushing to the telephone as always. “Mikhail, this is urgent.” At first he waved me away and ran to the 

field telephone that had just been set up. He repeated some instructions to his radio 

tower and then prepared himself to listen. I had made up my mind to tell no one 

but Ryazanskiy what had occurred to me. Others wouldn’t understand or would 

laugh.

“You know, it seems to me that we all subconsciously are experiencing the feelings 

that overcame Pygmalion. He toiled long and with inspiration, carving the beautiful Galatea out of marble, and fell in love with her. We are all Pygmalions.7

 Here she 

is, our beautiful creation hanging in the embrace of the steel trusses. And today, if 

the gods are willing, she should come to life if we have thought everything through 

and anticipated everything. But if we have forgotten something, then the gods will 

punish us and either they will not bring her to life or we ourselves will kill her with 

our emergency commands.”

In these surroundings Ryazanskiy didn’t grasp right away why I was alluding 

to Pygmalion. But, after a moment of reflection he told me that my analogy was 

worthy of the pen of a small-town hack rather than Korolev’s deputy.

“Hey, what say we put a smile on Lenya Voskresenskiy’s face?”

And he walked right up to Voskresenskiy, who was ever present at the launch 

site, and grinned as he began to relate my analogy to him. Voskresenskiy remained 

true to form, and without missing a beat, responded: “If you and Boris are so 

inclined, then after the launch you won’t have much trouble tracking down some 

live Galateas. As for this one, she’s got a lot in store for us yet! We’ll be sorry we got 

mixed up with her.”

My romantic diversions ended on that note, but Voskresenskiy’s words proved 

to be prophetic.

Finally, I went down to the console room in the bunker at T-minus 30 minutes. 

All the places there were already taken. Yevgeniy Ostashev was acting as chief console operator. Next to him was launch control officer Boris Chekunov and on either 

side the testers from Zagorsk who had conducted the firing rig trials. Nikolay Pilyu7. This is a reference to ancient Roman poet Ovid’s play Metamorphoses about a sculptor, Pygmalion, 

who fell in love with his creation.
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353

“Look here, Boris,” said Kuznetsov, “now you and I must drink another drink. It 

was my gyroscopes that gave the command and your emergency engine shutdown 

unit that did just that for the first time on the very first missile. Your control surface 

actuators put up a good fight for the missile’s life.”

These were sufficiently convincing arguments for us to polish off the bottle.

would be a report from the telemetry specialists there. Only they could explain why 

our star had faded away ahead of time. There was a tremendous rush of activity in 

the bunker. Having cast aside his customary self-control, Mrykin was congratulating and embracing the still stunned Korolev. Voskresenskiy was on the phone interrogating Golunskiy. Everyone was exchanging theories, but no one could explain 

anything. Barmin was already calling up the bunker from “ground zero” to report 

that on first inspection no external damage was detected on the launch pad.

Finally, Voskresenskiy tore himself away from the telephone and loudly reported: 

“Telemetry has visually detected the passage of an emergency shutdown command at 

somewhere around 100 seconds. They will not say anything more precise. They are 

taking the film cartridges over to MIK for development.

Korolev couldn’t stand it:

“Ask when they will be ready.”

“Sergey Pavlovich, let’s at least give them a night. By morning they will all be 

deciphered. It would be useless for us to conjecture who’s to blame.

After debates as to what time we should gather for the report on the films, we 

nevertheless talked Korolev into leaving to have dinner, get some sleep, and after an 

early breakfast, to hear what the telemetry specialists had to say at 9 a.m.

When Voskresenskiy saw me, he said, “Boris, let’s go to my place.”

Korolev happened to pick up on this, and in a disgruntled, but rather loud fashion grumbled, “You’d better find out where that command came from and then sort 

out what’s wrong. Boris, your AVD is probably the culprit.”

Voskresenskiy’s housemates in cabin No. 3 were Barmin and Kuznetsov. Despite 

our fatigue, we settled into Kuznetsov’s most spacious room and over a bottle of 

cognac we discussed the events, scenarios, and repercussions for another couple of 

hours. Barmin was very satisfied that the launch system had passed the test. Yes, that 

alone was already a very big success.

But not just that; after all, the booster cluster had flown for 100 seconds. That 

meant the cluster dynamics also checked out and it was controllable. It didn’t keel 

over during the very first seconds of flight. That was something we could drink 

to. At 1 a.m. I was getting ready to go over to the adjacent cabin and get some 

sleep, but Voskresenskiy got a call from Golunskiy, who reported the results of the 

film analysis. “Fire in the aft of Block D. The temperature sensors started to go off 

the scale and went out of order. It was outside the parameters. The temperatures 

began to rise during launch. Controlled flight lasted for 98 seconds. Then, by all 

appearances, the fire started and got so big that the thrust of the engine in Block 

D dropped abruptly and the booster separated without receiving a command. The 

remaining four engines were running and the control system was trying to restrain 

the missile. The control surfaces could not cope with the disturbance. They were at 

their limit and at 103 seconds the AVD command passed validly.”

Voskresenskiy asked, “Did you call Sergey Pavlovich?”

“Yes, I gave him the report. He demanded that we find the source of the fire. Now 

let’s examine all the other parameters.

Chapter 19

No Time for a Breather

In the morning everyone knew about the fire. But what had caused it? Trumped 

up “authentic” versions were already circulating. The State Commission, technical 

management, and everyone who could elbow his or her way in gathered in the small 

meeting hall.

Voskresenskiy and Nosov reported what they had observed of the launch from 

the periscopes. They noticed an intense flame that rose up all the way to the support 

cones as the engines built up to the preliminary stage. The exteriors of the first stage 

boosters were engulfed in flame over their entire height, but as the engines were 

building up to the main stage, evidently a stream of air put out the flame and the 

missile blasted off completely clean. They noticed no fire during liftoff. Nevertheless, the source of the fire was clearly found in Block D. A kerosene pressure sensor 

downstream from the pump first showed a normal buildup and then the pressure 

began to fall and reached zero. This indicated a leak in the line feeding kerosene to 

the engine. The turbopump assembly of Block D operated normally, and kerosene 

under high pressure gushed through some hole. A fire started in the aft compartment right on the launch pad.

It was simply amazing that the missile was able to fly for another 100 seconds! It 

had fought heroically. It had been so close to separation! There were no glitches in 

the core booster. If it had held out for another 5 to 10 seconds, the command for 

separation would have passed, and then the second stage, having gained its freedom, 

could have continued the flight.

How frustrating that this occurred during the first flight! Such a routine defect 

should have been detected on the ground during testing at the engineering facility. 

Heated debates before and after the meetings confirmed that the leak might have 

developed during the lengthy, jostling transport by rail. Such cases had occurred 

even on the R-1. In 1950, a mandatory requirement was introduced for the R-1 

and R-2, pneumatic testing after railroad transport. As the missile traveled thousands of kilometers, it bumped against the rail joints, loosening numerous flanged 

and fitting connections in the fuel lines. And during resonance there had even been 

instances of breaks in loosely laid pipelines. All missiles underwent pneumatic tests 

at the engineering facility, but they forgot about them for the R-7!

355
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357

say anything bad about it.

Unbearable heat set in at the firing range. The multicolored tulips were gone. 

The steppe dried out and began to scorch and take on a uniform reddish-gray color. 

The MIK gradually heated up, and it was pleasant to work at the engineering facility 

only in the evening and at night, when we opened up the wide doors to let the cool 

night air blow through. How many times over the course of a day did I step out of 

my cabin and tread over the path to the MIK that I had studied down to the last 

pebble! At that time they had just completed the military barracks on the hill, a fire 

station on the left-hand side of the concrete road, and a large dining hall on the way 

to the MIK. This was the road I followed from the residence area to the TP all the 

succeeding years, in unbearable heat, and in icy wind, inhaling deep breaths of the 

intoxicating steppe air in the spring.

During the first year of life at the firing range, the concrete road ran from Site 

No. 10 to our Site No. 2, and then over the bare steppes on to the MIK and the 

launch site at Site No. 1. If you were traveling from the Tyuratam station, just to the 

left there was a solitary railroad spur over which trains carried officers to work in the 

morning and took them home in the evening.

Gradually the steppe became more developed. Two years after the firing range 

was opened, you could walk over pedestrian sidewalks that had been laid alongside 

the concrete road to the MIK. We got respite from the heat from the shade of poplar 

trees planted along the roads and from the fine spray of the irrigation sprinklers that 

saved the first plantings from impending death.

In April 1991, at festivities marking the 30th anniversary of Gagarin’s flight, 

I walked this route as a guest, veteran, and tourist, carrying my camera. I strolled 

along the same route that I had followed 34 years before, but this was a road where 

“everything was the same and nothing was the same.” The steppe, that same insufferably hot and scathingly cold, dusty steppe of Kazakhstan, abloom with tulips, 

was simply not visible anymore. One could only admire the numerous service buildings, the official cottages, and the distant panorama of colossal buildings built for 

programs like the N-1, Energiya, and Buran.1 Only the fire station to the left, the 

barracks to the right on the hill, and the smokestack of the first boiler house on the 

low-lying land by the railroad tracks remained untouched and took me back to that 

long-ago, difficult but wonderful time.

During those first years when I walked to the MIK or returned weary to have 

a turn at “horizontal tests,” as we referred to a brief rest, everyone I encountered 

along the way was a comrade, a friend, or, at least, a like-minded individual. I was 

confident that I had no enemies here. There was nothing and no one to fear except 

the odd “monkey wrenches” in the works that might throw off the next missile. And 

this wasn’t fear, it was the nature of our work. We all derived genuine pleasure from 

1. The N-1 and Energiya were the Soviet Union’s two “superbooster” projects. Buran was the 

piloted space shuttle designed for launch on Energiya.

Although the leak occurred in lines 

that were under Glushko’s jurisdiction, 

we all felt our share of guilt. Voskresenskiy, who rightfully considered himself 

a specialist on hydraulic systems and 

their testing, blamed not only Glushko’s deputy Kurbatov and our designers 

Voltsifer and Raykov—who had supervised the propulsion systems—but also 

himself. Korolev did not feel at fault 

this time. He felt that Glushko had 

been rightly punished for his self-confidence and hubris before the launch.

The guidance specialists felt like 

golden boys. The behavior of the stabilization controllers, all the instruments, and control surface actuators 

had matched up almost completely 

with the oscillograms that Zhernova 

had obtained on the electronic simulator. We had thoroughly analyzed the 

oscillograms and compared various segments of the actual flight that had been 

recorded on the Tral films. Zhernova 

commented, “And for some reason I 

had been afraid for your control surface actuators. Look how well they responded 

to all the commands and how tenaciously they fought for the missile’s life.” Thus 

ended the life of the first Semyorka No. 5. The gods did not pass up the opportunity 

to punish us for letting our vigilance slip.

The State Commission decided to urgently prepare the next missile, No. 6, or 

factory designation M1-6. All involved in the project were forbidden to leave for 

Moscow. Commission members flew out only with the chairman’s permission while 

industry employees could do the same only with Korolev’s permission.

Engineers quickly formulated leak tests that were introduced for booster cluster 

No. 6. And that was a good thing. We found so many potential fire sources that it 

was a wonder that the Block D was the only one to catch fire on the previous Semyorka. After hearing the stories about the flames that had engulfed the entire lower 

part of the missile before liftoff, it was decided to place additional thermal shielding 

on all the onboard cables.

Meanwhile, Konstantin Nikolayevich Rudnev replaced Ryabikov as chairman of 

the State Commission. Korolev flew to Moscow to prepare a design and speed up 

plans for satellites. This was something he didn’t like to discuss, I assume out of fear 

of jinxing it. He did have that streak in his personality. We knew this, but we didn’t 

Valentin Glushko (1908-89), the giant of 

Soviet rocket engine design, shown here 

around 1958, probably at the time of his 

induction as a full member of the USSR 

Academy of Sciences.

Asif Siddiqi.
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359

came into play. All the circuitry specialists dove back into the already tattered pages 

and, using their experience and intuition, tried to figure out what had happened.

While they were searching feverishly for the cause of the malfunction, Korolev, 

Voskresenskiy, Nosov, and Glushko decided to attempt another launch. To do this, 

some members of the launch crew had to run to the missile and change the igniters 

and others had to set the launch system in the initial state, rig the gantry, connect 

the connectors that were thrown off, and feed power to the missile from the ground 

source.

We couldn’t dawdle; everything had to be done very quickly. Rapid evaporation 

was a weakness of oxygen-fueled missiles, and it also meant a decrease in the oxygen 

supply. Delays at the launch site might require that tank cars holding liquid oxygen, 

already withdrawn to a safe distance, would have to travel back over the railway 

spur to refuel. We estimated and calculated and decided to go for another attempt 

without refueling.

A little more than 2 hours later everything was ready for another launch attempt. 

We had ignition and then the circuit reset again. Now it became clear that until 

the cause was understood, it was pointless to reattempt a launch. It was getting on 

toward evening, and this workday at the launch site had started at 7 a.m. Someone 

gave the order, and something akin to a buffet was brought in. Even if it wasn’t 

exactly a full lunch, you could at least drink some mineral water. The telemetry 

specialists once again came to the rescue. After the first circuit reset, they managed to send the film to be developed. After the second reset—when everyone felt 

nearly exhausted, the telemetry specialists joyfully reported, “The Tral recorded an 

indication from the KD—the contact sensor—that the main oxygen valve in Block 

V failed to open.”3 Again, a breakdown caused by Glushko’s system. The circuitry 

specialists feverishly analyzed, discussed, and issued their findings: “As it should be, 

everything is OK.”4 All discussions were going on right then in the bunker. Luckily 

it was still the coolest place at the launch site.

Once again everything was reset to the initial state, and the igniters were replaced. 

Korolev asked Glushko, “What’s your decision?” The latter gave it some thought. 

Voskresenskiy suggested, “Let’s direct hot air from the air heater onto the valve. The 

valve probably froze up from moisture. Let’s warm it up and try again.”

What could we do? There were no other suggestions. We’d lost a lot of time, and 

even more would be required: we needed to give the command for the oxygen tank 

car to return and fill up the missile. This meant that we were returning to T-minus 

4 hours. The entire multitude of services all the way to Kamchatka were given a 4-

hour delay. Everyone, except those of us at the launch site, could relax.

There was no smoking in the bunker. Pilyugin—who still smoked back then— 

3. KD—Kontaktnyy datchik.

4. In the original, Chertok uses the acronym “TDB” for tak i dolzhno byt which loosely translates 

as “as it should be.”

searching for and discovering our own mistakes. When we were preparing new missiles for launch, we always found new and unexpected quirks, but these idiosyncrasies didn’t get us down. We knew that the next quirk would not be the last.

During our first years of operations at the firing range a certain sense of community united us, individuals of various ranks: marshals and soldiers, ministers, 

chief designers and young engineers. We were all working under strict secrecy. The 

newspapers had still not written anything about us, and Levitan’s voice had not yet 

broadcast our successes to the entire world over the radio.2 But you can’t hide a missile blasting off from thousands of eyes. Each person who had seen its exhaust felt 

connected to something that united him or her with all the others who were here, 

regardless of what their role was.

But missiles did not take our feelings into consideration. The second one 

launched—Semyorka No. 6—simply did not wish to take off. We had created the 

R-7 missile as a weapon. One of the most crucial parameters for a missile, even an 

intercontinental missile, is the time required to achieve readiness, that is, the length 

of the preparation cycle from the time it is delivered to the launch site until launch. 

For the first launch we spent almost 10 days at the launch site. Everyone understood 

very well that we would no longer have the luxury of such a prolonged preparation 

cycle. Therefore, in addition to all the other tasks, we decided to develop prelaunch 

tests, strictly standardizing the time spent on all operations.

Missile No. 6 was delivered to the launch site on 5 June, 20 days after the first 

launch. At that time, such an interval seemed reasonable considering the large 

number of modifications and additional pneumatic tests that had been conducted 

at the engineering facility. Preparation and testing at the launch site went considerably faster, and five days later the missile had already been fueled and was ready for 

launch. The entire launch schedule was repeated. While the first launch was fraught 

with much anxiety and various prognoses, everyone was much more optimistic 

about the second launch. After all, the previous launch had proceeded almost all the 

way to the most thrilling and enigmatic moment, the moment of separation.

The second launch attempt took place on 10 June 1957. According to the flickering displays, everything went normally up to the moment the “Launch” button 

was pushed. Ignition also occurred. Suddenly, shutdown! No fire engulfing the missile. One could barely hear the clicking of relays. The lights on the display console 

died out, and the message “Circuit reset” appeared.

This meant that the electric monitor in the form of end contacts and relays had 

detected that some valve had failed to open or that damage had occurred in the 

circuit. The albums of circuit diagrams stockpiled earlier in the bunker immediately 

2. Yuriy Borisovich Levitan (1914–83) was one of the most famous radio announcers of the Soviet 

era. Few who lived through Soviet times have forgotten his momentous announcements of the great 

events of the era, including daily bulletins during World War II and the final defeat of the Nazis in 

1945.
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To make it easier for me to endure such a prolonged stay at the firing range, 

Sergey Pavlovich led me to his large refrigerator. “I want to sweeten your solitary 

stay in this cabin.” He opened the refrigerator and pointed to an enormous chocolate cake. The cake was magnificent. “Nina Ivanovna sent it to me quite recently as a 

surprise. I give you permission to enjoy it, but not with too many people, and leave 

a little for when I return.” Many years later I confessed to Nina Ivanovna that her 

cake really was a hit for several evenings in cabin No. 2 at Dvoyka (Site No. 2).

It wasn’t easy, but the commission investigating the causes for the failed launch 

uncovered the truth. It was right out of the “not-in-your-wildest-dreams” department. During the factory assembly of the central booster’s onboard hydraulic system, 

the engine’s prelaunch nitrogen purging valve was installed backward. Although the 

valve had an arrow engraved on it indicating the flow direction, the fittings on 

the inlet and outlet had identical threading, which caused the error. The assembly 

worker simply turned the valve however he saw fit, because it wasn’t his job to 

know which way the arrow was supposed to point. He would have had to study the 

hydraulic system to know that. Where were the inspectors and military representatives looking? The debacle did not slow down our investigations; hot on the trail, we 

also discovered precisely the same error on the next missile that we had just begun 

to prepare.

As a result of this mistake, the purging of nitrogen didn’t terminate before the 

launch. Gaseous nitrogen entered the oxygen chambers of the main engine’s and 

vernier thrusters’ combustion chambers. The kerosene didn’t ignite in the oxygen/

nitrogen atmosphere, there was absolutely no engine build-up, and without waiting 

until the designated time of zero pressure in the combustion chambers, the control 

system automatics issued the command to shut down all of the cluster’s engines. 

That is when we recalled the stringency of triple control that we had heard so much 

about in the past year while preparing the R-5M missile carrying an atomic warhead.

Fool-proofing is one of the most difficult problems, and not just in complex 

technical devices. An American driver’s education handbook put it this way: “When 

you get the notion to drive out onto the roadway, remember that you are not the 

only idiot sitting behind the wheel at that particular moment.”

This time we actually got off cheap. The missile was intact, and after undergoing 

a checkout procedure, it could be prepared for another launch attempt. The launch 

pad had suffered no damage either. Only the oxygen, once again taken from industry, was wasted. Each launch preparation cycle was good training for the officers 

and soldiers of the launch control team. And it also became clear to the industry 

employees that it was still too early to let things get to your head.

The engineering facility kept its promise regarding the deadline, and on 7 July 

the missile was hauled out of the MIK to the launch site for the third time. Everyone had flown back to the firing range by this day. This third departure from the 

MIK was just as festive as the first. The diesel locomotive slowly pushed the erector 

and missile ahead of it. “Cannons travel backwards into battle”—in these lines by 

Voskresenskiy, and I climbed up to the surface and sat down in the “smoking room,” 

not far from the entrance to the bunker. They had already switched on the floodlights at the launch site. The first stars were lighting up in the darkened sky. Pilyugin was the first to cave in under the prolonged uncertainty. He demanded an 

answer from Voskresenskiy and me, asking, “What will happen on our third launch 

attempt?” I answered that the missile would take off, and then it would be time for 

us guidance specialists to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Voskresenskiy quoted: “Night is 

already falling and still no Herman. You won’t be involved yet.” He continued, “I 

have a feeling that Valentin [Glushko] hasn’t exhausted his entire stock of ‘monkey 

wrenches’ yet. We won’t blast off today.”

And once again he was right. On the third attempt the ill-fated valve opened. 

The missile built up to the preliminary stage and ... stalled there. There was no 

transition to main stage at the designated time. We guidance specialists had provided a time lock in the automatics circuit for such an event. If, considering all 

allowable variations, the engines did not make the transition from the preliminary 

to the main stage at the designated time, there was a general emergency shutdown. 

The missile was soon engulfed in bright flames lapping in the darkness, and then ... 

suddenly it all quickly died out.

This happened at midnight between 10 and 11 June. Now the discussion in the 

bunker did not come down to the question: “Why did this happen?” An urgent 

decision was required as to what to do with the missile. Glushko answered unequivocally: “There can’t be another launch attempt. As soon as the “Preliminary” command is given, kerosene entered all the combustion chambers. We need to dry them 

out completely and maybe even replace them.”

After the official report to Rudnev, Korolev announced the decision of the technical management. “Drain the fuel and oxidizer, remove the missile, and return it to 

the engineering facility. Create a commission headed by Voskresenskiy to determine 

the causes of all of today’s incidents.” Our truly heroic battle with the headstrong 

missile ended so disgracefully.

We took our time with the third M1-7 missile, nicknamed the Sedmaya semyorka (“seventh seven” or “seventh Semyorka”), and spent a month preparing it at the 

engineering facility.

The morning after the previous night’s defeat at the launch site, I made a great 

effort to try to speed up the missile’s preparations. Having examined the systems’ 

readiness and the test results, I reported to Korolev that we would be ready to haul 

out the missile no sooner than 6 or 7 July. Considering that we would spend five or 

six days at the launch site, the next launch could be scheduled for 12 July.

Korolev agreed in principle, but requested, if Voskresenskiy’s commission didn’t 

add a lot of work, that we nevertheless shorten the preparation cycle at the engineering facility by about 10 days. He himself had to leave and granted permission for 

all the chiefs to go home for a visit. The State Commission would fly out too. After 

clarifying the causes for the failures, Voskresenskiy would also be allowed a short 

respite, but I would be left to get the seventh Semyorka ready.
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staggering spectacle as yet another Semyorka dies. What sort of curse hangs over this 

missile? When earlier missiles had crashed, it was sometimes horrible, sometimes 

intriguing, and always vexing. This time I experienced pain. As if before my eyes a 

close and dear individual was dying. And all of us left behind on the ground were 

powerless to help.

Jarred back to reality, I got into the KUNG that carried the Tral. Others had 

already packed up the film canisters and were getting ready to drive to the MIK to 

develop them. What had we seen? Golunskiy, Vorshev, and the rest said in unison, 

“At 38 seconds there was a big command for rotation. Everything started spinning! 

And you saw what happened after that.” If a great disturbing torque or a false command for rotation occurred, then it’s not surprising that the strapon boosters fell off. 

It seems that this time the gods were not angry with the engine specialists but with 

us guidance specialists.

Practically all night, Pilyugin, his team, the telemetry analysts, and I sat in the 

screening room poring over the films that had been brought to us still wet. The picture was clearer in the morning after thorough analysis. Back during preparation at 

the engineering facility it was a complete surprise for me that, beginning with this 

vehicle, an instrument had been introduced into the stabilization controller integrating the rotation channel signal for the strapon boosters. I couldn’t understand 

why stabilizing the moment for rotation over and above that already flight-tested 

was needed. No one could explain this properly. The false command in the rotation 

channel apparently came from this instrument, the IR-FI (integrator for the rotation angle). I was incredulous, albeit post-factum. “Whatever possessed you, Nikolay, to insert that instrument? To begin with, you should have at least checked it out 

in telemetry mode.” Crushed by his obvious guilt, Pilyugin could find no excuse.

It surprised me that his staff, who had always been “stauncher monarchists than 

the king himself” when something went wrong in their kingdom, did not stand up 

for their boss this time. They also felt guilty for the unnecessary innovation. When 

they began to sort out the situation in greater detail, they still did not find the clear 

causes for this intense command for rotation that occurred in flight. Even a failure 

of individual elements in the new instrument could not cause such wild behavior.

After running through many scenarios, one remained: a short-circuit in the 

controlling circuit inside the instrument. Only in this case could there be a signal 

comparable to the one that occurred in flight. For verification they opened up a 

spare instrument. A visual inspection did not suggest any ground faults. If one had 

occurred, then why did it occur 38 seconds into the launch and not sooner? But 

once we had decided to do away with this instrument in the future, we moved on to 

the scenario that always bailed us out in baffling situations: “foreign particle.” This 

current-conducting malefactor had been hiding in the instrument from the very 

beginning. It had been left there as a result of an inadequate control process. During 

inflight vibrations and under the effect of g-loading, it began to move and managed 

to connect one of the exposed command circuit pins with a nearby cable shield.

Appropriately, for the next, now the fourth launch attempt, the following proTvardovskiy from Vasiliy Terkin, you might as well replace the word “cannons” with 

“missiles,” at least when talking about the R-7.5

We were considerably more organized in preparing the seventh Semyorka at the 

launch site. Despite temperatures that shot up to 45oC (113°F) in the shade, we 

completed work on it without all-hands rush jobs at night or extra stress. The missile was ready in five days.

The same body of people once again gathered in the bunker, and the same battletested team sat at the consoles. This time I talked Korolev into letting me go to the 

first tracking station (IP-1) at T-minus 30 minutes. At last I would be able to take 

in the missile’s liftoff from its first second rather that running out of the bunker 60 

seconds into its flight! So for the first time I saw the launch of the R-7 missile on 

our third attempt on 12 July 1957.

This is how I remember that day: after the flash of ignition, a tumultuous dance 

of fire appears under the entire missile. A second later flame engulfs the missile 

over the strapon boosters from top to bottom. One begins to fear for it. It seems 

the tanks will explode now, destroying the launch complex and burning it down. 

But in an instant the engines build up and a stream of air pulls the whirling flame 

downward into the enormous unseen concrete escarpment. The trusses resting upon 

the missile’s waist glide apart. Five engines merging together, the blinding, triumphantly roaring plume cautiously lifts the cluster’s 300-metric ton body. Even from 

a kilometer’s distance, the roar of the engines, incomparable to any other sounds, 

is deafening.

Taking its time, the missile rises upward. In the flame billowing about the aft 

section I can clearly see the supersonic fronts. Before I know it, the missile is on 

course and leaving the launch site. The first 5 to 7 seconds are terrible; what if a false 

command were suddenly to pass and shut down just one engine! Then the missile 

would fall apart and shower down on the launch site and perhaps even this tracking 

station.

I am overcome with the sense of being a part of this creation, dreadful, powerful, 

and yet familiar and dear. I want to imbue the fire with my own will, my aspirations, 

and my entire being. Come on, fly! Now I no longer fear for myself but for her, for 

the missile. Will she make it this time? But I didn’t have to ponder for long. The 

time count was coming over the loudspeaker, and somewhere after 35 seconds, the 

missile made a smooth, triumphant liftoff and departed into the dark blue evening 

sky. The missile spun about its longitudinal axis, and suddenly the strapon boosters 

flew off of the core! The missile was destroyed!

The five hot, smoking boosters are now coasting along, but gradually they 

descend, and somersaulting, they fly over the hill to the horizon. A tragedy, this 

5. Aleksandr Trifonovich Tvardovskiy (1910–71) was a famous Soviet poet who gained fame while 

working as a journalist on the war front during World War II. His poem “Vasiliy Terkin” about a 

resourceful Soviet soldier later became part of postwar Soviet folklore.
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Korolev intended to insist on allocating two rockets for the orbital insertion of artificial Earth satellites. The Americans had announced that they were preparing such 

a sensation to commemorate the International Geophysical Year (IGY).7 If they 

got the jump on us, this would be a severe blow to our prestige. While they were 

conducting an active defense in Moscow, we here must at all costs conduct a failsafe 

preparation of the M1-8 missile. A successful launch needed to be executed no later 

than early August. Otherwise, everyone could expect all hell to break loose.

At that time Rudnev was a deputy minister of the defense industry, a person who 

undoubtedly had assessed the situation critically and realistically. Taking advantage 

of the situation, I asked, “Well, what can they do with us? After all, these days it’s 

considered bad form to imprison us or send us to Kolyma.”8

“Yes, indeed,” answered Rudnev, “No one is going to put us in prison. But they 

can assign our missile, or more accurately, your missile, to others. You shouldn’t 

forget that Khrushchev is supporting Chelomey’s proposals. Yangel also has proposals for a new missile.”

It was difficult to say what capabilities Chelomey had, but we had trained people 

at the Dnepropetrovsk factory and Yangel’s design bureau, and they were a powerful 

force. They had already mastered our R-5M, had developed their own first missile, 

the R-12, a rival of the R-5M, and now they were working on a new intercontinental design.9

 Yangel did not conceal his negative attitude toward liquid oxygen missiles. The military, too, was waffling. Of course, oxygen and kerosene was inert and 

safe. Nitrogen tetroxide and dimethylhydrazine were toxic components. Bluntly 

put, it was horrible using them, although we did just that with the R-11 and other 

nitrogen-fueled naval missiles and it was fine. We even got used to them on submarines.

Rudnev continued, “I had a frank conversation with Sergey Pavlovich. He has 

a lot of interesting proposals and far-ranging plans. But one or two more mishaps 

with the Semyorka and all of this might be transferred to other people. Keep in mind 

that even Nedelin might waffle. And, after all, he’s the only one among all the marshals who understands our technology. We can’t count on Malinovskiy’s support. 

He doesn’t even see beyond his own past experience as a combined arms division 

or even army commander. He tolerates us just because Khrushchev needs a missile. 

Nikita Sergeyevich has faith in us for the time being.” Rudnev hadn’t told me any7. The International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) designated the period between July 

1957 and December 1958 as the International Geophysical Year (IGY), a time when scientists from 

all over the world would jointly study geophysical phenomena in remote areas of the Earth and the 

upper atmosphere. In October 1954, the ICSU decided to include satellite launches as part of the IGY 

program.

8. One of the Gulag’s most notorious forced labor camps was located in Kolyma in northeastern 

Siberia.

9. This new intercontinental missile was known as the R-16 (later known in the West as the SS-7 

Saddler).

phylactic measures were established: the rotation channel on all the strapons was 

disconnected from the integrator of the stabilization controller, and all plug and 

socket connectors were flushed with alcohol before their final mating and then 

wrapped in adhesive tape to prevent “foreign particles” from getting in.

When passions had subsided, I met with Zhernova and asked: “Nina, did you 

really simulate the processes of the stabilization controller with this IR-FI? The first 

time the missile got almost to the point of separation without it. Then you and I did 

a detailed analysis of the launch, and you even praised our control surface actuators. 

Why was this improvement necessary?”

Zhernova replied that she had been against this change, but she could not convince Nikolay Alekseyevich. He insisted, and the circuit was modified beginning 

with this missile. “Just please don’t tell Nikolay Alekseyevich that we had this conversation. I feel very sorry for him now. He had so looked forward to this launch and 

had been so confident in it. Now it turns out that the crash is his fault.”

My next hardship came in a conversation with State Commission Chairman 

Rudnev. Smiling, he began by joking that not just the engine specialists but also 

the guidance specialists had learned to kill powerful missiles with the aid of “foreign 

particles.” And so that this would not happen in the future, he asked me not to leave 

for Moscow (though Korolev had given permission), but to stay to prepare the next 

missile. “I guarantee you that, regardless of the outcome of the next launch, we will 

let you go immediately either home or on vacation.”

I was completely floored when he said that he and Mrykin had decided not to 

leave, but to stay at the firing range until the launch. “Here, of course, it’s very hot, 

but in Moscow, if you show up, they give you such heat that you immediately regret 

that you went there.”

At first I protested, “I haven’t budged from this place in almost four months!” 

But Rudnev begged me and recommended that I go on a fishing trip. I gave in.

Before his departure, Korolev said that he was to have some very serious meetings with nuclear physicists in Moscow. They were proposing a new warhead for 

the Semyorka with a slightly reduced yield but almost two times lighter than the 

existing one. This would instantly increase our missile’s range by about 4,000 kilometers. “Twelve thousand kilometers! We will be able to reach the Americans from 

any spot on our territory!” said S.P. with animation. “Just for the time being this 

shouldn’t get around. Nedelin said that he made an agreement with Khrushchev 

about building operational launch sites near Arkhangelsk and we’ll build one more 

here, a backup.” I was surprised that Korolev wasn’t at all dispirited by the demise 

of the last missile.

Rudnev gave me to understand that duties for the immediate future had already 

been assigned. Nedelin, Keldysh, and Korolev were giving presentations in Moscow 

before the Central Committee. There would be a meeting with Minister of Defense

Malinovskiy and perhaps even with Khrushchev himself.6 Despite the first setbacks, 

6. Marshal Rodion Yakovlevich Malinovskiy (1898–1967), a famous wartime veteran, served as 

USSR minister of defense in 1957–67.
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366

No Time for a Breather

367

It was not more than 30 minutes by car from the ground zero quarters to our 

Dvoyka (Site No. 2). For exercise I set out for the MIK on foot. After making my 

way over the hot expanse, when I entered the suffocating bay I was absolutely dripping with sweat. To my surprise the core booster had not yet been mated. One of 

the workers explained that Lomakin himself had been inside it for more than two 

hours now, and they were afraid that something might have happened to him. I 

started talking to Lomakin through the hatch. He promised to come out soon. 

While we were mulling over how he could work in such heat inside a missile in a 

space so cramped that any movement was restricted, Rudnev drove up. We went 

into the console room with him. There Yevgeniy Ostashev had prepared the schedule of operations. Soon thereafter, red as a lobster, Lomakin stopped by and asked 

if he could have a word with me. He explained that while installing the corrugated 

tubing connecting the two parts of the duct, he had lost one of the six 10-mm bolts 

along with the nut. He had connected all the flanges but he didn’t know what to do 

next. My blood ran cold, “Are you sure that that bolt didn’t accidentally end up in 

the duct?”

“Yes,” answered Lomakin, “I can vouch for that. I removed all the bolts from the 

flange before the mating operation and placed them in a recess there. When I connected the flange and began the assembly, instead of six bolts, only five turned up. I 

felt and looked all around and they were nowhere to be found.”

“Relax,” I recommended, “Think about it, try to recall the whole situation, have 

a cold drink of water, and get back in there and have another look. Until we find it, 

there will be no work on the core booster. We must have an absolute guarantee that 

the bolt is not in the duct. If it’s there, an accident is inevitable. It’ll get caught in 

the oxygen pump and then . . . well, you get the picture.”

When I returned to the console room, Rudnev wanted to know what had happened. I wasn’t about to hide it and explained. He said that he wasn’t going to leave 

the MIK until we found the lost bolt. Before once again setting out on his quest, 

Lomakin turned all the pockets of his coveralls inside out in the presence of the 

military rep and the controller to prove that he wasn’t taking a spare bolt inside with 

him. An hour passed, then another. Word spread throughout the MIK about what 

had happened. Someone came up with the idea of “rolling” the booster and determining where the bolt was by listening for the sound of its rattling around. But we 

awaited Lomakin’s return. After a little more than two hours, he emerged beaming 

from the missile and triumphantly lifted his find over his head for all to see. We 

all congratulated Lomakin, and he crawled back in to put the sixth and last bolt 

in place. Rudnev, who, it seems, was more pleased than we with the happy ending, 

proposed issuing a directive granting Lomakin a monetary reward for integrity and 

dedication in the fulfillment of his assignment. I wrote a directive to the expedition 

chief calling for a monetary reward of 250 rubles. Rudnev stamped it “Approved.” 

When the completely haggard Lomakin climbed out of the core booster, having 

completed all of his work, I solemnly handed him this document.

The next day via high-frequency communication from Podlipki, Korolev called 

me and asked for an update on how things were going. I reported everything in 

detail, saving the incident with the bolt from the day before until the end. S.P.’s calm 

thing fundamentally new, because we ourselves had learned to assess the political 

situation throughout these years, and based on the catchwords at numerous meetings attended by the highest officials, we had a sense of “who was who.”

Each morning, before the unbearable dry heat set in, I walked to the 

MIK. On 20 July we unloaded all the boosters of missile No. 7 and arranged them 

at the work stations. Each booster had been transported by rail in special closed 

four-axle boxcars. The central booster was so long that it had been constructed in 

two sections. Each of them was transported in a separate boxcar.

In the MIK we would assemble the core booster and mate a large number of electrical connectors, pneumatic lines, and hydraulic lines. The most crucial operation 

was connecting the large-diameter pipe using flexible corrugated tubing through 

which liquid oxygen was fed from the upper tank to the propulsion system through 

a tunnel passing through the lower kerosene tank.

Mikhail Lomakin, a very experienced machinist foreman from our factory, supervised the assembly of the core booster. When the missile boosters had been prepared 

for assembly, I asked him to complete those operations as quickly as possible, since 

we could not begin the electrical tests until all the machine assembly operations had 

been completed. When electric power was being fed on board, no one who might 

disrupt the progress of the electrical tests with their movements was supposed to be 

inside the missile boosters.

By mid-day the temperature in the main assembly and testing hall of the MIK 

began to exceed the temperature outside. Back then air conditioning was unheard 

of. Fans only pushed the hot air around, and besides, it was forbidden to switch 

them on. They raised so much dust that you couldn’t work, and it was impossible 

to guarantee the reliability of the instruments and assemblies that weren’t protected 

against the all-pervasive gritty dust.

Yevgeyiy Ostashev and I agreed to begin the electrical tests “when it’s cold,” that 

is, after the sun went down. I was about to rest a bit after lunch when suddenly the 

secretary of the State Commission called up and alerted me that despite it being 

50oC (122°F) in the shade, Rudnev wanted to come meet with me and the military 

representatives and look over the missile preparation schedule.

In town at Site No. 10, the so-called “ground zero quarters” had been erected 

for particularly high-ranking administrators such as marshals, generals, State Commission chairmen, and their adjutants or secretaries. These quarters, comprising 

two hotel buildings, afforded maximum possible comfort under those conditions at 

that time. The area adjacent to the hotels was landscaped like a garden or small park 

descending right down to the Syr-Darya River. It was probably more psychological than actual, but the proximity to the water helped us endure “the mid-day heat 

in the desert of Kazakhstan.” That’s how the local wits reworded the lines from 

Lermontov’s “The Dream.”10

10. “The Dream” was one of Lermontov’s last poems, the first line of which is “In noon’s heat, in 

a dale of Dagestan.”
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368

conversational tone instantly changed. Even over this voice-distorting communication line I sensed that he was choking with agitation. “You need to punish people 

for such doings, not reward them! You let everybody slack off, and you’re still handing out prizes! Revoke that reward immediately and issue a reprimand! Mr. Nice 

Guy.” When I told Rudnev about my conversation with Korolev, he was amused. 

“I’m the only one who can revoke it because it requires my permission. I am not 

going to revoke anything. Sergey Pavlovich will forgive us. When he gets here he’ll 

have too much else to do.”
Chapter 20

Mysterious Illness

Several days after the incident with the IR-FI, horizontal electrical tests began at 

full speed. I sent radiograms to Moscow calling all the specialists who had been dismissed for home leave back to the firing range. According to the schedules that Yevgeniy Ostashev, Anatoliy Kirillov, and I had developed, preparation of the missile at 

the engineering facility would be completed on 12 August—if there were no incidents. Considering the heat and any possible unforeseen circumstances, we decided 

to add three days and declare 15 August the date the missile would be hauled out 

to the launch site. There were 20 days remaining until this date. If you figured in 

another 5 days at the launch site, the launch could take place on 20 August.

It was already late evening when, having noted down all the key dates for the 

preparation process, I set out from the MIK to Korolev’s cabin. Along the way I 

mulled over the conversation I was to have with him the next day via high-frequency communication. My task was to convince him to accept our proposal and at 

the same time not to recount all the mess-ups we’d racked up at the beginning of the 

tests. It would be simpler to explain everything to him when he arrived.

Striding along the well-traveled road from the MIK that I had treaded down so 

many times, a strange queasiness came over me. When I arrived at the cabin, despite 

the heat, I decided to take a hot shower to see if that would make me feel better. 

Each cabin had water heaters installed for baths and showers. The water heater was 

fueled by ordinary firewood. Firewood was scarce in this treeless area, but Lena, an 

expedition worker who took care of our household chores, always managed to get 

it for the chief designers’ cabins. She managed to maintain exemplary cleanliness 

in all the cabins and kept us stocked with mineral water. I lit the water heater and 

took a hot shower. I gratefully remembered that the attentive Lena had left a bottle 

of Borzhomi mineral water in the refrigerator. But with my very first sip I began to 

shake with the chills. I crawled under a blanket trying to get warm. The chills didn’t 

go away. Unbelieveable! The thermometer in the room read 30oC (86°F), and yet I 

felt cold. I went into Mishin’s room and pilfered the blanket from his bed. Covered 

with two warm woolen blankets, I decided to go to sleep.

In the morning when Lena came to clean and discovered that the blanket was 

missing in the empty room, she suspected something was wrong. When her knock 

369
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Mysterious Illness

371

They put me in a building that dated from the times of Catherine the Great. 

Why did they build hospitals so extravagantly back then? Thick, fortress-like walls, 

large windows, and incredibly high ceilings. My neighbors turned out to be two 

sociable colonels. Both of them were heart attack patients. When they heard that I 

was suspected of having radiation sickness, they concluded that I was from one of 

the outfits involved with atomic weaponry. My attending physician Dr. Kostoglot 

and various consulting physicians persistently questioned me as to when and where 

I could have been exposed to radiation. I stubbornly rejected this possibility. Indeed, 

if it had been radiation, then why was I alone exposed and where and when? No, 

that was impossible. Katya visited me almost every day and passed on greetings from 

my comrades. She said that almost all my friends and acquaintances were back on 

temporary assignment (at the firing range).

On one of those typical days at the hospital, they had drawn blood for routine 

analysis, I had breakfast, and dozed off. Suddenly my neighbor the colonel woke 

me up. “Put on your headphones!” Following his instructions, I heard the second 

half of a TASS report about the development in the USSR of an intercontinental 

ballistic missile and its successful testing.1 Wow! Finally victory! I could imagine 

what joy and what a celebration they were experiencing there at the firing range. 

The Semyorka had broken through to the target on the fourth attempt.2 After the 

TASS report, now the whole world would be talking about it. And I was stuck here 

because of some unknown disease!

They allowed me to go and stroll a bit in the hospital yard. When I telephoned 

Kalashnikov all I learned was that everything was great. There was general euphoria 

at the OKB. Internal dissenters and pessimists had been put to shame, and external 

ones, that is to say, the Americans, well, let them tremble. Yurasov had replaced me 

at the firing range. New people were arriving at the OKB now. New projects were 

beginning. In a word, I needed to get well quickly.

Having lost all faith in conventional drugs and even the newest ones, my attending physician told Katya that on her next visit she should bring no more than 200 

grams of cognac. He recommended that, without my neighbors noticing, I could 

take around 50 grams in the morning and in the evening for two days. I followed 

his instructions with pleasure. To tell the truth, on the second day I did not follow 

the regimen and consumed the entire remaining 100 grams in my first dosage after 

breakfast. It is amazing, but about two days later Kostoglot announced that my 

blood had significantly improved. To be on the safe side, he invited the most famous 

professor of hematology at that time Iosif Abramovich Kassirskiy to have a consultation with me.

The professor did indeed visit me. He studied my case history and interviewed 

1. The TASS announcement was issued on 27 August 1957.

2. Including launch aborts, the four attempts were on 15 May (inflight failure), 11 June (launch 

abort), July 12 (inflight failure), and 21 August (success). There were also two additional attempts on 

10 June, both of which were aborted just before ignition.

went unanswered, she entered my room, and as she later told me, got quite a fright. 

I was lying with my eyes wide open and did not respond to her questions.

She dashed over to expedition chief Sukhopalko. Having intercepted the local 

nurse en route, he came to my cabin. I remember that when I regained consciousness, I recognized him and asked what had happened. The nurse touched my forehead and in a panic showed Sukhopalko the thermometer that she had managed 

to insert in my armpit. When they removed the thermometer, it turned out I had a 

fever of just over 40oC (104°F). Sukhopalko guessed he should call up ground zero 

quarters. He asked for Mrykin so that he could rely on the garrison hospital chief 

to request that a doctor be sent immediately. Until the doctor arrived from Site No. 

10, the nurse and Lena fed me hot tea with raspberry jam that they’d gotten who 

knows where. An hour later a lieutenant colonel from the medical service appeared. 

He brought with him a lab technician, who drew blood to analyze then and there. 

The doctor could make no diagnosis before receiving the results of the analysis, but 

he gave me some tablets to reduce my fever and some antibiotics. Fearing that I had 

been infected with some variety of the plague, the doctor forbade anyone to visit 

me, asked the nurse to stay, and, if I got worse, to call him immediately. He promised to return as soon as he got the results of my blood work.

Indeed, the doctor did return that evening, but to my surprise Mrykin was with 

him. From the doctor’s lengthy explanation I understood that the results of my 

blood work had frightened the medical staff. According to all reference books, the 

results of my blood tests indicated radiation sickness. The results did not fit any 

other diagnosis.

I already felt better than I had that morning. I tried to stand up, but I wobbled. 

Mrykin announced that he had already made arrangements with Moscow: I would 

be admitted to Burdenko Hospital. He had booked a plane for tomorrow, and I had 

to be ready to depart. He had called Moscow to arrange for someone to meet me at 

the airport.

My mind was still racing with thoughts of the testing process, hoping that the 

launch would at last be successful . . . so this hit me like a bolt out of the blue. The 

surprising thing is that the next morning I felt almost completely well. My temperature was near normal, but Sukhopalko, who accompanied me to the airfield 

and handed over the paperwork for my trip, warned me against any foolishness: 

“Straight to the plane.” We exchanged warm goodbyes and I promised to return in 

a week. The week stretched into six months. On the airplane, my tongue swelled up 

inexplicably. It filled up my mouth so that I dared not deplane in Uralsk to enjoy the 

traditional calf’s tongue and sour cream praised by all of our travelers.

Despite Mrykin’s strict instructions, I went home rather than to the hospital in 

the car that met me at the airport. My sudden appearance did not surprise Katya, 

but she came unglued when I started talking like a faulty loudspeaker. We decided 

that I would go to the hospital the following day once I had rested and the gift of 

gab returned to me. Indeed, the next day Katya, who accompanied me all the way to 

the receiving room, was sure that I was once again speaking with my “real” voice.
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373

lite launches. For the time being this would distract Khrushchev’s attention from 

combat technology. This was more or less the tactic that my visitors laid out.

We were mistaken in our prognoses apropos “distracting attention.” The first 

artificial Earth satellite did not “distract the attention” of our high-ranking leadership, but rather, having wedged itself into the flight-design testing program of the 

intercontinental combat missile, it caused a sensation all over the world and a real 

panic on the shores of the Potomac. In parting, Voskresenskiy did not fail to pass 

on greetings from Katya and slipped me a package; I immediately figured out that it 

was a bottle. “This is the best three-star medicine for you. Let’s go, guys, before they 

catch us.” On the whole, my friends left me gloomy news: four launches and still no 

absolute intercontinental weapon.

The next day in the hospital yard I had an unexpected meeting with Germogen 

Pospelov. We hadn’t seen each other for a long time. He was already a general and 

Air Force Academy professor. Germogen was in the hospital for acute rheumatic 

heart disease. He knew where I worked and immediately congratulated me on our 

great success. But I couldn’t even tell my old friend Germogen the truth. All I could 

do was change the subject to our adventures as students in Koktebel before the war. 

Germogen and I shared pleasant memories about our swim to the Zolotyye vorota

(Golden Gate) and about the Karadag cliffs. We recalled how out of stupidity I had 

hung over a precipice that dropped straight down to the sea and Germogen had tied 

two towels together and thrown them to me. Using them I’d managed to climb to 

a safe place and afterward developed a special respect for rock climbers who get by 

without any towels.3 A nurse called out, “Comrade general, it’s time for your procedure,” and interrupted our further reminiscing. With difficulty, Germogen stood 

up and, leaning on his cane, limped into the building.

In early September, Bushuyev, Yurasov, and Voskresenskiy visited me. Yurasov 

had just flown in from the firing range and was full of impressions. He seemed very 

excited; one moment, he would rail against someone there, then the next, he would 

be delighted with someone else. On the whole, however, he was upset.

On 7 September they launched the last of the missiles that had been prepared, 

No. 9. The primary action on it had been to increase the time between the shutdown of the second stage engine and the issuance of the nose cone separation command from the 6 to 10 seconds. To ensure the reliability of communications, they 

switched the external telemetry slot antenna from the head to the bottom antennas 

before entering the dense atmospheric layers.

The development of antennas for the radio telemetry systems of missile nose 

cones was a very complex problem both in theory and in practice. Once the separation pulse was received from the push rod on the missile body, the head could spin. 

Therefore, the antenna’s radiation pattern must be, to the extent possible, circular. 

But uniform radiation in space in all directions reduces the energy reaching the 

3. See Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1, p. 153.

me in detail as to when and where I had experienced my first symptoms. When I 

said that I had become ill in Kazakhstan, Kassirskiy’s expression brightened. “I don’t 

think,” he said, “that this is radiation sickness. Your blood has an extraordinarily 

high eosinophil index. Most likely you have an eosinophilic disease, which is rare, 

but it does occur in Soviet Central Asia. This is the body’s reaction to parasitic 

microorganisms that have infected your liver. These parasites are common in that 

part of the world.” He promised to give it some thought and have another look at 

me.

Once, during “rest time,” the duty nurse woke me up and told me to go out 

into the lobby. There, I was surprised to see a large and cheerful group. Disregarding hospital rules for quiet, my comrades greeted, hugged, and congratulated me. 

They included Korolev, Voskresenskiy, Mishin, Yurasov, Kalashnikov, Bushuyev, 

and Okhapkin. From the random friendly chitchat that is normal in such situations, I gleaned that not everything had gone as smoothly as the TASS report had 

trumpeted to the entire world.

Korolev excused himself. He needed to get over to a meeting with Nedelin and 

Keldysh. He took Bushuyev, and before leaving, tossed off a parting remark: “Boris, 

fake it, but not for long.”

My remaining visitors told me that during that victorious launch, colleagues 

hadn’t found the nose cone in Kamchatka. They searched and searched, but found 

no traces of impact. By all appearances, the nose cone had burned up and dispersed 

in the dense atmospheric layers quite close to Earth. Telemetry communications 

were lost 15 to 20 seconds before the calculated time of impact with the Earth’s 

surface. That is why Korolev and Bushuyev were now hurrying over to meet with 

Keldysh. He was arranging a consultation with specialists from TsAGI and other gas 

dynamics specialists. Nedelin also wanted to participate in the discussion.

Mishin expressed more concern than the others. In his view, it wasn’t so easy to 

select a new configuration for the nose cone. Quite a bit of time would be required 

for wind tunnel tests and fabrication. What were they supposed to do now? Stop 

testing? There were already reports from America. They didn’t believe TASS and 

considered this to be a hoax. To be honest, we indeed did have a missile, but we did 

not yet have a hydrogen bomb carrier. Who would entrust such a payload to us, if 

the payload container disintegrated and burned up long before it hit the ground.

“What’s more,” added Yurasov, “Right after nose cone separation, they determined that it collided with the body of the core booster.”

“So that’s the story,” said Voskresenskiy. “Everybody’s congratulating us, but 

we’re the only ones who know the truth.”

There was one missile left, No. 9. Preparation was under way at the engineering 

facility, but it was as yet undecided what measures engineers would have to take. 

Most likely, Korolev was pulling out all the stops to persuade Nedelin and Keldysh 

to launch the next missile and nose cone without modifications in order to accumulate some more data and then halt testing to perform the most important modifications. While the modifications were being performed, we would be busy with satel-
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375

rated nose cone. This collision might have damaged its heatshield. Once again the 

payload container disintegrated in the atmosphere. But, nevertheless, fragments 

reached the ground and parts of them were found. From these it was determined 

that there was a target overshoot of just three kilometers and a deviation to the right 

of one kilometer. Telemetry reception halted 30 seconds before impact. In addition, 

a failure of the tank pressurization system was recorded in flight, evidently due to 

damage in the liquid nitrogen line.

In the semidarkness of the hospital lobby the four of us discussed at length the 

latest situation and speculated on possible solutions. Yurasov noted, “The euphoria 

at the OKB has now been replaced by a certain level of bewilderment. But S.P. has 

refocused his energy on satellites. So, of course, it’s less stressful. A satellite doesn’t 

have to enter the atmosphere. But, no matter what, we need to solve the problem 

of the nose cone reaching the ground without disintegrating.” Bushuyev added, 

“There is the danger that the nuclear specialists will lose faith in the Semyorka’s reliability and will switch over, along with their payload, to work with Chelomey and 

Yangel.”

According to intelligence from our “fifth columns,” Yangel had been working 

intensively on the R-16 missile, which operated on nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine propellants. Within the military, many strongly opposed 

our reliance solely on oxygen. They would actively support Yangel. According to 

information from “our people” who worked in Dnepropetrovsk, the R-16 could be 

ready in about three years. A draft resolution had even been prepared calling for the 

beginning of construction at our firing range of a separate engineering facility and 

launch site for Yangel. It specified a completion date of the first quarter of 1960. 

Chelomey, of course, could not produce an intercontinental missile within that 

period of time, but he could in about four years. Both Yangel and Chelomey had 

already received Glushko’s reassurance that he would produce engines using those 

propellant components.

Bushuyev believed that if Glushko entered an alliance with Yangel and Chelomey, it would have an unavoidable impact on his relationship with Korolev, and 

consequently on our plans as well. We needed to hurry, but with what and where, 

that was the big question. S.P. had a lot of plans and areas of interest, many of which 

had not yet sparked enthusiasm among the military. We weren’t going to gain a lot 

of active support from them now! Voskresenskiy lamented that under these circumstances Mishin was conducting himself improperly. He was not seeking a compromise with Glushko, and he was straining their relations over any trifle.

Bushuyev also had a lot of interesting things to say about meetings at various 

levels. He had participated in them with Korolev and sometimes by himself at 

Korolev’s instructions. According to Bushuyev, Keldysh showed the greatest initiative when it came to cultivating a positive attitude toward the satellite program in 

the higher echelons of power. He was instrumental in persuading Academy of Sciences President Nesmeyanov, Academician Blagonravov, and many more scientists, 

antennas of the ground-receiving stations compared with the energy that directional radiation antennas can concentrate. During entry into the atmosphere, when 

the payload container equipped with a special stabilizing “skirt” stops erratically 

somersaulting and swoops toward the Earth, a layer of hot plasma forms around 

it due to the high temperature from braking in the atmosphere. This layer absorbs 

the energy radiated by the nose cone antenna to such an extent that for the last 30 

seconds before it reaches the ground, almost no telemetry data get through. It was 

very important to place the antenna in a location on the structure where the concentration of electrons in the plasma was minimal and where there was still the hope 

of breaking through to the Earth. Antenna laboratory director Mikhail Krayushkin 

occupied himself with all these problems for us. He had a well-developed theory of 

antenna design for missiles and a practical method for simulating their characteristics. We didn’t yet have a way to simulate the behavior of an antenna in plasma at 

that time.

During the last launch, despite delaying the separation command after engine 

shutdown by as much as 10 seconds, the body once again collided with the sepaChertok on vacation with his sons Valentin (right) and Mikhail (middle) in 1957.

From the author’s archives.
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Mysterious Illness

377

During his second visit, Professor Kassirskiy recommended that I be discharged 

from the hospital, switch to a regimen of certified sick leave home rest, and report 

to him at the clinic for special treatments at least three times per week. The military 

hospital, however, did not let go of me so easily. First they transferred me to clinical 

hospital No. 6, which specialized in the treatment of persons exposed to radiation. 

It was truly frightening to see actual radiation sickness patients. The regimen in this 

hospital was strict. Before I could be admitted, I had to present a certificate showing that I really was cleared for top-secret work. Visits with my wife, who had no 

clearance for secret work, were out of the question. You had to spend a day filling 

out paperwork to meet with colleagues from work. Packages were checked. There 

was no private telephone. Our food was excellent, but the quasi-prison regimen 

and isolation from the outside world forced me to feign an appearance of excellent 

well-being.

Despite my lousy blood tests, the “atomic” doctors considered me an alien who 

had accidentally turned up among real radiation sickness patients. Two weeks later 

I was driven out of this top-secret medical institution as someone who had landed 

there by mistake. Kassirskiy had a laugh and sentenced me to unpleasant treatments 

that entailed purging my internal “hydraulic lines” with pure oxygen. He assigned 

his graduate student as my attending physician. She confessed that I was a lucky 

find for her. Eosinophilic disease was the subject of her dissertation. Unfortunately, 

persons suffering from this rare disease were as scarce as hens’ teeth in Moscow, and 

suddenly such a lucky break! Oxygen purging was the professor’s idea, but there 

were as yet no statistics. Each time I showed up for a purging, she performed a quick 

Chertok shown here in 1957 while on vacation at the Tetkovo sanatorium.

From the author’s archives.

on the future of satellites.4 Thanks to our missile, they all dreamed of penetrating 

into space before the Americans, thereby proving the superiority of Soviet science. 

But we found ourselves in a complicated situation. We had been working for almost 

a year on Object D with the academicians, but the further along we were, the clearer 

it became that the work needed another year.5 The equipment alone weighed more 

than 300 kilograms. Here, Voskresenskiy could not pass up the opportunity to tease 

Bushuyev. “An awful lot of interesting female scientists are buzzing around Kostya. 

Each one is trying to charm him into pushing their little instrument on board.”

Yurasov complained that Konstantin Davydovich [Bushuyev] had gotten some 

very good electricians. He gave them to Ryazanov, and the latter was developing the 

satellite’s onboard system. Though they really were capable kids, they were inexperienced; eventually, Korolev would make us figure it out. Bushuyev was not offended, 

but said that we would deal with both the women and with the electricians. However, in his opinion, the situation with the deadlines was hopeless.

Bushuyev continued, “Right after the launch, S.P. assembled our whole team 

and proposed that we temporarily halt work on Object D, and for the remaining 

month everyone should develop the simplest—“if only makeshift,”—satellite.6 We 

had already estimated with the ballistics specialists that we could haul about 80 

kilograms into an orbit with an apogee of 1,000 kilometers. S.P. thinks that this 

would be a great sensation. We need to manage to make not only that soccer ball, 

but also a fairing and special separation system for it. Krayushkin is fussing with the 

antennas there. We still haven’t decided how to reliably deploy them. S.P. is terrorizing all of us with reports that someone is tossing at him or that he has thought up 

himself. Supposedly the Americans have announced that they will launch their own 

Vanguard satellite in October.7 Keldysh doesn’t think that they are capable of putting up a satellite greater than 10 to 15 kilograms, but they’ll create quite a stir.”

In parting, my comrades confessed that they had vented their feelings here in the 

hospital. Tomorrow morning they would again be wrapped up in such hectic activities that there would be no time to think straight.

4. Academician Aleksandr Nikolayevich Nesmeyanov (1899–1980) served as president of the 

USSR Academy of Sciences in 1951–61. Academician Anatoliy Arkadyevich Blagonravov (1894–

1975) served as the academic secretary of the Academy’s Department of Technical Sciences in 1957–63 

and was closely involved with the development of a program for scientific research for the early Soviet 

space program.

5. The so-called Object D was the first Soviet satellite project approved for development. The 

Soviet government formally approved its implementation in January 1956 in time for a launch in 

the 1957–58 period. The satellite, which would carry a suite of scientific experiments into space, was 

named “Object D” because it was the fifth payload for the R-7 ICBM, after Objects A, B, V, and G, 

which were all nuclear warheads.

6. This satellite was also known as PS (Prosteyshiy sputnik or simplest satellite).

7. Vanguard was the name of the first U.S. “civilian” satellite program, formally approved by the 

Eisenhower Administration in 1955. Although Vanguard was touted as a completely civilian project, 

it used hardware, personnel, and funding from both the military and intelligence communities. The 

program was officially run out of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL).
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

378

blood test and with a look of satisfaction announced that she observed a “slight 

tendency toward improvement.” The regimen of home rest enabled me to keep up 

with events. Despite my fluctuating temperature and unusual feelings of weakness, 

once a week I visited the OKB.
Chapter 21

Breakthrough into Space

Analyzing the past with the knowledge of heretofore top-secret events rather than 

in terms of official history, one can’t help but realize that sometimes what seemed 

to be colossal failures contributed to subsequent triumphs. I shall try to prove this 

paradox using the example of the first artificial Earth satellite in human history.

The idea of producing a satellite came up in an engineering memo written by 

Mikhail Tikhonravov in 1954.1 He was working at NII-4 when it occurred to him 

that the intercontinental missile that Sergey Korolev, his former chief at GIRD in 

Moscow, had been assigned to develop was capable of carrying not only a thermonuclear warhead but also a satellite.2

 Tikhonravov’s idea prompted Korolev to 

take immediate action. After working with Korolev for 20 years, I knew that it was 

against his very nature to lay new ideas aside or forget about them, no matter who 

had come up with them. On 16 March 1954, USSR Academician Mstislav Keldysh 

held a meeting where Tikhonravov gave a general presentation of his proposals. He 

understood that the overly general thoughts needed to be made comprehensible for 

the defense industry leaders. On 27 May 1954, Korolev sent a letter to Minister 

Ustinov to which he attached a memorandum “Concerning an Artificial Earth Satellite.” The memorandum was written by Tikhonravov.3

1. Mikhail Klavdiyevich Tikhonravov (1900–74) was one of the founders of Soviet rocketry 

and spaceflight. As an engineer in GIRD, he designed the “09,” the first Soviet rocket to use liquid 

propellants. In his later life, first as an engineer at NII-4 and then later at OKB-1, Tikhonravov played 

critical roles in the development of the first intercontinental ballistic missile (the R-7), the first satellite 

(Sputnik), the first human-rated spaceship (Vostok), and the first robotic lunar probes (Luna).

2. GIRD—Gruppa izucheniyu reaktivnogo dvizheniya (Group for the Study of Reactive Motion) 

was the first Soviet amateur group dedicated to developing rockets. Between 1931 and 1933, GIRD 

engineers, who included Korolev and Tikhonravov, produced the first Soviet rocket that used liquid 

propellants, the famous “09.”

3. The memo cited by Chertok has been reproduced in B. V. Raushenbakh, ed., Materialy po 

istorii kosmicheskogo korablya ‘Vostok’: k 30-letiyu pervogo poleta cheloveka v kosmicheskoye prostranstvo

[Materials on the History of the ‘Vostok’ Space Ship: On the 30th Anniversary of the First Flight of a 

Man into Cosmic Space] (Moscow: Nauka, 1991), pp. 5–15. Korolev’s cover letter is reproduced in 

M. V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye naslediye Akademika Sergeya Pavlovicha Koroleva: izbrannyye trudy i 

dokumenty [The Creative Legacy of Academician Sergey Pavlovich Korolev: Selected Works and Documents]

(Moscow: Nauka, 1980), p. 343.

379
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kilograms, to be inserted into orbit in 1957 or 1958 by the R-7 rocket. The Academy of Sciences was entrusted with general scientific supervision and production of 

the instruments for space research. The Ministry of the Defense Industry was tasked 

with producing the actual satellite. The Ministry of the Radio Industry was assigned 

to develop the telemetry system and command radio link. The item in the resolution calling for the creation of 15 stations on the territory of the USSR to track the 

satellite and receive telemetry information proved very important for the future. 

Now I can confirm with full authority that in terms of planning, we outflanked the 

Americans with this resolution by at least three years.5

In July 1956, the draft plan for Object D was completed and new space-related 

subdivisions started developing the actual structure. However, in the last days of 

1956, based on the results of the firing tests on the R-7 rocket engines, it came 

to light that the specific impulse (“specific thrust” in old terminology) was 304 

seconds, rather than the 310 seconds that Glushko had promised.6 This had no 

particular significance for achieving the specified range of 8,000 kilometers carrying 

a nuclear warhead, but it did not guarantee the insertion of Object D into space. 

Moreover, it turned out that the deadlines for the development of the scientific 

equipment could not be met. Glushko promised to bring the specific impulse of 

the engines up to the design value by spring 1958. As a result, the VPK set a new 

deadline for Object D, 1958. It would seem that OKB-1 Chief Designer Korolev 

would have to simmer down now that he had been given more than an additional 

year. We already had enough to worry about.

I don’t recall now where I read that Napoleon once said to his chief of staff Marshal Louis-Alexandre Berthier: “You are a superb chief of staff, but you will never 

become a real commander.”7 Korolev was not only a superb organizer and strongwilled chief designer. He possessed the innate qualities of a commander: faith in 

himself, in his own intuition, and in the fact that he was the only one who would 

make the decision that would result in success.

In the Council of Chief Designers in January 1957, Korolev reported that as a 

result of the low specific thrust values, they could only guarantee the on-orbit insertion of an artificial Earth satellite weighing up to 100 kilograms. And, for a margin 

of safety, it was proposed that the rocket be lightened as much as possible, that is, 

remove all the radio-control system equipment and provide for a one-step engine 

shutdown that depends on the integrator or upon receipt of an Emergency Turbine 

5. The first American satellite project, Vanguard, was approved in August 1955. Earlier, in March 

1955, the U.S. Air Force issued system requirements for a reconnaissance satellite system known as 

WS 117L. In June 1956, the Air Force chose Lockheed’s Missile Systems Division to design and build 

military observation satellites under the WS 117L program.

6. The “specific impulse” is a measure to evaluate the efficiency of a rocket engine. It is equal to 

units of thrust per unit mass of propellant consumed per unit time and is expressed in seconds.

7. French Marshal Louis Alexander Berthier (1753–1815) served as Napolean’s chief of staff in 

1796–1815.

It would seem that at a time 

when the production of an intercontinental nuclear delivery vehicle was a “life or death matter for 

the Soviet Union,” the minister’s 

response to Korolev should have 

been: “Now is not the time. Produce the missile!” But Ustinov was 

not an ordinary minister. After consulting with Keldysh, he decided to 

legitimize the idea of a satellite with 

a governmental resolution.

In August 1954, the USSR 

Council of Ministers approved the 

proposals of V. A. Malyshev, B. L. 

Vannikov, M. V. Khrunichev, and 

K. N. Rudnev on the study of scientific and technical issues associated with space flight.4

On 30 August 1955, V. M. 

Ryabikov, chairman of the MilitaryIndustrial Commission, convened 

a private meeting during which 

Korolev reported about the potential for using an intercontinental 

missile for space flight. Ministry of 

Defense representative Aleksandr 

Mrykin expressed strong concern 

that the deadlines for the development of the R-7 missile would not 

be met if “we get carried away with 

satellites.” He proposed putting off 

the matter until the R-7 missile 

flight tests had been completed.

But nevertheless . . . . On 30 January 1956, a governmental resolution was issued 

calling for the production of an unoriented satellite (Object D), weighing 1,000 to 

1,400 kilograms and containing scientific-research equipment weighing 200 to 300 

4. All of these men were powerful administrators in the Soviet defense industry. At the time, 

Malyshev, Vannikov, and Khrunichev served in the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, the 

“superministry” that oversaw all Soviet strategic weapons programs in 1953–55. Rudnev was a deputy 

minister in the Ministry of the Defense Industry.

Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900-74) was one of the 

pioneers of Soviet rocketry and space exploration. 

He helped to design the first Soviet rocket that 

used liquid propellants (the ‘09’), proposed the 

concept eventually used on the R-7 ICBM, and led 

the teams that designed the Sputnik, Vostok, and 

Luna spacecraft. This photo dates from around 

1970 during the making of a secret documentary 

about him. The star on his left lapel is the “Hero 

of Socialist Labor,” the highest civilian honor 

given to Soviet citizens, which he received in 

1961.

B.A. Smirnov.
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said, “In a very short while the first test launches of artificial Earth satellites will be 

conducted for scientific purposes in the USSR and the U.S.”9 One would think this 

would have caused a sensation! But no. There was no buzz in this regard either in 

the USSR or abroad.

The net result of 1957: The flight-design testing program of the first series of 

R-7 missiles showed that the structure and heat shield of the nose cone disintegrated 

during entry into the atmosphere. It seemed illogical to continue the launches until 

a new nose cone had been developed. However, Korolev insisted on launching with 

the clearly unsuitable nose cone, using the rationale that “we need to optimize the 

launch vehicle, not just the nose cone.” Realizing that the launch vehicle had carried the unfit nose cone as far as Kamchatka and that in the best-case scenario the 

newly developed nose cone would be ready in six months, he insisted on using the 

remaining “headless” missiles to launch the satellites. TASS’s August report about 

the production of an intercontinental missile was a bluff in the sense that the missile had no warhead. But aside from the very few of us who were privy to the secret 

results of the flight tests, no one knew.

I could stand it no longer and went to my good old OKB-1 one beautiful September day despite the doctor’s firm orders to the contrary and the fact that my 

temperature continued to jump for no apparent reason from 36° to 38oC (96.8° to 

100.4°F). None of my department chiefs were in their offices. They were all on the 

production floor or away at the firing range. I walked over to shop No. 39, which 

in those days was not only the site for final assembly, but also a laboratory for the 

optimization of the world’s first (or so we hoped) artificial Earth satellite.

The factory was in a round-the-clock, all-hands work mode for the fabrication of 

the polished sphere with four long tails that were antennas. The radio operators had 

coordinated the “input resistances” for the transmitter with Krayushkin. Depending 

on those values, the antennas were first lengthened and then shortened again. At 

Korolev’s request, Ryazanskiy personally developed and then listened to the coded 

signals on the special receiver. In the coming weeks the sound of this beep was destined to shake the entire world. But at that time no such thought had dawned on 

anybody at the factory or at the design bureau. Okhapkin and his designers were 

stuck at the factory 24 hours a day, racing to fabricate a special fairing to protect 

this beautiful sphere.

When they began working on the layout of the thermonuclear warhead for installation on the Semyorka in our department at the OKB, as I studied the dimensional 

installation drawings and electrical diagrams, I developed an anxious respect for 

9. A slightly edited version of the speech was published in Pravda the same day. See S. P. Korolev, 

“Osnovopolozhnik raketnoy tekhniki: k 100-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya K. E. Tsiolkovskogo” [The 

Founder of Rocket Technology: On the 100th Birthday of K. E. Tsiolkovskiy], Pravda, September 17, 

1957. This was the last article published under Korolev’s own name during his life.

Contact (AKT) command (triggered when one of the propellant components is 

depleted).8 There were also other, less innovative proposals for reducing the mass of 

the rocket itself. Korolev’s colleagues in the Council of Chiefs showed little enthusiasm for his proposals. Ryazanskiy objected and Glushko was silent. Pilyugin took 

a neutral position. Keldysh, whom Korolev had prepared in advance, supported the 

proposal.

After a heated discussion, the decision was made to draw up the necessary governmental resolution. Here, the rationale was that the satellite needed to be launched 

before the beginning of the International Geophysical Year (July 1957).

The Council of Ministers’ resolution, which amended preceding resolutions, 

was issued on 15 February 1957. It stipulated the orbital insertion of the “simplest 

satellite,” observation of its on-orbit behavior, and study of the passage of radio 

signals through the ionosphere. It was proposed that two R-7 rockets from those 

prepared for the flight-design testing program 

be used for the launch. However, the launch of 

the “simplest satellite” would not be permitted until after one or two successful R-7 rocket 

launches.

I must now confess that, like the majority 

of the other participants in the development 

of the R-7 rocket, I was not at all excited by all 

these conversations and resolutions about satellites. We put up with Korolev’s infatuation. 

The optimization of the R-7 missile together 

with—and especially with—the warhead and 

its deadly innards, that was the most important thing! But an utterly simplistic satellite 

...?! Ultimately, even if it were launched, this 

would in no way help solve the most important problem, the safe passage of the warhead 

through the dense atmospheric layers and how 

to achieve as much accuracy as possible. Incidentally, it wasn’t just the missile elite who 

showed no particular enthusiasm for this satellite mania.

On 17 September 1957, in the House of Scientists’ Hall of Columns a ceremonial meeting was held in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of K. 

E. Tsiolkovskiy. Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member S. P. Korolev, who 

was not known to the public, delivered a report in which, among other things, he 

8. AKT—Avariynyy kontakt turbina.

The original key used on the control 

panel that launched the first R-7 

ICBM.

From the author’s archives.
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A satellite ‘twin’ was mated with 

and separated from the missile body 

many times until we were convinced 

that all the circuits operated reliably: the pneumatic locks activated, 

the nosecone fairing separated, the 

antenna spike released from the 

stowed position, and the push-rod 

directed the satellite forward...

The satellite’s radio transmitter 

was supposed to have radiated power 

of 1 W. This enabled its signals to be 

received at significant distances by 

a wide audience of amateur radio 

operators in the shortwave and ultrashortwave ranges and also by ground 

tracking stations...

The satellite’s signals were in the form of telegraph pulses with a duration of approximately 0.3 seconds. When one of the transmitters was operating, the other was in pause 

mode. The estimated continuous operating time was at least 14 days...

Electrochemical current sources (silver-zinc batteries) designed to operate for a minimum of two to three weeks provided the power for the satellite’s onboard equipment...

On 4 October 1957 at 10:28 p.m. Moscow time a violent flash of light illuminated 

the night over the steppe and the rocket lifted off with a roar. Its flame gradually diminished and soon became indistinguishable against the background of heavenly bodies.

Newton calculated the first cosmic velocity, and now three centuries later a creation 

of the human mind and hands had achieved it for the first time...10

After the satellite separated from the last stage of the rocket the transmitters began to 

operate and the celebrated signals “beep, beep, beep,” flew over the airwaves. Observations during the first orbital passes showed that the satellite had been inserted in an 

orbit with an inclination of 65o6′, an altitude of 228 kilometers at its perigee, and a 

maximum distance from the Earth’s surface of 947 kilometers. It took 96 minutes 10.2 

seconds to complete each orbital pass around the Earth.

The Russian word ‘sputnik’ immediately entered the languages of all the peoples of 

the world.11 The headlines on the front pages of foreign newspapers during those historic 

October days of 1957 were full of admiration for our nation’s achievement...

When news of the satellite launch reached Washington, it was as if a bomb had 

exploded. It wasn’t the scientific significance of the satellite’s flight that shook the Penta10. Russians refer to the velocity required to reach Earth orbit as “the first cosmic velocity.”

11. Sputnik means “fellow traveler” in Russian, although since 1957 the word has most commonly 

been used to denote artificial satellites of the Earth and other heavenly bodies.

The Sputnik 1 (PS-1) satellite is shown here on a 

rigging truck in the assembly shop in the fall of 

1957 as a technician puts finishing touches on it.

http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/ABSTRACTS/GPN-2002-000166.html.

this creation of human genius, which we modestly referred to as the “payload.” And 

suddenly, instead of a multiton “payload,” a sphere barely larger than a soccer ball 

and weighing just 80 kilograms was going to be placed on the Semyorka. Its internal 

electrical circuit was so basic that it would be a snap for any group of young hobby 

technicians to reproduce it.

In late September, the OKB was empty. All those involved and those called in 

for support flew to the firing range along with the “sphere,” the accessories, and fairing. Fans who remained behind followed the preparation process via high-frequency 

communications and promised to alert me 24 hours before the launch.

On 4 October, I went to the OKB and joined the group of around 30 duty 

officers who had filled the reception area and Korolev’s office, where the high-frequency communications phone was located. On Korolev’s orders, on the other end 

of the line in the barracks at Site No. 2, sat our commentator, who transmitted 

information to us as he received it from the bunker. It wasn’t until 10:30 p.m. that 

we heard the excited report that liftoff had proceeded normally. An hour and a half 

later, someone already quite hoarse was shouting, “Everything is OK. It’s beeping. 

The sphere is flying.” We went our separate ways from Podlipki late that night still 

unaware that from that moment humankind had entered the space age.

This was the sixth Semyorka launch. Of the five preceding ones, only two missiles had passed more or less normally through the powered flight phase, two had 

crashed, and one had failed to lift off at all. The world had no knowledge of all this 

background history when it heard Levitan’s voice saying, “All the radio stations of 

the Soviet Union are operating. We are transmitting a TASS report ....”

On 5 October, the morning newspapers managed to run this report. It wasn’t 

until 9 October that Pravda published a detailed description of the satellite, its 

orbit, the radio signals, and methods for observing it. It published a schedule of 

when the satellite passed over Soviet cities and many world capitals. For the first 

time, on a clear dark night against a background of motionless stars, it was possible 

to observe a single, fast-moving one. This was mind-boggling.

So much has been said and written about this historic event that it is very difficult to report anything new. What is well known to historians and has become 

banal for them is a revelation for today’s youth. As such, I will take the liberty of 

citing excerpts from my material published in the book Kosmonavtika SSSR (USSR 

Cosmonautics):

“Although the satellite was referred to as rudimentary, it was an original, without 

any analogs in technology. There had been only one specification, a weight restriction (no 

greater than 100 kilograms). The designers rather quickly came to the conclusion that 

it would be advantageous to make it in the shape of a ball. The spherical shape made it 

possible to more fully use the interior space while having less body surface.

They decided to place two radio transmitters with a radiated frequency of 20,005 

and 40,002 MHz on board...

The satellite was designed rapidly and the parts were fabricated as the drawings were 

issued...
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Breakthrough into Space

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inserted on orbit with an apogee approximately 80 to 90 kilometers lower than the 

calculated orbit. No subsequent public descriptions or reports contained information about these glitches.

No one in the OKB organization or among our subcontractors had expected 

such worldwide publicity. We were intoxicated with our sudden triumphant success. 

Lists of individuals to receive awards were drawn up; subcontractors were called up 

to determine what awards would be given, to whom, and how many. Suddenly all 

this activity came to a halt. Khrushchev called in Korolev, Keldysh, and Rudnev 

and hinted that a cosmic gift was needed in honor of the 40th anniversary of the 

Great October Socialist Revolution. Korolev protested that it was less than a month 

away. It made no sense to repeat the very same launch, and it was simply impossible to develop and fabricate another satellite. Privately, Korolev was justifiably 

apprehensive. This preholiday gift might end with another crash. Then the victory 

we had gained with such difficulty would be quickly forgotten. But Khrushchev 

was implacable. The political success that we had brought him—and could bring 

him again with another sensational space launch—was for him more important 

than refining the intercontinental nuclear missile. As a result, the second stage of 

the missile was converted into a space laboratory. The research subject was a dog. 

For health reasons I did not attend the meeting of the Council of Chief Designers 

where they decided to fabricate and launch a second satellite. Bushuyev managed 

to tell me that during this Council meeting, which convened immediately after the 

Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite was launched near midnight local time at 

Tyuratam (now Baykonur). Because of the darkness, the existing photos of the launch are all, 

unfortunately, of poor quality.

Asif Siddiqi.

gon specialists who had fought for a brink-of-war 

policy; it was the fact, now obvious to everyone, 

that the Soviet Union had produced a multi-stage 

intercontinental missile against which air defense 

was powerless.

A number of U.S. leaders declared that the 

Russians had thrown down the gauntlet in the 

fields of science, industry, and military might...

The first American satellite was launched four 

months later and weighed just 8.3 kilograms... 

The Americans could not help but feel disappointed and exasperated.”12

A few qualifying comments should be 

made. The generally accepted notion at that 

time that at night one could visually observe 

the satellite illuminated by the sun without any 

special optical devices was incorrect. The satellite’s reflective surface was too small for visual 

observation. In actual fact, we were observing 

the second stage, or core booster of the rocket, 

which had been inserted in the very same orbit 

as the satellite. This mistake was repeated again 

and again in the mass media.

During the launch of the rocket—assigned 

the designation M1-1SP—a delay was observed 

in its buildup to the first intermediate stage and 

to the main stage of the Block D main engine. 

This delay could have caused an automatic 

system reset. But it “squeaked by,” and during 

the last fractions of a second of the Block D 

time check, it completed buildup. Sixteen seconds into the flight the SOB system failed, 

causing an increase in kerosene consumption. 

As a result, there was not enough kerosene in the tank to last until the designated 

time at which the integrator had been set, 296.4 seconds. The engine was shut down 

a second earlier by the emergency turbine contact signal. Freed from the load of the 

kerosene pump, the turbine began racing and the emergency contact controlling the 

rpms shut down the engine. At the very end of the powered flight phase, 1 second 

of engine operation substantially affects the orbit. The rocket and satellite were 

12. Yu. A. Mozzhorin et al, eds., Kosmonavtika SSSR [USSR Cosmonautics] (Moscow: 

Mashinostroyeniye, 1986), p. 41.

This cutaway of the Sputnik launch 

vehicle (the 8K71PS) clearly shows 

the engines of the core and the 

strapon boosters. Note also the 

“hammerhead” shape of the core. 

The booster developed a thrust of 

about 398 tons at liftoff and stood 

29.17 meters tall.

M. V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye naslediye 

Akademika Sergeya Pavlovicha Koroleva: 

izbrannyye trudy i dokumenty (Moscow: 

Nauka, 1980).
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Breakthrough into Space

389

the Layka cigarette with a picture of this cute little dog on the pack. The launch of 

the second satellite was the last one in 1957. Finally, all attention was focused on 

finishing the nuclear missile.

The government made it worth our while after the two satellite successes. In 

December 1957, we were showered with governmental awards, including the Lenin 

Prize, which was reinstated after Stalin’s death. At that time, the Lenin Prize was very 

highly esteemed. It was just as honorable as the title Hero of Socialist Labor. But if, 

as the old song said, “anyone can become a hero,” then the Lenin Prize was given 

for especially outstanding achievements in the fields of science, literature, and art. 

According to the policy on Lenin Prizes, they had to be awarded in honor of Lenin’s 

birthday, 22 April. But they made an exception for us. At Korolev’s OKB, Mishin, 

Tikhonravov, Kryukov, and I received the title of Lenin laureate. All the members 

of the Council of Chief Designers who had received the Hero of Socialist Labor title 

in 1956 became Lenin laureates in 1957. Bushuyev, Voskresenskiy, and Okhapkin 

received the Hero of Socialist Labor title.14 Individuals involved in the project in all 

the subcontractor organizations also received their share of the awards.

All those who participated in history’s first breakthrough into space 

were preparing to usher in the New Year, 1958, with the awareness that we 

were entering a new field of endeavor. Before these first two rudimentary satellites, 

we white-collar missile men had looked down at our first cosmic draftsmen, but 

now we understood that a “cosmic weight” was being placed on us all.

I was already quite fed up with the oxygen purging procedures that were accompanied by excruciating bile sample extractions. The amount of eosinophils and leukocytes in my blood was dropping slowly, but they would not release me for real 

work. Taking advantage of my Lenin Prize laureate title, I obtained a voucher for 

Katya and me to visit the Valday health resort, which was part of the Ministry of 

Health Fourth Main Directorate system. This directorate took care of the health of 

high-ranking Party and government officials and individuals “considered equivalent 

to them.”

In late January 1958, having left our two sons in the care of Kseniya Timofeyevna, 

their maternal grandmother, for the first time, Katya and I visited a government 

health resort. It was located within a vast restricted area on the shore of Lake Balday, 

almost midway between Moscow and Leningrad. This marvelous site was selected 

14. Typically, the Hero of Socialist Labor award was the most prestigious civilian honor. The 

leading Sputnik designers (Korolev, Glushko, Pilyugin, Ryazanskiy, Kuznetsov, Barmin, and Mishin) 

were among those who received the award in 1956 for the development of the R-5M nuclear-tipped 

strategic missile. As a result, in 1957, the previous awardees were not given a second Hero of Socialist 

Labor (which was an extremely rare honor) but instead given the Lenin Prize. Three of Korolev’s 

leading deputies (Bushuyev, Okhapkin, and Voskresenskiy) were the only ones awarded the Hero of 

Socialist Labor for Sputnik.

conversation with Khrushchev, Korolev introduced the proposal about launching a 

dog. In this regard, he said that it was impossible to fabricate any other instruments 

to perform space research within the available timeframe. According to Bushuyev, 

Korolev had hoped that the Council members would resist Khrushchev’s unrealistic 

proposal and ask to rethink his demands. But everyone embraced his idea for the 

immediate launch of a second satellite with a gambler’s enthusiasm.

On 12 October, the decision was officially made to launch a second satellite in 

honor of the 40th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. The decision was a 

death sentence for one of the mutts as yet to be selected. About 10 days before the 

launch, military physician Vladimir Yazdovskiy picked Layka, who would go down 

in history.

We already had experience with high-altitude rocket launches of dogs. But 

before, it was a matter of pressurized compartment laboratories supporting 1 or 2 

hours of vital activity.13 Now we were required, without any preliminary experimental development, to create an experimental space laboratory making it possible to 

study a dog that would not be returned to the Earth. Everything that would happen 

in space could be tracked only via telemetry.

The second simple satellite was produced without any preliminary draft design 

or other plan. All the rules that had been in effect for the development of missile 

technology were abandoned. The draftsmen and designers moved into the shops. 

Almost all the parts were manufactured using sketches. Assembly wasn’t conducted 

so much according to documents as according to the designers’ instructions and 

on-the-spot fitting. The total weight of the satellite—508.3 kilograms—was already 

a qualitative leap by itself. An unexpected decision, but one of necessity, was the 

decision not to separate the satellite from the core booster. Indeed, if the rocket itself 

were inserted on the satellite’s orbit and no orientation were required, then why not 

use the Tral already installed on the launch vehicle to transmit parameters? Thus, 

the second satellite was the entire second stage, that is, the Semyorka’s core booster.

The launch dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution took 

place on 3 November 1957. The electric power sources installed on the rocket’s 

body to track the satellite were sufficient for six days. When the electric power 

supply was depleted, Layka’s life was also over. Incidentally, biomedical specialists 

believed that Layka died much earlier from excessive heat. It was virtually impossible to create a reliable life support and thermal control system within such a short 

period of time.

It was a complete triumph. None of us doubted that the Americans had been put 

to shame. Only the British Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals protested Layka’s martyrdom. In response to this, our tobacco industry promptly issued 

13. In 1951–60, OKB-1 launched over two dozen “vertical” shots carrying dogs and other animals 

up to altitudes between 100 and 500 kilometers. The design bureau used converted civilian versions of 

the R-1, R-2, and R-5 missiles for these experiments.
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exhaustion. When I got back, I went to the shower room, lay down on the wooden 

grating, and took a steam bath under the surging streams until I reached a state of 

perfect bliss. After a short nap, I had lunch followed by the routine after-lunch rest 

hour. Then I was back on my skis, but this time joined by Katya and new acquaintances. The second skiing session was less grueling.

After two weeks of this regimen I felt completely healthy when I returned to 

Moscow. I reported to Professor Kassirskiy. After examining the quick blood test 

that had just been taken, he asked me, “So, tell me, who cured you so quickly? Your 

test is completely normal!” I told him everything as if I were at confession. He didn’t 

have much faith in the stability of my new condition and requested that I come see 

him regularly. That was the end of the mysterious disease that had torn me away 

from work for more than six months.

Since then, along with the measles, scarlet fever, and an appendectomy—as well 

as a more recent case of influenza—I have to remember to list eosinophilic disease 

in my prior ailments whenever I check into a polyclinic or health resort. The only 

consolation in the ordeal was Kassirskiy’s grad student’s successful defense of her 

candidate’s dissertation. Although I even received an invitation to speak at the medical board of academics, I deemed it best not to appear, so as to avoid undeserved 

celebrity, and confined myself to sending my best wishes by telephone.

The launch of the world’s first artificial Earth satellite immediately removed all 

doubts that the Soviet Union had an intercontinental missile. Our sudden success shook the world. This had happened not only because Korolev had showed 

the qualities of a commander and an uncommon chief designer in a complex and 

rapidly changing situation. He had persuaded and captivated the Council of Chief 

Designers and the Academy of Sciences with his ideas and obtained the approval 

of the nation’s leaders. As a result, in history, 1957 will forever remain the year that 

humankind broke through into space.

before the war as the residence of Zhdanov 

and Stalin.15 According to the stories of 

old Central Committee functionaries 

whom I met at this resort, Zhdanov had 

proposed construction at this site, with 

Stalin’s approval. It was assumed that the 

two of them would settle down in this 

secluded spot to collaborate over a great 

treatise, a new history of the revolutionary movement, a Party history, and a 

theoretical justification for building a 

communist society.

A building with two “luxury” suites, 

one intended for Zhdanov and the other 

for Stalin, and many rooms with all 

the conveniences for their closest aides, 

formed the central part of this country 

estate. There was a magnificent library, 

rooms for quiet relaxation, billiards, 

auditoriums for music and movies, and 

a large dining room. There was no room 

for me in this elite building. Instead, they 

placed us in a building that had been 

converted for vacationers from a former 

battalion barracks that had housed Stalin’s security service. Local managers told 

me that the battalion and the numerous 

support services had served for almost an 

entire year before the war. Zhdanov used 

to come, but Stalin never showed up. 

The barbed wire that enclosed the vast 

pine forest bordering the lake and the 

“restricted zone” signs were reminders of 

this resort’s previous function.

Despite my malaise, I decided to try 

a therapy that I had devised on my own. 

Right after breakfast I went cross-country skiing until I was on the brink of 

15. Andrey Aleksandrovich Zhdanov (1896–1948) was a member of Stalin’s Politburo (since 1939) 

and a major Communist Party leader in the Leningrad area. Zhdanov was the ideological instigator of 

the Soviet Union’s postwar turn to extreme nationalism and stricter political control over intellectual 

and cultural life.

Sputnik-2 carried Laika, the world’s first 

living being to enter orbit around the 

Earth. The basic configuration of the 

payload was similar to the first Sputnik, 

but included a separate container to carry 

the dog. This container was itself derived 

from capsules developed in the mid-1950s 

to carry dogs on “vertical” trajectories 

into the upper atmosphere. Legend: 1) 

detachable protective fairing 2) mechanism 

to separate the fairing 3) instrument to 

study solar spectra in the short-wave range 

4) framework for instruments 5) spherical 

container with radio-transmitter 6) 

thermally regulated cabin for experimental 

animal 7) air regulator 8) air regeneration 

system 9) food container 10) light 11) 

antenna 12) intermediate compartment.

M. V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye naslediye Akademika 

Sergeya Pavlovicha Koroleva: izbrannyye trudy i dokumenty (Moscow: Nauka, 1980).

Chapter 22

Flight-Development Tests Continue

The launches of our first two satellites stunned those in charge of U.S. nuclear strategy much more than the August report about the creation of an intercontinental 

missile. Prominent publicist Professor Bernard Brodie of the RAND scientific and 

research corporation, which worked on defense issues, wrote that, “The Soviet satellites have dealt a blow to the Americans’ complacency, having demonstrated for the 

first time that the Russians are capable of jumping ahead of us in technical achievements of great military importance.”1

We had access to this sort of thinking and commentary by prominent American military men and scientists as classified information stamped “for managerial 

personnel only.” This “managerial personnel” took great pleasure in familiarizing 

themselves with reports from across the ocean and at the same time realized that 

if, God forbid, the Cold War were to turn into a “hot” one, then we would be “big 

talkers, sham artists, and knights undeserving of our orders”—that is what Okhapkin, Voskresenskiy, and I called Bushuyev when we had the chance. As a design 

engineer he was officially responsible for the nose cones that disintegrated when 

they entered the atmosphere. Now Korolev was assigning him all the developments 

for new space projects.

Commander Korolev was so spellbound by the prospects of space that he wasn’t 

even apprised of what precisely was going on with the nose cone that would contain a thermonuclear warhead. But anyone who grumbled about Korolev’s swerve 

toward space-related subjects valued his foresight and his ability to handle resources 

available to him and rapidly enable very broad cooperation to solve new problems.

The positive reviews and praise in the global media and praise for our success,

1. B. Brodi [B. Brodie], Strategiya v vek raketnogo oruzhiya [Strategy in the Age of Missiles] (Moscow: 

Voyenizdat, 1961) p. 261. The original English version was published as Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the 

Missile Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959). RAND was formed in 1946, originally 

as part of the Douglas Aircraft Company, to conduct research on a variety of defense-related topics. 

Later, as a semi-independent research institution, it produced many ground-breaking works on the 

military, war, strategy, and foreign and domestic affairs.

393
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accompanied by diagrams, fantastic pictures 

of future satellites, predictions, and portraits 

of specialists, not one of whom actually participated in the creation of our R-7 rocket and 

our satellites. The Germans who had worked 

on the island of Gorodomlya were unassuming. They did not claim the laurels of those 

who had participated in the creation of the 

first “artificial moon.” Judging by those publications available to us, they spoke ambiguously about who had actually developed it all.

Incidentally, the younger generation of 

specialists that followed us weren’t yet seeking 

fame. If anything, the atmosphere of secrecy 

and protection that surrounded our work flattered their vanity, satisfying a patriotic sense 

of personal involvement with great historic 

events.

As I have I already noted, in June 1957, 

due to a series of defects, R-7 vehicle No. 6 

was removed from the launch site. The rocket 

engines underwent checkout procedures—all 

sorts of tests—and once again was delivered 

to the launch site. On 12 March 1958, during 

a launch attempt, an emergency shutdown of 

the engines occurred after buildup to the first 

intermediate stage. Once more the culprit was 

the main oxygen valve of the Block G booster, 

which had opened prematurely due to the 

failure of the break bolt. The testers quipped, 

“How can one not but become superstitious? This rocket is cursed, and it needs to 

be removed from the firing range so that it 

doesn’t ruin the others.”

Beginning in early 1958 the scope of projects at OKB-1 continued to grow 

dramatically. The sudden success of the first two rudimentary satellites during the 

enormous workflow for the development of the R-7 rocket was achieved relatively 

easily. However, these successes exacerbated two new problems.

First, we recognized that we needed a more profound and serious attitude toward 

space vehicles. Second, we needed to rethink the failures during R-7 launches, along 

with many problems associated with this rocket. We accounted for all the unpleasantness that this rocket caused during various stages—its launch preparations, 

A cutout of the Sputnik-3 gives a 

sense of the relatively complexity of 

this scientific satellite designed to 

study a range of natural phenomena 

during the International Geophysical 

Year. Known internally as the Object 

D, the 1.3 ton satellite was originally 

designed to be the first Soviet artificial 

satellite. When its development was 

delayed, Korolev opted to launch 

a simpler satellite, later known as 

Sputnik.

M. V. Keldysh, ed., Tvorcheskoye naslediye Akademika Sergeya Pavlovicha Koroleva: izbrannyye 

trudy i dokumenty (Moscow: Nauka, 1980).

which surprised Western society, sometimes frustrated us. The “unknown” chief 

designers felt deeply insulted. They, the council members, had put so much effort 

into developing the intercontinental missile, and now look what they got: complete 

anonymity.

But what was it like for Korolev to read the translations of the enthusiastic foreign press reviews and to hear the speeches of Soviet statesmen about our scientists’ 

great achievements? On his desk like a red flag waved in front of a bull, I saw a 

translation of the magazine Quick devoted entirely to the “Red satellite” carrying 

pictures and comments from prominent scientists about the “artificial moon.” These 

included Walter Riedel, a specialist in liquid-propellant engines who had worked in 

America with Wernher von Braun; Werner Schultz, a mathematician from the Federal Republic of Germany who had spent seven years in the USSR working on the 

island of Gorodomlya; and a man “who sees into the future”—astrophysicist Dr. 

Van Fried Petri from Munich. They all saluted the Russians’ achievements. But who 

were these Russians?

This same magazine published photographs of the “father of the Red rocket,” 

President of the Soviet Academy of Artillery Science A. A. Blagonravov, and the 

“father of the Red moon,” Academician L. I. Sedov. The satellite’s launch coincided 

with Blagonravov’s attendance of a meeting for the International Geophysical Year 

in Washington, D.C. and Sedov’s presence at the annual session of the International 

Astronautical Federation in Barcelona. These two Soviet scientists received the 

largest number of congratulations. They were photographed from various angles, 

and these portraits made the rounds in the international press. Having no direct 

involvement in the creation of the “Red rocket” and “Red moon,” they nonetheless did not disavow the titles of “paternity” conferred upon them and accepted the 

congratulations and accolades. They knew full well the truth and the names of the 

actual creators of the rocket and satellite. Each of them could have been accused of 

immodesty, but what were they to do if they had no right to tell the truth?

Pilyugin was particularly miffed. He and Sedov had been at odds over questions 

of priority in inertial navigation. Pilyugin loved practical jokes, and at the Council 

of Chiefs he didn’t pass up the opportunity to announce that “It turns out that it 

was Sedov and Blagonravov who launched the rocket and not us. I move that we 

induct them into our Council.”

Korolev and Glushko, who were both fairly ambitious and who already had 

academic titles, were very touchy about these jokes and the misplaced praise by the 

global press. Unfortunately there was no one to complain to about it. Keldysh once 

mentioned that during his next meeting with Khrushchev he would ask permission 

so that our real missile specialists—instead of stand-ins—could participate in international forums. But as far as I know, this initiative on Keldysh’s part never found 

any support, right up to the very death of Korolev.

All we could do was find consolation in such catchy foreign press headlines 

as “First Satellite Speaks Russian,” “What’s Keeping the Americans?,” “Eisenhower 

Knew About Russian Rockets,” “Man-made Moon Orbits Earth.” All of this was 
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Dunayev, who headed this laboratory, to develop a system for protecting the nuclear 

warhead of our R-5M missile “against the effects of the external air stream.” Many 

FTI (today it’s called the A. F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute) projects involved 

nuclear physics research, and therefore the level of security surrounding our subject 

matter there was even tighter than at OKB-1, where the FTI proposals were implemented. Korolev, our aero-gas dynamics specialists Viktor Fedorovich Roshchin and 

Andrey Georgiyevich Reshetin, materials specialist Aleksey Anatoliyevich Severov, 

and design specialist Ivan Saveliyevich Prudnikov dealt personally with Dunayev’s 

laboratory.

After the 27 August 1957, TASS report about the successful flight of an intercontinental missile and secret reports from Kamchatka that nothing was found 

there, Korolev bitterly rebuked the military, saying, “You’ve got sabotage there on 

Kamchatka. Your officers and soldiers don’t want to conduct a real search. I’m going 

to [have to] send my own people.” And indeed, before the second launch toward 

Kamchatka, Korolev sent Andrey Reshetin there.3 In order to satisfy their ambitions, 

the military sent their own scientists, including Engineer Colonels Narimanov and 

Elyasberg from NII-4. Flying once again into the Klyuchi area of Kamchatka, the 

scientific team found that hunting down the fragments of wreckage strewn over the 

undergrowth of the taiga was much more difficult than running into the Kamchatkan bears guarding their forest domains. Nevertheless, during the next launch they 

managed to visually determine the area where the fragments of the nose cone that 

disintegrated in the atmosphere must have fallen.

Decades later, chuckling, Andrey Reshetin related how after many days of hunting he reported to Korolev from Kamchatka about each new fragment found there. 

Dunayev had little interest in the Kamchatka fragments. According to one story, 

he was the first “theoretician” who proposed, developed, and, with the assistance 

of rocket materials specialists, introduced a new physical heatshield mechanism. 

The innovation consisted not in increasing the thickness and mass of the shield 

but in removing mass or “ablation.” The “golden rain” of governmental awards for 

space triumphs did not bypass Dunayev. In 1961 he became one of the Lenin Prize 

laureates. A little over 30 years later he published a scientific treatise on the topic 

entitled “Development of a Technology for High-Temperature Coatings for the 

First Domestic Manned Spacecraft.” Of course, even in the top-secret decree giving 

these awards, there was not a word about warheads. 

In April 2004, Nobel Prize Laureate Zhores Ivanovich Alferov invited me to 

read a lecture on the history of cosmonautics at the A. F. Ioffe Physical-Technical 

Institute. The gift I received was a great surprise: it was a copy of the magazine 

Neva, issue No. 5 from the year 2003. The issue carried the memoirs of one Tatyana 

Vladimirovna Sokolova entitled “Terrestrial Anecdotes on ‘Space Affairs.’” It was 

3. Author’s note: Professor Andrey Georgiyevich Reshetin is now a fellow department head at the 

Moscow Physical-Technical Institute.

during the launch itself, and during the powered flight segment—rather quickly. 

We were able to explain these problems using the engineering knowledge and experience that had been gained by that time. But it turned out that the rocket’s very 

first successful full-range flight and the first space triumphs gave rise to problems 

that required not only new fundamental research, but also organizational restructuring. The original “old council” of chief designers didn’t have solutions to both new 

problems, that is, of new research and organizational changes. As the council head, 

Korolev needed new compatriots and allies from outside the bodies governed by the 

council members.

After my illness, I returned to the heated rhythms of daily work revolving 

around my immediate problems of guidance, electrical, and radio engineering. 

Having done so, I sensed that our enthusiasm associated with the first space triumphs in 1957 would quickly die out and be replaced by expectations of a “miracle” 

that could save the missile’s warhead. We had already learned to put spacecraft and 

even a dog into space, but what about returning them to the ground? If we weren’t 

capable of preserving the warhead in the dense atmospheric layers, then it was much 

too soon to consider human flight. A human being is not a dog named Layka. In the 

future, how could we hope to return a human being to Earth alive if we could not 

protect a warhead from reentry?

Actually, having recognized how acute the problem was and without making a 

show, Korolev mobilized not only his own specialists, but recruited scientific forces 

from the outside to solve the problem of warhead reentry. In this endeavor it wasn’t 

members of the council of chiefs who were very helpful, but rather Academy of Sciences Presidium member Mstislav Keldysh.

Since 1946, Keldysh had been head of NII-1, from which I was transferred to 

NII-88 in 1946. Due to all sorts of name changes, RNII, NII-3, and NII-1 finally 

became the Scientific-Research Institute of Thermal Processes. Keldysh indeed 

brought together first-class specialists in gas dynamics, thermal physics, and energy 

conversion in this very first rocket center in the Soviet Union. Georgiy Ivanovich Petrov, Vitaliy Mikhaylovich Iyevlev, and Aleksandr Pavlovich Vanichev headed 

fundamental research into various shapes of nose cones and future spacecraft during 

entry into the atmosphere. Jumping ahead, I will note that G. I. Petrov’s work in 

this field contributed to his becoming an academician in 1958, while Vanichev and 

Iyevlev became corresponding members in 1962 and 1964, respectively. However, 

the work of the physical gas dynamics laboratory at the Academy of Sciences Leningrad Physical-Technical Institute (FTI) provided the greatest assistance to our nose 

cone developers (and not just Korolev’s people, but all those who followed).2

As early as 1954, a decree was issued assigning Professor Yuriy Aleksandrovich 

2. FTI—Fiziko-tekhnicheskiy institut.
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somebody or other among the chiefs. This time the tank emptying system (SOB) 

operated unstably, and false commands were issued. The radio-control ground stations failed to process the pitch tracking program. There was a dispute among the 

radio specialists—the ground station specialists versus the onboard systems specialists—as to who was more at fault.

Every new launch brought some new failure! Nevertheless, the missiles streamed 

in to the engineering facility. Three days after the first basically normal launch, 

another “lucky one” was moved to the launch site, missile number M1-12. The 

launch took place on 4 April. In the first report, Kamchatka scared us by stating that 

once again it was receiving no nose cone telemetry information and a new crater was 

not found in the impact square. However, the next day they cheered up: there was 

indeed a crater, but the nose cone had overshot by 68 kilometers, with a deviation of 

18.2 kilometers to the right. Again, telemetry analysis provided an explanation: 142 

seconds into the flight, tracking using the radio-control antenna ceased; apparently 

the programmed tracking mechanism malfunctioned.

Despite such a number of serious glitches, flight-development testing (LKI) of 

combat missiles was once again interrupted by space launches.6 Object D’s turn 

had come—it was fated to become a full-fledged Earth satellite. Unlike the first 

two satellites, the third one was prepared without resorting to all-hands rush mode, 

with the participation of many scientists who had been recruited for this program 

as early as 1956. Keldysh devoted particular attention to the preparation of this 

satellite. He held many meetings and conferences and reconciled conflicts that were 

flaring up between our “missile” interests and the aspirations of “pure” scientists. 

Factions passionately struggled over the volume and mass appropriated for scientific 

equipment. 

In April, during the launch of Object D, slated to become the third Soviet satellite, our R-7 once again decided to show its stubborn side. It delivered the payload 

with all its precious scientific instruments “over the hill.”7 Keldysh and all of the 

young scientific space community were in mourning. But Korolev did not give up.

Assembly of a backup satellite was under way at the factory. S.P. assembled all of 

his close associates and announced that, despite the setback, each of them would be 

paid a substantial bonus if everyone would remain at the firing range and prepare 

the next launch vehicle. The launch needed to be conducted in mid-May. He and 

Keldysh would fly to Moscow to speed up the preparation of a new third satellite. 

This decision had not been easy, but there was no alternative. Commitments for the 

launch of a “scientific space laboratory” had already been made to Khrushchev.

Events surrounding the third satellite bear recounting at some length. On 15 

May 1957, as we congratulated one another on the first R-7 launch, we consoled 

6. LKI—Letno-konstruktorskiye ispytaniya.

7. The first attempt to launch the Object D satellite into orbit ended in failure on 27 April 1958 

when the R-7 launch vehicle disintegrated about 96 seconds after launch.

the first time that our space literature published “nonscientific writings with lyrical 

digressions and everyday details” about how the nose cone heatshield of the first 

intercontinental missiles was developed. Before then, unfortunately, there had been 

no open publications on this subject.

In addition to a new heatshield, the nose cone also got a new shape. Instead of 

the pointed nose piece, it became blunt and spherical. For a detailed study of the 

phenomena that occurred during entry into the atmosphere, Bogomolov augmented 

a second Tral-G2 system with rod antennas. It was installed under the sheathing of 

the heatshield. The next significant step was to enhance the separation system in 

order to avoid collision with the main missile hull. After imparting a one-metric ton 

thrust to the payload container, the Block A core booster turned away to the side.

An R-7 missile with all the modifications, vehicle number M1-11, was delivered 

to the firing range around New Year’s 1958. A month later it was prepared, and 

on 30 January 1958 the launch took place. Some evil fate continued to haunt the 

combat versions of this missile. The flight proceeded normally just until the strapon 

boosters began to separate. A defect in the mechanisms of the discharge nozzles of 

strapon boosters Blocks V and G damaged the tank pressurization line. The final 

stage was not able to generate the design thrust. The turbine raced and for some 

reason the emergency shutdown didn’t kick in. Apparently the turbopump assembly 

(TNA) exploded.4 The control pressure line was destroyed, and the cable network 

was damaged. The nose cone did not separate from Block A, and they entered the 

atmosphere together. Nevertheless, the new nose cone reached the ground for the 

first time, although it overshot the calculated point of impact by more than 80 

kilometers.

Again we set about making modifications. Instead of a single separation pushrod, we installed three, each with one metric ton of force. A fundamental innovation was the installation in the nose cone of a “black box”—an automatic recorder 

with heavy-duty armor protection. This was the first serious project of Ivan Utkin’s 

new organization, which had split off from our old NII-88 with a group of capable 

and enterprising radio engineers.5

Finally, on 29 March a missile with lucky number 10 (or M1-10) lifted off quite 

smoothly. This was launch number eight; counting the two satellite launches, it was 

the sixth launch of the R-7 intercontinental missile program. Kamchatka reported 

that, judging by the crater, the nose cone hit the ground without disintegrating. It 

had overshot the target by 7.5 kilometers and deviated 1.1 kilometers to the right. 

Telemetry received during the 8 seconds before impact with the ground confirmed 

that the nose cone did not disintegrate in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, after processing the information, typically the telemetry specialists would spoil the mood of 

4. TNA—Turbonasosnyy agregat.

5. Utkin’s Complex No. 5 separated from NII-88 in July 1966 to become the independent 

Scientific-Research Institute of Measurement Technology.
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The third satellite was a spacecraft that had required the development of a complex electrical power supply, program, and command control system for the individual science equipment. These developments were entrusted to two young engineers 

who had only recently been sent to OKB-1 upon graduation from the Taganrog 

Radio Engineering Institute. Yuriy Karpov and Vladimir Shevelev belonged to a 

group of young specialists who came on the scene at the very birth of the idea 

of space electrical engineering and automatics. When our work on space systems 

expanded, these two “highest guys at OKB-1” generated the ideas and principles for 

the development of onboard complex control systems (SUBK) for spacecraft.11 For 

them the third satellite was their first really serious engineering task. In subsequent 

years, my close association with Yuriy Karpov and his team was always interesting, 

not only in a professional and engineering sense, but also on a personal, human 

level. I’ve had the opportunity to work first-hand with many engineers on a daily 

basis over the past decades, but I felt particularly warmly toward Yuriy Karpov and 

his circle of circuitry specialists. They created a sense of community among—as 

Korolev used to say—the “rusty electricians.” On the job and in their lives they 

adhered to the principle of “all for one and one for all.”

One of the sensational results obtained with the aid of the third satellite’s scientific instruments was the discovery of a high concentration of electrons at high 

altitudes beyond the limits of the already known ionosphere. Sergey Nikolayevich 

Vernov, the MGU professor and primary investigator of this research, attributed 

this phenomenon to secondary electronic emission, that is, to the dislodging of electrons from the satellite’s metal during collision with high-energy particles such as 

protons and electrons. I recall his elated report about this at a meeting in Keldysh’s 

office, where scientists gave their accounts of the results of the scientific research on 

the third satellite.

However, two years later the American physicist James Van Allen proved that 

what the third satellite’s instruments had actually measured was not from secondary emission, but rather from primary particles of the Earth’s previously unknown 

radiation belts.12 That is why the Americans named these radiation belts the “Van 

Allen Belts.” In Vernov’s defense it must be said that he erred due to the failure of 

the satellite’s telemetry recording device. Vernov was not able to receive measurements of the radiation activity over the satellite’s entire orbital pass, but he received 

measurements only in direct reception mode when the satellite was flying over the 

territory of the USSR. Van Allen made his discovery using the results measured by 

11. SUBK—Sistema upravleniya bortovymi kompleksami.

12. James Alfred Van Allen (1914– ) is a pioneering astrophysicist best known for his work in 

magnetospheric physics. Besides his fame in identifying the belt of charged particle radiation that 

is trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field (the Van Allen Radiation Belts), he is also known as one 

of the main instigators in organizing the International Geophysical Year in 1957–58. He remains a 

prominent public commentator on the role of science in the exploration of space.

ourselves that it was as it should be, that “the first pancake is always lumpy.”8 The 

day of 15 May 1958 compensated to some degree for that “first pancake.” R-7 

vehicle number B1-1 inserted the third Soviet artificial Earth satellite on orbit. The 

satellite’s imposing mass of 1,327 kilograms, of which 968 kilograms constituted 

the scientific equipment and instrumentation once again generated glowing press 

reports.

This was actually the first automatic spacecraft. It carried 12 scientific instruments, Bogomolov’s Tral telemetry system with a recording device, and the Rubin

transponder for orbital monitoring. This was also the first spacecraft equipped with 

the command radio-link that our new subcontractor NII-648 had developed.9 In 

1956, the very energetic and enterprising radio engineer Armen Sergeyevich Mnatsakanyan headed the institute. Under his leadership, command radio-links (KRL) 

were developed for our new spacecraft, and later Mnatsakanyan’s organization began 

to develop space search and rendezvous radio systems for the Soyuz spaceships.10

8. This Russian idiom for “practice makes perfect.”

9. Author’s note: Now this institute is called the Scientific-Research Institute of Precision 

Instruments.

10. KRL—Komandnaya radioliniya. These search and rendezvous systems included the Igla

(Needle) and Kurs (Course) radar systems.

This photo shows Sputnik-3 (Object D) on the launch pad prior to launch in 1958. This 

satellite used a one-off variant of the R-7 ICBM known as the 8A91. Note the unusual tip of 

the payload fairing.

Asif Siddiqi.
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over a year and yet we haven’t been able to make friends with the rocket that we 

brought into this world.”

We tried to launch the last rocket, vehicle number B1-4, on 10 July. I write 

“tried” because the rocket was removed from the launch site due to the failure of the 

Block D strapon and the latest failure of the break bolt on the main oxygen valve. 

By then, of the 10 missiles not used as satellite launch vehicles, only seven had lifted 

off. Of those seven, only two more or less tolerably carried their payload equivalent 

to the target.

The State Commission was in a very difficult situation. They quibbled with the 

wording, retyping the conclusions and comments dozens of times. Ultimately, they 

wrote that the “experimental data on dispersion did not allow a full evaluation as to 

whether the design specifications had been met. But, according to preliminary data, 

in principle, the dispersion would not exceed the predetermined value.” The report 

went on to cite a short list of systems that had demonstrated their effectiveness and 

a long list of all the defects and measures that should be implemented before.... 

Before what? The next phase was supposed to be joint Ministry of Defense and 

industry tests, the results of which were to decide the missile’s fate. There was no 

way to retreat. After many days of meetings and many hours of discussions, the State 

Commission recommended going on to the next phase, that is, the joint tests.

Here I should make one more digression of no small significance. The general 

conviction that we would “bring the Semyorka up to speed” still outweighed the 

skepticism of the cautious and the fierce attacks of enemies of the liquid-oxygen 

engine approach that our OKB was using. For the next two years no other intercontinental missile project could compete with the Semyorka in terms of readiness. A 

strong production base needed to be prepared in advance for the mass production 

of the R-7 missiles, engines, and instrumentation. It was also necessary to build 

another two or three launch sites. It was quite evident that at the same time the 

“joint” launch program for the R-7 was under way, space launches would also be in 

the cards.

The political hubbub surrounding the dawning of the space age reached 

such a pitch that in the launch plans for the next few years, considerably more 

launches might be required than those that would simply intimidate the Americans 

with the fact that we had an intercontinental thermonuclear bomb carrier. The R-7 

was all that the USSR had for both tasks, and according to the most optimistic plans, 

there would be no other prospects before 1961. After producing the R-7 missile, our 

large network of cooperation headed by our OKB-1 carried double accountability. 

We were now responsible for both the military use of the missile and for using it to 

develop space technology. For the next few years, only the R-7 rocket would be able 

to slog down the road to space, which began on the territory of the USSR.

Depending on the results of the joint tests, the decision would have to be made 

whether to recommend putting the R-7 with a thermonuclear warhead into service. 

The military had a vital interest in a positive outcome. At Nedelin’s initiative a draft 

an American satellite.13 He showed that there was a region in near-Earth space in 

which the Earth’s magnetic field holds in charged particles (protons, electrons, and 

α-particles) that possess a great deal of kinetic energy. These particles remain in 

near-Earth space, held in what is referred to as the magnetic trap.

This discovery was a great scientific sensation and had important practical significance for cosmonautics. Spacecraft, whose orbits passed through radiation belts, 

were exposed to significant levels of radiation that damaged, in particular, the structure of their solar array sensors. For crewed spacecraft, a prolonged stay in these belts 

is not acceptable at all and can be very dangerous.

After the publication of Van Allen’s discoveries, we decided, albeit belatedly, to 

correct the mistake committed through the failure of the recording device on the 

third satellite. In our literature, however, they started to refer to the radiation belts 

as the “Van Allen-Vernov belts.”

This episode was a good lesson for scientists since it demonstrated how essential it was that direct measurement instruments and onboard service systems reliably operate when obtaining, storing, and transmitting the data obtained by them 

back to Earth. Unfortunately, equipment reliability for scientific research remained 

a weak spot in our cosmonautics for years to come. With the goal of “rehabilitating” 

Soviet science, on assignment from the Academy of Sciences, we urgently developed 

and launched four new spacecraft: Elektron-1, -2, -3, and -4. But they were not 

launched until 1964. These Elektrons made it possible over a long period of time to 

obtain comprehensive data about the Earth’s radiation belts and magnetic fields.

After 15 May 1958, a historic date for rocket technology, we once again 

returned to our regular flight-development testing program and suffered two disasters in a row. On 24 May, R-7 vehicle number B1-3, prepared at the launch site in a 

record short period of time—21 hours—lifted off normally. However, Kamchatka 

reported that it fell short of the target by almost 45 kilometers, with a slight lateral 

deviation. Once again telemetry helped to determine the cause. In the final phase of 

the second stage, the blow-off valve of the oxidizer tank failed. Without pressurization, the oxygen entering the pump contained “bubbles.” The turbopump assembly 

broke down, damaging the adjacent lines. The nose cone entered the atmosphere 

along with the entire core booster.

How many hopes were tied to the last launch of this long-suffering R-7 first 

series! But our Galatea did not give in. Voskresenskiy reminded me with gentle derision that the Galatea of the ancient Greeks brought to life by the gods was probably 

more compliant.14 “Just think—we have so many men and have worked already for 

13. Van Allen used data from the Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 satellites to conjecture the presence of 

these radiation belts.

14. This is a reference to the Pygmalion myth from Greek mythology; Galatea was the name of a 

statue created by Pygmalion and brought to life by Aphrodite.
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kiy Park, now Leningradskiy Prospekt.18 Here, a palace from the days 

of Catherine the Great stands out. For 

many years it has also been the main 

building of the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air 

Force Engineering Academy. It was 

also the founding historical site for the 

Air Force Scientific-Research Institute.

One of the first directors of aviation Factory No. 1 was Petr Dementyev, who would later become minister 

of aviation industry.19 In 1941, at the 

beginning of World War II, the factory 

was commissioned to produce Il-2 

fighter bombers. After their evacuation 

to Kuybyshev, the factory’s employees 

accomplished an extraordinary feat of 

labor. At the new site, under the most 

difficult conditions, the half-starved 

people produced 12,000 of the famous 

Ilyushin fighter bombers. Shooting 

upward on an arched steel above the 

banks of the Volga in Samara, an Il2 serves as a monument to the heroic 

labor of the war years. After the war, 

as one of the biggest and best factories in the aviation industry, this factory switched over to the production 

of MiG-9 and MiG-15 jet aircraft and 

Il-28 bombers.

The factory underwent a major 

overhaul for the production of missiles. In my first encounters and subsequent close acquaintance with factory director Viktor Yakovlevich Litvinov, he impressed me as a very gentle and sensitive 

individual, quite unlike a director. Nevertheless, he enjoyed indisputable authority 

in his organization. His instructions were carried out without him having to pound 

18. Sergey Vladimirovich Ilyushin (1894–1977), Artem Ivanovich Mikoyan (1905–70), Nikolay 

Nikolayevich Polikarpov (1892–1944), and Aleksandr Sergeyevich Yakovlev (1906–89)—all famous 

aviation designers—headed some of the largest aviation design bureaus during the Soviet era.

19. Petr Vasilyevich Dementyev (1907–77) served as minister of aviation industry in 1953–77.

From the author’s archives.

In 1959, Sergey Korolev tasked Dmitriy 

Kozlov (1919-) with production oversight 

over the R-7A ICBM. Kozlov, shown here 

around 1970, eventually took over leadership 

in developing numerous launch vehicles 

(the Molniya, Soyuz, etc.) derived from 

the original R-7 missile. In later years, as 

Chief Designer of the independent Central 

Specialized Design Bureau (TsSKB), Kozlov 

supervised the development of the majority 

of Soviet optical photo-reconnaissance 

satellites. He retired only in 2003.

decree of the Council of Ministers was prepared on the creation of a new independent branch of the armed forces: the Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN).15 If such a 

decree were issued, the rocket forces would be equal to the conventional branches of 

the armed forces—the air force, navy, ground forces, and air defense forces. Each of 

these branches had its own commander-in-chief, headquarters, uniforms, military 

institutes, academies, and much more.

But such a decision could not be made until intercontinental strategic missiles 

were put into service. Up to then, troop formations that had Korolev’s R-1, R-2, 

R-11, R-11M, and R-5M missiles, as well as Yangel’s very new R-12 missile in service, had been called the Supreme Command Reserve (RVGK) engineer brigades.16

Heavy artillery—supreme command reserve artillery brigades—also had similar 

status in wartime.

Sixteen R-7 missiles were manufactured for the joint tests—eight at the Progress 

Factory and eight at our pilot plant “where Comrade Turkov is director” (this was 

what the press wrote and what was said at conferences to avoid mentioning the 

number and location of a secret facility). The Progress Factory, new in our network 

of cooperation, had become part of the nascent rocket empire having been forced 

out of the aviation industry during Khrushchev’s so-called campaign of “cannibalization” of that industry. All of the series production aviation factories were subordinated to regional Councils of National Economy (Sovnarkhoz).17 A Council of 

Ministers decision delegated the organization of the series production of the R-7 

missile to the Kuybyshev Sovnarkhoz, which proposed allocating the task to the 

aviation Factory No. 1, which was renamed the Progress Factory.

This factory had an illustrious history. Even before World War I, one of the first 

factories to build airplanes in Russia was the Moscow Duks bicycle factory. After 

the Revolution, the Duks factory switched over completely to the manufacture of 

airplanes to create the Red Air Force and was renamed State Aviation Factory No. 1. 

The factory specialized in the production of fighter planes and light reconnaissance 

planes and was located in Petrovskiy Park on the border of Khodynka Field. Later 

Khodynka became the airfield for Factory No. 1 and by 1925 was called the M. V. 

Frunze Central Airfield of the Republic. The entire area adjacent to Factory No. 

1 and Khodynka Field, which was later renamed October Field, gradually turned 

into a military-industrial aircraft area. The design bureaus and the pilot plants of 

Polikarpov, Ilyushin, Mikoyan, and Yakovlev were located along the former Petrovs15. RVSN—Raketnyye voyska strategicheskogo naznacheniya.

16. RVGK—Reserv verkhovnogo glavnokomandovaniya.

17. In 1957, Khrushchev instituted nation-wide industrial reforms that decentralized much of the 

Soviet defense industry. As a result, defense factories (such as the Progress Factory) were subordinated 

to local councils instead of a central command in Moscow. These local authorities were called Councils 

of the National Economy (Sovet narodnogo khozyaystva or Sovnarkhoz).
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large enterprise is pleased when promoted to such a high and, it would seem, honorable post. I had known many powerful managers; they were talented production 

organizers who had passed through all the levels from worker, foreman, and shop 

chief to chief engineer and director. The majority of them felt very uncomfortable 

when they found themselves in positions of authority in the central political apparatus. Litvinov did not conceal his own dissatisfaction with this promotion; this 

was, however, a decision of the CPSU Central Committee Secretariat, and Party 

discipline was sacred. You could grumble, but you were obliged to fall in line, part 

company with your dear organization, and plunge into the bureaucratic paper chase 

of the hierarchical central power apparat (bureaucracy).

During the arduous days of all-hands rush jobs when we began mastering the 

Soyuz manned spacecraft, I often dealt with Litvinov when he came to our facility. 

He frankly confided that he envied us, because no privileges granted to high-ranking officials of the central apparat could replace the genuine satisfaction that the 

manager of an organization experiences when working to produce new and complex 

technology.

At another Kuybyshev plant, machine building Factory No. 24 “where Comrade 

Chechenya is director,” personnel were mastering the production of engines for the 

R-7 rocket. So as not to ruin the oldest aviation engine building factory, industry 

leaders persuaded Khrushchev not to devote the plant solely to the production of 

liquid-propellant rocket engines. They volunteered to arrange production of rocket 

engines while maintaining production of turbojet engines.

Other heavy machine building enterprises were drawn into cooperation with 

Barmin in order to create launch complexes at five new sites, one at the Tyuratam 

firing range and four in Plesetsk near Arkhangelsk.

Our nation’s new missile technology was also a powerful stimulus for the development of the instrument making and electronics industry. While the best aviation factories could be restructured for the series production of missiles, thereby 

inflicting tremendous damage on our aviation technology, there was no one to take 

factories from to produce instruments; this branch of industry had to be created 

virtually from scratch.

Only the gyroscope production sector could benefit from the experience and 

facilities of the mighty shipbuilding industry. Enjoying great prestige in naval instrument building circles, Viktor Kuznetsov managed to set up series production of 

gyroscopes at his institute’s factory, at the Saratov instrument building factory, and 

at a new factory that was under construction in Chelyabinsk. High-capacity, very 

well-equipped production of command gyroscopes was also set up in Leningrad at 

NII-49 under the management of talented engineer and great gyroscope technology 

enthusiast Vyacheslav Pavlovich Arefyev.

Nor was Gorodomlya Island on Lake Seliger forgotten. The sylvan island abandoned by the Germans caught Kuznetsov’s fancy. He managed to convert NII-88 

Branch No. 1 on the island into a branch of his own gyroscopic institute, and citing 

its exceptionally clean environment as a rationale, created a plant there that prohis fist on the table and without shouting and strong language. When he was tasked 

with mastering a completely new technology, he joked: “During the war Stalin 

threatened me with court martial if we failed to meet the deadline for the delivery 

of fighter bombers. After the war, one month before the Tushino air parade, we were 

ordered to produce a squadron of jet fighters. Now we have a new order: do away 

with the fighters and bombers at the factory and make Korolev’s missiles. But we 

had just mastered the new bombers and were dreaming of working happily without 

rush jobs, if only for a couple of years.... So I wanted to send Korolev a hundred 

or so workers, engineers and technicians, for training to master the new technology. But they lost their tempers and complained that ‘Korolev handed over missiles 

that fly on oxygen and good ethyl alcohol to the Dnepropetrovsk plant for series 

production, but here in starving Kuybyshev, we get a missile that runs on kerosene. 

If it ran on alcohol, we wouldn’t argue.’” Litvinov loved jokes that took the edge off 

of difficult situations.

New shops and test benches were rapidly built, and cooperation was established 

between OKB-1 and the Progress Factory. In 1959, Progress confidently began the 

series production of R-7 missiles, and soon OKB-1 Branch No. 3 was created there. 

R-7 missile lead designer Dmitriy Ilich Kozlov was appointed chief of this branch; 

he expanded and reorganized the Kuybyshev branch into the independent Central Specialized Design Bureau (TsSKB).20 Subsequently the TsSKB assumed all the 

responsibilities for the modification and production of the R-7, although the primary products of the TsSKB in subsequent years were spy satellites. Later Kozlov 

twice became a Hero of Socialist Labor.21 He was elected a corresponding member 

of the Academy of Sciences and was awarded Lenin and state prizes.

After Khrushchev was overthrown, one of the first serious measures that the 

Communist Party leadership headed by Brezhnev took was to eliminate the Councils of National Economy (Sovnarkhozi) and restore the old ministry system. The 

Ministry of General Machine Building (MOM) was created to manage all rocket 

and space technology.22 The Progress Factory and all series production missile factories, including the Dnepropetrovsk-based Yuzhnoye Machine Building Factory and 

our OKB-1, became part of the new ministry.

Progress Factory Director Litvinov was pulled out of Kuybyshev and appointed 

deputy minister of general machine building.23 Certainly not every director of a 

20. TsSKB—Tsentralnoye spetsializirovannoye konstruktorskoye byuro. TsSKB subsequently became 

one the primary developer of Soviet optical reconnaissance satellites. Today, it continues to develop 

new versions of R-7-based launch vehicles, as well as military reconnaissance, remote sensing, and 

microgravity spacecraft.

21. He was bestowed the award in 1961 and 1979.

22. The Ministry of General Machine Building (Ministerstvo obshchego mashinostroyeniya or MOM) 

was created in March 1965 to oversee all strategic missile and spaceflight programs.

23. Viktor Yakovlevich Litvinov (1910–83) served as deputy minister of general machine building 

in 1965–73.
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Meanwhile, Glushko remained the only monopolist in his field of rocket engines. 

Even Kuznetsov had already ceased to be the one and only developer of onboard 

gyroscopic instruments. NII-49 in Leningrad specialized in gyroscopic technology 

for submarine-launched missiles, but was also ready to develop other command 

instruments.

VPK chairman Ryabikov, who presided over the discussion, spoke out clearly 

in favor of optimizing the R-7. There was no place for wavering here. But the R7’s 8,000-kilometer range was insufficient. We needed to begin designing liquidoxygen engines with greater range.

I heard quite unexpected news from Kalashnikov. In late January 1958, Fedor 

Falunin, our former lead designer for control surface actuators, came to us on temporary assignment from Dnepropetrovsk. Now he was working at Yangel’s KB as 

chief of the control surface actuators department. Falunin told us about Yangel’s 

sensational speech at the meeting of the expert commission on the R-16 missile’s 

conceptual design. All of the numerous staff who had transferred from Podlipki 

to Dnepropetrovsk believed that they also had a stake in OKB-1. They were glad 

for our successes. Yangel’s very tactless speech before this commission chaired by 

Keldysh astonished and offended them all the more. Instead of defending the R-16 

design as such, Yangel lambasted OKB-1’s technical policy, which in his words was 

leading our nation into a dead end. In Yangel’s opinion, liquid-oxygen missiles were 

useless. Instead of these missiles, we needed to produce state-of-the-art and missioncapable missiles using high-boiling propellant components. Yangel’s speech was so 

tactless that Keldysh had to interrupt him and ask that he stick to his presentation 

in defense of the R-16.

Why Yangel needed to expose his personal dislike for Korolev in this way at 

an official technical gathering attended by many people, I cannot explain. Having 

studied both their personalities well, now that neither of them is around, I believe 

that Yangel was primarily at fault for their falling-out. More than once I observed 

that he could not contain his emotions. With respect to Korolev, Yangel’s emotions 

sometimes prevailed over his reason.

Later I had the occasion to meet with Yangel many times in Moscow, at Dnepropetrovsk, and at the firing range. Despite the fact that I was Korolev’s deputy, we 

maintained good personal relations. Moreover, our lead specialists, who visited 

Yangel’s KB on business many times, were always cordially received. There was no 

antagonism between our organizations, but the staff were unable to influence their 

managers and to have them achieve normal relations between themselves.

You have to give Pilyugin credit. He had good relations with both Korolev and 

Yangel. More than once, as he used to tell me, in one-on-one conversation he convinced each of them that they needed to reconcile to work out a unified missile 

policy in the interests of the cause. Let them both even agree to a healthy competition, a contest between liquid-oxygen and high-boiling component missiles. After 

all it was obvious that both types had a right to exist for the time being. Later life 

would show to whom the future belonged. But neither Korolev nor Yangel took the 

duced precision gyroscopic instruments using the most state-of-the-art principles. 

This new factory proved to be virtually the only one in the USSR where the toxic 

process of casting and machining parts made of super-light beryllium alloys was 

mastered. Thus, when the Germans departed in 1953, not only did the island not 

drop its “cover,” it became even more secret.

The entire second half of 1957 and beginning of 1958, I was involved in 

very few important technical discussions of future projects and Council of Chiefs 

meetings. To begin with, I was constantly at the firing range, and then my illness 

also kept me away from work.

I regularly received information about the most important events occurring at 

the OKB and in the “higher spheres” surrounding it and also about attitudes and 

considerations in that regard from Ryazanskiy, Yurasov, Voskresenskiy, Bushuyev, 

and Kalashnikov. Nevertheless, when I finally appeared at work in spring 1958, I 

once again realized how swiftly events unfold. We, who were in charge of OKB1, were the tip of a growing iceberg. Beneath us a thoroughly hush-hush mighty 

empire was being developed. Our iceberg was not the only one in a vast ocean 

of problems. A new missile giant had already come into view on the horizon; the 

Dnepropetrovsk-based Factory No. 586 switched from being a collaborator to a 

competitor after Yangel showed up there in 1954 as chief designer.

Comrades told me the details of a series of important discussions that took place 

in my absence. It started with a discussion of proposals for a prospective program 

at a meeting of the chief designers in June 1957. “Nonchiefs” in attendance from 

OKB-1 were Yurasov, Mishin, Voskresenskiy, Karpov, Bushuyev, Okhapkin, Lavrov, 

and Raykov. There were also some other deputy chiefs there. In the opinion of 

Bushuyev and Yurasov, the degree of consensus that had existed before was already 

lacking among the chiefs. And this was above all due to a rift in the relationship 

between Korolev and Glushko. The latter felt that it was necessary to use dimethyl 

hydrazine as a fuel along with kerosene. He also harked back to his previous proposals for the R-8 missile, contrasting it to the R-7.24 His position was understandable; 

he had made engines that used high-boiling components for Yangel, and, therefore, 

he considered it proper and expedient to develop yet another heavy missile design 

along the same lines. In his opinion, liquid-oxygen missiles needed to be backed 

up with missiles using high-boiling propellant components. For the R-16 missile 

that Yangel had begun to design, a new guidance system chief designer had been 

found, Boris Konoplev. Initially, Konoplev went to Kharkov to set up operations 

for the radio-control systems, but then he took on the control complex for the 

R-16 in its entirety. Thus, Pilyugin and Ryazanskiy no longer held a monopoly. 

24. In 1956, Glushko proposed a new ICBM (the R-8) as a successor to the R-7. The new missile 

would use ten 100-ton thrust engines working on storable propellants (such as unsymmetrical dimethyl 

hydrazine).
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shielding principles and materials, receptacle designs, and new pumps to service 

high-vacuum systems had been developed. I did not participate directly in solving 

the oxygen problems, but operations at OKB-1 assumed such a scale that it was 

simply impossible at that time to stand on the sidelines if there was an opportunity 

to help. The next time Mishin argued with his inherent ardor how important it was 

to achieve and maintain a high-vacuum for the vacuum shield thermal insulation, it 

reminded me of our meetings with Academician Vekshinskiy.

In 1944, working with Roman Popov and Abo Kadyshevich at NII-1 on the 

Aircraft Coordinate Radio Locator (ROKS), we invented a powerful new tube, a 

microwave-range radio wave pulse generator. Through our youth and inexperience 

we imagined that we had discovered principles that would cause a radio engineering 

revolution. Aksel Ivanovich Berg, who was then the leader of all radar engineers, 

advised us to turn to Sergey Arkadiyevich Vekshinskiy for consultation. Vekshinskiy 

was a famous scientist in the field of electronic tubes. He listened to us attentively 

and then led us to a laboratory and showed us the mock-up of the tube whose 

concept we had just presented to him. “America has already been discovered and 

settled,” he joked, quoting from an old school song. We departed terribly disappointed.

Now, 15 years later, I was accompanying Korolev and Mishin to call on top-notch 

Soviet scientist and electro-vacuum technology specialist Academician Vekshinskiy. 

The Electro-vacuum Institute had grown up at the site of the modest laboratory, 

which was enormous even by our missile standards. The demands of nuclear and 

radar science accounted for its rapid development and opulent facilities. Institute 

Director Vekshinskiy, who cracked a plaintive smile when I reminded him of our 

meeting in 1944, said that back then, despite the war, work was easier and more 

light-hearted. After studying the oxygen problem, he promised to help. Vekshinskiy 

kept his promise. His institute developed a very economical system for maintaining a high vacuum in the thermal insulated chambers of the liquid oxygen storage 

tanks.

The oxygen problem had a significance that went far beyond the boundaries of 

missile technology interests. The problem of storing oxygen for combat launches of 

the R-9 missile was solved by late 1962, thanks to the fundamental work that Korolev 

and Mishin directed—not because of departmental affiliation—but because of their 

understanding of its importance for the state. Losses due to evaporation during the 

storage and transportation of oxygen were reduced by a factor of 500!

In June 1958, a general assembly of the Academy of Sciences took place. Despite 

the total secrecy of our missiles, the learned academic community understood that 

the developers of intercontinental missiles and satellites deserved the highest academic degrees and titles. At this meeting Glushko and Korolev were elected academicians, while Barmin, Kuznetsov, Pilyugin, Ryazanskiy, and Mishin were made 

corresponding members. At this same meeting, former zek Aleksandr Lvovich Mints 

was also elected as an active member in the USSR Academy of Sciences, joining 

first step toward reconciliation. Subsequently, when the fire of enmity died down, 

Glushko threw oil on it. And later, Chelomey joined into this controversy. He didn’t 

form an alliance with Yangel against Korolev. He pursued his own technical policy, 

competing against both of them.

Enemies of liquid-oxygen missiles had very solid arguments. Losses of oxygen 

to evaporation during transportation and storage were two to three times the fueling requirements. Korolev and, perhaps even to a greater degree, Mishin decided 

to study this shortcoming of oxygen in earnest. Together with specialists recruited 

for this problem they soon realized that the oxygen industry was not interested 

in developing a technology and methods to reduce the loss. Seeing that Mishin 

had thoroughly investigated the problems of oxygen economics, Korolev made him 

responsible for drawing up new proposals, relieving him of other responsibilities for 

the time being.

It was Vasiliy Mishin’s nature to become utterly absorbed in any new idea. 

During such periods he devoted himself completely to the development of the new 

idea, trying not to waste time on other routine matters that had nothing to do with 

his current fancy. Korolev knew how to use this character trait of Mishin’s to great 

advantage for the common cause. When Korolev noticed that Mishin was immersed 

in working out a problem that Korolev endorsed, he stayed out of his way. If I 

needed to meet and consult with Mishin on some matter that had no direct relation 

to his latest passion, regardless of the urgency of the matter I was coming to him 

about, he would tell me about the latest accomplishments, thoughts, and problems 

that completely engrossed him. Such was also the case with the oxygen storage problem that obsessed Mishin in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Mishin’s intransigence, 

which at many meetings ended up in vehement confrontations, was rooted not in 

his personal attitudes toward one individual or another, but rather in his conviction 

in the rectitude of his ideas and proposals. Even a comrade and friend who at a given 

moment did not share his engineering idea could become an enemy for a while.

We needed to be able in the nearest future to transport and store liquid oxygen 

without losses. If this problem was not solved throughout the entire cryogenic 

industry it would be impossible to issue the proposals for the development of the 

new R-9 intercontinental missile on which we had already begun to work. If we 

did not stand up for the liquid-oxygen missile design at a range up to 12,000 to 

14,000 kilometers, then after the R-7, the military would have no choice but to 

accept Yangel’s new proposals, the R-16 missile using the “most toxic” components, 

nitrogen tetroxide and unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine.

In the struggle over these components for super long-range missiles, much less for 

space tasks, Mishin was a “greater monarchist than the king himself.” He succeeded 

in firing up not only our OKB-1 specialists with his enthusiasm, but also many on 

the outside. Besides enthusiasm, we also, of course, needed the direct assistance of 

industry. For this, Korolev had to appeal to Khrushchev and Ustinov—who succeeded Ryabikov as chairman of the VPK. The majority of the measures proposed 

were realized—not in a year as proposed—but in three years. By 1961, new heat-
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Achievements (VDNKh).26 And this despite the fact that we, his closest associates, 

took the initiative and picked out an absolutely gorgeous spot for him for a dacha 

in the forested water conservation district on the high bank of the picturesque Pyalovsk reservoir. He didn’t even explain why instead of two homes—a nice apartment 

in Moscow and a large cottage in the country—he chose to have one, a cottage right 

in the city. Eight years later, grief-stricken, we realized that back then, our S.P. was 

picking out a site to which the “public walkway wouldn’t get overgrown.” Now there 

is a memorial museum in his house.27 Right next to it, thrusting upward into the 

Moscow sky is an obelisk in honor of the conquerors of space.

Once built up with suburban Moscow dachas, 3rd Ostankino Street, now Academician Korolev Street, begins at the space obelisk and ends at the Ostankino 

television broadcast center and the famous television tower. When the sun descends 

toward the west, the obelisk honoring the conquerors of space stands out quite 

distinctly against the background of the Kosmos Hotel. The Avenue of Heroes proceeds from the obelisk, at the base of which sits a stone Tsiolkovskiy. Memorials 

to Keldysh and Korolev stand at the end of the Avenue. Behind their backs, the 

neon lights of the Kosmos movie theater on Zvezdnyy (Star) Boulevard illuminate 

the evening. Tsander Street leads from Korolev’s house to Zvezdnyy Boulevard.28

Kondratyuk Street connects Tsander Street with Mir (Peace) Prospekt .29 If you go 

down this street and cross the prospect, you end up on the broad Kosmonavt (Cosmonauts) Street. From Kosmonavt Street, if you turn right and go down Konstantinov Street, you will reach Raketnyy (Rocket) Boulevard. Another “rocket” street, 

Kibalchich Street, runs parallel to Kosmonavt Street.30 Finally, in the mid-1980s, 

not far from the museum that was formerly Korolev’s house, a vast neighborhood of 

cottages for cosmonauts closed off from pedestrians and street traffic sprouted up. 

And it all started with Korolev’s cottage and our three sections on the former 3rd 

Ostankinskaya Street.

26. VDNKh—Vystavka dostizheniy narodnogo khozyaystva. The VDNKh traced its origins back 

to the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (VSKhV), which opened in 1939 in Moscow. In 1954, the 

original complex was expanded to 80 pavilions spread over nearly 600 acres to highlight all Soviet 

economic achievements. One of the most notable pavilions at the VDNKh was the Kosmos Pavilion 

that showcased models and replicas of various Soviet spacecraft.

27. The S. P. Korolev Memorial Home Museum was opened to the public in 1975 as a branch of 

the nearby Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics.

28. The street was named after Fridrikh Arturovich Tsander (1887–1933), one of the pioneers of 

Soviet rocketry who founded the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (GIRD), the earliest Soviet 

organization dedicated to the development of liquid-propellant rockets, in 1931.

29. The street was named after Yuriy Vasilyevich Kondratyuk (1897–1942). Kondratyuk, whose 

real name was Aleksandr Ignatyevich Shargey, was one of three major Soviet theorists of space 

exploration. In 1929, he published a book, Zavoyevaniye mezhplanetnykh prostranstv (The Conquest 

of Interplanetary Space), an innovative and in-depth exegesis that mathematically explored many 

different aspects of space exploration.

30. Nikolay Ivanovich Kibalchich (1853–81) was a member of the Russian underground 

revolutionary and terrorist group Narodnaya volya (People’s Will). For his participation in the bombing 

death of Tsar Aleksander II on 1 March 1881, he was imprisoned and subsequently executed. While in 

prison awaiting execution he wrote up an idea for a crewed rocket-propelled flying vehicle.

former zeki Glushko and Korolev.25 Nor did they pass over the developers of the first 

air defense missile systems. Comparatively young radio engineers Kisunko, Raspletin, and very belatedly, general designer of fighter aircraft and air defense missiles 

Semyon Lavochkin were also elected as corresponding members.

According to the academic rules, the last names and scientific achievements of 

the newly elected members needed to be published, if but briefly, in the press. 

Glushko was briefly described as “specialist in the field of thermal technology” 

while Korolev, Barmin, Mishin, and Kuznetsov were referred to as “specialists in the 

field of mechanics.” Pilyugin’s description, “specialist in the field of automatics and 

telemechanics,” provided slightly more insight. Ryazanskiy, Kisunko, and Raspletin 

meanwhile were “specialists in the field of radio engineering.” And then Lavochkin, already world-famous, received the straightforward label of “aviation designer.” 

Chelomey, who had already gained strength, was elected a corresponding member. 

He, too, fell under the heading “specialist in the field of mechanics.”

The results of the elections to the Academy gave the Council of Chiefs a substantial boost in prestige not only at the highest levels, but also among engineers. The 

managers of many subcontractor organizations received a very palpable incentive to 

step up their work in rocket-space technology. As later experience confirmed, many 

talented scientists were attracted to our projects in the hope that their achievements 

in solving scientific problems for rocket technology and space research would give 

them a chance to be elected to the Academy.

Another pleasant event was the Moscow Municipal Council of Peoples’ Deputies (Mossovet) decision to provide more than a hundred apartments in Moscow to 

particularly distinguished specialists and individuals involved in the development 

of the first satellites. In particular, three sections were set aside for our organization 

in new apartment buildings along 3rd Ostankinskaya Street, which today is named 

for Academician Korolev. In building No. 5, there was a housewarming party for 

Korolev’s deputies Bushuyev, Voskresenskiy, Okhapkin, Melnikov, and myself. The 

Chizhikov family, who had been part of our tight-knit group at the Villa Frank in 

Bleicherode, became our neighbors by the staircase landing. To this day, Mikhail 

Tikhonravov’s family lives on the other side of our apartment wall. We occupied 

only two entryways out of ten in the enormous building, but the entire building 

eventually came to be called Korolevskiy (or “Korolevian”).

By special governmental decree, Korolev and the other five chief designers 

obtained the right to build dachas at government expense. Barmin, Kuznetsov, Pilyugin, and Ryazanskiy took advantage of this right and received large tracts of land, 

and cottages with all the conveniences in Barvikha, one of the most elite suburban 

Moscow areas. Korolev did not want to build outside Moscow and obtained permission to build a two-story cottage next to the Exhibition of National Economic

25. Zek is the slang for prisoner, the plural of which is zeki.

Chapter 23

The R-7 Goes into Service

Of all the rockets developed early in the space age, the R-7 rocket has proved to 

have record-setting longevity. Having begun its triumphant journey in 1957 as the 

world’s first potential carrier of a hydrogen bomb, the R-7 was upgraded in various modifications and continues to staunchly serve cosmonautics. According to all 

predictions, it will complete its service no earlier than the second decade of the 21st 

century.1 The unaltered first two stages serve as the foundation to which the third 

and fourth stages are added. The history of this rocket has been described as an 

uninterrupted string of victories from one space triumph to another. Typically, the 

mass media presented each of these triumphs under the headline “World’s First.”

In the history of our aerospace technology during the Cold War, although each 

new success was enthusiastically recorded often even with technical details, the 

names of the actual commanders and rank-and-file soldiers on the scientific and 

technical front were never mentioned. In the era of human spaceflight, the yoke of 

celebrity fell mostly on Soviet cosmonauts and American astronauts. But even in 

democratic America, just as in our country, behind the visible trees stood an invisible forest of the unknown (and classified) names of those who actually built the 

shining monuments of modern day cosmonautics.

In the scheme of history, the R-7 was, more so than other rockets, the means 

for solving many military, strategic, political, scientific, ideological, and economic 

problems. The Soviet Union’s top political leaders never missed an opportunity to 

play their “space” trump card in the foreign affairs game and to remind the people 

that only the leadership of the Communist Party and its Central Committee could 

produce achievements, demonstrating the clear superiority of the socialist system.

It was during Khrushchev’s term in office that the R-7’s life cycle began leading 

to the first space triumphs. He was, perhaps, the first to understand the unlimited 

possibilities available to those government leaders who enjoyed supremacy in the 

1. The latest modifications of the original R-7 booster include the three-stage Soyuz-FG and 

the Soyuz-2 launch vehicles. The former continues to launch cosmonauts to the International Space 

Station.

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The R-7 Goes into Service

417

prestige of a great power. R-7A flight tests were also scheduled to begin at the end of 

the year. This missile with the designation 8K74 had a range of at least 12,000 kilometers. Thus, taking into account the planned assault on the Moon, for the entire 

upcoming year we would have to perform no less than 22 to 24 launches.

The general preparation cycle of the R-7 rocket at the firing range, from the 

beginning of tests at the engineering facility in the Assembly and Testing Building 

until the launch, took 15 days on average. In 1957 and 1958 the chief designers and 

the entire “Korolev throng” spent a great part of their time at the firing range. Work 

on the numerous new space projects and the new intercontinental missiles required 

the presence of managers at their OKBs and at factories, their participation in scientific and technical councils, and hundreds of conferences at all levels.

Glushko was the first of the chiefs to rebel against the requirement to attend 

each launch. Kuznetsov supported him and then Pilyugin joined him. They showed 

that even if one were to abandon all other business, it would still be impossible to 

attend all the launches. Understanding that there were limits to what they could 

do in space and time, the chiefs agreed to the maximum extent possible to delegate 

responsibility and routine management of the flight tests to the military contingent 

at the firing range and to their most reliable deputies in charge of testing. Each 

of these deputies received all the authority to resolve issues in the subject matter 

of their organization and represented the chief designer at the State Commission. 

Thus, the Council of Chiefs’ interdepartmental “shadow test cabinet” was formed. 

Over the course of 1959, its members spent, on the average, seven to eight months 

each at the firing range, participating in each launch of the combat R-7.

Korolev immediately entrusted this work to two of his deputies, Voskresenskiy, 

as the official deputy for testing, and Kozlov, to represent both the chief designer 

and the Kuybyshev branch of OKB-1. Pilyugin transferred his authority to Vladlen 

Finogeyev. Gleb Maslov kept track of all the propellant feed and synchronization systems. Bogomolov entrusted work on the Tral telemetry system to Mikhail Novikov. 

Glushko’s first deputy, Vladimir Kurbatov, represented his interests. Barmin placed 

Boris Khlebnikov in charge of the ground complex. Vyacheslav Lappo oversaw 

Ryazanskiy’s radio systems. On the whole, we assessed this staff of testers as “quite 

professional” and fully competent. Gradually all the minor everyday problems faded 

into the background. The people got into the intense rhythm of testing.

It bears mentioning that the band of individuals listed above formed very businesslike and congenial relations with the firing range military command—with its 

chief, General Konstantin Gerchik; and with the immediate operations managers 

Colonel Aleksandr Nosov, Colonel Yevgeniy Ostashev, and Major Anatoliy Kirillov; 

and with the entire officer staff of military testers.

Over the course of a year, 16 missiles were launched under the joint testing 

program, in addition to four for the lunar program and two for the 8K74 program; 

one missile was removed after a failed launch attempt. The first launch under the 

joint testing program took place on 24 December 1958, and proceeded in keeping 

field of rockets and spaceflight.

In September 1959, Khrushchev visited the United States at the invitation of 

President Dwight D. Eisenhower. During this period, R-7 joint tests were continuing and the rocket had not yet been put into service. This did not prevent 

Khrushchev from making a strong impression on the Americans, who lacked reliable information at that time. Khrushchev used the following words in his speech at 

a reception: “Our people have rallied around their government. People are burning 

with enthusiasm. They are striving to do their duty to the best of their ability and 

thereby strengthen their socialist regime even more. We developed the intercontinental ballistic missile before you. To this day you don’t really have one. But, 

after all, the intercontinental ballistic missile is truly the crux of human creative 

thought.”2 If we take Khrushchev’s words about “our people burning with enthusiasm and striving to do their duty to the best of their ability” to refer to us, the 

creators of the R-7 rocket, then Khrushchev was right. We really were enthusiasts 

and spared no effort to promote the R-7 rocket in military and space spheres. For 

the sake of historic fairness, one must admit that, regardless of the later accusations 

against him, Khrushchev’s enthusiasm and intense activity certainly contributed to 

the accelerated development of rocket and space work in the USSR.

Enthusiasm is enthusiasm, but the real circumstances that had developed in 

late 1958, by the beginning of the joint tests of the R-7, were extremely difficult. 

The failed launch of the last rocket in the flight-development test series, along with 

three lunar launches, brought the number of failed launches of the R-7 to four in 

a row.3

With no time to recover, at the Ministry of Defense’s urgent demand, we switched 

over to joint tests without a break. In order to somewhat improve the utterly unsatisfactory reliability numbers, by mutual agreement with the military we excluded 

the three first Moon launches of 1958 from the number used to calculate the reliability rating. At the same time, however, it was agreed that the results of subsequent 

Moon shots for the first two stages would be counted when summing up the results 

of the joint tests and making decisions about the fate of the R-7.

This was fair. The R-7 rocket faced service on two fronts. The two stage combat 

version had to wait in stand-by mode for a command that would mark the beginning 

of a nuclear missile war, while the space version, which had third and fourth stages, 

would fulfill humankind’s striving for knowledge of the universe and maintain the 

2. Author’s note: From a speech at a dinner held by the New York economics club in honor of 

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev on 17 September 1959.

3. Author’s note: Between flight-development tests and the “joint tests” (or qualification tests) of 

the R-7 combat missile, planners wedged three launches of the 8K72 rocket into the schedule. This 

was a three-stage version of the R-7, modified for firing probes to impact on the Moon. The “fleeting 

rocket fire on the Moon” in 1958 did not bring us success. I will write about that in greater detail in 

Chapter 25.
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The R-7 Goes into Service

419

code words “special armaments” were used in place of nuclear weapon. Chief Marshal of Artillery Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin was named the first commander-inchief of the Strategic Rocket Forces.

Despite the decree’s top-secret classification, news about it quickly circulated 

through all the OKBs directly involved with the production of strategic combat 

missiles. Our community of engineers and designers received the decree with great 

pleasure.

Nedelin’s appointment surprised no one. Anyone who knew him believed that 

Soviet missile technology was very fortunate. In this regard, I was reminded of 

Korolev’s story about his meeting with Chief Marshal of Artillery Nikolay Nikolayevich Voronov in 1950. When Voronov came to NII-88 he was still commander 

of all artillery, including missile technology. During firing range tests of missiles in 

1947 and 1948, Voronov participated in the work of the State Commission and 

made a good impression on all of us with his amiable nature and his officer’s decorum, which was certainly not the rule among high-ranking military officers.

Korolev did not hide his liking for Voronov. He valued a visit from Voronov 

highly and would talk about such a meeting as if it were a very important event. 

According to Korolev, Voronov introduced him to his chief of staff Colonel General Nedelin, whom Voronov had tasked to study and develop prospects for missile 

weaponry. In the 10 years from 1950—when Nedelin was effectively introduced to 

missile technology—he accomplished a great deal. After his appointment as commander-in-chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces in 1959, Nedelin had less than a year 

to live. But even over that short time, we saw for ourselves the inherent breadth, 

independence, and unconventional nature of his thinking.

These qualities were particularly essential for a deputy minister of defense who, 

by virtue of the system that had developed in our country, had the capability to 

directly affect the development of cosmonautics. Unfortunately, after Nedelin’s 

death, the Soviet combined-arms marshals and World War II heroes that replaced 

him in that high post did not possess such qualities.

The first artificial Earth satellite launch was the beginning of the 

process converting the R-7 intercontinental missile from a thermonuclear warhead carrier into a launch vehicle for the most varied types of 

spacecraft. A launch vehicle based on the two stage R-7 continues to be perfected 

even now, more than 40 years after its first flight. During Korolev’s life alone, more 

than five modifications of the Semyorka were produced.5 Each new modification 

5. At least seven modifications of the basic R-7 (8K71) were used for the space program during 

Korolev’s lifetime, that is, before 1966. These included the 8K71PS (for the first two satellites), 8A91 

(for the third satellite), 8K72 (for the early lunar probes), 8K72K (for Vostok and Zenit-2), 8A92 

(for Zenit-2), 11A57 (for Voskhod and Zenit-4), 11A510 (for US-A satellites), and 11A59 (for IS 

satellites).

with “the first pancake is always lumpy” rule. Due to the faulty setting of the hydrogen peroxide pressure control valve, the Block V strapon prematurely consumed its 

propellant and separated from the missile 3 seconds ahead of schedule. The missile 

began to spin, and the AVD command shut down all the engines. State Commission chairman Rudnev and his deputy representing the military, Myrkin, correctly 

attributed this failure to sloppiness on the part of the military squad during preparation and to a lack of competent supervision from Glushko’s representatives.

All 16 missiles presented for testing were launched. Four missiles reached the 

Kamchatka region, with large deviations due to errors in the tuning of the radiocontrolled ground stations or defects in the onboard systems. Eight missiles flew 

normally. Their nose cones carrying a treasure trove of instrumentation reached the 

target with a circular error no greater than six kilometers.

The last launch on 27 November 1959 worthily concluded the whole series of 

joint tests. The missile completed all flight segments without a glitch. The nose 

cone reached Kamchatka with a deviation from the “peg” (kolyshka)—the calculated point of impact—of 1.75 kilometers in range and 0.77 kilometers laterally. 

These were dazzling results for the R-7. The nose cone did not contain a nuclear 

warhead, but everything needed to put one into action was installed and monitored 

by the nose cone’s telemetry. The reports about the flight-test results of the nuclear 

warhead control system were so hush-hush that none of us saw them. At the State 

Commission it was only reported that the “results were satisfactory.”

There were four missile crashes. Of these, two were due to engine problems; one 

was the fault of radio control; and one was due to a flaw in the missile construction. Thus, reliability was 75%. Compared with 45% for the flight-development 

tests, this was substantial progress.4 The missile was put into service on 20 January 

1960 by a special USSR Council of Ministers decree. Completion of R-7 joint 

flight-development tests contributed to the decision to establish the independent 

Strategic Rocket Forces. On 17 December 1959, Khrushchev signed the USSR 

Council of Ministers decree establishing the post of commander-in-chief of the 

Strategic Rocket Forces as part of the USSR Armed Forces. The “top-secret, special importance” decree stated that the commander-in-chief of the Strategic Rocket 

Forces—also a deputy minister of defense—would bear full responsibility for their 

status; for their combat use, combat and mobilization readiness, and material and 

technical support; for the development of missile armaments; for supervision of 

the construction and operation of weapons systems and special facilities; for troop 

discipline and morale of personnel; and also for coordinating issues concerning the 

creation, development, and introduction of special weapons and rocketry in all the 

branches of the Armed Forces. Even in this document of “special importance,” the 

4. OKB-1 carried out R-7 launches on 24 December; 17, 25, and 31 March; 9 and 31 May; 9 

June; 18 and 30 July; 14 August; 18 September; 22 and 25 October; and 2, 21, and 27 November. The 

launch abort was on 21 February 1959.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

420

was intended for a specific type of spacecraft, typically with the first two stages 

remaining unchanged. The primary modifications and enhancements of the rocket 

came about in order to increase the payload mass, making it usable for the on-orbit 

insertion of automatic interplanetary stations and crewed space vehicles. Since the 

1950s, the guidance system has undergone the greatest enhancement. Currently, 

in the early 2000s, the rocket’s motion control system is a completely autonomous 

inertial system requiring no radio correction.

Since 1957, the R-7 rocket has undergone 12 updates and modifications. In 

open publications it is referred to as Sputnik, Vostok, Molniya, or Soyuz, depending 

on its purpose. For us veterans it will remain the Semyorka.

While Korolev was still alive, the title of chief designer of the Semyorka was 

gradually transferred to Kuybyshev to Dmitriy Kozlov. Kozlov himself, who in the 

late 1970s became TsSKB general designer, devoted his primary attention to spy satellites. The most troublesome duties of the Semyorka chief designer were shifted to 

Kozlov’s deputy, Aleksandr Soldatenkov. Without his summary reports, not a single 

State Commission would have been held to make decisions on crewed and other 

vital launches. Today Samara has a monopoly on the production of the most reliable 

launch vehicle in the world. As before, the production of the rockets themselves is 

concentrated at the Progress Factory, while engine production takes place at the M. 

V. Frunze Factory, formerly aviation engine Factory No. 24. After the collapse of the 

Soviet Union, a very difficult situation developed for guidance system production. 

As fate would have it, the Kharkov instrument factories ended up outside Russia, in 

a neighboring country.

By the early 1990s, the number of launches of Semyorka modifications had 

passed the 2,000 mark. Disruptions and problems that were not always technical 

began to crop up in the smooth running manufacturing process. The Baykonur 

Cosmodrome along with all of its services and the city of Leninsk, all of which were 

outside Russian borders, became the weak link that could undermine the reliability of the former Soviet rocket and space complex as a whole. In other words, the 

politics of sovereignty was an important factor reducing the working capacity of the 

Baykonur Cosmodrome, one of domestic cosmonautics’ most advanced creations of 

the second half of the 20th century.

After much deliberation and long negotiations, the European Space Agency 

decided in 2003 to build a launch complex at the European Space Port at Kourou 

in French Guiana (in South America) for a specially modified R-7 rocket. Thus, 

after its latest rejuvenation, the trusty old Semyorka is traveling abroad in its entirety 

not as a missile to drop a hydrogen bomb on America but as a launch vehicle for 

spaceflights. If in the late 1950s you could have found a joker who predicted that, 

rather than firing our Semyorka on America, we would be launching it from an 

American continent, in the best case scenario he would have been offered a course 

of treatment at a psychiatric hospital.
Chapter 24

From Tyuratam to the Hawaiian

Islands and Beyond

The maximum flight range of the R-7 rocket, which we had finally put into service, 

was determined by its separable nose cone that carried a thermonuclear warhead. 

In 1955, this warhead required the creation of a nose cone with a total mass greater 

than 5.5 metric tons. Carrying such a payload, there was no way the missile could 

cover a range greater than 8,000 kilometers. When firing from the launch pads of 

the Tyuratam firing range, this range was clearly insufficient. The notion that the 

U.S. had lost its advantage of nuclear invulnerability—a claim actively promoted 

by our propaganda—was terrifying for the Americans. In reality, the R-7 missile 

was not capable of reaching many strategic centers in the U.S. In order for the R-7 

missile to become a real intercontinental weapon capable of reaching any point on 

the entire U.S. territory, its range would have to be increased to 12,000 to 14,000 

kilometers, that is, by more than 1.5 times.

Work to upgrade the R-7 had already begun in 1957, long before flight-development tests were completed. In our internal communications we referred to the 

prospective updated missile simply as “No. 74” in contrast to the standard R-7 

we had put into service, which was called “No. 71.” This numerical slang was the 

abbreviated unclassified title that the military assigned to secret articles. In technical documentation the R-7 missile was called “article 8K71.” Correspondingly, the 

R-7A was called “article 8K74.” However, even in secret documents, often for the 

sake of security, the terminology “article 8K71” or “article 8K74” was used.1 An 

administrator would insert “R-7 rocket” or “R-7A missile” into the typewritten 

top-secret text by hand; the idea was to conceal state secrets from the state’s own 

classified pool of typists.

We needed to significantly increase the flight range without making substantial 

changes in the missile’s design and without disrupting its series manufacturing process. That being the case, the only real way to achieve an additional 4,000 to 5,000 

kilometers in range was to reduce the payload mass. As early as late 1957, after 

1. Author’s note: Later, the designations 8K72, 8K75, and 8K78 were assigned for all sorts of 

modifications for the space program but I’ll discuss those later.

421
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From Tyuratam to the Hawaiian Islands and Beyond

423

But often there were all kinds of problems associated with layout, fastening, 

thermal protection, vibration protection, accelerations, electrical connections, and 

inhibitors; as a result, we were forced to interact closely with the lead specialists 

of Arzamas-16 and the Moscow OKB headed by Nikolay Leonidovich Dukhov, 

former wartime chief designer of heavy tanks.2 Viktor Zuyevskiy, with whom I dealt 

directly when coordinating technical issues, explained in layman’s terms that in a 

hydrogen bomb the hydrogen isotope deuterium is converted into helium. This 

is fusion, which produces a relative magnitude of energy many times greater than 

that released during the explosion of an atomic bomb, which uses fission. During 

our contact with the nuclear people, I realized that nuclear physicists and nuclear 

designers worked with as much enthusiasm as we did on the missile to reduce the 

mass and dimensions of the hydrogen bomb, or in modern terminology, the thermonuclear warhead. They developed original designs for all the structural parts of 

the warhead—including the automatic detonation and neutron initiation devices—

and developed new compact safety and control instruments.

Reliability was ensured using the principle whereby the malfunction or failure 

of any instrument would not cause a system failure or premature triggering of the 

warhead. For flight tests the nuclear specialists developed their own “atomic” telemetry and indestructible indicators, making it possible to record the operation of the 

automatic controls activating the non-nuclear detonation and neutron initiation of 

the warhead.

The lightweight thermonuclear warhead was intended not only for our R-7A 

missile. In Kapustin Yar in 1958, Yangel conducted flight tests of his “high-boiling” 

R-12 missile, a competitor of our R-5M missile. The range of the R-12 missile was 

2,500 kilometers. In contrast to the R-5M missile, its separating nose cone carried 

not a “simple” atomic warhead with an 80-kiloton yield, but one with a one-megaton TNT equivalent thermonuclear warhead.

We imagined the difference between the aftereffects of the explosion of an R-5M 

80-kiloton warhead and an R-12 one-megaton warhead in very abstract terms. Nevertheless, when the subject turned to the low yield of the R-5M, we immediately 

revamped its nose cone so that the warhead’s yield was as high as that of the R-12. 

S.P. openly commented that he couldn’t understand why this risky race for megatons on our missiles was necessary. We, too, believed that it was better to have a missile with a nuclear warhead of “just” one megaton with a range of 14,000 to 15,000 

kilometers than one that could barely reach 8,000 kilometers with a warhead that 

was three times more powerful.

In 1957, a reference book on nuclear weaponry came out in the U.S., enabling 

anyone who so desired to calculate the effect of a nuclear explosion in terms of a 

2. Nikolay Leonidovich Dukhov (1904–64), a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, 

was one of the leading Soviet designers of heavy tanks.

the latest meeting with Academicians 

Khariton and Sakharov, Korolev said 

that they had confidently promised 

to cut the weight of their “doodad” 

(tsatski), as they referred to it, in half.

S.P.’s demeanor usually changed 

somewhat when it came to the subject 

of the nuclear warhead for which we 

were making the missile. He would 

lower his voice and by his entire 

appearance try to produce a sense of 

awe and reverence in his audience 

for this greatest state secret, as well as 

respect for this terrible force that was 

to be concentrated in our payload. I 

think there was more to this than just 

the top-secret atmosphere that surrounded everything directly associated with the development of nuclear 

warheads.

Out of necessity, we had studied 

the physical processes that took place 

in all the systems of our brainchild, the 

R-7, but when it came to the subject 

of what this warhead would contain, 

we all felt timid and fell silent. We had heard lectures, read the popular literature 

on nuclear physics, and had direct contact with nuclear specialists while working to 

integrate the warhead with the missile. Yet, the very essence of the titanic destructive 

force hidden behind the dry phrases of agreement protocols, dimensional installation drawings, and circuit diagrams remained in some ways opposite to our engineers’ way of thinking.

It wasn’t that we didn’t understand anything at all. Of course, they explained 

to us that the hydrogen bomb consisted of a thermonuclear warhead containing 

no uranium-235 or plutonium-239. In and of itself, the thermonuclear warhead 

was harmless. It turns out that in order to compress and ignite the fuel for thermonuclear fusion, you first needed to detonate a “simple” atomic bomb. The explosion 

of this nuclear detonator produced the x-ray radiation, temperature, and pressure 

capable of generating an instantaneous thermonuclear reaction, that is, the detonation of the hydrogen bomb. The atomic bomb itself required a detonator in the 

form of a conventional explosive charge. This explosive, in turn, was detonated by 

detonating fuses, which gave us the greatest trouble of all when coming up with the 

nose cone layout. For everything to be reliable and secure, we were not required to 

delve into nuclear physics beyond what I have described above.

Shown here are the two basic variants of the 

R-7 ICBM, the original developmental version 

and the modified R-7A. The two were declared 

operational in January and September 1960 

respectively. Both versions were known as the 

SS-6 by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Peter Gorin.
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they’ll remember Pearl Harbor as the good old days.”

The 8K74 flight-tests began successfully in late 1959. In all, eight missiles were 

to be launched, of which at least three were to be fired to maximum range. The first 

launches aimed at the “Kama” region (the name used for the sake of secrecy for the 

nose cone impact area on Kamchatka) were successful. They confirmed the structural reliability of the new nose cone, whose weight had almost been cut in half, 

and the effectiveness of the measures to enhance the precision of the autonomous 

control system.

The main test for No. 74 was, however, the test at maximum range while firing 

at the Pacific Ocean. It was the Ministry of Defense’s job to determine the coordinates of the nose cones’ points of impact during intercontinental missile launches 

at full range; Korolev and the Council of Chief Designers had virtually no input 

into the solution of this problem. The Ministry of Defense’s NII-4, the creator of 

the Command and Measurement Complex (KIK), was responsible for determining 

the points of impact on land, and consequently this organization also solved this 

problem for the ocean. For the 8K74 flight-development tests at full range it was 

necessary not only to manufacture missiles and equip the nose cones with automatic 

control systems for the detonation of the nuclear warhead, but we had to create 

marine tracking stations in addition to ground stations.

Long before the beginning of 8K74 flights we recognized the need to use 

floating tracking stations. The 8,000-kilometer range of the standard 8K71 Semyorka was already beyond the border of Kamchatka. NII-4 began exploratory operations to create floating facilities as early as 1956. The special Akvatoriya project 

was created to accomplish this task. Georgiy Tyulin, my former compatriot on our 

long-term project in Germany, who was at that time NII-4 deputy chief for scientific operations, was in charge of the project. I remind the reader that Tyulin 

graduated from the Moscow State University mechanical mathematics department. 

During the war he was chief of staff of a Katyusha troop unit that General Tveretskiy 

commanded. Tyulin was one of the first combat “scientist-colonels” who occupied 

leading posts for the production of missile weaponry, first in the military and then 

in industry. In 1959, Tyulin was appointed director of NII-88, then later served as 

the first deputy minister of general machine building, that is, the “space industry” 

minister in 1965–76.

NII-4 Director Andrey Sokolov and Georgiy Tyulin personally convinced Minister of the Shipbuilding Industry Boris Butoma of the need to retrofit already built 

dry-cargo ships as missile tracking ships. The NII-4 scientific staff, who already had 

practical experience developing ground tracking stations and the Command and 

Measurement Complex, determined the makeup of the radio engineering, optical, 

and sonar equipment to receive nose cone telemetry information and determine the 

coordinates of the impact points in the ocean.

In early 1959, the Council of Ministers issued a decree calling for the Ministry of 

the Shipbuilding Industry to retrofit steamship coal ore–carriers to create a Floating 

TNT equivalent.3 Thus, the secrets carefully guarded by our nuclear specialists had 

become available for all missile specialists. According to this reference book one 

could expect a one-megaton warhead to be quite sufficient, if it hit the center of 

Washington, to completely wipe out the U.S. capital. We, of course, were outraged: 

“Why the hell would you need anything bigger?! Go ahead and put the R-12’s 

warheads on the Semyorka and hit any range.” But the top brass in the Ministry of 

Defense had other considerations; operations to perfect our thermonuclear warheads were under way with even greater intensity than our missile projects.

Actually, before long, the promises that Khariton and Sakharov made to Korolev 

took on the form of engineering designs, which enabled us to reduce the mass of 

the nosecone by 2.5 tons. At the same time, they promised that the yield of the new 

nuclear warhead would be at least what it had been with the standard Semyorka.

After the designers received directives to reduce the mass of the warhead by more 

than a metric ton, their calculations immediately increased the range by 3,500 kilometers. They picked up another 500 to 700 kilometers by simplifying and reducing 

the weight of the radio-control system, increasing the oxygen and kerosene load, 

and enhancing the precision of the propellant level control systems and the tank 

depletion synchronization systems of all the boosters of the R-7 in order to cut 

down the propellant safety margin. There were a lot of other miscellaneous minor 

design changes aimed at reducing the missile’s weight and raising the propellant 

margins by increasing the volume of the core booster’s tanks.

For No. 74 we made every effort to eliminate the danger of resonance phenomena occurring in the missile’s elastic contour, specifically pressure pulsations in the 

engines’ combustion chambers, which led to dramatic situations during the first 

lunar launches. Tests on No. 74 missiles completely confirmed the effectiveness of 

the damping system developed by the united forces of OKB-1, NII-1, and OKB456. Thus, all the combined measures made it possible, without production stoppages, to switch over to rolling out missiles with a range up to 13,000 kilometers. To 

be on the safe side, the Council of Chief Designers decided to declare a maximum 

range of 12,000 kilometers. They left 1,000 in the “Chief Designer’s reserve.”

S.P. had a large globe in his office on which, using a special protractor, you could 

very graphically measure the distance between any points on earth’s surface. Once, 

at a meeting after summarizing the results of all the teams for No. 74, the problem 

of flight-tests of the missile at full range was under discussion. Walking up to the 

globe, Korolev showed that, when firing at the Pacific Ocean, points of impact 

fall in the region of the Hawaiian Islands. Georgiy Tyulin, who was present at the 

meeting and was director of NII-88 at the time, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to 

employ some glib battlefield jargon: “We can deliver the Americans such a jolt that 

3. Here, Chertok is probably referring to the first volume of the following series: National 

Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, Nuclear Theory Reference Book (Nuclear Data Project)

(Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 1957/58–).
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ships were the first squadron of the Soviet Union’s future naval space fleet. Its history is inseparable from the history of domestic cosmonautics. I shall try to return 

to this subject later in my memoirs.

The TOGE-4 ships were low-speed vessels; their cruising speed was just 11 knots. 

It took them almost five days to reach the impact area in the south of the Hawaiian 

islands. They also needed to have a “just-in-case” margin. In fact, the ships arrived 

in the impact area several days early and messed around in the ocean awaiting the 

readiness command, which was in the form of a coded notification about the launch 

date and precise time. If a launch delay or postponement occurred, we could provide no clear explanation to the TOGE-4 crews over the radio. Security agency specialists believed that radio exchanges with the fleet ships might contain information 

that, if intercepted, might enable U.S. intelligence to determine the launch targets 

and missions as well as the purpose of the TOGE-4 ships.

On more than one occasion I found that people who served in the state security agencies that guarded our missile technology were quote sensible. However, for 

some reason the security services thought that if we announced that TOGE-4 vessels were messing around in the vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean for many weeks 

on scientific missions, then the American special services would actually believe 

it. In other words, the high level of secrecy over the communications was only for 

internal consumption.

After Krushchev’s visit to America, his meeting with President Eisenhower, and 

the speech at the UN outlining a program of global disarmament—all in September 

1959—there was a distinct thaw in relations between the USSR and the U.S. Such 

an about-face in the usually confrontational international situation clearly went 

against the grain of Cold War apologists, especially since Khrushchev had invited 

Eisenhower to the USSR and proposed a meeting on the shore of Lake Baykal in 

the spring or summer of 1960. Who knows, they might actually agree to end the 

arms race and disarm. The new harmonious relations between the two countries 

was rudely interrupted by the TASS report about upcoming test missiles coming 

down in an area of the Pacific Ocean where the sole proprietor was the U.S. Without wanting to, we had given Cold War hawks an opportunity to accuse the Soviet 

leadership of cunning and of posing a real threat to the security of the U.S.6

To coordinate actions during the launches into the Pacific, the fleet staff sent its 

own representative to be a member of the State Commission. At one of the sessions 

he described how TOGE-4 ships got into tricky situations in the potential impact 

area declared by the TASS report as dangerous for shipping during the launches. 

American, British, and French naval ships had our ships under continuous watch. 

The American ships were extremely bold. They came right up to our unarmed ves6. The TASS announcement was widely reported in the United States. See Max Frankel, “Shipping 

Warned: Russian Space Vehicle to Land in Sea East of Marshall Islands,” New York Times, January 8, 

1960, pp. 1–2.

Measurement Complex (PIK-1) as per NII-4 design specifications.4 At the Baltic 

and Kronshtadt Factories in Leningrad, within an unusually short timeframe for 

shipbuilders, the three ships Sibir (Siberia), Sakhalin, and Suchan were equipped 

with telemetry and orbital monitoring equipment, while a fourth ship, the Chukotka, was equipped with communications and relay systems to transmit data to the 

continent.

Work on retrofitting and manning the coal ore–carriers with missile specialists 

was completed in July 1959. The ships entered the naval fleet under cover as the 

Fourth Pacific Ocean Hydrographic Expedition (TOGE-4).5 The ships flew the 

hydrography flag of the Soviet naval fleet and departed Leningrad for the Pacific 

Ocean via the North Sea route. Captain (later Admiral) Yuriy Ivanovich Maksyuta 

was named commander of the first floating complex. On 30 August, all four ships 

arrived in the base port of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, and on 15 September they 

were under way on their first cruise to southern latitudes to carry out their primary 

mission. The crews, who had spent a month in polar ice, would now be working 

indefinitely in tropical latitudes.

The TOGE-4 ships’ cruising range was 10,000 miles; their cruising capacity 

was 90 days. Each ship had a crew of 200, including measuring systems specialists. When they received notification of an impending launch, three ships arranged 

themselves in a right triangle so that the nose cone’s estimated point of impact fell 

in the middle of the hypotenuse. During the descent segment of the nose cone’s 

flight trajectory before it entered the dense atmospheric layers, information was 

received through the Tral telemetry stations and the SK-2 telemetry system specially 

developed to monitor the warhead’s “well-being.” The Kama station monitored the 

trajectory. Aleksey Bogomolov had every reason to be proud of the fact that the 

OKB MEI systems had been put into service for the navy. Special photo-recorders captured the luminescence of the plasma in the dense atmospheric layers. The 

warhead had a detonator fuse that tripped the instant it hit the surface of the water. 

When the warhead was submerged several meters, it exploded and sent up a column 

of water. In addition, the explosion discharged a special dye that formed a colored 

spot on the water’s surface. The ships’ radar located the column of water from the 

explosion. The sound of the explosion was picked up by the sonar equipment. The 

ships were “armed” with a Ka-15 helicopter, which took off and hovered over the 

colored spot, providing an additional option of determining the coordinates of the 

point of impact.

The Chukotka communications ship received information from the continent 

and relayed information to the tracking ships about missile preparation and launch 

and estimated time. After nose cone splashdown the communications ship received 

information from the tracking ships and relayed it to the firing range. The TOGE-4 

4. PIK—Plavuchiy izmeritelnyy kompleks.

5. TOGE—Tikhookeanskaya gidrograficheskaya ekspeditsiya.
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programs, only Yuriy Levitan was trusted to read the TASS reports on the radio.

Before the R-7 launches into the Pacific planned for early 1960, it turned out 

that we had not publicly announced that the TOGE-4 ships were headed toward the 

Hawaiian islands—albeit in neutral waters. A communiqué needed to be released 

legitimizing their presence in the area where the nose cones and second stage debris 

would come down; this was the duty of the Ministries of Defense and Foreign 

Affairs.

At a meeting of the Council of Chief Designers on 30 December 1959—when 

among other issues they were also discussing the preparations under way for the first 

launch of No. 74 into the Pacific—Ryazanskiy took the initiative and reminded 

Korolev that they needed to promptly draw up the communiqué about the upcoming launches to legitimize the presence of TOGE-4 in the Pacific Ocean. Korolev 

flew into a rage and said that he would not be handling that and that Ryazanskiy 

should mind his own business. S.P. was clearly miffed and lashed out so harshly that 

Mikhail blushed, started to sulk, and had nothing more to say. At that moment a 

minister telephoned via the “Kremlin hot line.” He said that the communiqué had 

been written and asked that Korolev listen to it and sign off on it. S.P. announced 

that Ryazanskiy was already attending to that, handed the phone to him, and turning back to us, grinned, “Look how Mikhail has been punished for his initiative. 

Let him sign off on it now.” The communiqué came out the next day and caused 

an incredible stir in the world press and in all the radio broadcasts. Cold War hawks 

screamed that Khrushchev’s appeals for global disarmament, peace, and friendship 

were pure propaganda, and that these new nuclear missiles were a real threat to the 

U.S. Either way, Eisenhower’s visit to the USSR, which Khrushchev had arranged 

in September, proved doubtful.

About 10 years later, Katya and I received an invitation to vacation several days in 

one of the two cottages that had been built on the shore of Lake Baykal at Khrushchev’s instruction. Both cottages and the entire interior decor were absolutely identical. One had been intended for President Eisenhower and his immediate staff; 

the second was for Khrushchev. The large entourage and press were supposed to be 

housed in the adjacent buildings of the “Baikal” sanatorium. The 8K74 missile tests 

scuttled the meeting of the two leaders, but the cottages remained. I never found 

out whether it was Khrushchev’s or Eisenhower’s cottage in which Katya and I spent 

several lovely days.

The first launch at maximum range was set for 19 January 1960. However, 

according to the Pacific Ocean flotilla commander, there was such heavy fog in the 

impact area that they couldn’t jeopardize a helicopter to search for the spot on the 

water.

The launch took place the next day, on 20 January. TOGE-4 commander Captain Maksyuta reported, “All okay.” For security considerations, the coordinates of 

the impact point were not communicated. If “all is okay,” it meant that we landed 

in the specified quadrangle. The Americans, of course, made a precise determinasels, barely avoiding collision. Submarine periscopes would suddenly appear about 

20 meters from the board of our ships. Neptune all-weather reconnaissance planes 

were particularly brash.7

Sailors once reported the following incident. In overcast weather a helicopter 

lifted off the deck of one of the TOGE-4 vessels for a training exercise. At this 

moment a Neptune tumbled out of the low clouds and buzzed the ship to take photographs. It looked like a collision with the helicopter was unavoidable. The helicopter shot upward and managed to get away so that the Neptune passed between 

it and the ship. On its next pass the sailors shook their fists at the Neptune. Roaring 

with laughter, the aircraft’s navigator returned the gesture. The next time the Neptune swooped in, the ship’s commander decided to blind its camera using a searchlight. The aircraft’s navigator once again shook his fist. But as soon as the TOGE-4 

ships received radio notification of T-minus 4 hours and began to disperse to their 

designated areas—to the vertices of the triangle—all the naval vessels surrounding 

them moved 10 to 15 miles out of harm’s way. To the surprise of our sailors, this 

evacuation of the foreign ships sometimes began before the TOGE-4 command 

had received the readiness notification. The Americans had some channels of their 

own for receiving reliable information about the actual situation back at our launch 

site.

Beginning with the launches in 1957, and specifically as of 27 August when the 

TASS report about the development of the Soviet intercontinental missile was first 

issued, the Council of Chief Designers composed similar communiqués. And that’s 

the way it was—no matter what happened in missile technology or cosmonautics, the chiefs had to compose the first draft of all communiqués; the “partocrats” 

entrusted this work to the technocrats.

The first composition coordinated with the State Commission at the firing range 

was immediately transmitted to Moscow, reviewed and corrected in the Central 

Committee’s Defense Department, and passed on to TASS for reports in the press 

and over the radio.8 Usually the “chiefest of the chiefs” shirked this thankless job. 

At Keldysh’s initiative Ishlinskiy was usually tasked with composing the first draft 

of the text. Keldysh loved to dignify him with the quasi-Latin title “el professoro.” 

Aleksandr Yulyevich never took offense. Most often he recruited Okhotsimskiy and 

some other intellectual for the job. When the text was ready for discussion, Korolev 

and Keldysh assembled all the Council and State Commission members who were 

not involved in pressing business. They began proofreading and rewriting, which 

sometimes dragged on for several hours. Meanwhile Moscow was getting the jitters 

and putting the pressure on. As a rule, during the first years of the missile and space 

7. Chertok is probably referring to the Lockheed P2V-5 Neptune reconnaissance aircraft, which 

first flew in 1950.

8. The Defense Department of the Central Committee supervised all ideological and personnel 

issues of the Soviet defense industry (which included the missile and space sector).
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431

tion of the nose cone impact site, but they did not know the estimated splashdown 

point. Therefore, they could only be guided by the position of the spot relative to 

our three ships. From the behavior of our ships they had expected the launch on 19 

January. The launch was scratched due to fog, but in America they managed to issue 

a report about a failure that supposedly took place. It turned out like in the film 

where “for every failure you should be able to fight back”; we launched on the 20th 

and the communiqué followed. Now people were talking about the success.

The next launch took place on 24 January 1960. This time it really was a failure. 

The control chamber of strapon Block V exploded, evidently as a result of bad nitrogen purging. A fire started in Block V, the engine “died,” and the entire cluster fell 

apart after 31 seconds. Our ships continued to mess around in the sea, surrounded 

by American destroyers. Once again a report appeared in the foreign press about the 

Soviets’ latest launch attempt failure. We published no disclaimer, and decided to 

remain silent until the third and last launch of the program.

The last launch was set for Sunday, 31 January. It was considered so routine 

that all the senior officers stayed home. A military squad prepared for and executed 

the launch with minimal participation of industry specialists. Lead designer Kasho 

reported to us at the OKB from the firing range about the preparation and launch 

process. Arkadiy Ostashev, Emil Brodskiy, and Yevgeniy Shabarov were on the highfrequency communications line in Korolev’s office. In Moscow and at the firing 

range the cold had settled in—it was –23oC (–9°F) with a breeze.

I was easily persuaded to monitor the last launch into the area of tropical islands 

in a warm sea without leaving my home. At 8:00 p.m. Arkadiy Ostashev informed 

me over the phone that, “Everything’s okay. Even Mitrofan Ivanovich [Nedelin], 

who is in his office, has no negative remarks and he’s congratulating everyone.” An 

hour and a half later Ostashev telephoned again and asked if I could hear the noise 

over the telephone line. I confirmed that my ears had picked up a chorus of raucous 

cheering. Ostashev reported that, “They informed us that everything is a lot better 

than it has been. We sent a courier to the store and have done everything we were 

supposed to. We recommend that you also celebrate this occasion without leaving 

home.” I took their wise advice.

The last communiqué in this regard said that the test missions had been accomplished and the region was safe for navigation. The TOGE-4 ships returned to 

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. The remaining No. 74 test launches were targeted for 

Kamchatka.

In September 1960, No. 74 went into service. However, on 7 October 1960, 

Nedelin wrote to Chairman of the State Committee for Defense Technology Rudnev 

that according to a TASS report, the U.S. had launched an Atlas intercontinental 

ballistic missile to a range of 9,000 miles (14,500 kilometers). He requested that 

they study the possibility of launching an 8K74 missile with a reduced-weight nose 

cone into the Pacific Ocean to a range of 16,000 to 17,000 kilometers with an azimuth of 45o.

Rudnev readdressed the letter in the form of a directive to Korolev. Bushuyev 

This is a rare photograph of an R-7A ICBM on the pad prior to launch at the ScientificResearch and Testing Firing Range No. 5 (Tyuratam) in 1959. Note the unusual nosecone 

designed for a new series of nuclear warheads. The R-7A was operationally deployed as a 

Soviet ICBM in September 1960 and carried a single warhead of 3 Mt yield.

From the author’s archives.
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studied a version of the nose cone containing a warhead that had been designed for 

the new R-9 missile. It was 1.65 megatons instead of the standard three megatons. 

The required range was achieved because the warhead had been reduced in weight 

by 600 kilograms. A nose cone equipped with dye was fabricated, and launches took 

place during the winter of 1961 to intimidate the Americans. Nedelin’s assignment 

had been completed, but he was no longer able to know about that.9

There were just two launch complexes for R-7 rocket and R-7A missile launches 

at the NIIP-5 firing range in Tyuratam: launch pads at Sites No. 1 and No. 31. Missiles in the Assembly and Testing Buildings were on standby alert; in the event of a 

stand-to-alert, nonstop work could achieve launch readiness in 12 to 16 hours.

While building the northern firing range in Plesetsk, provisions were made to 

create four launch complexes for Semyorkas. Through all conceivable efforts they 

reduced the readiness time to 7 or 8 hours. This was acceptable for spacecraft 

launches, but subsequently it became clear that this amount of time was unsuitable 

for combat missiles. We understood this as well as the military types did and began 

the intense development of the new R-9 intercontinental ballistic missile.

During all subsequent launches into the Pacific Ocean, TASS printed official 

reports warning ships of the danger of being in areas with such-and-such coordinates. These reports served as a signal for the Americans. Their combat and specialpurpose ships and their reconnaissance planes appeared in these regions near the 

time of the scheduled launches. Somehow the Americans had ballpark knowledge of 

our missile launch schedule. Naval staff representative Oleg Maksimovich Pavlenko 

recalls that:

“There was an instance when the American naval ships Lansing and General Arnold

dropped into the nosecone impact area right after a launch. They showed their disregard 

for the TASS report about this area being closed to navigation. The crews of the American 

ships were on the open decks and there were signs with Russian text scrawled on them: 

‘How are things in Moscow?’ Admiral Maksyuta communicated with the American ships 

over the radio and transmitted the following message to the Lansing: ‘Your presence in 

this area is dangerous. I request that you leave the area. Please pass on this appeal to 

the General Arnold. Commander.’ There was no reply. Immediately after the nosecone 

splashdown the American ships rushed full steam ahead to the impact point, lowered a 

launch with scuba divers in protective suits and began to gather everything they possibly 

could from the surface of the water after the detonation.

In the early 1970s, three launches were conducted one after the other into the area 

indicated in the TASS report. The General Arnold rushed into the impact zone right 

after the first nosecone splashed down, not imagining that another would follow. The 

second nosecone fell quite close to its board. The General Arnold was lucky. The new 

nosecones were armed with a warhead that had a 39-kilogram TNT equivalent. Pre9. Nedelin died in a massive rocket catastrophe in 1960. See Chapter 32.

vious nosecones were armed with 300-kilogram warheads. Despite the relatively low 

charge, a 40-meter column of water rose up alongside the ship. The decks filled with 

curious Americans instantly emptied. The American ships cleared out of the firing area 

at full steam after sending the Soviet flagship the following message: ‘Commander. From 

now on we will not navigate so dangerously.’ After that incident, American naval observers did not get closer than five to six miles away from our ships during launches.”

Chapter 25

Lunar Assault

The two years that followed the 1957 satellite successes resembled the war years in 

terms of pace and intensity. By early 1958, projects were simultaneously under way 

at OKB-1 in five primary areas:

• engineering follow-up on the R-7 combat missile to put it into service;

• updating the R-7 (article 8K71) to achieve a range of 12,000 kilometers 

(missile R-7A or article 8K74);

• converting the R-7 from a two stage into a three or even four stage rocket;

• designing a “heavy satellite” for photoreconnaissance (the future Vostok);

and finally

• projects for the conquest of the Moon, Mars, and Venus.

I have already discussed the first two areas of endeavor. Of the remaining three 

space projects, the problem of reaching the Moon seemed the most compelling and 

high-priority.

Each of the possible areas had its own proponents and enthusiasts; there were 

no opponents. Updating the R-7 missile by augmenting it with successive stages 

opened such prospects that we wanted to do everything as quickly as possible, to 

stun the world as often as possible, and to be transfixed with delight at hearing Yuriy 

Levitan’s voice: “Attention! All the radio stations of the Soviet Union are reporting! 

We are broadcasting a TASS report! Today, pursuant to the space exploration program and preparation for interplanetary flights...”

You can criticize the utopian plans for building communism, the trampling of 

human rights, and the Communist Party’s dictatorship in a totalitarian state all 

you want. But it is impossible to erase from the history of the Khrushchev era the 

favorable conditions created for developing cosmonautics and its related sciences. 

Cosmonautics did not arise simply from militarization, and its aims were more than 

purely propagandistic. During the first post-Sputnik years, the foundations were 

laid for truly scientific research in space, serving the interests of all humankind. All 

Soviet people, not just those of us who were directly involved in the missile and 

space programs, felt proud and were thrilled to be citizens of the country that was 

blazing the trail for the human race into the cosmos. I am not writing about this out 

of nostalgia for the “good old days,” but because I remember well how people from 

435
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Lunar Assault

437

complete successes! But what hellish, fascinating, risky work it was!

The R-7’s two stages were not adequate to reach the Moon with an automatically controlled vehicle loaded with equipment. A third stage, strictly for space, was 

needed to boost the lunar vehicle to the “second cosmic velocity” of 11.2 kilometers/

second.1 This stage was called the Block Ye.2 It needed an engine. Mishin, elated with 

the successes of developing vernier thrusters for the R-7 using the OKB-1 workforce 

at our factory, persuaded Korolev not to turn to Glushko for help. The department 

of our chief engine specialist, Melnikov, had pretty good test-stand facilities and 

sufficient personnel to develop the engine itself, a combustion chamber with a highaltitude nozzle. But we needed a turbopump assembly and we had no experience 

producing them. We also had no time to learn how. The aviation industry rescued 

us. I have already mentioned that this industry had gotten on Khrushchev’s wrong 

side. Not only had the factories’ production capacity been freed up, but the design 

bureaus were also looking for interesting work. The very energetic, highly motivated, and talented Semyon Ariyevich Kosberg—chief designer of the Voronezh 

design bureau for experimental reactive aircraft engines and assemblies—offered his 

services to Korolev.3 The son of a blacksmith, Kosberg was short and stout, but very 

light on his feet. He gesticulated rapidly and animatedly, was always optimistic, and 

had typically Jewish features. Korolev liked him from the first time they met. Once 

again I saw Korolev’s unique ability to quickly take stock of people, to sense their 

inner nature from the first encounter.

Collaborative and very productive work began right away. Kosberg set about 

developing and manufacturing third stage engines running on oxygen/kerosene 

propellant for the R-7. For the first lunar vehicle, Mishin insisted on dividing the 

work: we took on the combustion chamber, while Kosberg had the turbopump, gas 

generator, and fittings.4 We might have come to an amicable agreement, but one 

time when the duties and responsibilities were being divided up, Mishin lost his 

temper and carelessly said to Kosberg: “Why, you obstinate Jew.” The latter flew 

into a rage, shot out of Mishin’s office, and flew into Korolev’s office across the hall. 

Kosberg announced to Korolev that he would not work with an anti-Semite. He ran 

out of the office and commanded his deputy Konopatov, “We’re leaving!” Korolev 

called Mishin into his office. I don’t know what transpired between them. But on 

Korolev’s orders they intercepted Kosberg and brought him back. Explanations followed and then peace was restored.

Kosberg’s vigorous activity tragically came to an end in 1965. When the Sovnark1. The “second cosmic velocity” is the Russian term for the velocity required to escape Earth 

orbit.

2. The upper stage was called Block Ye since “Ye” is the sixth letter of the Cyrillic alphabet (A, B, 

V, G, D, Ye). The first five letters denoted the core and strapon boosters of the R-7.

3. In 1946–66, Kosberg’s design bureau was officially known as OKB-154. Today, it is known as 

the Design Bureau of Chemical Automation (KB Khimavtomatiki).

4. This engine was known as the 8D714 (RO-5).

the most diverse social strata felt about our space successes.

Most historians point to Korolev’s genius and capabilities as an organizer to 

explain the successes of Soviet cosmonautics during that time. There is no doubt 

that his personality played an enormous role. But the conditions for successful work 

had been created around Korolev, his inner circle—including the other chief designers and the scientists from academia who had gathered around Keldysh—and the 

newly spawned missile organizations of Yangel and Chelomey. One would think, 

why should the Ministry of Defense squander soldiers and officers for a lunar 

assault? This was clearly detrimental to their primary military missions. Nevertheless, over the entire expanse from Moscow and the sunny Crimea to Kamchatka, at 

dozens of ground tracking stations and floating tracking stations on the oceans and 

seas, at Command and Measurement Complex centers, and in all the firing range 

services, thousands of military service personnel toiled selflessly. Military specialists 

carried out Korolev’s instructions just as fervently as the orders of their commanderin-chief, Chief Marshal of the Artillery Nedelin.

Essentially, our technocratic community was a state within a state, which for 

the time being did not contradict Communist Party doctrine. High-ranking Party 

leaders understood that the technocrats needed a certain degree of sovereignty and 

self-determination. Things were a lot worse for agricultural scientists, biologists, artists, and poets. At that time, despite numerous errors, failures, and severe accidents, 

the technocrats—nuclear specialists, physicists, and missile specialists—were forgiven everything. Our successes were lauded around the world. Only those directly 

involved knew about our fiascos and failures.

The history of the conquest of the Moon is an example of this. I was directly 

involved with all the Moon launches up until 1966. If you were to piece together 

and describe the entire history of humanity’s lunar conquest from our first failures 

in 1958 until the American manned lunar expeditions, you would get a very informative, fascinating book. It would be full of scientific information, tragic and comic 

events, and adventures just as riveting as any mystery or science fiction novel.

It bears mentioning that over the 30 years since the six American expeditions 

to the Moon, various characters have continued their efforts to expose NASA and 

prove that the presence of the astronauts on the Moon was staged, that is, that it 

was all Hollywood hocus-pocus. No one doubted our successful moon launches, 

but fans of big news stories simply knew nothing about our failures. We knew how 

to hide our failures. During the Cold War, disinformation was fed to the potential 

enemy as actively as during wartime.

Over a period of just one year, from 23 September 1958 through 4 October 

1959, we undertook seven lunar launches. Of these seven launches, one was partially 

successful (this was when we announced the creation of the artificial planet Mechta

[Dream]) and only two fully implemented the tasks assigned them. In the ensuing 

years, up until 1966, we achieved success in only 1 out of 14 lunar launches. In 

all, there were 21 lunar launches over a nine-year period. Of these, only three were 
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Mathematics Institute, Lavrov from our OKB-1, and Elyasberg from NII-4, performed the calculations on the first computers.6

 One of them was installed at OPM 

and a second at NII-4 in Bolshevo. The results of their calculations were supposed 

to be entered into instruments that controlled the flight speed and the moment that 

the second and third stage engines were shut down.

An error of just one meter per second (i.e., by 0.01% the value of the full velocity) 

in determining the rocket velocity at engine shutdown would cause a 250-kilometer 

deviation in the point of contact with the moon. A deviation of the velocity vector 

from the calculated direction by one angular minute would cause a 200-kilometer 

shift in the point of contact. A 10-second deviation from the calculated launch time 

from the Earth would cause a 200-kilometer shift in the point of contact on the 

Moon’s surface. Such strict requirements were new and difficult for us at that time.

When Keldysh presided over meetings, deviation figures, calculations, and selections of orbits, launch dates, and launch times were typically the main subjects of 

discussions and arguments. He was not a ballistics expert nor a specialist in the field 

of celestial mechanics, but he quickly grasped the crux of the problem. Keldysh 

knew how to combine the results of abstract theoretical calculations with common 

sense and render a verdict for one orbital option or another that no one contested. 

His authority in this field was indisputable.

Korolev and Keldysh formed a great friendship and mutual understanding that 

coincided with the era of the first lunar vehicles. Keldysh assumed control of the 

whole analytical/theoretical portion of the lunar projects. He wanted to land on the 

Moon, perhaps more than Korolev, especially since research on lunar trajectories 

was being conducted using the equipment and procedures of Academy scientists. 

As a result, for the time being, Keldysh wasn’t very interested in the human spaceflight projects that Korolev was emphasizing. Unlike Korolev, who was a top-secret 

figure, Keldysh operated as a partially public figure; he could associate with foreign 

scientists and travel abroad. Nevertheless, the KGB or the Central Committee forbade Keldysh’s name to be linked with space research. His name was also in no way, 

shape, or form linked with the highly complex mathematical calculations that OPM 

was performing on the first computers for the nuclear experts.

It was Keldysh who first proposed several projects for automatically 

controlled lunar vehicles. The first, designated Ye-1, made a direct hit on the 

Moon. The second, Ye-2, flew by the Moon to photograph its invisible far side.7

6. Academician Dmitriy Yevgenyevich Okhotsimskiy (1921–) was a leading scientist at OPM 

and one of the most important theoreticians of the Soviet space program. Academy Corresponding 

Member Svyastoslav Sergeyevich Lavrov (1923–2004) served as head of the ballistics department at 

OKB-1. Colonel Pavel Yefimovich Elyasberg (1914–88) was a military ballistics expert at NII-4 in 

1959–68.

7. Author’s note: During the design process so many changes were introduced into the Ye-2 

automated probe that the vehicle that eventually flew to the Moon was given the designation Ye-2a.

hozy were dismantled and ministries were restored, they decided to transfer Kosberg’s design bureau out of the aviation ministry and over to the Ministry of General Machine Building (MOM). Kosberg flew to Moscow to try to protest, but to 

no avail. He was extremely distraught by the events in Moscow and flew back to 

Voronezh. Driving back from the airport over an icy road, Kosberg had an automobile accident and was taken to the hospital with serious injuries. Soon thereafter 

he was gone. The doctors steadfastly reassured Korolev that Kosberg would pull 

through, and, when he didn’t, Korolev was shaken.5 After Kosberg’s death, Aleksandr Konopatov became KB chief, and the KB was still transferred to the MOM. 

Today the Voronezh KB is one of the leading design bureaus for the development of 

oxygen/hydrogen liquid-propellant rocket engines. It developed the engines for the 

second (hydrogen) stage of the Energiya and third stages of the Proton and Soyuz 

rockets.

In all fairness, the Soviet scientific community valued the achievements of the 

school founded by Semyon Ariyevich Kosberg. Aleksandr Dmitriyevich Konopatov, 

who was in charge of the organization after Kosberg’s death, was elected a corresponding member in 1976 and became an academician and active member of the 

USSR Academy of Sciences in 1991.

When the Block Ye third stage engine with a thrust of almost five metric tons 

was developed, there was one more difficult task. They needed to determine with 

complete certainty that ignition and startup would be reliably ensured in space. Up 

until that time we only knew how to start up engines on the ground with visual 

control and all kinds of automatic controls, and even then there were misfires. They 

learned how to start up the first engine of Block Ye reliably on a test rig, but there 

was no solid assurance that it would start up right away in space.

Pilyugin developed the control system of the third stage using our control surface 

actuators. The most difficult task was “intercepting” control after separation from 

the core booster. Large deviations of the gyroscopes could not be allowed. If they 

were to settle on the limit stops, control would be lost. The new task was to correct 

the space stage, and then to reliably guide it for almost 6 minutes of acceleration 

toward the Moon, and shut down precisely when the necessary apparent velocity 

was achieved. During the acceleration segment, while the control systems of the 

three stages were operating, one by one, over the course of 725 seconds, we would 

have to generate the next flight trajectory in order to impact in the center of the 

Moon’s visible disk with a diameter of just 3,476 kilometers.

After the third stage engine shutdown, the flight would be governed only by the 

laws of celestial mechanics, which in turn, as we used to joke, were governed by our 

ballistics experts. The ballistics experts, headed by Okhotsimskiy from the Department of Applied Mathematics (OPM) of the Academy of Sciences V. A. Steklov 

5. Kosberg died on 3 January 1965.
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rockets’ preparation. We suspected that there might be some unknown fundamental 

flaw in the cluster configuration. The story of the search for the root cause of these 

failures is very instructive.

The quality of the telemetry recordings was quite adequate for a partial search for 

signs of failures in the control system or propulsion system assemblies. However, the 

numerous specialized groups investigating the 23 September crash found no smoking gun. A decision could not be made about the next launch without explaining 

the cause of the crash and performing some sort of measures. But we had promised 

Khrushchev a moon shot, so we did not have time for long deliberations and to 

study telemetry films and recordings without making a decision.

One of those who had lost hope of quickly discovering the secret of the rocket’s 

breakup wistfully remarked that if we wrote it off as sabotage, such as an inconspicuously attached magnetic mine, then no measures other than heightened security 

would be required and we could continue the launches. In and of itself, the idea of 

possible sabotage was unacceptable for us, since it involved searching for an enemy 

among the testers. Over the course of our work, given the burning desire to close 

our eyes to the true causes, very many crashes could have been attributed to malicious intent. Then the security services would conduct the investigation and the 

engineers could move on to the next launch with a clear conscience.

Our experience over the first 12 years of work in the rocket field in the postwar 

era—and to jump ahead, over the ensuing years—showed that if engineers took on 

the role of private detectives, then we would always achieve success. Not once was 

a single failure written off as sabotage. Ultimately, even the most baffling incidents 

were cleared up. But this took time. Our inherent impatience, the pressure from 

above, and the desire to discover causes using the next launch as a full-scale “reenactment of the crime” were expensive, but on the other hand we were never accused 

of being idle.

The next astronomical window for hitting the Moon came during the first half 

of October. If we missed these “lunar” days, then we would miss our opportunity 

to present a gift in honor of the 41st anniversary of the October Revolution. But it 

could have been worse.

The biggest headache was the challenge that came from the military. Senior 

military representative Aleksandr Mrykin declared that, ultimately, the Moon was 

a matter of prestige, science, and politics. He contended that flight tests on the R-7 

ballistic missile would not continue until we had obtained exhaustive explanations 

as to what caused the missile’s breakup and we gave adequate guarantees. “Just imagine an inexplicable breakup of the entire cluster happening after 90 seconds of flight 

with a missile carrying a real warhead instead of sand!”

But we couldn’t imagine such a thing because we had no idea how the automatic controls of the nose cone and the very warhead would behave. In heated 

debates, one or another person invoked some of the following rationales: “Let’s say 

the missiles are tested in dozens of launches and each one without fail gives us new 

information that we use to change the designs or structures, ultimately, to increase 

The third mission, Ye-3, was the most exotic; proposed by Academician Zeldovich, 

its goal was to deliver an atomic bomb to the Moon and detonate it on its surface. 

The Ye-4 fell through somewhere in our nomenclature. The Ye-5 was a project to 

take photographs with greater resolution than the Ye-2. Finally, the Ye-6 project, the 

crown of all our lunar activity, was designed for a soft-landing and transmission to 

the Earth of a lunar landscape panorama no later than 1964.

The Ye-3 program was concocted exclusively for irrefutable proof of our hitting 

the Moon. It was assumed that when the atomic bomb struck the Moon, there 

would be such a flash of light that all observatories capable of observing the Moon 

at that moment would easily record it. We even fabricated mock-ups of the lunar 

capsule with a mock-up nuclear warhead. Similar to a naval mine, it was completely 

covered with detonator pins to guarantee its detonation regardless of the capsule’s 

orientation at the moment of impact. This mission variant was discussed very privately. In one such discussion Keldysh said that he had no desire to alert the world 

academic community that we were preparing for a nuclear explosion on the Moon. 

“They won’t understand us,” he asserted. “However, if we launch a rocket without a 

preliminary announcement, then there is no guarantee that astronomers will see the 

flash.” In addition, Keldysh asked Korolev not to report this version to Khrushchev 

until we had discussed everything.

Korolev wavered. I reached an agreement with Pilyugin and Voskresenskiy, and 

then, on behalf of all the guidance specialists I rather cautiously suggested to him 

that this variant should be adopted only if there was a guarantee of complete safety 

in the event of an accident during the powered flight segment after launch. Keldysh 

added fuel to the fire: “Let the ballistics experts draw all the zones outside our territory in case the stage two or stage three engines don’t do the job. Imagine the furor 

if this thing were to come down on foreign territory, even if it didn’t explode.”

Soon thereafter, the nuclear specialists themselves abandoned the idea of a nuclear 

explosion on the Moon. Keldysh paid us a special visit at OKB-1. He was in an 

excellent mood. As he told us, Zeldovich had rejected his own proposal. After calculating the duration and intensity of the flash in the vacuum of space, he doubted 

the reliability of photographing it from the Earth. As a result, this project, hazardous both intrinsically and in terms of its political consequences, was laid to rest; the 

designation Ye-3 was instead assigned to the program following Ye-2 that involved a 

lunar flyby while performing high-resolution photography.

Of the 21 R-7 rockets used on the lunar program from 1958 through 

1966, 9 were three stage (known as the 8K72) and 12 were four stage (known as 

the 8K78) rockets.

The first launches of the lunar version of three stage R-7 rockets (8K72) were 

conducted on 23 September and 12 October 1958. Both launches ended with identical failures: the cluster broke up during the first stage’s final flight segment. This 

was the first time we had observed this type of failure. The first analysis found no 

production defects, design errors, or sloppiness on the part of the testers during the 
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chambers of the strapon boosters. The RKS system’s high-resolution sensor showed 

that the pressure in the chambers pulsed at a frequency from 9 to 13 Hz. This 

frequency coincided with the missile’s normal longitudinal elastic mode frequencies. The amplitude of these vibrations at the moment the recording stopped had 

reached ±4.5 atmospheres.

If this wasn’t stray electrical pickup in the measurement system, then such pressure pulses in the chamber would cause vibrations with a corresponding frequency 

in the oxygen and kerosene supply system. Indeed, a repeat microanalysis confirmed 

that the oxidizer pressure at the inlet to the pumps of all the boosters pulsed in 

the same frequency range. The axial acceleration sensor confirmed the presence of 

divergent longitudinal acceleration vibrations that had the same frequency as the 

engines’ thrust pulses.

The search was isolated in a loop: from the missile structure, to oxygen pressure 

pulses at the inlet, to the pumps to engine thrust pulses of the strapon boosters. 

Vibrations with divergent amplitudes might occur in this closed loop if the natural 

frequency determined by the missile’s structural features coincided with the pressure pulsation frequency in the combustion chamber. Structural deformations and, 

above all, fuel line deformations at the inlet to the engine pumps would lead to 

breakdown followed by fire and explosion.

The investigators returned to recordings of these parameters during previous 

launches and found that, true, there were pulsations of significantly less amplitude 

on almost all missiles, but no one had attached particular importance to that phenomenon. Usually telemetry system sensors monitored the pressure in the engines’ 

combustion chambers. They were designed for a range from 0 to 50 atmospheres, 

and therefore the telemetry interpreters did not notice the pulsations on them.

In this case, the logical response would have been to stop flight-tests and switch 

to a thorough study of the discovered phenomena. But we were like gamblers. The 

stakes were high, but the payoff was also great—sending an Earth object directly to 

the Moon. The world’s first! No one, certainly not Korolev and Keldysh, wanted to 

stop for intensive and lengthy investigations and experiments.

After the first reports of the proposed explanation were delivered in private, preventive measures were concocted to avert the cancellation of the next moon shot. 

Thrust was decreased in the first stage engines beginning at the 85th second, reducing the load on all the structural elements. We suspected that the tank depletion 

synchronization system might introduce disturbances into the process of feeding 

oxygen to the pumps. For safety’s sake we decided to shut it down during this flight 

segment and at the same time to shut down the apparent velocity regulation system. 

We devised and quickly manufactured additional fasteners, hoping to increase the 

rigidity and thereby increase the natural frequency. We hoped that this modification would keep the pipelines out of a possible resonance zone. These measures 

were reported at the State Commission, which reluctantly gave the green light for 

the next launch.

In terms of catastrophic devastation, the second moon shot on 12 October was 

reliability. As far as the main problem 

is concerned—the reliability of the 

thermonuclear warhead explosion at 

the target and guaranteeing safety no 

matter what missile failures occur “en 

route”—we cannot perform such real 

tests, much less at full range. Hence, 

there is a simple conclusion: we must 

deliver a warhead with an unconditional guarantee that no failure will 

occur through our fault over the entire 

route to the target. And if the missile’s warhead hits the target, then the 

nuclear specialists are responsible for 

everything that happens there. They 

test our nose cone with the warhead 

independently, at their firing range. 

They give the guarantee, and ‘may 

God help them!’”

Apropos of this, Voskresenskiy 

loved to say that the most reliable guarantee is an insurance policy, but since 

insurance companies ceased to exist 

in 1917, the insurance policy should 

be replaced by an oath signed by all 

the chiefs. Only Voskresenskiy could 

take the liberty of saying such things 

in that highly charged atmosphere. 

Anybody else risked having Korolev 

suggest that they catch the first train 

back to Moscow.

When it already seemed that the 

best missile detectives had exhausted 

all their resources to uncover the 

secret, a cause for first lunar failure in September began to circulate, an explanation 

that the majority of the chiefs hated. At first, the reasoning seemed purely theoretical, but for the time being it was the only one.

The guidance department of our OKB-1 included a dynamics laboratory. Its 

engineers analyzed the dynamics of the control processes after each flight, regardless of its results. While analyzing the behavior of the Apparent Velocity Regulation 

(RKS) system, laboratory chief Georgiy Degtyarenko and Pilyugin’s deputy Mikhail 

Khitrik noticed the strange behavior of the pressure sensors, which acted as feedback 

devices in this system. These sensors monitored the pressure in the combustion 

The Ye-1 spacecraft was designed as a 

simple sphere for direct lunar impact. On the 

pad, it was installed inside a special shroud 

built around the new upper stage equipped 

with a single engine (the RO-5).

From the author’s archives.
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through the entire loop, including the missile structure. You couldn’t prevent disturbance processes from occurring solely by increasing rigidity because the pressure 

pulsation frequency could also rise and then you would have to increase the structural rigidity again.

While NII-1 scientists investigated these processes, the young engineers Degtyarenko, Kopot, and Razygrayev, as yet undistinguished by either awards or academic 

degrees, were in charge of a parallel investigation at OKB-1 to obtain practical recommendations as to what to do. In our laboratory, one of the first electronic analog 

simulators was put into operation. Using what were at that time state-of-the-art 

methods for simulating complex dynamic processes, it was possible to solve highorder differential equations without wasting weeks of work involving numerous 

analysts using mechanical adding machines.

Degtyarenko received baseline data on structural loads and elastic properties from 

Gladkiy, a mathematical model of the propulsion system from Natanzon at NII-1, 

and updates from Glushko’s specialists in Khimki. All of this went in to the electronic analog simulator, which made it possible to display the process very graphically on cathode ray tube screens and to record it in the form of oscillograms.

Investigations conducted over many days with no days off and an open-ended 

workday ended in a proposal to introduce a special hydraulic damper in the oxidizer 

lines at the inlet to the pumps. Korolev tasked Anatoliy Voltsifer with the design of 

this damper. Voltsifer was in charge of developing all sorts of engine fittings. The 

proposed dampers were rather complex and difficult structures that needed to be 

cut into the oxidizer line. They still had to undergo a cycle of tests on the firing rigs 

at Glushko’s facility and simulate the whole process. Also, the effectiveness of the 

proposals needed to be verified not only on the simulator, but also on the actual 

engine.

At the next session of the State Commission, Korolev confirmed the old rule 

that “no man is prophet in his own country.” He thought it more advantageous 

politically for scientists from the outside—from another very reputable organization—rather than his own subordinates to come up with such a radical idea as a 

fundamental change in the hydraulic system. Keldysh assigned Natanzon to make a 

report containing these proposals. All that remained for our comrades to do was to 

humbly report on the simulation results. Korolev said that the damper design had 

already been developed, and in any case, it was being manufactured at the factory; 

plant director Turkov was already organizing round-the-clock work at the factory to 

produce the dampers.

Subsequently, everything went according to the same optimization plan for new 

systems that is now classic and universally recognized. Our engineers headed to 

Khimki along with the dampers. There, firing tests were performed. Using a special 

device, they set up varying intensities of disturbance at the inlet to the oxidizer line 

and found that the damper was a splendid shock absorber. Of course, they corrected 

the damper design and its characteristics several times. But the main thing was 

achieved. The firing rig tests showed that with the damper, the pressure oscillations 

similar to the preceding one. Analysis of the telemetry recordings showed that the 

measures were ineffective. Now none of the specialists who had studied the processes giving rise to the destructive vibrations doubted the validity of the initial 

scenario for the breakup.

At a heated State Commission meeting, Rudnev demanded that Korolev personally head the accident investigation commission and that Keldysh assign scientists 

to the investigations. The commission took shape as follows: Korolev (chairman), 

Keldysh, Glushko, Pilyugin, Ishlinskiy, Petrov, Mishin, Akkerman, Narimanov, and 

Bokov.8

In the private conversation that Viktor Kuznetsov and I had with Pilyugin at 

his cottage at the firing range after all the meetings, Pilyugin grumbled that the 

guidance specialists had nothing to do with this problem. According to his version, 

Korolev and his “Mr. Rough” (as Pilyugin defiantly referred to Viktor Gladkiy) 

weren’t looking into the engine’s properties, and Glushko couldn’t properly explain 

what he might have going on at the inlet to the oxygen pumps. Kuznetsov, on the 

other hand, sided with Korolev and Glushko. He didn’t think it was right to judge 

them harshly because they were engineers and not very well versed in theoretical 

mechanics and oscillatory processes. Instead he asked, “How did Academician Keldysh agree after the first crash to such nonradical measures after having once given 

the classic explanation for the phenomena of flutter and shimmy in aircraft?” Ishlinskiy, who had just dropped in on us, sided with Keldysh. They shared a “deluxe” 

room at the new hotel and had the opportunity to discuss the situation in “unofficial” debates. According to his version, Keldysh had proposed that Korolev take 

a break in the launches and conduct serious investigations. But then Korolev and 

Keldysh would have to report this to Khrushchev and tell him that the next lunar 

launch attempt would take place at the New Year rather than the anniversary of 

the October Revolution. Keldysh refused to report to Khrushchev. Then they both 

decided to take a chance and go to the State Commission with the proposal to 

launch without dissention. And that’s how the launch went off in October.

Now the investigations got under way on a broad scale. Keldysh mobilized the 

NII-1 theoreticians, Akkerman, Natanzon, and Glikman. They proved analytically 

that the breakup process was not random, but more likely in keeping with the laws 

of nature. In their opinion, not only should we increase the structural rigidity, but 

we should also find ways to preclude the very possibility of oxidizer feed pressure 

pulsations at the pump inlet. This was precisely the cause of the pressure pulsations 

in the combustion chamber. The oscillatory process began there and proceeded 

8. Academician Georgiy Ivanovich Petrov (1912–87) was a prominent scientist at NII-1 before 

heading the Academy of Sciences Institute of Space Research in 1965–73. Georgiy Stepanovich 

Narimanov (1922–83) was a deputy director of NII-4 in 1959–65. Vsevolod Andreyevich Bokov 

(1921–) was chief of the department of analysis at the Tyuratam launch range before becoming a senior 

official of the Main Directorate of Reactive Armaments (GURVO).
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broadcast this mind-boggling news throughout the world. There is one inaccuracy 

in the TASS report cited above, about which Korolev, Keldysh, and the text authors 

argued bitterly as the text was drafted during the night, the portion with the phrase 

“A second Soviet spacecraft reached the surface of the Moon...”

Actually only one rocket reached the Moon’s surface. The preceding lunar probe, 

which was launched on 2 January 1959, missed the Moon. Its third stage, which 

carried a lunar capsule housing science equipment and an identical pendant, flew 

past the Moon and turned into an artificial planet of the Solar System. This Mechta

(Dream)—it is unclear why it was called “Dream”—was supposed to impact the 

Moon. In the official history of cosmonautics, 2 January is considered the launch 

date of Luna-1 or Mechta, the artificial planet, as if that is how it had been conceived. 

The second Moon shot, Luna-2, was officially launched on 12 September.10

In reality, the 12 September launch, although the first successful lunar impact, 

was actually the sixth overall attempt. Despite a year’s delay, this event took place 

just in time for Khrushchev’s visit to the United States. On 15 September Nikita 

Khrushchev departed for the U.S. One simply could not think of a better gift. 

Coinciding with the meetings of the top-ranking leaders of the U.S. and USSR, 

this launch could have been the occasion to end the Cold War. Alas, this did not 

happen. It was not in our power.

 American newspapers and radio were abuzz with sensational commentaries.

“President Eisenhower and his chief advisers today were searching for ways to counteract the new prestige that the Russians’ successful Moon shot has created for Premier Nikita 

Khrushchev for the historic negotiations beginning tomorrow at the White House.”

Newspapers around the world justifiably viewed the Moon shot not only from 

the standpoint of space, but also in social and political terms.

“N. S. Khrushchev arrives in the U.S. bringing the Moon along in his suitcase.”

“Unfortunately, it is also true that this successful Moon shot produces complications. 

A rocket that can hit the Moon proves that other rockets can reach any point on the globe 

carrying a more deadly cargo and with the same accuracy. A space capsule containing the 

Soviet pendant is something like a ‘flag display’ that naval ships used to perform at sea.”

Wernher von Braun announced to journalists that Russia had really shot ahead 

of the U.S. in terms of space projects and that no amount of money could buy the 

lost time. At a press conference von Braun said, “I am convinced that if Russia were 

to stop right now, we could catch up in one, two, or three years.” After more than 30 

years, it is painful and galling to realize that Russia really has stopped. No amount of 

money can buy lost time—I have to agree with von Braun on that.

Neither von Braun, nor the Americans, nor the Soviet people knew what pains 

were actually required for this “fantastic achievement,” as T. Keith Glennan referred 

10. The names Luna-1, Luna-2, and Luna-3, were given retroactively after 1963. At the time of 

the launches, these probes were called Cosmic Rocket, Second Cosmic Rocket, and Third Cosmic Rocket,

respectively.

in the oxidizer lines at the inlet to the pumps did not cause pressure pulsations in the 

combustion chambers. Consequently, dampers needed to be immediately installed 

in all the rockets designated for launches. The danger of the rockets breaking up due 

to resonance phenomena in the structure-to-engine loop was radically eliminated. 

This solution was extended to all the missiles developed after the R-7.

I have delved into this story in such detail because it was a consequence of a really 

fundamental shortcoming in the integration of the missile structure and the engine, 

which ultimately wasn’t recognized until more than a year after flight-development 

tests began and the announcement to the whole world about the creation of the 

intercontinental ballistic missile.

At one of the subsequent meetings of the review team, one of the innocents 

in this story asked why attention hadn’t been given to pressure pulsations in the 

chamber during the many preceding launches. Neither Korolev nor Glushko gave a 

satisfactory response at that time. Rudnev felt he needed to respond in his own way: 

“If you add up all the expenditures for each launch, it turns out that we’re firing 

entire cities. Our previous successes have gone to our heads, and we’re pressing 

on for new ones without taking the costs into account. All of us—and I also hold 

myself responsible—in our race for success have ceased to be vigilant. Indeed, the 

heroic work that was done in the laboratories, on test rigs, and at the factory after 

the failures could have been conducted after the first satellite. This is a harsh, but 

very useful lesson for us all.”

Chairman of the State Commission and Chairman of the State Committee 

on Defense Technology Konstantin Rudnev did not, however, express during this 

sparsely attended State Commission meeting the idea that he later verbalized to 

Pilygin, Kuznetsov, and me after the meeting: “With all due respect to the Chief 

Designer and vice president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, I must admit that 

the true cause of the failures was discovered by young and as yet quite undistinguished specialists.”

“Today, 14 September, at 12:02:24 a.m. Moscow time, a second Soviet spacecraft 

reached the surface of the Moon. For the first time in history there has been a space 

flight from the Earth to another celestial body. In commemoration of this remarkable 

event, pendants displaying the emblem of the Soviet Union with the inscription ‘Union 

of Soviet Socialist Republics, September 1959,’ have been delivered to the surface of the 

Moon... The Soviet spacecraft’s reaching of the Moon is a remarkable success of science 

and technology. This is the beginning of a new phase in space exploration.”9

This is the TASS report that the morning newspapers managed to print 

on 15 September 1959. At 6:00 a.m. all the radio stations of the Soviet Union 

9. Many of the original announcements cited by Chertok are collected in A. A. Mikhaylov and V. 

V. Fedorov, eds., Stantsii v kosmose: sbornik statey [Stations in Space: A Collection of Articles] (Moscow: 

AN SSSR, 1960).
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told us about sending the Soviet rocket to the Moon. We have had failures launching rockets. Have you?”

“Why are you asking me about this?” responded Khrushchev grinning. “You 

should ask [Vice President Richard M.] Nixon. He already answered this question 

when he announced that we have allegedly had three failed moon shots. He knows 

better how things stand with us. Nixon said that he had information from a secret 

source, but of course, he didn’t reveal what that source is. He can’t reveal such a 

secret; after all, it’s a fabrication.”

“But if you want, I will also respond to this question. Of course, launching rockets into space is not a simple matter. A lot of work goes into this. I’ll tell you a secret; 

our scientists proposed launching a rocket at the moon a week ago. The rocket was 

prepared and delivered to the launch site, but when they started to check out the 

equipment, they found that it didn’t work quite right. Then, in order to eliminate 

any possibility of risk, the scientists replaced the rocket with another. This second 

rocket was the one that we launched. But the first rocket is intact, and if you like, 

we can launch it, too. That’s the situation. I can put my hand on the Bible and swear 

to this, but let Nixon do the same. (General laughter, applause.)”15

After reading this transcript, we noted with satisfaction that Nixon’s secret source 

really was unreliable. In actuality, before 12 September 1959, there had been not 

three, but five moon launch attempts. Only the sixth launch resulted in complete 

triumph.

I wrote about the first two in detail above. These were the rockets that 

broke up in September and October 1958 due to resonance disturbances during 

the first stage powered flight phase. After installing dampers in the oxygen lines and 

confirming the effectiveness of these modifications, we succeeded on 4 December 

1958 in conducting yet another, third, lunar rocket launch attempt. The failure 

took place during the second stage flight segment. The accident investigation commission determined with a high degree of reliability that during the 245th second 

of flight, the reduction/step-up gear driving the hydrogen peroxide pump failed. 

Subsequently, the precise cause was identified: the breakdown of a gearwheel in the 

step-up gear due to a lubricant feed failure. Engine thrust dropped fourfold, the 

control chambers lost effectiveness, the rocket lost stability, and after deviating by 

more than seven angular degrees, the emergency engine shutdown (AVD) system 

shut down the engine.16

15. M. A. Kharlamov, Zhit v mire i druzhbe! [To Live in Peace and Friendship!] (Moscow: Politizdat, 

1959), pp. 95–96.

16. Author’s note: The measures taken after the crash of the lunar launch in December 1958 proved 

insufficient. The same defect reoccurred during the launch of standard R-7 missile number IZ-30 

on 31 September 1959. On this missile the pump failure occurred 5 seconds later than on the lunar 

launch. This crash alone compelled the engine specialists to redo the lubrication system and strengthen 

the step-up gear.

to our triumph.11 He said, “This is the highest degree of success. No one doubts that 

the Russians have far surpassed all other peoples in the development of technology 

for the conquest of space.”

On the day of his arrival at the White House, Khrushchev handed President 

Eisenhower a commemorative gift, a replica of the pendant that our spacecraft 

delivered to the Moon. This event moved us perhaps as much as the launch of the 

lunar rocket itself. After all, the pendant was also produced at our OKB-1. It was 

packed in a wooden case that our best cabinetmakers had toiled over. The case, lined 

with light blue velvet, contained a gleaming metal ball whose surface was made 

up of pentagonal cells, each embossed with the emblem of the Soviet Union with 

the inscription “USSR, September 1959.” According to our concept, the pendant’s 

spherical shape symbolized the artificial planet. The pentagonal cells were specially 

minted from stainless steel. The Mint began producing these historic pentagons 

back in 1958. The Mint had to produce them again for each new launch date after 

a failure.

Khrushchev liked this pendant so much that he admired it en route to the U.S. 

In the airplane Khrushchev took the pendant out of the case to show his American 

navigator Harold Renegar, who was flying as part of the crew for navigation security 

in U.S. airspace. “Good thinking!” smirked the navigator. “You launched one of 

these things at the Moon, and now you’re sending another one to us in America.”12

“The President thoughtfully considered the heavy lunar ball, celebrated in thousands of newspapers, in the palm of his hand. A sunbeam sparkled brightly on its 

polished facets. The President expressed his deep gratitude to the Soviet government 

and said that he would hand over the replica of the pendant to the museum in his 

home town of Abilene, Kansas, so that the people could see it.” This is how our correspondents accompanying Khrushchev described this historic event.

Several hours before the solemn ceremony at the White House, a report had 

come out noting that a Jupiter rocket that was to carry experiments into space had 

failed to lift off.13 Two days later an attempt was made to launch a Thor rocket. It 

also failed.14 When we learned about these events, we were not gleeful; we knew, and 

probability theory and prior statistics underscored, that after our triumph we would 

also have black days.

Khrushchev’s talk with American Congressional leaders took place on 16 September. At this meeting, Chairman Richard B. Russell, Jr. of the Senate Armed Services Committee asked Khrushchev the following question: “You have eloquently 

11. Thomas Keith Glennan (1905–95) served as the first NASA Administrator in 1958–61. Prior 

to joining NASA, Glennan had been President of Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio.

12. M. A. Kharlamov, ed., Litsom k litsu s Amerikoy [Face to Face with America] (Moscow: Politizdat, 

1959), p. 51.

13. This was possibly the launch of a Jupiter IRBM on 15 September 1959 with biomedical 

experiments (known as Bioflight 3).

14 .This was Transit 1A launched on 17 September 1959 by a Thor Able II booster.
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After January 1959, there was a brief hiatus in the lunar program. The firing 

range had to return to the R-7 flight-development test program. During this period, 

nine missiles were launched. Each of them had glitches that needed to be taken into 

account for the upcoming lunar launches as well.

The fifth attempt to hit the Moon was undertaken during the hot summer of 

1959. The launch on 18 June ended in a failure during the operation of the second 

stage. But we were still plugging away, and the factories continued to produce new 

Moon rockets.

For our next lunar assault we produced two rockets and two lunar capsules with 

two “September” pendants. To be on the safe side, we also delivered a third capsule to the engineering facility. This time we decided to err on the side of caution 

since it was imperative that we hit the Moon. Now Khrushchev wasn’t the only 

one demanding it; our egos had also been wounded. We wouldn’t allow ourselves 

to even think about further failures. At the engineering facility and the launch sites 

everyone worked with a frantic desire for success. Work went on around the clock. 

There were relatively few glitches and modifications.

Despite the fact that it was September, the days at the firing range were hot. 

The nights were warm, still, and clear. The first launch attempt took place on 6 

September at 3:49 a.m. in accordance with the flight assignment. It was permissible 

to err from the launch time by no more than 10 seconds. If the error were greater, 

the launch would have to be postponed by 24 hours or more, after recalculating 

the time accordingly. The launch failed on the first attempt. An automatic “circuit 

reset” occurred. We hunted for the cause for more than 2 hours and found a very 

stupid operational error when the circuit was assembled at the launch site. As usual, 

an error analysis revealed a glitch in the electrical circuit. One of the connectors 

wasn’t shown in the electrical diagram, and we failed to connect it during the final 

assembly of the cables at the launch site. We put the circuit back together, retested 

it, and made sure that everything was in order, but 24 hours had been lost.

At dawn we reported to the State Commission that it was impossible to reattempt the launch on 7 September. This was because from the very start, we had 

ordered gyro horizons from Kuznetsov that determined the rocket trajectory inclination angle during the powered flight segment assuming possible launches at 48 

hour intervals rather than every 24 hours. For 8 September, the launch time fell at 

5:40:40 a.m.

We conducted checkouts all night, continued to fuel the rocket with oxygen, 

and checked and rechecked the readiness of the ground services. Over the phone 

I reassured the Command and Measurement Complex colonels who were standing by with their numerous radio specialists nationwide “from Moscow to the very 

fringes.” Everything was going according to plan until it came to the “Drain” command. This command prompts the pressurization of all the tanks with compressed 

nitrogen. All the tanks were pressurized to the normal pressure, except for the oxidizer tank in the core booster. There was, however, still time in reserve. Upon receipt 

of the command from the console, pressure was released; the drainage valves opened 

And so, it was these three failures (September, October, and December 1958) 

out of a total of five that U.S. intelligence was able to report to Nixon. Evidently, the 

U.S. intelligence services were not able to figure out our next two failures. But now 

we have the opportunity to bring complete clarity into this story.

With the assistance of our powerful propaganda apparatus, we were able to convert the fourth failure on 2 January 1959 into the next brilliant triumph of Soviet 

science and technology. Among other things, reliably hitting the Moon depended 

on two factors: the accuracy of the second stage (or core booster) engine shutdown time and the third stage startup time in relation to planned schedules. Possible errors in the automatic system for shutting down engines of the second stage 

engine—from the longitudinal acceleration integrator—were, however, higher than 

tolerable. Therefore, to Ryazanskiy’s delight, from the very beginning we decided to 

use a radio-control system to shut down the engine based on velocity and coordinate measurements. But on the January launch the radio command was late! Later, 

of course, we figured out that the radio-control ground stations (RUPs) were the 

culprits. The third stage with the lunar capsule containing the pendant missed the 

Moon by 6,000 kilometers, that is, approximately one and a half times the Moon’s 

diameter. The rocket went into its own independent orbit around the Sun and 

became a satellite, the world’s first artificial planet of the solar system.

Instead of the anticipated debacles—or at least tongue lashings—we were flooded 

with a deluge of greetings and congratulations. On 5 January, the CPSU Central 

Committee and USSR Council of Ministers issued a special message, which celebrated: “Glory to the workers of Soviet science and technology who are paving new 

paths to the discovery of nature and to harness its forces for the good of humanity!”

The January launch was a very good rehearsal and training session for us. For the 

first time, the third stage operation was completely checked out. It proved to be very 

beneficial to check out the radio communications system, the reception of telemetry 

from the capsule, and the processing of the results from the real-time determination 

of its coordinates and to adjust the interaction between the orbital tracking service’s 

instrumentation complex and the computation centers. All of the onboard equipment worked well, providing the opportunity on 12 January to publish a detailed 

description of the scientific investigations. The most sensational discovery was the 

lack of a magnetic field around the Moon. The press gave extensive coverage to 

the use of an artificial sodium comet formed 113,000 kilometers from the earth to 

observe the flight of the third stage. The makers of the artificial comet were counting on visual observation by foreign observatories, primarily so that they would 

acknowledge that the rocket really was flying to the Moon. My departments developed a special timer to ignite this comet. Sixty-two hours after launch “according 

to the program” the onboard storage batteries, designed for 40 hours of operation, 

were completely discharged, and “the spacecraft tracking program and program of 

scientific investigations were completed.”
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bunker. Then the weary voices of Voskresenskiy and Yevgeniy Ostashev issued the 

prescribed commands for such emergency cases. Fire trucks rolled up to the launch 

pad. The launch team cautiously inspected the sooty aft compartments. Everyone 

was tired to the point of indifference. Nevertheless, Korolev ordered the telemetry films to be developed immediately and the findings to be given. Glushko was 

named chairman of the accident investigation commission. Pilyugin proposed that 

first they decide what to do next and then investigate. For some reason Korolev suddenly shouted at Pilyugin, “You figure out what your circuitry experts have done!” 

Voskresenskiy found the cause right away: “Rocket No. 6 is the culprit,” he noted. 

“It already failed at the launch pad once before it was renovated. It shouldn’t have 

been reissued.”17 Everyone was so tired that no one even cracked a smile.

Nevertheless, everyone sighed with relief when they heard the call, “Drain everything right away! Remove the rocket from the launch site! Haul out the next one 

and prepare for launch on 12 September.”

So a new rocket, serial number 43-7b, was delivered to the launch site early 

in the morning. Khrushchev had spoken of this operation in his reply to Senator 

Russell (based, of course, on a report that he received from Korolev, Keldysh, or 

Rudnev) when he said, “In order to eliminate any possibility of risk, the scientists 

replaced the rocket with another.” We learned what Khrushchev had said many days 

later from the newspapers, and now that we had caught up on our sleep somewhat 

and relaxed, we vented our spite and had a good laugh. But we could allow ourselves 

that now “he who laughs last, laughs best.”

The rocket launch on 12 September at 9:39:26 a.m. proceeded without a single 

glitch. The error relative to the calculated launch time was just 1 second. This was 

the sixth moon shot. I no longer remember who it was (it might have been Colonel 

Nosov) who announced loudly at the gathering right after the telemetry experts 

reported that the stage three engines had shut down at precisely the calculated time, 

“If you don’t sleep at all for a week before each launch, then there won’t be any failures.” Actually, beginning on 6 September, members of the launch team only took 

cat naps, didn’t shave out of superstition, and left the launch site for Site No. 2 only 

to perform a “hot food input operation.” Officers who had served at the front said 

that even during the war they had more time for sleeping, eating, and shaving. After 

the launch, almost all the officers headed to Site No. 10 to their families. We gathered in a cramped room at Site No. 2 to receive the latest news via high-frequency 

communication and then give instructions.

Our first task after launch was to edit the TASS report and transmit it to Moscow. 

Our second task was to obtain permission to immediately notify Professor Bernard Lovell, director of the British Jodrell Bank Observatory about the impending 

17. See Chapter 19.

and we made a second attempt at pressurization, monitoring it using the telemetry 

system pressure sensor. Golunskiy reported from the first tracking station (IP-1) 

that according to the visual observation unit the pressure in the tank was 40% of 

the scale. But what did that actually mean? We needed a precise interpretation, but 

the contact pressure gauge in the tank wouldn’t allow the process to proceed in automatic mode. We missed the launch time again. In the heavy silence that filled the 

bunker, Voskresenskiy, who never stayed in a bad mood for long in such situations, 

proposed that we make a third attempt. “Most likely there’s an ice plug in the pipe 

running from the tank to the sensor,” he said. “If we knock it out with pressure, the 

rocket will be ready for launch.”

On the third attempt the oxygen tank pressurized, but the launch process had 

to be halted. We had already missed the launch time. Once again, it turned out 

that Voskresenskiy was right; his intuition had not deserted him. We needed to 

decide how to proceed from there. The rocket had already been standing for three 

days fueled with oxygen. Should we drain the propellant and remove the rocket for 

drying or make one more attempt?

At that time, after pushing through the crowd of launch team members shrouded 

in silence, Lavrov reported in his quiet, calm voice that after reviewing the gyroscope 

programs, they, that is, the ballistics specialists, were clearing the rocket for launch 

with those very same instruments on 9 September.

“Where were you before?” asked Korolev indignantly, but he did not fly into a 

rage.

Without any recriminations, we made the only possible decision: leave the 

oxygen in the tanks for another 24 hours. Meanwhile, we would have to regularly 

shut down and warm up the control surface actuators and run performance checks 

on the onboard systems. The electrical firing and fueling departments remained at 

their work stations. People had already gone two days without sleep. Now they were 

allowed to sleep right in the bunker, for an hour or two, taking turns. It was decided 

to blow warm air through all the rocket’s instrument compartments and measure 

the temperature regularly. Under these circumstances the State Commission and 

chief designers also established a 24-hour duty schedule.

The computing facility, that is, all the [ballistics] theoreticians, received very 

strict orders to repeatedly recheck everything and give the precise time for the launch 

on 9 September. The next night at T-minus 4 hours, sleep-deprived and exhausted, 

everyone once again gathered at the launch site. The launch time was 6:39:50 a.m.

The slanting rays of the sun already illuminated the steppe through large breaks 

in the light cloud cover. The meteorologists had promised a warm day with no 

wind. The rocket should finally lift off, and we would catch up on our sleep—if 

only a bit—before it reached the Moon. At first everything again went according 

to plan. We had ignition. The roiling flame swirled under all the assemblies as the 

engines built up to the first intermediate level and ... the “Main” command failed 

to go through! Because of a problem with the core booster, the circuit was reset, and 

the fire gradually died out under all the engines. An oppressive silence hung over the 
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Since the evening of 13 September, those of us who had stayed behind at the 

firing range had occupied the communications room so we wouldn’t miss messages 

about the end of radio communication with the lunar spacecraft. This happened at 

midnight, and then we no longer felt like sleeping.

The flight of our sixth lunar rocket lasted 38 hours, 21 minutes, and 21 seconds. 

A flight from the firing range with the traditional stopover in Uralsk took more 

than 12 hours. For us, 14 September was virtually a holiday. But no one begrudged 

this, and no one blamed anyone for their boisterous behavior the night before. We 

received gleeful reports from Moscow that Professor Lovell had tracked the lunar 

spacecraft and confirmed that they stopped receiving emissions 1 second later than 

our forecast. After some confusion, we learned that our ballistics experts’ forecast 

did not take the radio wave propagation time into account, thus being off by 1 

second. This launch that I have described in such detail was certainly an important 

event in the history of cosmonautics and international relations.

impact.18 In all of Europe, only this observatory had a large antenna capable of 

tracking our rocket on its path to the Moon and confirming that we had actually 

hit it.

Keldysh requested the permission of the State Commission to immediately 

notify the Briton. Korolev hesitated. What if we miss one more time? No one would 

believe that we wanted to put one more “artificial planet” into the Solar System. 

Ultimately, Keldysh prevailed, telephoned the Academy of Sciences, and gave the 

order to contact Lovell immediately and tell him the projected time of impact with 

the Moon and the current ephemerides so that he would have time to locate the 

emitting capsule among all the space noise and crackling.19 We had some concern 

that they wouldn’t believe our reports; we needed foreign witnesses of the Moon 

landing in addition to our own. We did not doubt that the Americans were also 

trying to track our second moon shot, but we had no contacts with American scientists. We figured that they would come up with the idea of turning to Lovell for 

help on their own. That’s just what happened.

NASA’s Deputy Administrator Dr. Hugh L. Dryden announced to Soviet correspondents on 14 September that, “We did not have the capability to visually track 

its lunar impact. But we received Luna-2 signals on U.S. territory. We maintained 

constant contact with Professor Lovell from the Manchester observatory, who 

reported to us about every ‘step’ of the Soviet lunar rocket. Our scientists calculated 

the rocket’s flight trajectory based on Professor Lovell’s data.”20 Thus, NASA confirmed that the Russian lunar spacecraft had indeed hit its target—it had reached 

the Moon.

The ironies of the Cold War exemplified this episode in the fullest: our scientists 

did not have the right to communicate directly with American scientists, even for 

the sake of such a prestigious goal as establishing proof that we had impacted on 

the Moon. 

On the afternoon of 12 September, after receiving preliminary reports that 

the flight trajectory was very close to the calculated trajectory, Korolev, Keldysh, 

Rudnev, Glushko, and Ryazanskiy flew out to Moscow. They needed to get to the 

capital before the lunar impact in order to report to Khrushchev before his departure for the U.S. In addition, Korolev had to personally check the condition of the 

gift pendant and case.

18. Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell (1913–) is a physicist and astronomer who founded and 

directed (in 1945–81) the world famous Jodrell Bank Observatory near Manchester, England. In the 

1950s, the Jodrell Bank complex included the world’s largest steerable radio telescope

19. “Ephemerides” (plural of “ephemeris”) constitute a set of data providing the locations of 

planetary bodies at given moments in time.

20. Hugh Latimer Dryden (1898–1965), a prominent aerodynamicist, played an important role 

in advancing aerospace research in the United States in the postwar era. He served as director of the 

National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA) in 1947–58 and then deputy administrator of 

NASA in 1958–65.

Chapter 26

Back at RNII

In late 1958, after the first unsuccessful launch attempts for a direct hit on the 

Moon, S.P. called in Tikhonravov, Bushuyev, and me and announced that Keldysh 

had invited us to visit Likhobory (i.e., NII-1) and to familiarize ourselves with the 

proposals for an attitude control system for satellites and lunar vehicles. Tikhonravov said that he had heard about these developments. Boris Viktorovich Rauschenbach was conducting this project at NII-1 and in the opinion of our colleagues 

Ryazanov and Maksimov, the proposals were very interesting.

I should remind the reader that in 1933 at the initiative of Marshal Tukhachevskiy, the Reactive Scientific-Research Institute (RNII) was established in Likhobory. 

Korolev and Glushko worked at this institute until their arrests in 1938. Tikhonravov also worked at RNII beginning in 1933. In 1937, RNII was renamed NII3; later, in 1944, the institute was renamed NII-1 and transferred to the aviation 

industry. I worked at NII-1 at that time and until my assignment to Germany. After 

returning from Germany I was transferred from NII-1 to NII-88, that is, from 

Likhobory to Podlipki. Mishin, Bushuyev, Voskresenskiy, Chizhikov, and several 

other compatriots from Germany also transferred along with me from Likhobory 

to Podlipki. Later, in 1948, Isayev’s entire team completed this same resettlement 

routine. Earlier, in 1946, the young Academician Mstislav Keldysh was appointed 

NII-1 scientific director in place of General Bolkhovitinov.

Korolev recalled that he knew Rauschenbach well from his work at RNII. At the 

beginning of the war, despite his contributions, Rauschenbach was interned like all 

Germans.1 He sat in some concentration camp and by chance stayed alive. After his 

release he returned to his once familiar institute.

S.P. said that Keldysh was evidently experiencing a “crisis of genre.” The intercontinental cruise missile projects that he had overseen were going to be discon1. During World War II, the Soviet government arrested and then interned many Soviet citizens of 

German origin (like Rauschenbach) in special labor camps. Most were not released until several years 

after the end of the war.

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temporary assignments at the firing range and accident investigation commissions, 

I simply hadn’t gotten around to it.

Here I feel I need to interrupt the narrative to recall and elaborate 

on the history of the M. V. Keldysh Research Center (the former RNII), 

which turned 90 years old in 2003. The chronology cited below clarifies my original 

Russian-language memoirs. The book M. V. Keldysh Research Center: Seventy Years 

on the Frontiers of Rocket-Space Technology aided me in making these elaborations.3

The editor-in-chief of this scientific work, director of the M. V. Keldysh Research 

Center A. S. Koroteyev, included the following inscription in it: “To Boris Yevseyevich, with deep respect and gratitude for many years of fruitful collaboration with 

the Center.”

In the early 1930s in Moscow and Leningrad there were two rocket organizations in operation. In Moscow it was the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion 

(GIRD) and in Leningrad, the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL). The directors of 

these organizations persistently raised the issue before the Red Army military leadership of merging the two entities. The first military leader to appreciate the prospects 

of missile armaments was M. N. Tukhachevskiy, deputy commissar for military and 

naval affairs, chief of armaments of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (RKKA), 

and future (beginning in 1935) marshal of the Soviet Union.4

On 21 September 1933, Tukhachevskiy signed “Order No. 0113 of the USSR 

Revolutionary Military Council” establishing the Reactive-Scientific Research Institute of the RKKA in Moscow. The Moscow Council of People’s Deputies confiscated 

three small buildings from the All-Union Institute of Agricultural Machine Building (VISKhOM) on Likhachevskoye Highway to house the new institute.5

 Another 

order signed on the same day appointed I. T. Kleymenov (former GDL chief) chief 

of the new institute and S. P. Korolev (former GIRD chief) as his deputy. At the 

initiative of Commissar K. Ye. Voroshilov, a Council of Labor and Defense decree 

dated 31 October 1933 transferred the new institute, dubbed RNII, to the People’s 

Commissariat of Heavy Industry headed by G. V. (Sergo) Ordzhonikidze. During 

its initial period, four subject areas incorporated into four departments formed the 

institute’s foundation.

In January 1934, Korolev was removed from his post as deputy chief due to production discrepancies and a conflict with Kleymenov. He started working as a senior 

engineer in Ye. S. Shchetinkov’s sector. Subsequently, G. E. Langemak held the position of chief engineer, actually deputy chief for scientific work. Korolev’s removal 

3. A. S. Koroteyev et al., eds., Issledovatelskiy tsentr imeni M. V. Keldysha: 70 let na peredovykh 

rubezhakh raketno-kosmicheskoy tekhniki [M. V. Keldysh Research Center: 70 Years on the Frontiers of 

Rocket-Space Technology] (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 2003).

4. RKKA—Raboche-krestyanskaya krasnaya armiya (Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army)—was the 

full and official name of the Red Army in the interwar years.

5. VISKhOM—Vsyesoyuznyy institut selskokhozyaystvennogo mashinostroyeniya.

tinued.2 Keldysh was giving more and more attention to our field, that is, ballistic 

missiles and spaceflight. “During our conversation at Likhobory keep in mind that 

Keldysh is our ally, not our competitor,” said Korolev.

Korolev added that it was time for us to start working seriously on satellite guidance. He had already talked with Pilyugin and Kuznetsov about this. Both were so 

immersed in projects dealing “purely” with missile systems that they considered 

involvement with exotic satellites to be a frivolous amusement. Korolev, however, 

disagreed. He said, “Keldysh has serious proposals, and we shouldn’t waste time. 

And you, Boris, don’t be offended. We won’t manage all this work with your kids, 

even with Pilyugin. We need to seek out new cooperation for space.”

Tikhonravov supported these thoughts of Korolev’s. His designers had already 

tried to collaborate with the “Pilyuginites” on attitude control systems for satellites, 

but as yet nothing good had come of it. I must confess that Tikhonravov with his 

inherent gentleness had already approached me requesting that I go with him to 

our alma mater NII-1 to see what Rauschenbach was doing. But caught up with 

2. In the 1950s, Keldysh’s NII-1 institute directed work on the Burya and Buran intercontinental 

cruise missiles through the design bureaus of S. A. Lavochkin and V. M. Myasishchev, respectively.

Boris Rauschenbach (1915-2001) (left) was one of the pioneers of orientation systems for 

Soviet spacecraft. Rauschenbach, shown here with Chertok, was a man of many interests 

and wrote a number of books on such diverse topics as painting, philosophy, and history.

From the author’s archives.
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confirmed in this post in September 1938. In January 1939, NII-3 was transferred 

to the just-established People’s Commissariat of Ammunition, which had split off 

from the People’s Commissariat of Defense Industry. The Leaders of the new Commissariat considered projects on rocket-propelled projectiles to be NII-3’s primary 

mission. All the projects on liquid-propellant rocket engines and aircraft were actually conducted at the time only owing to the enthusiasm of the staff and “available 

resources.” Groups were formed at the institute to develop ground-based launchers 

and solid-propellant projectiles for them. Engineer I. I. Gvay proposed the first 

design of the future, the later-famous Katyusha. The design of the multiple-launch 

rocket truck-mounted launcher was updated and modified up until 1940.

In autumn 1939, the new system underwent official firing range tests near Leningrad and was recommended for service. Nevertheless, the system faced a drawn 

out process to gain the acceptance of the Main Artillery Directorate’s leadership. It 

was difficult to place orders for the series production of 132-mm projectiles at the 

Vladimir Ilich Factory in Moscow in 1940; the Komintern Factory in Voronezh, 

meanwhile, produced only two launchers before the war began. The fate of the 

future Katyushas was decided by their splendidly successful firing demonstration 

at the Sofrino firing range, where the nation’s top military brass were attending a 

review of military technology. On 21 June 1941, just 24 hours before Russia entered 

World War II, the government decided to put the system into service in the Red 

Army.7

During the first days of the war (from 28 June through 1 July) an order of the 

People’s Commissariat of Defense spurred the formation of the first independent 

experimental rocket artillery battery under the command of Captain I. A. Flerov. 

On 2 July, a battery manufactured through the efforts of NII-3 was sent to the 

Western front, and on 14 July it conducted history’s first combat salvo against Nazi 

troops near the Orsh station. The first combat salvos of the Independent Experimental Battery made a stunning impression not only on the enemy but also on the 

Western front command. Decisions were made in Moscow to drastically increase 

the production scales. Berlin, meanwhile, gave orders to uncover the Russian secrets 

and capture samples of the new weapon. The State Defense Committee (GKO) 

started keeping a “Special file on reactive technology” that was maintained until the 

collapse of the Soviet Union!

As far as manufacturing, the Special Design Bureau of the Kompressor Factory 

in Moscow was entrusted with the leading role in preparing for the series production of the launchers and developing their new modifications. V. P. Barmin was 

appointed chief designer. That is why later he wound up as chief engineer of the 

Institute Berlin in 1945 and soon thereafter became chief designer of ground launching equipment for the first domestic R-1 missile and then general designer for many 

7. See Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1, pp. 167–171.

from his high-ranking position was a heavy blow to his morale, but in keeping with 

the principle that “every cloud has a silver lining,” this demotion saved his life since 

his replacement was later arrested and shot.

During its first years of work, the institute achieved crucial results in the development of rocket-propelled projectiles with solid-propellant engines. In collaboration with NII-6 of the People’s Commissariat of Munitions, they developed a new 

propellant powder compound for rocket-propelled projectiles. This research played 

an important role in supporting the large-scale production of projectiles on the eve 

of and during World War II. Troop trials took place 1936–38, and 82- and 132-mm 

rocket-propelled projectiles (RS-82 and RS-132) were put into service on aircraft. 

In August 1939, Soviet airmen used RS-82 projectiles for the first time in combat 

action during the conflict with Japan in the Khalkin-Gol region.

A disgraced Korolev meanwhile was named director of the fifth department and 

worked simultaneously on several designs:

- the class “212” surface-to-surface cruise missile with a flight range up to 50 

kilometers and a payload mass of 150 kilograms, equipped with a liquidpropellant rocket engine with a thrust of 150 kgf;

- a rocket-propelled fighter interceptor with conventional propeller engine 

system and equipped with a rocket engine enabling it to reliably intercept 

enemy aircraft;

- a surface-to-air missile for rapid interception of enemy aircraft;

- an air-to-air cruise missile for aerial combat.

In early 1937, the People’s Commissariat of Defense Industry split off from the 

People’s Commissariat for Heavy Industry. RNII transferred to the new People’s 

Commissariat and was renamed NII-3. It became a closed organization under a strict 

regime of secrecy. Unfortunately, during this period internal conflicts fed by a topdown campaign targeting spies and participants in “anti-Soviet Trotskyite subversive 

organizations” tormented the NII-3 organization. In November 1937, Kleymenov 

and the institute’s chief engineer Langemak were arrested. After a brief inquest, the 

Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court sentenced them and on January 

10 and 11, 1938 they were shot dead. Glushko and Korolev were arrested on 23 

March and 27 June 1938, respectively. Their fate after arrest has been described in 

numerous historical works.6

On 14 October 1937, B. M. Slonimer was named the new chief of NII-3, and 

on 15 November 1937, A. G. Kostikov (chief of the liquid-propellant rocket engine 

development department) began to perform the duties of chief engineer. He was 

6. For the best Russian-language account, see Yaroslav Golovanov, Korolev: fakty i mify [Korolev: 

Facts and Myths] (Moscow: Nauka, 1994), pp. 223–328. See also the two volume work by Korolev’s 

daughter: N. S. Koroleva, Otets: knigi pervaya i vtoraya [Father: Books One and Two] (Moscow: Nauka, 

2001–2002). For an English-language work, see Asif A. Siddiqi, “The Rockets’ Red Glare: Technology, 

Conflict, and Terror in the Soviet Union,” Technology and Culture 44 no. 3 (2003): 470–501.
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tive Technology and subordinated directly to the Council of People’s Commissars. 

In addition to the primary field of endeavor, the development and optimization of 

rocket-propelled projectiles and multiple rocket launching systems, the institute 

was tasked with developing reactive aircraft, torpedoes, and various types of reactive 

engines.

Military Engineer First Class A. G. Kostikov was named the institute’s director and chief designer. The State Committee of Defense, on the director’s advice, 

approved the institute’s mission and program of operations. Not a single institute or 

defense technology KB in the Soviet Union had such status. A State Committee of 

Defense decree dated 26 July 1942 tasked the institute with developing the 302 aircraft in collaboration with the People’s Commissariat of Aviation Industry under the 

supervision of Chief Designer Kostikov and presenting it for flight tests in March 

1943. It should be noted that this ambitious timeframe for the development of the 

aircraft was accepted at the suggestion of Kostikov himself.

The July 1942 decree increased the institute’s territory and production area several times. It obtained VISKhOM’s main building, which was the institute’s “face” 

for decades to come, and also complexes of facilities later retrofitted with production shops and test rigs. Despite the extreme wartime difficulties, the institute’s 

manpower quota rose significantly. A special decree dated 4 March 1943 classified 

institute construction among “especially vital construction projects.”

Despite all-hands rush jobs, the institute wasn’t able to develop the 302 aircraft within the prescribed timeframe. Flight-Research Institute test pilots S. N. 

Anokhin and M. L. Gallay tested the glider in the air. This was their first contact 

with piloted rocket-propelled technology, even if it didn’t yet have the main element, a rocket engine. As fate would have it, both of these remarkable pilots later 

participated directly in preparing the first human flights into space. Problems that 

cropped up during PVRD development prevented its actual production in the foreseeable future; instead, Kostikov made the decision to manufacture the first aircraft 

with only liquid-propellant rocket engines. This decision stripped the 302 design 

of whatever advantages it had over the BI. In early 1943, a government commission was sent to the institute headed by Deputy Commissar of Aviation Industry 

A. S. Yakovlev, also chief designer of the Yak fighter aircraft series. The commission concluded that the institute had not fulfilled the government’s assignments. 

After Yakovlev’s report to Stalin on 18 February 1944, Kostikov was removed from 

the director’s post and arrested. The aircraft’s development was halted. The State 

Institute of Reactive Technology under the Council of People’s Commissars was 

renamed NII-1 and transferred to the Commissariat of Aviation Industry.

Over the 10 years since the establishment of the Reactive Scientific-Research 

Institute, it had been subordinate to five agencies (People’s Commissariats for Military and Naval Affairs, of Heavy Industry, of Defense Industry, of Ammunition, and 

the USSR Council of People’s Commissars). Five directors had headed the institute. 

Of these, the first, Kleymenov, was executed, the next three were just administrators, and the last was Kostikov. After gaining fame for the principal achievement of 

that period, the development of the Katyusha multiple rocket launching system, he 

surface-launched missile systems.

Despite the fact that the institute was concentrating its primary efforts on developing a multiple rocket launching system, during the period from January to March 

1939 experiments continued with Korolev’s 212 cruise missile, which used Glushko’s ORM-65 liquid-propellant rocket engine. Having been arrested in the summer 

of 1938, the authors of these projects knew nothing about the flight-test results.

In addition, on 28 February 1940, at the airfield near the suburban-Moscow 

Podlipki station where NII-88 (now TsNIIMash) had been located since 1946, and 

where Korolev would begin working in 1947, the RP-318-1 rocket-glider of his 

design completed its first flight. The RDA-1-150 liquid-propellant rocket engine 

designed by Dushkin powered it. This was the first flight in the USSR of a piloted 

vehicle with a rocket engine. Although the rocket glider took off towed by a Po-2 

aircraft, nevertheless, history must not forget the pilot, V. P. Fedorov. He controlled 

the first piloted flying vehicle, designed by Korolev.8

During the first year of the war, the institute’s work was completely subjugated 

to the interests of the front and to the fulfillment of the decree calling for the development of a liquid-propellant rocket engine for the BI fighter-interceptor. It was 

on this second project that I continued to deal with Dushkin, Shtokolov, and Pallo 

until the evacuation from Moscow in October 1941.

In connection with the assignment to develop a liquid-propellant 

rocket engine for the BI fighter-interceptor, in 1942, NII-3 began to 

develop the USSR’s first propellant feed systems using turbopump assemblies. Kostikov understood that the capabilities of the rocket-propelled interceptor were determined solely by the sources of thrust, that is, the liquid-propellant rocket engine. 

Realizing that a basic shortcoming of that aircraft was the very limited flight range, 

Kostikov decided, independently without Bolkhovitinov, to begin developing an 

interceptor armed with cannons and rockets. It seemed that this design, under the 

code number “302,” had tremendous advantages over our BI fighter-interceptor.

I used the word “seemed” because in addition to the liquid-propellant rocket 

engine that enabled takeoff and acceleration when maneuvering, the 302 aircraft 

had a ramjet engine (PVRD) installed in it for the cruising phase.9 The primary 

developers were Kostikov, Tikhonravov, Dushkin, and V. S. Zuyev (the PVRD 

developer). Kostikov’s prestige and that of all of NII-3, achieved thanks to the 

Katyusha’s effectiveness, was so great that the government accepted the proposal to 

develop the new aircraft.

At the same time, the institute’s status was changed. NII-3, formerly in the 

Commissariat of Ammunition, was transformed into the State Institute of Reac8. Author’s note: The continuation of this project was the installation of Dushkin’s engine not on a 

glider, but on the BI fighter-interceptor that took off on its own on 15 May 1942. I described this in 

detail in my first book. See Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1, Chapters 12 and 13.

9. PVRD—Pryamotochnyy vozdushno-reaktivnyy dvigatel.
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as the basis for the creation of new types of missile weaponry in the USSR and in 

the U.S.

After its reorganization in February 1944, NII-1 changed its priorities. 

Projects involving aviation reactive engines moved to the forefront. NII-1 was given 

a secret name, the Scientific Institute of Reactive Aviation (NIRA).13 V. I. Polikovskiy was named the first NII-1 director, serving simultaneously as chief of the Central Institute of Aviation Engine Building (TsIAM). Gas dynamics scientist G. N. 

Abramovich was appointed the deputy director. The institute was energetically 

staffed with scientific personnel from the aviation industry and related branches 

of science. During this time N. A. Pilyugin, who would later become an academician, and L. A. Voskresenskiy, who would become Korolev’s deputy for missile 

testing, transferred to the institute from the Central Aero-hydrodynamics Institute 

(TsAGI).

The GOKO issued a decree in February making Factory No. 293 in Khimki 

the institute’s production and aircraft design facility and renamed it Branch No. 1. 

There, Isayev, Bushuyev, Mishin, Bereznyak, and I worked under the leadership of 

Bolkhovitinov. Our “patron” Bolkhovitinov was appointed first deputy director of 

the institute for scientific-research projects.

Other organizations transferred to NII-1 in addition to Factory No. 293 included 

M. M. Bondaryuk’s ramjet engine design bureau and A. M. Lyulka’s gas-turbine 

engine design bureau (from TsIAM, where he had ended up after returning from 

Bilimbay). A combined order dated 18 April 1944, issued by two Commissars, L. P. 

Beriya of Internal Affairs and A. I. Shakhurin of the Aviation Industry, transferred 

the design bureaus located on the grounds of Factory No. 16 in Kazan to NII-1; the 

imprisoned Glushko was the chief designer of this KB, while his deputy for testing 

was his fellow inmate Korolev. Thus, Glushko and Korolev officially returned to 

their former RNII-NII-3 after a break of six years.

In May 1944, Major General P. I. Fedorov replaced Polikovskiy as chief of NII-1. 

Until then Fedorov, who held Bolkhovitinov in high esteem, had served as chief of 

the Air Force NII. With the help of Shakhurin, Fedorov sped up the process to free 

Glushko, Korolev, and other prisoners of the “special” OKB attached to Factory No. 

16 and to have their convictions rescinded. The USSR Supreme Soviet decided in 

favor of the early “release” of the employees of the “special” rocket engine OKB in 

Kazan in July 1944.

My sector at the new NII-1 proved to be one that all the others needed. The 

automatics and control department from the old “Kostikov” institute, as we referred 

to it, became part of my sector. M. A. Shmulevich directed this department. This 

very erudite 40-year-old electrical engineer managed to take advantage of favorable 

13. NIRA—Nauchnyy institut reaktivnoy aviatsii.

was punished relatively mildly for failing to fulfill the clearly unrealistic obligations 

that he’d taken on.10

But what was going on among our allies and enemies in the field of rocket technology during this time? In the U.S., Robert H. Goddard was the only devotee who 

had really attempted to create a liquid-propellant guided missile. He was the first 

to use a turbopump assembly to feed propellant into the liquid-propellant rocket 

engine combustion chamber and the first to use jet vanes and gyroscopes for missile control. However, he conducted all of his work with the help of subsidies from 

private organizations and foundations. Before 1945, no state organization for developing rocket technology existed in the U.S.11

Germany began to set up a scientific and research center for rockets, shifting the 

energies of its Society for Space Travel (Verein für Raumschiffahrt) to the development of real liquid-propellant rockets in the early 1930s. In both Germany and in 

the USSR, the military took the initiative to bring together spaceflight enthusiasts 

and to create an experimental base. Almost simultaneously with the establishment 

of RNII under Tukhachevskiy’s patronage in the USSR, an experimental facility was 

established in Kümmersdorf near Berlin, under the Army’s weapons directorate. 

Walter Dornberger was appointed military director and 20-year-old Wernher von 

Braun, its technical director. Dornberger and von Braun were permanent leaders 

of the creation of the world’s first long-range ballistic guided missile weapon. From 

1936 through 1945 they were in charge of the world’s largest scientific-production 

and rocket testing center in Peenemünde.

As the Soviet Union’s fate was being decided in the Battle of Stalingrad in October 1942, in Peenemünde the first successful launch of the A4 (later called the V-2) 

missile took place, for the first time reaching the altitude where space begins. Beginning in 1943, the development of long-range missile weaponry had top priority in 

the German defense industry.

The Soviet Union also placed high priority on multiple rocket launching systems. The firepower of the Katyusha along with that of classic conventional artillery 

was decisive in the Battle of Kursk and in subsequent large-scale operations up 

until the final victory.12 On the other hand, the massive bombardment of London 

and other European cities with A4 missiles did not have a substantial effect on the 

course of the war. However, after Germany’s surrender, A4 missile technology served 

10. Kostikov was arrested in February 1944 and remained in prison until February 1945.

11. There were a number of very important private organizations engaged in extremely innovative 

work on solid and liquid-propellant rockets during the war, all of whom worked independently of 

Goddard. These included Reaction Motors, Aerojet, and the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory 

(GALCIT) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). GALCIT would later be reorganized 

into the famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

12. The Battle of Kursk in July–August 1943 was one of the most important battles on the Eastern 

Front during World War II. It still holds the record as the largest armored engagement in military 

history.
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Pilyugin was new to everyone in my sector No. 3. Bolkhovitinov had sent him to 

me; on his own initiative—and with Bolkhovitinov’s prompting—he was assigned 

to supervise the “special automatic controls” group. The project involved developing autopilot systems for reactive aircraft.

The establishment of scientific-research departments and laboratories

took place under extremely complex wartime conditions. Many colleagues faced 

very difficult living conditions after returning from evacuation to the east. For 

example, Katya, our five-year-old son, and I were given a nine square meter room in 

a communal apartment on Novoslobodskaya Street with very unpleasant neighbors. 

Katya’s mother, Kseniya Timofeyevna, came to our rescue in the summer and took 

Valentin to stay with her in Udelnaya.

While Kostikov was still in charge, despite the war, the institute was granted 

the opportunity to begin building living quarters for its employees. After Kostikov 

was taken off the job, the Communist Party leadership at the institute was also 

revamped. While filling out my Party paperwork for my transfer to the institute 

from Khimki, I met the new VKP(b) Central Committee Party organizer, Ye. A. 

Shchennikov. During our conversation, I mentioned my unsettled living situation. 

In autumn 1944, he invited me for a talk, claiming that he wanted to study the 

work my sector was conducting. In the course of our conversation he mentioned 

that the institute was going to add three stories onto an old building on Korolenko 

Street in Sokolniki. In view of the very difficult housing shortage, there was no hope 

of getting a separate apartment in this building expansion, but I could expect to get 

half of a four-room apartment. For me this news was a gift. He gave me a second 

gift in asking if I would object if his family occupied the other half of the apartment. 

“Our families are evenly matched,” added Yevgeniy Abramovich. “We have three 

and you have three. Our sons are the same age.”

We moved into the new apartment practically simultaneously in February 1945. 

On 10 February, my family grew from three to four with the birth of our second 

son, who we named Mikhail. And although the Shchennikov family also grew, from 

1945 until 1958, we shared an apartment that didn’t have such basic amenities as a 

bathroom or even a shower. We only had cold water, a wood-burning stove for the 

first years, a single sink for washing in the kitchen, and a small communal toilet. 

Nevertheless, we not only maintained civil relations, but our wives and sons became 

friends and the friendship continued after living together for 13 years, when we 

moved to separate apartments in different areas of Moscow.

There were a lot of “critical” periods in RNII (NII-1)’s history. One of 

these was the summer of 1944. In my first book I mentioned Stalin’s correspondence 

with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill regarding studying German rocket 

technology left behind on the territory of the German firing range in Poland.15

15. Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1, pp. 258–259.

conditions during Kostikov’s ascent and acquired a lot of extremely scarce electronic 

measuring instruments. Having become the proprietor of multipurpose research 

equipment, he rendered invaluable assistance, introducing electronic measurement 

methods into the experimental and testing operations of the institute’s various fields 

of endeavor.

Shmulevich gave me a lot of help in getting on friendly terms with the old 

RNII-NII-3 personnel. He had started working there under NII-3’s first director, 

Kleymenov, who was later executed. He knew Langemak, Glushko, and Korolev, 

although he did not share his memories about his repressed colleagues. The atmosphere of fear that had been established in the NII-3 organization since 1937 had 

still not lifted. When Shmulevich died after getting hit by a car on the street under 

strange circumstances, it was a great blow for me.

L. A. Voskresenskiy and A. P. Pleshko, who had recently come on board at the 

institute, were the chiefs of hydraulic automatic controls laboratories. They had 

been developing all sorts of electrically controlled valves for engine power systems. 

Pleshko left the institute after Glushko began staffing his engine design bureau 

OKB-456 in Khimki after the war. R. I. Popov, A. I. Buzukov, and M. I. Sprinson 

had also come along with me to the institute from Factory No. 293 in Khimki. I 

made each of them a department chief. Roman Popov, a brilliant and talented radio 

engineer worked on a radio guidance system for a jet interceptor aircraft and a radio 

navigation system to bring it into the landing airfield. He was one of the first to 

begin developing the idea of radio control for an anti-aircraft guided missile. Popov 

was younger than I, but we became very good friends. I had faith in his talent, and 

he believed luck was on his side.

After Shmulevich’s mysterious death, an even heavier blow for me and the entire 

team was Roman Popov’s death. On 7 February 1945, he and a group of NII-1 colleagues and institute Director Fedorov were flying to the Western front to retrieve 

“trophy” materials captured at German firing ranges, including the remains of A4 

missiles and ground-based radio equipment. The airplane crashed while landing for 

a stopover near Kiev, and everyone on the plane was killed. The entire institute was 

in mourning. Once again the institute was headless.

I appointed V. N. Milshteyn head of the special department for the development of electrical measurement methods and instruments. I had persuaded him to 

transfer from NII-12, the institute of aircraft equipment. Milshteyn was a specialist 

not yet well versed in the fine points of rocket technology, but with a brilliant command of the theoretical bases of electrical engineering. Before long, having gained 

widespread recognition, he published a book on electrical measurement systems 

design and research methods.14 Milshteyn found allies among very young devotees 

of electrical measurements in researching many of the processes that occupied the 

institute’s very thematically motley collective.

14. V. N. Milshteyn, Energetishkiye sootnosheniya v elektroizmeritelnykh priborakh [Power Correlation 

in Electrical Measurement Instruments] (Moscow, 1960).
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development of rocket-related subject matter.17 The Ministry of Aviation Industry and its subordinate NII-1 proved to be off the beaten track of rocket technology development. Instead, the Ministry of Armaments took the leading role, even 

though aviation industry scientists were the best trained for this specific work.

As a result of the events described, Pilyugin, Mishin, Voskresenskiy, and I, as 

well as Korolev, who was part of NII-1, did not return to our old home, NII-1 (the 

former RNII), after we returned from Germany. Only Isayev’s team remained there 

for a brief period of time, but it too moved to NII-88 in 1948.

On 2 December 1946, a new NII-1 chief, the ninth since 1933, was appointed: 

the young (35 years old), recently elected (November 1946) Academician Mstislav 

Vsevolodovich Keldysh. Keldysh quickly got into the swing of things in the essentially shattered rocket organization. Exhibiting a firm will and formidable capacity 

for work, he had the knack for swaying even those who had lost perspective. He succeeded in overcoming the somber mood of the scientific employees that had been 

brought on by numerous reorganizations and in formulating the main principles 

for the institute’s work under the new conditions. He recommended that NII-1 be 

considered the head institute for liquid-propellant rocket engines and compressorless jet engines.

By 1948, the institute’s primary thematic focus included problems of gas dynamics and heat exchange, thermal characteristics of airborne vehicles and fundamental 

research in the fields of thermodynamics, combustion theory, and the theory of the 

stability of working processes in engines.

In 1954, the Soviet government issued two historic decrees, one for the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile at NII-88 in Korolev’s OKB and the 

other for intercontinental cruise missiles at the design bureaus of S. A. Lavochkin 

and V. M Myasishchev. Keldysh was appointed scientific director for the development of the intercontinental cruise missiles Burya (Storm) under Lavochkin and 

Buran (Snowstorm) under Myasishchev. An astronavigation system was the only 

thing that could provide flight control and navigation for these missiles. The astronavigation laboratory that I had set up in 1947 at NII-88 was moved to NII-1 to 

solve these problems. A special branch for the development of cruise missile control 

systems was also set up at the institute. R. G. Chachikyan, an experienced leader 

of aviation instrument construction was appointed branch chief. Former NII-88 

astronavigation laboratory chief I. M. Lisovich finally received the title and status 

of chief astronavigation system designer at Chachikyan’s design bureau. This design 

17. Author’s note: On 4 April 1946, aviation industry Minister Shakhurin was arrested and sentenced 

to seven years in prison. M. V. Khrunichev was appointed the new commissar. A Council of People’s 

Commissars decree dated 26 February 1946, entitled “On the Work of the People’s Commissariat 

of Aviation Industry” stated that the NKAP had “permitted a serious lag in the development of new 

aviation technology, and its leaders A. I. Shakhurin and P. V. Dementyev had showed short-sightedness 

and narrow-mindedness, failing to use all resources available to the aviation industry to solve the 

problems of new aviation technology.”

These remains of “trophy” rocket technology enabled us for the first time to assess 

the scale of operations in Germany.

Our familiarization with German achievements beginning in 1944, and reports 

about the rocket bombardment of London affected the mindset not only of the 

institute’s specialists, but also that of leaders of the Commissariat of Aviation Industry. On 30 October 1944, an order of the Council of People’s Commissars established the Main Directorate of Aviation Reactive Technology, also known as the 

18th Main Directorate of the Commissariat of Aviation Industry (NKAP). P. V. 

Dementyev was named chief of this new main directorate, serving simultaneously 

as the first deputy commissar.

During the first months after the end of the war, NII-1, the Commissariat of 

Aviation Industry leadership, and the nation’s high-ranking political leaders believed 

that all projects on reactive technology would be concentrated in the Commissariat 

of Aviation Industry system. However, aviation industry leaders, having assessed the 

prospects of jet aircraft, decided that they could not handle two fields of endeavor, 

jet aircraft and automated long-range missiles.

On July 1945, in a letter to Politburo member G. M. Malenkov, Commissar of 

Aviation Industry A. I. Shakhurin wrote:

“I am reporting to you the results of an investigation of the German scientific research 

institute of missile armaments in Peenemünde conducted by NII-1 deputy chief Professor 

G. N. Abramovich...

From the investigation materials it is evident that production work on V-2 and other 

types of rocket projectiles is artillery-related. Therefore, it is advisable to assign this work 

to the People’s Commissariat of Ammunition, after handing over to it all the equipment 

preserved in Peenemünde.”16

Fortunately for rocket technology, at that time Malenkov did not accept the 

proposal to transfer us to the ammunition agency.

At the initiative of interdepartmental commission chairman L. M. Gaydukov, on 

17 April 1946, Beriya, Malenkov, Bulganin, Vannikov, Ustinov, and Yakovlev signed 

and sent Stalin a memorandum on the topic of long-range missiles. Less than one 

month later, on 13 May 1946, the historic decree of the USSR Council of Ministers 

was composed, presenting a detailed program of the operations and duties of all the 

branches involved in developing rocket technology. This decree actually determined 

the birth of the Soviet Union’s missile and space industry. (See Chapter 1.)

Surprisingly, the leadership of the aviation industry rejected a leading role in the 

16. This letter that Chertok cites was first published in V. I. Ivkin, “Raketnoye nasledstvo fashistkoy 

germanii” [“The Rocket Contribution of Fascist Germany”], Voyenno-istoricheskiy zhurnal [MilitaryHistory Journal], no. 3 (1997): 31–41.
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memorandum to the government on this subject. The next year he was appointed 

chairman of a USSR Academy of Sciences special commission on artificial satellites. 

Later, Keldysh became chairman of expert commissions in all the space projects that 

required highly qualified evaluation.

After the launch of the first artificial satellite, Keldysh became an indispensable 

participant in the Council of Chiefs, although not all the issues discussed in the 

council required his involvement. More than once I had the occasion to observe 

during protracted meetings how Keldysh closed his eyes and withdrew into himself. 

Everyone figured that Keldysh had dozed off, but few knew his amazing ability in 

this somnolent state to take the necessary information into his consciousness. To 

everyone’s surprise, he would suddenly toss out a retort or ask a question that “hit 

the nail on the head.” It turned out that Keldysh had caught all the interesting information and his interjection assisted in making the best decision.

Right after the launch of the first artificial satellites, at Keldysh’s initiative our 

work turned to tracking the flights of spacecraft and predicting their orbits. At 

OPM they established a small but very capable group, which for the first time developed a computerized procedure for determining orbits. Group members included 

Okhotsimskiy and Eneyev (who would later become Russian Academy of Sciences 

academicians), Beletskiy, Yegorov, Lidov, and others. The ballistics computing center 

that was soon created on the basis of this work collaborated closely with the Ministry of Defense NII-4 spaceflight operations facility and with the ballistics experts 

of our OKB-1 and NII-88. Later this cooperation evolved into a system of Soviet 

spaceflight operations centers receiving general information from the ground-based 

Command and Measurement Complex managed by the Ministry of Defense. A 

coalition of these centers under Keldysh’s scientific and procedural leadership participated in all the ballistics design operations and in operations for the ballistics and 

navigational support of lunar and planetary exploration. Okhotsimskiy at OPM, 

Elyasberg and Tyulin at the NII-4 computer center, and Lavrov and Appazov at 

OKB-1 developed methods and programs to determine the optimal launch dates, 

total control errors, and optimal conditions for correcting flight trajectory via radio 

transmissions to the spacecraft.

Keldysh’s staff bore as much responsibility for the computation results related to 

orbital correction and prediction of spacecraft trajectories as their colleagues did at 

NII-4 and OKB-1. In this case, collective responsibility did not lead to irresponsibility. The ballistics experts always covered for each other.

With Keldysh’s consent and support, in 1954, future Academician Rauschenbach assembled a small group at NII-1 that began to develop a satellite stabilization 

and attitude control system. Two of the first to join this team were MVTU graduate 

Viktor Legostayev and member of the first graduating class of the Moscow Physics 

and Technical Institute (MFTI) Yevgeniy Tokar. In 1956, Keldysh approved the first 

basic report by Rauschenbach and Tokar entitled “An Active Stabilization System 

bureau produced the first real and flight-tested astronavigation system for the Burya 

cruise missile.

During the development of the R-7 missile, NII-1 was tasked with ensuring process stability in liquid-oxygen rocket engines, conducting research on gas dynamics, 

heat exchange, and thermal protection of the nose cones (jointly with the Physics 

and Technical Institute and NII-88) and developing methods and equipment for 

measuring pressure pulsations in engines.

I revere Keldysh’s memory because I am indebted to him that my proposed idea 

for using astronavigation to control missiles was not stifled by bureaucrats. Still 

director at NII-1, Keldysh headed the Department of Applied Mathematics (OPM) 

at the Steklov Mathematics Institute of the Academy of Sciences. This department 

was actively involved in the development of problems of missile dynamics and ballistics and research on the theory of flight and the orbital tracking of the first artificial satellites and interplanetary flight programs. Keldysh’s extensive network of 

interests allowed him to lend support to Rauschenbach’s idea to develop attitude 

control systems for spacecraft right at NII-1.

Keldysh’s scope of interests was extraordinarily broad. At his initiative, long 

before the first satellite launch, fundamental research had been conducted on the 

mechanics of spaceflight and on analyzing and selecting the optimal configurations 

for staged rockets. These operations helped our designers in the final selection of the 

cluster configuration for the R-7 rocket. For the first time, NII-1 and OPM jointly 

studied what was for us the extremely important influence of shifting fluid in missile tanks on the processes of stabilization and control. The work of NII-1 in 1958 

to escape the “resonance dead-end” contributed to the subsequent rapprochement 

of Korolev and Keldysh. By that time Keldysh was respected not only as a scientist, 

but also as a very capable science organizer who had that practical grasp sometimes 

lacking in theoreticians who think only in the abstract.

Examining the proposals for new flying vehicles, Keldysh always considered their 

feasibility. He already had a wealth of experience collaborating with industry and 

understood very well that any proposal he made regarding the creation of a fundamentally new cruise or ballistic missile required the participation of dozens of 

scientific-research institutes, design bureaus, and plants and tremendous organizational work. Keldysh viewed Korolev as a man who would deliver him from the 

most difficult organizational engineering concerns. He considered his own task to 

be basic research and the organization of scientific teams that would generate ideas. 

His were top-notch ideas. When a proposal originated in the form of a report or 

other document with Keldysh’s signature on it, it emerged as a result of strict analysis, thorough calculations, and the most nit-picking deliberations in seminars and 

scientific-technical councils.

In 1954, together with Korolev and Tikhonravov, Keldysh put forth a proposal 

for the development of an artificial satellite and participated in the preparation of a 
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Rauschenbach, Legostayev, and Tokar gradually increased the ranks of 

their task force, screening personnel thoroughly. Tokar, who would later 

become a professor and prominent authority in the field of mechanics and gyroscopic systems theory, acted as personnel officer. He selected staff according to the 

strict principle that he needed smart, enterprising people, not obedient ones. Thus, 

Vladimir Branets, Dmitriy Knyazev, Boris Skotnikov, Anatoliy Patsiora, Yevgeniy 

Bashkin, Igor Shmyglevskiy, Ernest Gaushus, Vadim Nikolayev, Larisa Komarova, 

Aleksey Yeliseyev, Vladimir Semyachkin, and many others ended up in the task 

force and later in Rauschenbach’s department.

The team that had assembled at NII-1 with Keldysh as its patron, did not know 

what insurmountable design, production, and organizational difficulties it would 

need to overcome in order to create a reliable flying vehicle control system; to do 

this, the team would have to use the academic works of classic automatic control 

theory and the experience of missile guidance systems that had actually been developed. Simply and unpretentiously, they proposed and developed spacecraft attitude 

control systems proceeding from the basic laws of mechanics, electrical engineering, 

and optics. In those days, the developers of control systems loved to boast about 

the extraordinary complexity of their instruments and the very difficult engineering 

processes and to show off their wealth of laboratory equipment, never missing the 

opportunity to reiterate how insufficient it was for new challenges!

At first, what Rauschenbach’s task force had proposed required meticulous theoretical study and painstaking calculations. But, for all of this, in the end the proposal 

looked extraordinarily simple. However, it took Keldysh’s initiative and Korolev’s 

will for all of this to be implemented rapidly and at the proper technical level. In 

the following example I would like to show how remarkably they complemented 

one another.

In January 1958, Keldysh personally sent Korolev a letter stamped “secret,” in 

which he wrote that the successful launch of two artificial satellites would enable 

them to move on to solving the problem of sending a rocket to the Moon. This 

letter proposed just two scenarios:

1. Hitting the Moon’s visible surface. When the spacecraft reaches the Moon’s surface 

an explosion takes place that can be observed from Earth. One or more launches can be 

conducted without an explosion, using telemetry equipment to record the rocket’s movement toward the Moon and to confirm that it hit.

2. A lunar fly-by, photographing its dark side and transmitting images to Earth. 

It is proposed that images be transmitted to the Earth via television when the rocket 

approaches Earth. Returning observation materials to Earth is a more difficult task. Its 

solution cannot yet be worked out.

Accomplishing the aforementioned tasks requires overcoming a number of serious 

technical difficulties.19

This passage was followed by a detailed list of tasks that had to be solved to overcome these difficulties. In conclusion Keldysh wrote that, “Working very strenu19. The original was published as “O zapuske rakety na lunu” [“On the Launch of a Rocket to the 

Moon”], pp. 241–243.

for an Artificial Satellite of the Earth.”18 In this treatise, the authors conceptualized 

quite specific equipment, analyzed the difficulties of accomplishing the objective, 

and presented proposals that would subsequently form the basis for spacecraft control systems design and that still have not lost their relevance to this day.

Our designers Maksimov and Ryazanov, who worked for Tikhonravov, inherited 

the concepts presented in this report. Tikhonravov reported to Korolev, and they 

both decided to support this initiative; for the time being, however, they did not 

involve me, my powerful design team, or the instrument production facility at my 

disposal. Nor did they involve our colleagues Pilyugin and Kuznetsov, who had at 

their disposal engineering capabilities for realizing any new ideas in metal and electronics on a wholly different scale than NII-1.

Perhaps they did the right thing. Small independent groups or small laboratories not burdened by ties to the cumbersome structures of production giants and 

a multitude of day-to-day headaches, not watched over from above with constant 

control of deadlines, schedules, and all manner of indices of socialist competition, 

were sometimes capable of creating technical innovations within fantastically short 

periods of time. In so doing, they were able to implement ideas that would have 

been rejected in a large firm based on the principle “we can’t do this because it can 

never be done.” In the best case they would say: “We can do this, but to do this we 

need a government decree to build a special building, to obtain the right to increase 

manpower, to install 30 more telephones with access to the Moscow automatic telephone exchange, to obtain five more service vehicles and a certificate of domicile 

quota for at least a hundred persons in Moscow and Leningrad.”

We called such a list “the standard gentleman’s assortment,” which in various 

versions usually accompanied the Central Committee and Council of Ministers 

draft decrees for the production of new models of military technology as an attachment. Omnipotent clerks in the upper echelons of power thoroughly edited the 

government’s draft decrees. Part of their task was to issue the text of the decree in 

a form so that all the projects were concisely entered according to deadlines and 

specific administrators with a minimum number of attachments granting material 

support, which we called “hay” (seno-soloma). When the next decree came out, the 

administrators were primarily interested in what remained of the “hay.” Bitter disappointment set in when they realized that the work had been allotted and assigned, 

but the “hay” had been thrown out. It was impossible to search out those directly 

responsible for editing out the “hay” from the text of the decree. The powers-that-be 

knew how to keep their corporate secrets.

18. This report that Chertok cites has been published as M. V. Keldysh, B. V. Rauschenbach, 

and Ye. N. Tokar, “Ob aktivnoy sistemye stabilizatsii iskusstvennogo sputnika zemli” [“An Active 

Stabilization System for an Artificial Satellite of the Earth”] in V. S. Avduyevskiy and T. M. Eneyev, 

eds., M. V. Keldysh: izbrannyye trudy: raketnaya tekhnika i kosmonavtika [M. V. Keldysh: Selected Works: 

Rocket Technology and Cosmonautics] (Moscow: Nauka, 1988), pp. 198–234.
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ception, was supposed to point the cameras and television equipment at the far side 

of the Moon.

Rauschenbach told us about these principles. Bashkin and Knyazev, two engineers 

who already had production experience, demonstrated the operation of solar and 

lunar orientation sensors using simulators. The dramatic actuation of the “whooshing” pneumatic gas-reaction nozzles was supposed to impress the guests. Knyazev 

and his assistants fidgeted with the high-pressure tanks, opening and closing something. Compressed air was whistling out of a leaky connection somewhere—the 

inevitable “visit effect” had kicked in. But on the whole the demonstration went 

well.

Keldysh was very pleased. Korolev said, “The system needs to be refined. I am 

ready to help with production. But hurry. We need to receive everything and get set 

up at our facility this year. If you need assistance, Chertok and Bushuyev here are 

the guys to turn to. If they can’t help, call me personally.” He didn’t praise, but made 

demands and assigned tasks; such behavior had a mobilizing effect, and people 

understood that everything was ready and now it was all up to them.

On the trip back Korolev was very animated. “I like these guys. If we help them, 

they’ll do it. We need to pick them up [for our own design bureau]. But, Boris, I 

can’t trust them to you[r management]. You’ll probably leak it to your friend Pilyugin, and the two of you will start to prove that nothing will come of these craftsmen. 

I can’t hand them over to Pilyugin either. They’ll smother them there or switch to 

other things. But if we take them on, then we can let them be with Kostya [Bushuyev] to begin with. He doesn’t understand instruments and won’t bother them. But 

you, Boris, are going to support them with your KB, electricians, production, and 

experience. After all, they are still quite green.” I was about to protest, but Bushuyev 

gave me a shove and said, “Sergey Pavlovich, Chertok and I amicably agree. But in 

order to transfer them, we need to look into how many apartments will be needed 

in Podlipki. If they don’t get living quarters, then eventually they’ll run off or they 

simply won’t come here.”

In the end, our visit to NII-1 had far-reaching consequences; it influenced 

Rauschenbach’s fate and that of his team. In early 1960, a special government decree 

transferred Rauschenbach’s entire group from NII-1 to OKB-1. Many were provided 

with living quarters, despite the obvious displeasure of the local union authorities, 

who had a waiting list of more than 1,000 people in need of housing.

The OKB-1 organization had a wealth of engineers, among them vibrant 

personalities. It gave me great pleasure to associate with these people. Working with 

this group was difficult precisely because they were not docile. They worked furiously, passionately, and selflessly.

In the ensuing years I had a great deal of contact with all of them in complex 

situations working nonstop on new problems, during days spent investigating serious failures, and during hours of triumph. They not only knew how to work but 

also how to have fun in skits, to publish hilarious newsletters, and to surround 

ously and with constant help on all fronts, the development, design, and construction of a lunar rocket could be completed within the next two to three years.”

Corroborated by fundamental theoretical research, Keldysh’s intuition abruptly 

accelerated the practical implementation of new ideas thanks to Korolev’s enthusiasm. The timeframe outlined in Keldysh’s letter didn’t frighten Korolev. The first 

test launches attempting a direct hit on the Moon’s visible surface began in 1958. In 

September 1959 a direct hit took place, and in October we obtained photographs 

of the far side of the Moon.

Scrupulous historians can argue who is more prominent in the development of 

the first lunar programs. To me, such research is purely academic in nature. Beyond 

Keldysh and Korolev, many dozens more scientists and engineers collaborated closely 

with one another, ardently deliberated all conceivable options, and exchanged ideas 

unselfishly without giving a thought to their future fame. Therefore, the prominence of an idea in this case cannot be prescribed to a single individual, not even to 

the great Korolev or Keldysh.

And so—returning to the beginning of this chapter—at Keldysh’s invitation, Korolev and I drove from Podlipki to Likhobory. As we were driving along in 

Korolev’s ZIM automobile, I found myself musing and reminiscing about working at 

NII-1. The previous time I was at that institute was to process papers for my transfer 

to NII-88 more than 10 years before, after returning from Germany. Korolev hadn’t 

even been there since 1938, for over 20 years! What feelings were coming over him 

now that we were about to enter the building that for him was associated with those 

years of frustrated hopes and life’s tragedies? Usually, in the car, Korolev didn’t waste 

time and when he was traveling with one of his deputies; he discussed current issues 

or asked him to liven things up with some funny story. This time he sat next to the 

driver, lost in his own thoughts, without turning around.

At that time there was not yet an overpass over the complex tangle of railroad 

lines near the Severyanin platform, and we were delayed for a long time at the crossing gate. This wasn’t the first time I’d ridden with Korolev, and during long waits at 

this crossing, he always used to express his indignation in colorful terms when they 

announced over the railroad loudspeaker, “Train on the belt line.” After this message 

came the next one, “Train bound for Moscow,” and then again, “Train on the belt 

line.” It was hard to maintain one’s composure and not glance at one’s watch. This 

time Korolev was silent and pretended to snooze.

Only when we approached NII-1 did he snap to and direct our attention to the 

well-preserved inscription on the façade of the main building, which announced, 

“All-Union Institute of Agricultural Machine Building.” “Look, this masquerade is 

still going on,” he said. “They took this building away from agriculture long ago but 

left the sign. And now, evidently, they won’t allow Keldysh to remove it.”

Keldysh met our group very cordially and immediately led us to Rauschenbach’s 

laboratory. Here, laid out on simple tables, were functioning mock-ups of the attitude control system for the automatic unit, which, according to the designers’ con-
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476

themselves with a feeling of good humor at the right place and the right time. 

The transfer of Rauschenbach’s group was one of the events that to a great extent 

determined the future success of Soviet cosmonautics. The other was the merger of 

Vasiliy Grabin’s organization with OKB-1.
Chapter 27

The Great Merger

In March 1959, after assembling his closest deputies, Korolev informed us of Ustinov’s proposal to annex the neighboring TsNII-58 to OKB-1. Territorially, railroad 

tracks were all that separated us. Ustinov gave us just three days to mull it over. 

Ustinov’s proposal put an end to all of Korolev’s complaints to the government 

and ministry about the need to significantly strengthen the production base and 

increase the staffing of engineering and design units at our OKB-1. I recall that at 

this time Dmitriy Ustinov was not simply a minister, but a Council of Ministers 

deputy chairman as well as chairman of the Commission on Military-Industrial 

Issues under the USSR Council of Ministers. S.P. went on to discuss this unexpected 

and very attractive proposal; but first, having thoroughly prepared himself, he read 

the memorandum aloud, accompanying its dry text with his own comments.

The Central Artillery Design Bureau (TsAKB) was created in Podlipki in 1942.1

At the time of its formation, Vasiliy Gavrilovich Grabin was the KB head and its 

chief designer. In 1945, TsAKB attained scientific-research institute status, after 

which it was called the Central Scientific-Research Institute for Artillery Armaments 

(TsNIIAV).2 After the Ministry of Armaments was transformed into the Ministry 

of Defense Industry, TsNIIAV was renamed NII-58, and beginning in 1956, it was 

called Central Scientific-Research Institute-58 (TsNII-58).3 The personnel of the 

chief designer’s department at Factory No. 92 (or Novoye sormovo) in Gorky formed 

the primary creative nucleus of TsAKB. For a long time the plant director was Amo 

Sergeyevich Yelyan.

At our meeting, Korolev turned to Turkov: “Roman Anisimovich, you must 

know Yelyan well.4 Is he the one who was director of KB-1 by the Sokol metro station?”

1. TsAKB—Tsentralnoye artilleriyskoye konstruktorskoye byuro.

2. TsNIIAV—Tsentralniy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut artilleriyskogo vooruzheniya.

3. In 1953, the Ministry of Armaments (which oversaw the main rocketry institute, NII-88) was 

renamed the Ministry of Defense Industry.

4. Roman Anisimovich Turkov was the director of the experimental factory attached to Korolev’s 

OKB-1.

477
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them for good reason,” commented Korolev.

Grabin’s design bureau designed 13 types of division, tank, and antitank ordnance at Factory No. 92 and then in Podlipki at TsAKB. During the war years, the 

ZIS-3 division gun was the most famous and largest. The fire power of the legendary T-34 tank came from Grabin’s tank guns. While arming our tanks with guns, 

Grabin also developed antitank guns. Antitank artillery was armed with 57- and 

100-mm guns, the latter of which artillerymen called zveroboy (hunter). This gun 

pierced the armor of the heavy German Tiger and Panther tanks and the Ferdinand 

self-propelled gun.7 Beyond successful weapons designs, the introduction and use of 

so-called “rational technology” into mass or “gross” output also contributed to the 

successes of Grabin’s organization.

“I must admit,” said Turkov, “that Grabin’s revolutionary proposals were sometimes opposed by plant directors and higher-ranking managers.”

During the postwar years Grabin worked on automatic antiaircraft guns. In 

1953, the 76-mm gun with a rate of fire of 100 rounds per minute was put into 

service in the air defense forces.

“Imagine,” interrupted Korolev, “One hundred rounds a minute, and that caliber to boot! When something went wrong with the production of this gun at the 

Krasnoyarsk Factory, Stalin ordered the arrest of Marshal Yakovlev and GAU Chief 

Volkotrubenko. Thank God, they are now free.”8

Turkov again interrupted and cautiously pointed out that Yakovlev, Volkotrubenko, and a number of other prominent managers were arrested on charges of 

sabotage, specifically the massive failure of automatic antiaircraft guns of Grabin’s 

design during the Korean War. But Stalin didn’t touch Grabin and Ustinov.

According to Turkov, Grabin was unquestionably a very talented designer and 

at the same time a splendid production engineer. He was also a very commanding, 

tough, strong-willed leader. His knowledge of production was brilliant. Back before 

the war, Grabin was the first to propose a fast-track method of design, technological 

support, and production. He boldly made what were sometimes very risky decisions. Even before the war, Stalin considered Grabin the highest authority on artillery technology. But while Stalin was alive, Grabin showed a blatant disregard for 

Ustinov. Referring to numerous friends and acquaintances from his days working 

in artillery production, Turkov confirmed that Ustinov would not forgive such an 

attitude toward him.

Both Grabin and Ustinov were obliged to Stalin for their high military ranks. 

7. The Tiger and Panther tanks were two of the best-known and most effective tanks used by the 

Germans during World War II. The Ferdinand was a huge armored and mobile self-propelled gun that 

was outwardly similar to the Tiger.

8. Artillery Marshal Nikolay Dmitriyevich Yakovlev (deputy minister of defense) and ColonelGeneral Ivan Ivanovich Volkotrubenko (chief of the Main Artillery Directorate) were arrested in 

December 1951 on trumped up charges of obstructing the production of armaments. They were 

released in April 1953 by Lavrentiy Beriya after Stalin’s death.

“He’s the one,” answered Turkov. “During the war he and Grabin started a 

revolution in artillery production technology in Gorky. Stalin decorated them for 

good reason. Grabin’s famous 76-mm cannons helped defeat the Germans outside 

Moscow; they were designed on a fast track, preparing for production at the same 

time. During the war there were more Grabin cannons at the front than any other 

model, and it was primarily Yelyan’s plant that sent them to the front.”

When Turkov digressed from the current cares of rocket production and reminisced about the heroic days of the wartime artillery factories, he smiled warmly. He 

could go on and on about extraordinary episodes during the production of cannons 

in wartime, underscoring that “Yes, in our time there were people ... Bogatyri, not 

like you.5”

We had great respect for Turkov. At our plant he enjoyed quite well-deserved 

prestige among the workers and managers. Only various swindlers, schemers, and 

slackers disliked him because of his honesty, candor, and integrity. Korolev did 

not make any decisions concerning the plant without Turkov’s approval; each of 

Korolev’s deputies strove to work in close contact with Turkov. From wartime artillery production he brought his experience of working in a single creative surge that 

went from project conception to design to process development to production to 

testing.

We all went crawling to Roman Anisimovich when, after discovering a design 

error, we had to make modifications or even stop manufacturing “articles.” In such 

cases, Turkov, studying the causes and need for the changes in great depth, sought a 

compromise with the developers and shop managers that would enable the changes 

to be made with a minimum slippage of the deadlines. The very process of seeking a solution in what would seem a dead-end situation in production gave him 

pleasure. Once he confessed, “If designers don’t suddenly make changes at the very 

last moment, it means they’ve overlooked something. This always makes me suspicious.”

Korolev continued reading, and we found out that, in addition to awards, Grabin 

achieved high military ranks for developing artillery weapons systems in the prewar 

years and during the war. At that time, he was a Colonel-General.6 Before World 

War II he was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor; through his life, he received 

the Stalin prize four times and the Order of Lenin four times, as well as many 

other awards. Grabin’s organization was also awarded the Order of Lenin. In late 

1948, the total work force at TsNII-58 exceeded 5,000, of which more than 1,500 

were engineers. Among the engineers and workers, many were awarded orders and 

medals, and Grabin’s closest associates also received Stalin prizes. “And they received 

5. A Bogatyr is a legendary figure in Russian folklore comparable to fairy-tale knights or the 

mythical American Paul Bunyan.

6. This rank is roughly equivalent to a U.S. four-star general, that is, above a “Lieutenant-General” 

and on level with a full “General” in the U.S. Army.
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plemented the information that Korolev read from his memo with details from 

these publications and other sources.

In 1954, NII-58 did not receive production assignments worthy of its capabilities from its own ministry. Before the war, Grabin had developed good relations 

with the commissar of armaments at that time, Boris Lvovich Vannikov. Now in 

1954, Vannikov was first deputy minister of medium machine building, in actuality deputy chief of the nuclear empire. Grabin appealed to Vannikov, requesting an 

engineering assignment worthy of his organization. A government decree tasked 

NII-58 with designing and manufacturing a fast neutron reactor with liquid-metal 

coolant and a 5,000-kW output for the Physics and Technical Institute in the city 

of Obninsk.11 USSR Academy of Sciences Corresponding Member Aleksandr Ilich 

Leypunskiy was appointed scientific consultant. All the work for the reactor was 

completed on time. Moreover, one of Grabin’s cannon designers was among those 

awarded a Lenin prize for the nuclear reactor!

After such successes in the nuclear field, Vannikov proposed that Grabin transfer 

from the Ministry of the Defense Industry to the Ministry of Medium Machine 

Building. However, when the government decision on this matter was issued, 

Council of Ministers Deputy Chairman Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich Malyshev, who 

was also minister of medium machine building, appointed Academician Anatoliy 

Petrovich Aleksandrov, who was Kurchatov’s deputy at the Institute of Atomic 

Energy, to be the new NII-58 director. Aleksandrov occupied Grabin’s office, while 

his (Grabin’s) deputy Renne made room for the colonel-general. It is now difficult 

to say who actually initiated such a blow to the great designer’s ego. One can only 

assume that Malyshev did this with Ustinov’s approval.

Once again Korolev digressed from his notes and commented:

“All the same, good for Kurchatov. He got such resources from the artillerymen! 

And after all, they’re making those reactors and even sent them to Egypt, Hungary, 

and who know where else. Look, Kostya,” S.P. turned to Bushuyev, “If this incredible proposal goes through, you’ll be making spacecraft there instead of fast-neutron 

reactors and all sorts of ordnance!”

The all-knowing Turkov again supplemented Korolev’s words with details that 

embellished the dry memorandum. After occupying Grabin’s office, Aleksandrov 

started the very rigorous process of restructuring NII-58 from an artillery enterprise 

to a nuclear technology research and development facility. He hired many new specialists in nuclear physics, measurement technology, and automation. He recruited 

dozens of graduates from the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute (MIFI), the 

11. The first Soviet nuclear power plant to provide energy (mainly electricity) for civilian purposes 

was opened in the town of Obninsk, about 100 kilometers southwest of Moscow, in June 1954. One 

of the largest scientific-research networks dedicated to the study of atomic energy is now located at 

Obninsk.

Stalin first noticed Grabin in 1935 during an inspection of artillery ordnance and 

since then rendered him effective patronage, was very receptive toward Grabin’s 

new proposals, and appreciated what were for those times revolutionary moves to 

restructure the ordnance design and production process. During the prewar and 

war years, Grabin, who held the chief designer post at an artillery plant, was Stalin’s “unofficial” consultant. At Stalin’s initiative, Grabin was brought in to develop 

designs for the selection, acceptance, and production startup of field artillery ordnance and tank guns.

As for Ustinov, Stalin first became acquainted with him right before the war, 

having appointed him to the high post of commissar of armaments at Andrey 

Zhdanov’s recommendation to replace the disgraced Boris Lvovich Vannikov, who 

was arrested at the behest of the same Zhdanov.9 Ustinov was asked to set up the 

mass production of armaments, probably the most difficult task for the first years 

of the war. The wartime difficulties increased when the Moscow and Leningrad factories were evacuated to the east. Ustinov, who was in charge of all artillery plants, 

was obliged to carry out Stalin’s decisions. There were no discussions; he staked his 

life on the quantity and dates of delivery to the army of all types of artillery armament.

During the war, factories of the Commissariat of Armaments headed by Ustinov 

produced 490,000 artillery pieces of all calibers and mortars, of which 188,000 

were artillery pieces. Of this number, more than 100,000 were produced in the 

city of Gorky, where Grabin was the chief designer and Yelyan was the director. 

Another 30,000 field artillery pieces were manufactured at other factories using 

chief designer Grabin’s designs and technical documentation. Specialists, including 

Germans, rated the ZIS-3 division gun as an engineering masterpiece.

The memorandum that Korolev read to us, and Turkov’s reminiscences 

were new and interesting information for those gathered there in Korolev’s office. 

However, it was not until much later that I learned the details of the stirring story 

of the postwar career of the very colorful Grabin. Jumping ahead, I will say that I 

worked over 30 years in that very office where Grabin worked as chief of TsNII-58, 

and until 2004, my work station was located in the engineering building, which in 

1942 was the first home for Grabin’s TsAKB.

Three books were published between 2000 and 2002 that recovered the undeservedly forgotten role of Grabin and his organization during the war.10 I have sup9. Boris Lvovich Vannikov (1897–1962), who would go on to an illustrious career as one of the 

senior managers of the Soviet atomic bomb program, was briefly arrested and incarcerated at the 

beginning of World War II in 1941–42. He had been minister of armaments at the time of his arrest.

10. V. G. Grabin, Oruzhiye pobedy, izd. 2-ye, ispr. [Weapons of Victory, 2nd ed.] (Moscow: 

Respublika, 2000); A. P. Khudyakov, V. Grabin i mastera pushechnogo dela [V. Grabin and Masters of 

Ordnance] (Moscow: Patriot, 2000); A. B. Shirokorad, Geniy sovetskoy artilleriy: triumf i tragediya V. 

Grabina [Genius of Soviet Artillery: The Triumph and Tragedy of V. Grabin] (Moscow: AST, 2002).
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he would terminate all contracts to Grabin’s organization and put it at Korolev’s 

disposal. Khrushchev, who was very keen on developing missile weapons at the cost 

of conventional artillery and aircraft, would certainly support this proposal. He 

promised to help Korolev and instructed Ustinov to prepare a proposal to this effect. 

Ustinov did not like to procrastinate. There were also other alternative ideas on the 

fate of TsNII-58 and of Grabin, so time was of essence. Therefore, he gave Korolev 

just three days to mull it over.

And that’s how the situation stood when Korolev was reading his memo 

to us at the meeting in March 1959. “What are we going to do?” asked Korolev. 

The proposal was not a surprise. There had been talk of merging the enterprises 

before. With no trouble at all, we would immediately get specialists with ready 

workstations and workers with machine tools and a large, well-tuned operation with 

all the auxiliary services.

Grabin’s production facilities were equipped with unique, state-of-the-art 

machine tools. Grabin was also a lot better off than our factory in terms of the 

scarcest and most sought after professional machine operators. He knew each skilled 

worker personally. When Grabin visited the main production shops and meetings and spoke with foremen and workers right at their machine tools stations, he 

was not condescendingly showing his democratic nature, but rather engaging in a 

custom from the war years that he considered a vital requirement for efficient work. 

Still young, resourceful, and healthy at the time, he proved that it was possible to 

develop new artillery system designs in three to four months instead of the usual 

two to three years.

After a pause, the veteran Turkov took the floor once again. He reiterated that he 

valued Grabin’s wartime contribution very highly. Grabin was a distinguished individual and strong organizer. His team loved and respected him and regarded him as 

more than just a boss. For the artillerymen he was a real “chief designer.” If we took 

on the role of aggressors who had taken advantage of a situation, that is, Ustinov’s 

settling of old scores with Grabin, it would be dishonest and would generate hostility toward us among his staff.

Korolev understood all this very well himself. Everyone agreed with Turkov and 

decided that in response to Ustinov, S. P. should announce that he was prepared to 

comply with the decree, but on the condition that, first, under no circumstances 

would it contain wording such as “accept the proposal of Chief Designer Korolev” 

or anything along those lines and, second, Grabin’s fate should be decided with 

consideration of all of his merits.

When the meeting was over, after dismissing everyone, S.P. asked Bushuyev and 

me to stay. “So here’s the deal, my dear boys.” This form of address indicated he was 

in a good mood and was feeling very confident. “I hardly know Grabin at all. I’ve 

just met him at municipal conferences a couple of times. I simply feel sorry for him 

as a person. To lose such a job and such a team after so many years! After all, around 

here they have a knack for forgetting a person right away and trampling him. I 

primary facility for training specialists in the field of nuclear technology.12 During 

Aleksandrov’s administration, NII-58 was restructured for the series production of 

nuclear reactors at a rate typical of wartime ordnance production. The old Grabin 

staff together with the newly arrived young nuclear specialists developed the first 

monitoring and automatic control system for the new reactors. Integrating nuclear 

science specialists’ experience with artillery technology proved very fruitful.

I heard about the events involving Grabin’s struggle to regain his directorship 

much later. Back in 1959, it was known that the collective appeals of many distinguished artillerymen to the Party Central Committee, and to Khrushchev personally, resulted in a new decree. In early 1956, NII-58 was transferred from the Ministry of Medium Machine Building back to the Ministry of Defense Industry. At the 

same time, the institute was renamed, not simply as an NII, but Central NII-58 (or 

TsNII-58). Grabin was appointed director and chief designer of TsNII-58 and Aleksandrov, his deputy. By this time Aleksandrov did not want to be a deputy to the 

imperious Grabin, and he returned to his old Atomic Energy Institute to work for 

Kurchatov. TsNII-58 continued to design both ordnance and new nuclear reactors.

Ustinov hadn’t forgiven Grabin for snubbing him in days gone by. And despite 

regaining his post, Grabin didn’t change his attitude toward Ustinov either. “I 

heard,” Turkov related, “that when Ustinov paid an unannounced visit to TsNII-58 

and went straight to the production site, Grabin didn’t meet with him. He stayed in 

his office despite the fact that the minister of armaments was familiarizing himself 

with production.”

This behavior was in stark contrast to the deferential receptions that we had held 

for Ustinov right next door on the other side of the railroad tracks at NII-88 since 

Gonor’s time and now under Korolev. Ustinov’s relationship with Korolev was also 

far from smooth. Under Stalin, Korolev never contradicted Ustinov. Now, under 

Khrushchev, Korolev’s prestige had increased immeasurably after the successes in 

space. Khrushchev also often turned directly to him as Stalin had turned earlier to 

Grabin.

But Korolev was much more cautious. He always reported all that was necessary 

to Ustinov and would ask, if only pro forma, for his advice. Ustinov reckoned that if 

he was going to support anybody, then better that it be Korolev than Chelomey, the 

new rising star in the missile and space industry. Chelomey enjoyed Khrushchev’s 

support and, like Grabin, also blatantly refused to acknowledge Ustinov’s authority.

In 1959, Ustinov was presented with a very convenient opportunity to kill two 

birds with one stone. He could finally settle the score for all of Grabin’s insults, showing him once and for all “who was who,” and satisfy Korolev’s urgent and justified 

demands for the expansion of his design and production facilities. In other words, 

12. MIFI—Moskovskiy inzhenerno-fizicheskiy institut.
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it was that same all-knowing Lelyanov—said to us: “Take note of the furniture 

in Grabin’s office. It was produced in government furniture workshops that were 

housed in the Butyrskaya prison on Stalin’s personal instructions.”

The walls of Grabin’s office were painted from top to bottom with a profusion 

of climbing plants, their stems abundant with leaves and huge pale lilac flowers. We 

scrutinized this mural later. The artist depicted some sort of hybrid of liana, lotus, 

lilacs, and magnolias. Presumably the artist intended for our host and all who visited 

his office to feel like they were in a garden. The plaster molding that decorated the 

ceiling around its entire perimeter and the elegant light fixtures with bronze hanging chandeliers were also unusual. Pilasters with gilded scrolled capitals supported 

the ceiling.

The architectural and artistic style of the office contrasted with the visage of its 

owner. He was not the least bit interested in Bushuyev’s speech, and for him, our 

very visit was the result of someone’s arm-twisting. Most likely it was a phone call 

from the Central Committee office. He already knew that there “at the top” Ustinov 

had arranged everything and it wouldn’t be long before a Central Committee and 

Council of Ministers decree would appear that would be the kiss of death for his 

career. They would euphemistically propose some post in the Ministry of Defense, 

in the so-called “heavenly group.” Such a group had been instituted for marshals and 

high-ranking generals who went into retirement due to age or who had fallen out 

of favor with the Communist Party leadership.14 Now he would have to say farewell 

to the team he had gone through the war with, that he had done so much for, say 

farewell to the design halls with the drafting tables on which drawings of the new 

assemblies were tacked, to the production bays and their inimitable machine smell, 

the humming machine tools, the foreman and shop chief rushing to meet him...

Rudnev, minister and chairman of the State Committee of Defense Technology, 

signed the order for merging TsNII-58 with OKB-1 in June 1959. Grabin convened 

the managerial staff and leading specialists in the “red hall” and appealed to them 

with a testimonial speech.

“I believe,” he said, “that the right decision has been made. The question about 

our future fate was posed long ago, and now it has been resolved correctly. Your fate 

is very important to me. I believe that out of all the possible scenarios in this plan, 

reunification with our neighbor is the best. Don’t ever forget that you are Grabinites. We have traveled a path of glory together, and we can face our nation with a 

clean conscience. I instruct you to work so that our traditions will never under any 

circumstances be lost.”

This was Grabin’s last speech. After giving it, he left the premises never to return. 

I have reproduced the speech from the words of someone who attended this farewell 

14. This level of position was called the “Inspectorate” of the Ministry of Defense. Officially it 

was at a senior level but technically, former high-ranking officials in the Inspectorate had little or no 

authority.

know from my own experience. I don’t need to explain this to you. They’ve probably 

already told Grabin that Korolev wants to take away everything and bar him from 

entering the premises. Uncle Mitya [Ustinov] will be seen as innocent while I will 

be the bad guy who took advantage of Nikita Sergeyevich’s good will. I can’t meet 

with Grabin for preliminary explanations. I am entrusting you two to do that. Take 

your time. Think up some pretext for going to him and talking about possibilities 

for joint work on spacecraft. Explain that we don’t have enough manpower and 

we are prepared to hand over this project or even the entire spacecraft to him lock, 

stock, and barrel for development and production. Instead of artillery and nuclear 

reactors!”

 After receiving this assignment from Korolev, Bushuyev and I decided first to 

conduct deep reconnaissance on the whole situation at TsNII-58, and then ask for 

a meeting with Grabin. But events interrupted our unhurried preparation for this 

complicated diplomatic mission. In early May Bushuyev and I received a message 

through Lelyanov, Korolev’s information officer, a former KGB employee, that 

Grabin had invited us to see him at 11 o’clock the following day. We were told that 

we wouldn’t have to go to the pass office since we’d be on a list for admission.13

A contact was already waiting for us in the entryway and immediately led us 

to a spacious office. Grabin was sitting in his full general’s uniform behind a large 

desk topped with green felt. We introduced ourselves. We were somewhat taken 

aback that Grabin did not stand up and did not shake hands. True, it was difficult 

to do that over a broad desk. Nodding toward the heavy, uncomfortable chairs, he 

gestured for us to take a seat. As we had arranged beforehand, Bushuyev began to 

speak about new automatically controlled spacecraft designed for a flight to Mars 

and suggested that Vasiliy Gavrilovich have a look at the project. He asked whether 

it might make sense to manufacture it here at the pilot plant.

In official portraits, artists had given Grabin a stately bearing. The heavy features 

of his face expressed pride, haughtiness, and authoritativeness, a true god of war in 

full regalia. But the face of the man who sat before us was completely different from 

the portrait on display. He sat in silence and looked first at Bushuyev, then at me, 

perplexed. Why all this talk? His massive head tended to sink into his shoulders as 

if retreating from danger. There was an expression of impending doom on his tired 

face. So many years have passed since then, but even now I recall the mixed feeling 

of uneasiness and pity that I experienced sitting opposite Grabin.

As Bushuyev spoke, I had time to glance around the spacious office; There was 

a large conference table, chairs, unpretentious sofas, occasional table by the writing desk, and armchairs devoid of decorative carving, everything was made of light 

Karelian birch. On the wall above Grabin hung a portrait of Stalin in a gilded frame. 

When we were preparing for our meeting, someone from Korolev’s office—I believe 

13. In Soviet (and Russian) times, all visitors to industrial enterprises require a pass (propusk) to 

enter the premises; passes were waived for special visitors who would be “on the list” (po spisku).
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this in greater detail in the next chapter.

Over the course of two years at the new territory, Bushuyev, Tikhonravov, and 

Tsybin—who moved with him—really organized the space branch of OKB-1. 

Somewhere in the “upper managerial circles” there was a rumor going around about 

converting what was now no longer Grabin’s, but Bushuyev’s space-related territory 

into an independent “P.O. Box.” But one way or another, Korolev decided once and 

for all to prevent the possible spinoff of the space branch from the main OKB-1 

facility into a completely independent organization out of his control.

In late 1962, Korolev carried out another reorganization. He brought back Bushuyev and part of the space designers into his building 65 at the home base; he then 

sent me to Grabin’s former territory with the assignment to convert it mainly into 

a branch for the development of guidance systems and to set up a worthy instrument production facility. As a result, I settled into Grabin’s office as deputy chief 

of science operations and chief of Branch No. 1 with the added initials “D.T.N.,” 

that is, Doctor of Technical Sciences.15 One of my first instructions to the local 

administration was to categorically forbid them to replace the historic furniture in 

the office, despite their attempts to oblige the new director with something more 

contemporary. After Bushuyev, I worked in this historic office until 1997, that is, 

for just under 30 years. I only permitted the furniture to be repaired; there were no 

replacements.

In 1997, Oleg Igorevich Babkov became the proprietor of the office and in 2002, 

Vladimir Nikolayevich Branets. They also remained true to the tradition of preserving Grabin’s furniture, the very heavy multiple-light chandelier and the wall 

sconces. But in 2004, the builders presented an ultimatum. The four-story building, which since 1942 had housed the office of Colonel General Grabin, followed 

by future president of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. P. Aleksandrov, then once 

again Grabin, next Bushuyev, followed by 30 years of Chertok, then Babkov, and 

finally Branets, was to undergo a major overhaul. Apparently, it was dangerous to 

stay any longer in the building where six Heroes of Socialist Labor, more than 20 

Lenin and Stalin and then State prize laureates, and hundreds of recipients of many 

medals had worked! No one knows what will happen now to the office that, as far as 

I can see, should be converted into a memorial to chief designer Grabin.

As OKB-1 formed its own academic councils, candidates regularly defended 

their dissertations and diploma projects in Grabin’s old office. As chairman of the 

academic council or chairman of the State examination commission, I congratulated each individual who successfully defended their dissertation or diploma project, conferring on them the appropriate academic degree or title of engineer.

In June 2004, in this same office, as chairman of the State examination commission, I presided over proceedings during which students of the Moscow Physics 

15. DTN—Doktor tekhnicheskikh nauk—is roughly equivalent (and typically higher) than the 

Western notion of a Ph.D.

meeting.

Korolev and Turkov showed the highest degree of scrupulousness in determining 

the fate of each TsNII-58 employee. Korolev announced that he was prepared to 

talk personally with each KB and laboratory employee and Turkov would talk with 

any production worker. Grabin, meanwhile, received an appointment to a consultative group in the Ministry of Defense. This did not keep him very busy. He started 

to work as a professor in a department at MVTU and to teach a course on artillery ordnance. But he wasn’t content doing this, either. Grabin set up a new OKB 

at MVTU and became its chief designer. He rode a commuter train and municipal public transportation from Podlipki to MVTU and back as long as his health 

allowed. He brought his work in the development of artillery science commendably 

to a close by transferring his priceless experience to a new generation.

Many old career artillerymen who didn’t wish to change their specialty left TsNII58 for other defense industry enterprises. But the main TsNII-58 staff and all the 

young staffers stayed. Together we began the process of reorganizing, expanding our 

old departments, creating new ones, and selecting managers with the mutual agreement of both sides—“ours,” that is, Korolev’s staff, and “theirs,” that is, Grabin’s 

staff. By mid-1960, the restructuring process was largely completed. Just two weeks 

after the minister’s order, many of the Grabinite specialists had joined in on what 

was for all of us a new project: the development of solid-propellant rockets.

According to Korolev’s conception, the TsNII-58 premises were supposed 

to become an OKB-1 branch. Korolev initially entrusted the duties of deputy chief 

designer for all space-related projects to Konstantin Bushuyev and moved him into 

Grabin’s office. Bushuyev received not only Grabin’s office, but also his Kremlin 

“hotline” telephone. Consequently, Grabin’s name disappeared from the Kremlin 

automatic telephone system phonebook and Bushuyev’s appeared. Bushuyev kept 

the historic office furniture intact, but he was forced to remove the large portrait 

of Stalin that hung behind the desk where Grabin formerly presided. At Korolev’s 

insistence some back rooms were remodeled; the personal shower and toilet were 

remodeled as work spaces for private conferences. The walls of the main office were 

repainted, covering the renderings of creeping subtropical foliage. TsNII-58 was 

renamed OKB-1’s “second territory” or Branch No. 1. Grabin’s personal service 

vehicle, a ZIS-110, was transferred not to Bushuyev, but to Korolev. Sixty-year-old 

Colonel General Grabin, having enjoyed 25 years of government-owned cars with 

personal drivers, had neither his own car nor a driver’s license.

For me—Korolev’s deputy for guidance systems and, as he sometimes liked to 

joke—his “rusty electrician,” the merger of OKB-1 with TsNII-58 had much greater 

significance than for Korolev’s other deputies. Two events in the years 1959 and 

1960, the merger of OKB-1 with TsNII-58 and the transfer of Rauschenbach’s team 

from NII-1 to OKB-1, led to the creation of our country’s first, and perhaps the 

world’s first, scientific and technical school for spacecraft guidance systems. The 

organizational restructuring for my field lasted three years, but I will write about 
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had developed what was at that time the best long-range bomber in the world.18

Myasishchev’s design bureau and the Khrunichev Aviation Factory in Fili were 

handed over to Chelomey.19 However, aviation industry minister Petr Dementyev 

did not leave Myasishchev unemployed. He transferred him to the perfectly honorable post of TsAGI chief. As a result of the two “great mergers,” in one year’s time 

at the expense of the artillery and aviation industries, the missile and space industry 

gained more than 3,000 engineers and a state-of-the-art industrial production base 

numbering more than 15,000 workers and employees.

Grabin and Myasishchev united and trained excellent cadres, who fulfilled the 

slogan of the first five-year plans that “cadres that have mastered technology solve 

everything.”20 We should be grateful to Grabin and Myasishchev not only for what 

each of them developed in their own fields, but also for the enormous contribution that their people made after merging with the organizations of Korolev and 

Chelomey.

18. Myasishchev developed the M-4 (known by NATO as Bison) jet-propelled strategic bomber 

in the mid-1950s. An improved version, the 3M (Bison-B) with longer range was introduced in the 

late 1950s, but neither bomber performed very well in service duty due to high costs and middling 

performance.

19. The factory was originally known as Factory No. 23 but renamed Factory Named After M. V. 

Khrunichev (Zavod imeni M. V. Khrunicheva or ZIM) in 1961 after the death of Mikhail Vasilyevich 

Khrunichev (1901–61), one of the senior managers of the Soviet aviation industry in the postwar 

era.

20. During the early “five-year plans” for economic development in the late 1920s and 1930s, the 

Soviet Party and government promoted the use of modern technology as a solution to many social 

and economic problems. Such sayings as “technology for the masses” and “cadres that have mastered 

technology solve everything” were popular at worker meetings and on inspirational posters of the 

period.

and Technical Institute defended projects to obtain bachelor’s degrees. Listening to 

the students, I couldn’t help but think that just 40 years ago, less than the lifetime 

of one scientific generation, the men who worked in this office could not have 

imagined the problems that these 21-year-old kids were now discussing. They all 

received grades of “excellent.” Congratulating the new degree holders, I said that 

they could be justifiably proud of the fact that after them no one could boast that 

they had defended their projects in the office of the legendary creator of the “Victory Weapon.”

The merger of Korolev’s OKB-1 and Grabin’s TsNII-58, the first “great 

merger” of the space era, made it possible to expand a common front of projects in 

the field of space technology. In particular, the union expedited programs to develop 

spy satellites and the first crewed space ships, the implementation of designs that 

until then had seemed to be in the distant future. One other outcome of this historic merger was the development of the first RT-2 (8K98) intercontinental solidpropellant missile. After joining forces, the rocket specialists of OKB-1 and the 

artillerymen of TsNII-58 put into service the intercontinental solid-propellant missile, which stood on alert for 15 years!16 Of all the artillerymen who did not deserve 

to be debased and insulted, the most distinguished and greatest was Grabin. Korolev 

was right when he said that it’s very easy for us to trample a man for nothing.

The biggest fan of the development of nuclear missiles in the late 1950s and 

early 1960s was Premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. Without plunging into the 

strategic research of military theoreticians, Khrushchev proceeded from simple considerations such as the country’s inability simultaneously to develop fundamentally 

new branches of the armed forces and substantially modernize classic ones under the 

conditions of a bitter Cold War. He chose in favor of (ground-based) nuclear-tipped 

missiles and submarine-launched missiles at the expense of the surface naval fleet, 

the air force, and conventional artillery.

The second “great merger” took place with a slight time lag, substantially increasing the design and production potential of the Soviet missile and space industry. Aviation industry OKB-52 in suburban Reutov acquired Chief Designer Myasishchev’s 

large-scale OKB-23 as its Branch No. 1 and the aviation Factory No. 23 in Fili, the 

premises of which had once been Factory No. 22.17

As a result, distinguished Chief Designer Myasishchev lost the design team that 

16. The RT-2 was the first operational Soviet ICBM that used solid propellants. Developed by 

OKB-1, its initial version was put into service duty in December 1968. Western agencies referred to 

the missile as SS-13 (U.S. DoD) or Savage (NATO).

17. Myasishchev’s OKB-23 was made Branch No. 1 of Chelomey’s OKB-52 in October 1960.

Chapter 28

First School of Control in Space

The generally accepted date for the beginning of the space age is 4 October 1957, 

the day the world’s first artificial satellite was launched. However, if you examine the 

technical nature of this event, then 4 October and then 3 November, the date of the 

second satellite launch, were actually proof that the Soviet Union had developed the 

science and technology of rocketry. Space technology is substantially different from 

rocket technology. In 1957 and up until 1959, space technology did not exist in the 

Soviet Union or in the U.S.

We had moved ahead of the Americans and taken the leading position in cosmonautics beginning in 1957 because, relying on our rocket technology and with 

the effective support of the nation’s top political leadership and governmental institutions, we had rapidly organized a broad front of operations to develop our own 

space technology. During those first years there was still no store of knowledge that 

would enable us to formulate a concise set of requirements as we had produced for 

rockets, airplanes, and cannons.

The merger of the rocket specialists of OKB-1 and the artillerymen of TsNII58, and the transfer a year and a half later of Rauschenbach’s team from NII-1 to 

OKB-1 created conditions conducive to developing independent space technology. 

I dare say that Korolev was perhaps the first to understand that space technology 

required a new organization. At the time, the science of systemic approaches in its 

current formalized form had not been developed. The successes achieved by prominent military leaders and government officials were all the more outstanding in that, 

without textbooks and sometimes despite dogma, they made strategic decisions in 

the interests of the “big system.”

For Korolev, his deputies, and close associates, this gigantic new system came 

about because of a broad view of space technology, by combining fundamental 

research, applied science, specific design, production, launches, flight, and flight 

control, rather than from specific spacecraft. This single-cycle setup began to operate in 1959 and 1960. The mastery of this cycle by hundreds and later by many 

thousands of scientists and specialists made it possible for humankind to begin the 

Space Age in the 20th century. The spacecraft themselves were a tool, a means for 

achieving an end. This restructuring or, more accurately, the creation of a com491
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level, or kray-level Councils of National Economy (Sovnarkhozy).1

The Ministry of Armaments, renamed the Ministry of Defense Industry in 1953, 

had direct supervision over the development of missile technology before 1953. D. 

F. Ustinov headed the ministry until 1957.

Many were opposed to the governmental decision—made at Khrushchev’s initiative—to create the Sovnarkhozy. In 1965, after Khrushchev’s ouster, the industrial 

branch ministries were reinstated and the State Committees and the Sovnarkhozy

were eliminated. Although there were many enemies of the Sovnarkhoz system, for 

us the creation of Sovnarkhozy was very favorable. I will discuss this below.

With the Sovnarkhoz reforms in 1957, the Ministry of Defense Industry was 

transformed into the State Committee for Defense Technology. All defense industry 

series-production factories were transferred to Sovnarkhozy on the basis of territorial 

status. The head missile technology developers, head institutes, and pilot production plants remained in the State Committee. Responsibility for developing the 

appropriate technology, conducting long-range scientific research work, and creating experimental prototypes fell on the State Committee. The Sovnarkhozy factories were supposed to carry out series production since the State Committees were 

relieved of responsibility for the series production plan. As a result of Ustinov’s new 

appointment to the VPK, former NII-88 Director K. N. Rudnev was appointed the 

new chairman of the State Committee for Defense Technology (GKOT).2 The main 

directorate within the GKOT for the development of missile technology was its Seventh Directorate, headed by Lev Arkhipovich Grishin in 1957. Until then he had 

worked as director of the rocket engine Factory No. 456 in the suburban Moscow 

area of Khimki. Our reorganization was part of the full-blown process of building a 

new space industry sector led by Ustinov, Rudnev, and Grishin.

The VPK coordinated projects in the branches of industry, above all by assigning administrators and deadlines, specifying phases for conducting operations, and 

distributing government funding. In addition to the missile and space fields, the 

VPK and State Committee for Defense Technology supervised a broad range of 

armaments for all branches of the armed forces. This was one of the reasons why 

Korolev’s OKB-1 was given a great deal of independence in drawing up the space 

programs.

The Ministry of Defense, that is, the military and our customer, was also extensively engaged in developing new space technology. It was still responsible for building and operating firing ranges, including future cosmodromes, and developing the 

network of tracking stations on Soviet territory and the first control centers.

I would like to turn the reader’s attention to what I consider one 

1. The oblast and kray are geographical administrative units roughly equivalent to a province 

common to all regions of the former Soviet Union.

2. GKOT—Goskomitet po oboronnoy tekhniki.

pletely new organizational setup began in 1959 after the merger of TsNII-58 with 

OKB-1.

A unique feature of this period was that no special time was set aside for any 

organizational restructurings. The goals we had conceived, now supported by government decrees, did not allow us to stop designing, producing, and launching 

combat missiles and spacecraft. The situation might be compared with the strategy 

of large military operations. During a victorious military blitz, the troops advance 

without stopping to destroy the routed enemy units remaining in the rear.

In 1959, the Communist Party Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers issued five decrees directly affecting our operations. 

These included decrees:

- on 14 March calling for the creation of and beginning of flight-tests of the 

R-7A missile;

- on 13 May calling for the development of the new R-9 intercontinental

missile;

- on 22 May calling for the development of an orbital spacecraft for reconnaissance and human spaceflight;

- on 20 November calling for the development of the solid-propellant RT-2 

missile; and

- on 10 December calling for the further development of outer space research, 

which was also the first to set the goal of human spaceflight.

Through 1959, we had made significant advances. In February 1959, the first 

R-11FM naval ballistic missile went into service and in December we began the 

first launches of the R-7A missile. Also, in January 1959, Luna-1 was launched, followed by Luna-2 in September (delivering the pendant to the moon), and Luna-3

in October, which photographed the far side of the moon. The following year, in 

1960, there was no time to take a breather; four more decrees came out that year! 

The last of them ordered a piloted spaceflight to be carried out in December 1960. 

On 15 May 1960, the first Vostok orbital spacecraft was launched.

The restructuring of our new organization and the performance of each of these 

missions took place under the constant monitoring of governmental organizations. 

The Special Committee of the Council of Ministers that existed before December 

1957 and managed the primary fields of new defense technologies was eliminated; 

instead, its structure was used as a basis to create the Commission on MilitaryIndustrial Issues (VPK) of the Presidium of the USSR Council of Ministers. Dmitriy Fedorovich Ustinov was appointed a deputy chairman of the USSR Council 

of Ministers and simultaneously VPK chairman. Meanwhile, the ministries of the 

various branches of the defense industry were reorganized into State Committees. In 

1957, all industry was transferred according to territorial status to regional, oblast-
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a school only when a sense of mutual responsibility emerges within it.”5 This sense 

of responsibility must be profoundly personal rather than official. After 1945, the 

nation not only recovered from the ravages of war remarkably swiftly, but it made 

itself the world’s second power in the field of science and technology.

Through the text, I shall attempt to recall the structure of the new missile and 

space school and mention many of those involved in our missile and space programs 

who were members of its community. All of them were proud of their work. Each 

one felt that his country needed him. The fact that government leaders supported 

an atmosphere of collective creative euphoria was very important. It wasn’t just the 

most outstanding scientists, engineers, workers, and later cosmonauts who received 

the highest government awards, but entire organizations. For example, NII-88 and 

then OKB-1 were awarded Orders of Lenin.

I was one of the organizers of the nation’s first—and perhaps the world’s first—

scientific and technical school on spacecraft motion control and a broad range of 

space electrical engineering, radio electronics, and data transmission projects. For 

that reason I am devoting the greatest space in my memoirs to the area of work that 

was closest to me.

Due to its merger with TsNII-58 and its liberal recruitment policy, the ranks of 

OKB-1 had increased by 5,000, of whom 1,500 were engineers. We received a welldeveloped tract of land with a large building for the design and laboratory facilities, 

a closed-cycle pilot production plant, and various auxiliary services. A large orchard, 

a birch grove, and flower beds adorned the grounds. In the summer you would 

have thought you were in a park rather than the premises of a weapons production 

enterprise. All the newly acquired territory was called “the second territory” or “the 

second production facility.” The organizational issues involved in the restructuring 

in connection with the addition of “the second territory” required constant attention. Korolev and all of his deputies, with the help of the primary managerial staff 

of TsNII-58, devoted a great deal of attention to the placement of personnel.

After visiting Grabin’s office for the first time, Korolev told Bushuyev, the new 

head of the “second territory” that the flowers on the walls had to go. “And, in general, be less ostentatious. Keep the lounge at the back of the office, but get rid of the 

general’s private bathroom with the shower. You will be using the regular restroom.” 

All this was done. Meanwhile, the vestibule of the central entrance and the broad 

stairway to the third floor were laid with marble. This refined the modest interior 

of the engineering building and showed all the workers that the new director was 

showing the proper attention to even the external appearance of their working environment. The full-tilt construction of new buildings also began.

For three years, Bushuyev was the proprietor of the office that contained Karelian birch furniture. Beginning in May 1963, at Korolev’s decision I occupied that 

5. Nikita Moiseyev, Put’ k ochevidnosti [Pathway to Evidence] (Moscow: Agraf, 1998).

more vital circumstance that contributed to the Soviet Union’s dramatic 

breakthrough into space. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, 15 years after the 

end of the war, the spirit of victory unifying the people got its second wind after 

society was liberated from the suffocating atmosphere of repressions.3

The people who had come together in OKB-1 under the leadership of Chief 

Designer Korolev either of their own will, the government’s will, or that of history 

were very diverse. They came to OKB-1 from organizations that had their own history and traditions. But the majority of the specialists brought together in OKB-1 

had gone through a scientific-technical “school.” These were the schools of Bolkhovitinov, Keldysh, Tikhonravov, Grabin, Aleksandrov, Korolev himself, and the first 

Council of Chief Designers.4

In terms of their origins, initial assignments, and makeup, the “schools” were 

quite varied. But after their merger, success came because they all had one thing in 

common. The leaders of the schools believed in themselves and in their intuition, 

and they believed that they were the only ones capable of achieving in the nearest 

future the goals that they had set. They transferred this belief in their mission to 

their respective organizations, allowing them to achieve common goals.

Our system of higher education, which maintained a high standard despite very 

heavy losses due to the war, helped to establish the human intellectual potential 

in each of the schools. The breadth of our educational system, which had moved 

away from the narrow pragmatism characteristic of the Western (and particularly 

American) higher education system) played a decisive role in the formative stage of 

our cosmonautics.

Traditionally, or as the situation panned out by virtue of the peculiarities of Russian history, the schools that emerged and developed in the Soviet Union were technological rather than purely scientific. Scientific schools existed only in Germany, 

but the military defeat put an end to them, and after the war they simply never 

recovered. Soviet scientific schools were a community of people who rallied around 

a talented leader or organizer who supported the community not for the sake of a 

pure idea, but for the sake of advancing the idea to the point of practical application. 

In a recent book, Academician Nikita Nikolayevich Moiseyev aptly identified the 

characteristics of our scientific schools. He noted that, “A community evolves into 

3. The Khrushchev era, especially from 1956 to 1964, is typically known as a “thaw” period of 

social and cultural liberalization after the unimaginable repressions during the Stalin times. The first 

major marker of liberalization was Khrushchev’s famous speech at the 20th Communist Party Congress 

in 1956, where he openly denounced Stalin’s many crimes.

4. Representatives of all of these schools converged in OKB-1 over the years. They represented 

the following leaders and organizations: Bolkhovitinov (from OKB-293), Keldysh (from NII-1), 

Tikhonravov (from NII-4), Grabin (from TsNII-58), Aleksandrov (from NII-58), and Korolev himself 

(from OKB-1). Anatoliy Petrovich Aleksandrov (1903–94) was not well-known among the missile and 

space program community but he was deeply involved in the development of Soviet nuclear weapons. 

He served as the director of the Institute of Physical Problems and Kurchatov Institute of Atomic 

Energy. He later served as president of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1975–86.
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and the endless stressful situations that always accompanied the launch preparation 

process and flight control, there was an atmosphere at the firing range that inspired 

each participant and motivated everyone to give their all.

In general, for an ideal merger, as we hoped the union of TsNII-58 with OKB-1 

would be, the organization of operations required clear-cut territorial and structural 

divisions. The first step in this direction was the creation of the OKB-1 space division at the second territory. At Korolev’s instruction spacecraft designers headed 

by Tikhonravov and Tsybin moved over there once again. They reestablished space 

design departments while specialists transferred from Rauschenbach’s department 

at NII-1 settled in there as well. We also moved the radio engineering and electrical equipment departments from our old campus. The ranks of these departments 

had increased dramatically, primarily due to the number of specialists recruited by 

Academician Aleksandrov during his time as NII-58 director.

We had the opportunity to create a unique complex of departments at OKB-1 

for the development of spacecraft control systems. Government decrees had already 

specified head organizations and chief designers for the development and manufacture of missile guidance systems. These were Pilyugin and Ryazanskiy at NII-885; 

Semikhatov, who split off from them to work on naval missiles in Sverdlovsk; and 

Konoplev in Kharkov, who split off to work on the missiles developed by Yangel. 

For some reason, the consensus in the corridors of the authorities was that sooner or 

later, in their spare time, they would also deal with new spacecraft control systems. 

This was wishful thinking, merely success-induced giddiness.

Having gathered at “second production facility,” the specialists decided that the 

time had come to seize the initiative to develop fundamentally new systems for 

spacecraft. Our subsequent successes in space can be explained to a significant extent 

by the fact that, from the very beginning, the development of space technology was 

organized in the form of an integrated system process. Research, laboratory development, design work, production of the first experimental flight models, flight-development tests and the incorporation of their results, introduction of modifications 

during the production process—all of this flowed into a single goal-oriented project 

that was common for many thousands of participants.

Discussing the immediate plans and prospects with my comrades, we came to 

the conclusion that the field of spacecraft control systems was a field related to missiles in terms of the technology of instrument production, but a new field in terms 

of technical principles. None of the venerable chief designers would tackle it in full 

measure. Our historical mission was to take this entire problem into our own hands 

at OKB-1. Surprisingly, Korolev expressed no objections or misgivings to my proposals. Ultimately, as the sole chief designer at OKB-1 he took on one more heavy 

burden of responsibility for the fate of plans for the space program. He very actively 

supported all my proposals and even went further.

“You aren’t going to create anything with all your departments if we don’t have 

our own state-of-the-art instrument production,” Korolev decided. “I suggest that 

you prepare proposals specifying which instrument factories will work on our 

office for more than 30 years. Little had changed there since Grabin’s time. An even 

coat of green paint had replaced the exotic flowers. In place of Stalin’s portrait there 

was now a portrait of Tsiolkovskiy, the work of our [in-house] artist. My job was 

to organize a cluster of departments that encompassed radio engineering, electrical 

equipment, spacecraft motion control, dynamics, and rocket guidance.

I already considered myself an old hand because my track record in the 

rocket field could be traced back to 1940, when at the suggestion of Bolkhovitinov, Isayev, and Bereznyak, I first began to develop liquid-propellant rocket engine 

control automatics for the BI airplane. I received the first combat order of the Red 

Star in 1945 for developing the liquid-propellant rocket engine automatic control 

system. Everyone who worked in Germany at the Institutes RABE, Nordhausen, 

and Berlin, felt to some extent like they belonged to a superior “rank,” regardless 

of where they were working now and their departmental affiliations. Rather than 

encumbering us, this feeling linked and united us and ultimately helped us to solve 

many problems.

The general volume and complexity of the tasks, which on the whole we had set 

for ourselves, required an increase in the efficiency of the entire research and development system. As our ranks increased drastically, the problem of achieving the 

optimal structure to accommodate the influx of new people was vital. Based on my 

experience, I believed (and this was later confirmed repeatedly) that no structure, 

no matter how carefully it was thought out, was capable in and of itself of creating 

and sustaining the creative work of engineers and scientists of various specialties at a 

high level if there was no friendly contact established between them.

Given the situation at the time, in order for a worthy specialist to be appointed 

head of a project in line with his capabilities, it was necessary not only to have a 

request from me, his agreement, and Korolev’s approval; appointment to key positions also required the support of the Party Committee and no objections from the 

personnel and security departments. It is true that during this period background 

information was not as crucial as it had been during the Stalin years, but individuals 

who might be suspected of having family or other compromising ties with foreign 

nationals were not cleared for managerial positions.

The managers who achieved the greatest success were those who learned to 

understand and appreciate above all the role of people, and then, the role of inanimate technology. For me, the main problem remained uniting the efforts of specialists and managers who differed in terms of character, single-mindedness, culture, 

experience, and age. The best ways to instill a sense of joining forces and teaching 

the art of one-on-one contact was participating in hardware preparation at the firing 

range, conducting launches, and analyzing the results of flight-tests. There was no 

way that theoretical coordination of specialists in the fields of ballistics, electrical 

engineering, or control dynamics—as well as designers, production engineers, and 

many others—could instill a collective approach to work as did joint work at the 

firing range. Despite the harsh living conditions, the exacting nature of the work, 
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typical episode. Once, with Khazanov and myself in tow, Korolev flew out to Kiev, 

where Ukrainian Central Committee Secretary Petr Shelest received us. Soon, our 

proposals passed from office to office in the defense department of the Ukrainian 

Central Committee and the Kiev Sovnarkhoz. The eagerness of the factory directors, 

who showed great interest in our proposals, managed to neutralize the ill will of the 

higher management of the Ukrainian Party office. The thoughtful directors weren’t 

so much enthralled with the issue of the work load in the days to come, but rather 

with the prospect of mastering new products and modernizing equipment, building 

new shops, and obtaining new benefits for their teams under the banner of missiles 

and space. After roaming the corridors of authority in Kiev for many long hours 

and attending tedious meetings during which they explained to us that the most 

important thing for Ukraine at that point in time was the iron and steel industry 

and not satellites, we departed for Moscow. Still, we had obtained an agreement for 

the use of two factories, the Kiev Radio Factory (KRZ) and Kievpribor.6 Both of 

these factories subsequently had a leading role in the production of complex radio 

electronic equipment for rocket-space technology.7

Korolev wasn’t able to accompany us to all the factories that Khazanov and I 

intended to bring into the orbit of space instrumentation technology. However, he 

always helped, even without leaving his office. Before setting us loose on our solo 

expeditions to “colonize” others’ factories, Korolev would make arrangements with 

the Central Committee, Gosplan, and the VPK. They immediately issued instructions to Communist Party oblast committee secretaries. When we arrived in the 

appropriate town on our own airplane, we were received as high-ranking guests. 

Before setting out for the factory, we visited the oblast committee defense department. As a rule, representatives of the oblast committee and Sovnarkhoz accompanied us during all our talks with factory directors, even attending the farewell 

banquets. Sometimes those situations were funny, bordering on the absurd.

After arriving in Kazan, we found out that the factories there were not suited 

to our needs, but could be used by our colleague OKB MEI Chief Designer Aleksey Bogomolov for the production of transponders for the orbit radio monitoring 

(RKO) system.8 Bogomolov had a small pilot plant right at MEI, but it could not 

meet our demands for deliveries in terms of quantities and deadlines. Given this 

situation, where I could, I tried to make arrangements not only for production 

based on the direct orders from our OKB-1, but also for tasking appropriately specialized factories with production for other chief designers who had been working 

on our projects. We were able to do this in Kazan, where OKB MEI obtained a good 

6. KRZ—Kievskaya radiozavoda. Kievpribor, founded in 1947, was originally known as Factory 

No. 7 before becoming Kievpribor in 1956.

7. The Kiev Radio Factory, for example, produced instrumentation for the military Almaz space 

station in the 1960s and 1970s.

8. RKO—Radiokontrol orbit.

orders. We’re going to begin organizing and building our own instrument factory 

right away. Your beloved Shtarkov’s instrument shop No. 2 is after all just a shop, 

and we need a production facility that is powerful, very broad-based, and versatile. 

I have already found someone to head this future plant.”

Indeed, soon Isaak Borisovich Khazanov was named chief of instrument production and simultaneously deputy chief engineer of the factory. Before the merger 

he worked for Grabin as chief of the experimental science division. At first I was 

surprised because Korolev assigned a nonspecialist to the instrument plant, but he 

assured me that Khazanov would not fail. Once again Korolev took the opportunity to remind me of my past mistakes in personnel placement, telling me that he 

was a good judge of character. Korolev had first seen Khazanov in 1959, after the 

consolidation of Grabin’s team with ours. There were two factors that might have 

come into play for Khazanov’s appointment, either Turkov’s recommendation or the 

legendary feats of Khazanov’s father, whom Ustinov had thrown into the most cutting-edge weapons production sectors during the war. Or perhaps it was Korolev’s 

innately unique ability to accurately assess people from his first encounter with 

them. He did not make a mistake in his selection with Khazanov.

Under his supervision, Khazanov brought together random production sections 

and shops, including shops that manufactured control surface actuators, cables, 

ground control consoles, and antennas. At the same time we also began new construction. In order to rapidly expand the production areas for instrument production, four three-story buildings were built over a period of several months at the 

second territory. The construction timeframes were the shortest on record because 

they used generic designs and standard units designed for school buildings. At that 

time in Moscow and the surrounding area, school construction was the result of 

assembly line production. Schools literally sprang up in three or four months. Khazanov also took advantage of this situation with the help of Georgiy Vasilyevich 

Sovkov, Korolev’s enterprising construction assistant. They also began designing a 

special state-of-the-art, six-story building, an actual instrument factory. The design 

called for air conditioning, a clean zone for microelectronics manufacturing, and 

special laboratories for testing instrument reliability under exposure to potential and 

even seemingly improbable external mechanical, climatic, and space effects.

While construction of our own plant was under way—making use of the proprietary interests of the regional Sovnarkhozy and factories, which had gained great 

independence during the Khrushchev reforms—Khazanov and I tried to place as 

many orders as possible with instrument-building and radio electronics factories.

The directors of factories subordinate to the Sovnarkhozy had acquired the right 

to accept orders and conclude contracts without waiting for instructions from 

above. In 1965, however, the Sovnarkhozy were eliminated. Once again a centralized command and administrative system prevailed. After that point, maintaining 

the cooperation that we had organized during the times of the Sovnarkhozy was 

quite a challenge.

Korolev encouraged the expansion of our production base in every way. Here is a 
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their comrades had been working around the clock for days on end in the shops 

of the Plastik Factory trying to debug the program timing device by the deadline. 

Chief Engineer Zaychenkov thought that, even during the war, they had not felt 

as stressed and slept so little. At one point, he telephoned me at night and said 

that his foremen were doing everything they could, but my engineers had botched 

things up completely with the troubleshooting. He asked me to come immediately 

and to decide on the spot what to do next. I arrived and Zaychenkov and I went 

to the shop. Once I saw the unshaven faces of the testers, ashen from exhaustion 

and sleep deprivation, I didn’t feel very optimistic. One of them had his face buried 

in an instrument soldering something; another was clicking toggle switches on the 

control console; a third was looking for something under the workbench. I took the 

plunge and asked in a loud, upbeat voice, “How’s it going, guys? Tomorrow’s the 

very last day!”

No one raised their head except for the guy who was stooped down under the 

work bench. He stood up, turned a blank gaze at the big shot who had arrived 

on the scene and quietly said, “You jerks can go to ...” You can guess the precise 

destination to which the worn out workhorse would send anyone who interfered 

with the completion of this crucial work. “OK, fine, we won’t bother you,” was my 

simple reply as Zaychenkov and I made our way out.

Two days later, the first electronic instrument, the program timing device for the 

first automatically controlled interplanetary spacecraft, was delivered. Thirty-two 

years later cosmonaut Rukavishnikov reminded me of this event with obvious pleasure. At that time the young engineer and his comrades were creators and felt they 

had complete ownership of their creations. Back then the joy of the creative fire and 

the sense of doing one’s duty may have given the young engineers greater satisfaction than the medals and high ranks conferred in subsequent years.

After that, for many years the Plastik Factory manufactured program timing 

devices for automatically controlled interplanetary spacecraft, even after this field 

was handed over to Babakin at the S. A. Lavochkin OKB.11 Thirty-five years later, 

despite the hardship of recent years, the Plastik Factory remains a subcontractor in 

the production of space instrumentation.12

In Leningrad, the Instrument Building Factory was loaded with orders to produce semiautomated test hardware. However, when the authority of the Sovnarkhozy was phased out, this factory returned to the Ministry of Aviation Industry and 

our orders were transferred from there.

I have mentioned only a few of the main factories that were supposed to produce 

the most diverse onboard and ground-based equipment.

11. Korolev’s OKB-1 handed over the development of all automated lunar and interplanetary to 

the Lavochkin OKB headed by G. N. Babakin in 1965.

12. In 1977, the Plastik Factory combined with the Delta Scientific-Production Association (NPO 

Delta), known since 1992 as NPP Delta.

production facility for many years.

We were initially unable to offer direct orders for our OKB-1 to anyone in the 

Tatar Sovnarkhoz, so we quickly left to manage matters there. The director of one 

of the factories located on the bank of the Kama “kidnapped” us and whisked us 

off to his place. Over the course of two days he organized picnics and fishing on 

picturesque islands with one goal in mind—to land an order for the production 

of space instrumentation. He didn’t release us until we had reassured him that we 

would explore this possibility in the next few days. Alas, this was a mass production 

factory, and there was no way our scientific production could satisfy the appetite of 

a factory set up to produce batches consisting of many thousands of articles.

Our “raids” on the Rostov and Bashkir Sovnarkhozy were considerably more successful. Despite the limited success of our fishing on the Azov Sea and the Belaya 

River in the Urals, we established lasting friendly contacts with the staff of the Azov 

Optico-mechanical and Ufa Instrument Building Factories. Soon, the Azov Factory 

monopolized the production of universal test stations and docking assemblies that 

we developed.9 The Ufa Factory, meanwhile, mastered the production of onboard 

computers and a wide array of switching devices for manned vehicles right up to 

the Soyuz spacecraft. From the early 1960s until the end of the 20th century, it was 

one of the primary factories delivering instruments for piloted spacecraft. Additionally, the Sarapul Aviation Parts Factory succeeded in setting up the mass series production of control surface actuators, freeing our pilot plant of this labor-intensive 

production.

We did not forget Moscow and Leningrad on our trips. During and after the war 

the Moscow Plastik Factory specialized in manufacturing the most complex fuses 

for various types of shells and rockets.10 In late 1959, Plastik’s Chief Engineer Boris 

Zaychenkov showed extraordinary courage in accepting our highly risky proposal 

for space instrumentation production. According to our targets, by mid-1960, his 

factory would have to manufacture and refine what was—even by present-day standards—a complex program timing device and a computer for Mars missions. These 

instruments performed control functions that are now handled by microelectronic 

digital computers. At that time we did not yet possess this technology and had just 

barely mastered circuit design with semiconductor triodes, that is, transistors combined with conventional relays, magnetic core matrices, and magnetic amplifiers.

Laboratory chief German Noskin, who worked in Petr Kupriyanchik’s department, set about developing these instruments within unthinkably tight deadlines. 

Among other engineers on his team was Nikolay Rukavishnikov, the future cosmonaut, two-time Hero of the Soviet Union, and president of the Federation of Cosmonautics. One time in the early 1990s, at dinner in our dining hall, Rukavishnikov 

took me back to those distant days and nights. Rukavishnikov, his boss Noskin, and 

9. The Azov Optico-mechanical Factory, founded in 1944, was originally known as Factory No. 318.

10. The Plastik Factory, founded in 1932, was originally known as Factory No. 571.
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(KIS) where the entire spacecraft would undergo tests.14 This was the last stage 

before delivery to the firing range. Here, suddenly they would often find troubles 

related to the instrument’s electromagnetic incompatibility; it was either interfering 

with adjacent units or vice versa. And sometimes, because of mistakes, the myriad 

cable connections would actually start smoking! In such situations, developers—of 

the instrument, onboard circuitry, cable designs—and process engineers would be 

sent over the edge. The spacecraft could not move on to the next set of tests until 

the mistake had been found. From the very beginning we managed to train all the 

developers and testers according to the principles that, first of all, one should find 

the cause, find a solution to eliminate the defect, perform all the modifications, and 

retest, and then, once one had determined that the modifications were successful, 

find the guilty party.

Relationships with the military officers specializing in military acceptance played 

a vital role in the “development–manufacture–testing–delivery” process. Colonel 

Pavel Trubachev and his deputy Colonel Pavel Aleksandrov headed our military representation.15 I knew them very well from our joint work at the Institutes RABE and 

Nordhausen. We had established good business relations. The acceptance officers 

(we called them “Trubachevites”) could have taken a formal approach and worked 

“by the book.” This would have been most hazardous in our business. In our joint 

work we managed to avoid this. In 1961, Trubachev was named chief of control 

issues in the Strategic Rocket Forces system. We always found a common language 

with Colonel Oleg Zagrevskiy, who replaced him as military representative at OKB1, and then with Colonel Aleksandr Isaakyan as well.

Conflicts with the military reps that cropped up were resolved in the interests 

of programs and deadlines. There were usually conflicts between stipulated deadlines and the formal cycle of instrument production described above. In addition to 

absolute technical competency, all development supervisors from the deputy chief 

designer down to the engineer developer needed to have a knack for finding compromises. This art is not described in any textbooks, nor is it an engineering discipline taught in institutions of higher learning.

Finding a compromise between the demands of the strict sequence in the instrument production process and deadlines that were totally incompatible with this 

prolonged optimization cycle was very difficult. Usually we arranged for a parallel 

cycle, that is, production began long before the optimization of the first laboratory 

models. This was, however, risky; sometimes we had to throw out a large production 

stockpile. But on the whole, this method, which later spread to other enterprises, 

14. KIS—Kontrolno-ispytatelnaya stantsiya.

15. During the Soviet era, every design bureau and factory specializing in products for the defense 

industry (such as OKB-1) was staffed with a few people representing the interests of the customer, 

that is, the armed forces. These military representatives (or acceptance officers) helped to ensure that 

military specifications for particular systems were being met.

We needed to provide the new production facilities immediately with 

technical documentation and design “escorting” resources. We also needed to set 

up for deliveries of systems elements and materials. Every day dozens of questions 

needed to be answered over the telephone and telegraph, and when complications 

arose it was necessary to travel in person to resolve the problems on site. We also 

conducted this work with Khazanov, chief of instrument production at the factory. 

Three years later Khazanov was appointed chief engineer of our factory. In this role 

he revealed his brilliant organizational skills to the full extent.

According to the Main Artillery Directorate’s traditional rules and laws adopted 

for instruments installed on combat missiles, the developmental cycle for a complex 

instrument from design conception to clearance for the first flight took from one 

to three years. First we developed the idea, performed theoretical calculations, and 

did laboratory research. Next, we manufactured the laboratory mock-up, and put 

it through testing, reengineering, and modification. After this, the developer drew 

up design specifications for the design department, which issued drawings for the 

fabrication of the prototype. The prototype was manufactured with many deviations from the rigid norms that the military representatives enforced. The drawings 

needed to be reconciled with the fabricated model as quickly as possible. All the 

changes needed to be inserted, taking production experience into consideration, 

and permission needed to be granted to use the new documentation to begin manufacturing the first production units. By this time, in addition to the drawings, 

full-fledged instructions for the verification and acceptance tests, that is, the testing documentation, would have become available. Issuing them was often more 

labor-intensive than developing the drawing documentation. I can’t remember an 

instance when the testing documentation drawn up by an instrument developer was 

suitable for the acceptance and release of instruments without serious corrections 

being performed “on the fly.”

The first instruments that passed verification tests proceeded to design development tests (KDI).13 The instruments were heated, frozen, shaken on vibration 

stands, placed in vacuum and humidity chambers, and checked for supply voltage 

limit tolerances. And inevitably defects surfaced that required revamping, retesting, 

and the replacement of some parts. When serious defects were found, production 

came to a halt for a thorough investigation to determine the causes and to coordinate 

all subsequent measures with the “customer,” that is, the military representative.

Finally, when everything had been agreed upon, production would move heaven 

and earth to meet the delivery deadline for the first instruments cleared for installation on the spacecraft. If an instrument had been delayed, instead of being installed 

at the assembly shop, it would be installed at the factory control and testing station 

13. KDI—Konstruktorsko-dovodochnyye ispytaniya.
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that he had founded.19

Kalashnikov, despite all my pep talks, 

left TsKBEM after succumbing to illness, 

and became a teacher at MVTU. However, 

his transition to teaching did not save him 

from cancer, which got him in the end. 

Yurasov received the title Hero of Socialist 

Labor at the same time I did in 1961. He 

was an inveterate smoker. Because of rapidly developing gangrene, both of his legs, 

one after another, had to be amputated; 

his condition eventually led to his natural 

demise.

Saying goodbye to my deputies at their 

funerals and many other friends and comrades-in-arms in the breakthrough into 

space who have passed on, I have felt that 

they took with them a bit of my life. We 

were all united by the euphoria of the 

romantic period of magnificent results in 

cosmonautics’ historic infancy.

I cannot take sole credit for creating the 

first scientific and technological school of space systems control. It’s very honorable 

to show off on the tip of the iceberg during anniversary celebrations, but I relied 

not only on those first deputies of mine such as Rauschenbach, Kalashnikov, and 

Yurasov, but also on many department heads and their deputies, each of whom 

we had carefully selected and whose appointments we defended, first of all before 

Korolev, and then before the Party Committee and personnel officers.

I would like to briefly describe the main departments of the first school of space 

control during the 1960s. Viktor Pavlovich Legostayev headed the main theoretical 

department, that is, all the “dynamics specialists.” Now he is a full member of the 

Russian Academy of Sciences, a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, and first deputy general designer and president of the Energiya Rocket-Space 

Corporation. Way back in the 1960s, having brought together all the dynamics specialists from OKB-1, NII-1, and TsNII-58, Legostayev created a sort of corporation 

of space theoreticians who solved many fundamental problems of spacecraft motion 

19. Rauschenbach died on 27 March 2001. His non-technical works include Prostranstvennyye 

postroeniya v zhivopisi: ocherk osnovnykh metodov [Spatial Construction in Painting: Notes on the Basic 

Methods] (Moscow: Nauka, 1986); Sistemy perspektivy v izobrazitelnom iskusstve: obshchaya teoriya 

perspektivy [The System of Perspective in the Fine Arts: A General Theory of Perspective] (Moscow: Nauka, 

1986); Pristrastiye [Bias] (Moscow: Agraf, 1997).

Igor Yurasov was one Chertok’s principal 

deputies in developing control systems 

for spacecraft.

From the author’s archives.

proved worthwhile.

Today’s developers, who can make use of personal computers, simulators, and 

computer-aided drafting, even for drafting large-scale integrated circuits, have trouble dealing with the whole software optimization cycle. The computerization of 

control systems has revolutionized the development and hardware fabrication process. During the 1960s we could not imagine that just 20 years later, a mathematician developing software would determine the deadlines for a system’s production 

rather than a designer and the production facility. But we had begun working on 

this future even back then.

After brief deliberations, Korolev agreed to hand over Department No. 

27, which Rauschenbach had run after its transfer from NII-1, to my instrument 

cluster. Bushuyev readily agreed with this. After all these mergers and changes, my 

deputies responsible for all motion control and “radio electricity” problems in space 

in the 1960s were Boris Viktorovich Rauschenbach, Viktor Aleksandrovich Kalashnikov, and Igor Yevgenyevich Yurasov. Rauschenbach was in charge of all “theoretical” fields, or what we called “dynamics” in our slang. Kalashnikov was in charge 

of the design and testing departments and all manner of electromechanics. Yurasov 

very enthusiastically accepted responsibility for “all electricity” and for conducting 

flight-tests on the spacecraft control systems. The life of each of these three would 

make an interesting story in itself. I was as candid as I could be with each of my 

deputies and felt their support. In short, we were a strong, tight-knit foursome ... 

for the time being. The end came suddenly.

Soon after Korolev’s death, Rauschenbach left OKB-1, and took over a department head post at MFTI.16 He became engrossed with research in the art of icon 

painting and cultural history and with restoring German autonomy in the USSR. 

Rauschenbach was a full member (or Academician) of the USSR Academy of Sciences; with his talent for simplicity in scientific and autobiographical writing, 

Rauschenbach wrote a riveting account of the main events of his life and work with 

Korolev.17 One of Rauschenbach’s first published works was a book written in collaboration with Tokar on principles of spacecraft attitude control. Even now, this 

work can be considered a classic in its field.18 Rauschenbach’s subsequent literary 

works contain not only new glimpses into the history of art and memoirs, but also 

interesting worldviews and philosophical opinions developed after he left the team 

16. By then, OKB-1 had been renamed the Central Design Bureau of Experimental Machine 

Building (Tsentralnoye konstruktorskoye byuro eksperimentalnogo mashinostroyeniya or TsKBEM).

17. B. V. Rauschenbach, Postskriptum [Postscript] (Moscow: Pashkov dom, 2000).

18. B. V. Rauschenbach and Ye. N. Tokar, Upravlenie orientatsiei kosmicheskikh apparatov

[Controlling the Orientation of Space Apparatus] (Moscow: Nauka, 1974).
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from the artillerymen to the space field was, and remains to this day, the chief optical specialist. After working under his leadership, young engineer Viktor Savinykh 

flew into space three times and, together with Vladimir Dzhanibekov, saved the 

Salyut-7 space station.22

Everything related to electricity on board a spacecraft was combined into a single 

onboard complex control system (SUBK). At first this task was assigned to Grabin’s 

chief electrician Boris Pogosyants. However, we soon reorganized, dividing all electricity into “onboard” and “ground” segments. The “heavyweight” among the young 

engineers, Yuriy Karpov, was put in charge of the power distribution system for all 

the power-consuming devices on the spacecraft—which was the logical interconnection between all power “consumers” in a single electrical network. He was also 

responsible for the issuance of commands determining the control logic and flight 

program and for short-circuit and off-nominal situation protection in the “groundto-space” system.

Two graduates of the Taganrog Radio Engineering Institute, Yuriy Karpov and 

Vladimir Shevelev, were the electricians who developed the electrical system of the 

world’s first space laboratory, the third artificial satellite, launched on 15 May 1958. 

Karpov’s deputy was originally Boris Pogosyants, and then “hot war” veteran and 

participant Isaak Abramovich Sosnovik. All three are gone now. Karpov’s doctoral 

dissertation, which he defended in 1989, was the sum total and synthesis of the 

systemic method for designing a complicated spacecraft onboard equipment control complex. I believe the development of the Mir space station’s onboard control 

complex is the pinnacle of the Karpov collective’s creative work.

One of the problems determining the reliability of any spacecraft is the groundtesting hardware, which makes it possible to simulate the work program of the 

actual onboard equipment in flight and to check the correct operation of all the 

electrical connections and of each instrument. End-to-end tests, or as we referred 

to them, “general integration tests,” were conducted at the factory control and testing station (KIS) and at the cosmodrome engineering facility. It was necessary to 

create a single test station instead of the individual “suitcases” that the developer of 

each system used to connect the bundles of cables to “their” onboard instrument. 

And that task was anything but easy. There were so many arguments, conflicts, and 

accommodations.

Petr Nikitovich Kupriyanchik headed the ground-testing equipment department. 

He had gone through the school of control and measurement, not just Grabin’s artillery school, but also Aleksandrov’s fast neutron nuclear reactor school. His deputy, 

radio engineer Anatoliy Aleksandrovich Shustov was supposed to use his radio engineering experience to create a “ground-space-ground” multiplexed communication 

22. In one of the most dramatic missions of the history of the Soviet space program, in 1985, Soyuz 

T-13 cosmonauts Dzhanibekov and Savinykh docked with the “dead” Salyut-7 space station, and over 

a period of several months, revived the station to full operation.

control for our cosmonautics. The then-young engineers Yevgeniy Tokar, Vladimir 

Branets, Ernest Gaushus, Leonid Alekseyev, Oleg Voropayev, Aleksey Yeliseyev, and 

Larisa Komarova are now doctors of science and professors at prestigious institutions of higher learning.

This department valued good theory highly and proved that mathematical tools 

were necessary not only for dissertations, but also for the solution of very practical 

problems. V. N. Branets and I. P. Shmyglevskiy’s monograph Quaternion Application 

in Problems of Solid-state Orientation, published in 1973, is a classic example of the 

use of a mathematical tool to create actual gimballess inertial navigation systems.20

While developing flight control dynamics problems, Aleksey Stanislovich 

Yeliseyev decided that he personally needed to master the technique of spacecraft 

control. He went into space three times, twice received the title Hero of the Soviet 

Union, and until 1986 directed the flight-control service as a deputy general designer 

at Energiya. Larisa Ivanovna Komarova is the generally recognized authority on the 

development of spacecraft navigation and motion control systems for the descent 

phase. To this day she holds the title of professor in my home department of motion 

control at MFTI. Among my other deputies, Branets was bestowed the honor of 

being Yuriy Semyonov’s deputy general designer and was the last person to occupy 

the office of the great artilleryman, Vasiliy Grabin.21

The practical implementation of the theoretical research of Legostayev’s department was entrusted to another of Rauschenbach’s NII-1 associates, department 

chief Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Bashkin. Bashkin’s department developed the actual 

hardware and specific electrical circuitry of the motion control system. We developed the control instruments ourselves at OKB-1, or we were fully responsible for 

ordering and keeping track of them at subcontracting organizations.

Earlier I expressed what I thought was the historical significance of the merger 

of the schools of Korolev, Bolkhovitinov, Grabin, and Keldysh. The personnel of 

the departments of Legostayev and Bashkin are illustrative in this respect. Legostayev’s deputy, Oleg Nikolayevich Voropayev, was one of the first rocket theoreticians and dynamics specialists of Korolev’s school, while Bashkin’s deputy, Oleg 

Igorevich Babkov, came to us from Grabin’s TsNII-58. When I turned 80, Oleg 

Babkov assumed leadership over the entire complex of control problems at RKK 

Energiya. By right of succession, after me he became the proprietor of Grabin’s 

historic office.

Bashkin’s department was also assigned the challenge of providing optical instruments for spacecraft orientation and navigation. Stanislav Savchenko, who came 

20. V. N. Branets and I. P. Shmyglevskiy, Primeneniye kvaternionov v zadachakh orientatsiy tverdogo 

tela [Quaternion Application in Problems of Solid-State Orientation] (Moscow: Nauka, 1973).

21. Yuriy Pavlovich Semyonov (1935–) served as general designer and director of the Energiya 

Rocket-Space Corporation (RKK Energiya) in 1989–2005, only the fourth man to head the 

organization (after Korolev, Mishin, and Glushko).
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when we were developing antennas for R-7 missile warheads I began to set up an 

antenna group in the radio department and then a special laboratory. Several years 

later our antenna laboratory became an independent department.

We were fortunate in terms of talent and enthusiasts. Artillery Captain Mikhail 

Vasilyevich Krayushkin, who was decorated with combat ribbons and medals 

when he joined us after demobilization from the army, was a specialist in love with 

antenna engineering. With four years experience at the front, he was an astonishing 

combination of Old Russian selfless intellectuality and love for classical music and 

Maxwell’s equations. Krayushkin venerated Academician Pistolkors, the patriarch of 

the domestic school of antenna science, and attended all of his seminars.24 He established working contact with the MEI and MFTI antenna engineering departments. 

In later years his orientation toward young and talented theoreticians led to conflicts 

with subordinates who had been his pupils but considered themselves veterans in 

engineering space antenna feeder systems.

Together with Krayushkin, we made sure that a special building for the antenna 

department was constructed. This building housed what was for those times a 

unique anechoic hall. The antenna team was one of the first in my control complex 

to master the methods of electronic mathematic simulation, making it possible to 

find optimal solutions to ensure the reliability of super long-range space communications, and to create antennas with a large gain factor and minimal reduction of 

noise level.

However, not one of the most up-to-date theories of electromagnetic processes 

and conversion of electric power into radio waves helped in the development of a 

mechanical device for antenna deployment. The synthesis of antenna engineering 

and electromechanics proved possible because we already had a strong electromechanical design core that had mastered the engineering of control surface actuators. 

However, the specific character of space electromechanics was new to the already 

“old” technology of the rocket control surface electric actuator. Back in 1947, the 

electromechanical duties for missile control systems were clearly divided between 

Pilyugin and me. Ten years later, we ran into first a trickle and then a tidal wave of 

problems that were relevant only to spacecraft. Projects on rocket and space electromechanics were split off from the general instrument design department. Lev Borisovich Vilnitskiy, another demobilized army captain, was put in charge of them.

While space antenna engineering became former captain Krayushkin’s calling, 

space electromechanics was the calling of Vilnitskiy, another former captain. Vilnitskiy took up the baton for the development of all types of control surface actuators 

and zealously made sure that his department held sway over all the new problems of 

electromechanics on rockets and spacecraft. From the first days of his activity in my 

24. Academician Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Pistolkors (1896–1996) was one of the most famous 

Soviet scientists specializing in antenna theory and developed several basic principles in electromagnetics 

including the so-called “Pistolkors Duality Principle.”

and control channel for spacecraft tests at the KIS and cosmodrome. Kupriyanchik 

proved himself not only as a talented and highly knowledgeable electronics engineer, but also to be extremely skilled at defusing conflicts between developers. Very 

often, when we needed to find a quick compromise between incompatible proposals 

or to figure out what caused an off-nominal situation, I put Kupriyanchik in charge 

of the appropriate commission. He found a way out of dead-end situations surprisingly fast. And it is even more surprising that he is still at it today. During crucial 

crewed launches in recent years, General Designer Yuriy Semyonov used to demand 

Kupriyanchik’s participation in spacecraft preparation at the cosmodrome. That is 

what 45 years’ experience plus the tradition of a school created during Korolev’s 

time is all about. Kupriyanchik’s department, chock full of electronics specialists, 

was also assigned to develop onboard electronic instruments, including sequencers. 

One of the electronic control enthusiasts was young engineer Nikolay Rukavishnikov, a graduate of the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute, a fan of motorcycle racing, and a future cosmonaut.

One of the many new problems for us was radio communications and data transmission at interplanetary distances. We first faced this problem in 1959, when transmitting photographs of the far side of the moon from the Luna-3 spacecraft. Seeing 

the photographs, we snidely remarked, “It has been proven that the moon is round.” 

It was very difficult to distinguish other details. The “space-to-ground” radio-link 

power was determined by a range of factors, including onboard transmitter power, 

the antenna patterns, and the active area of the onboard and ground antennas.

Increasing the radio-link power by raising the onboard transmitter power 

required increasing its mass and dimensions and substantially increasing the capacity of the onboard storage batteries, measures which threatened to disrupt the new 

interplanetary spacecraft projects. Another approach to solving this problem was 

to construct large antennas on Earth and “good” antennas on board. The first large 

ground antenna with an acute antenna pattern was erected near Simferopol at NIP10. It had a diameter of 32 meters, which in those pioneering space years was the 

very height of ambition. But it would not do the trick if the space-based feeder 

antenna system converted the greater part of the transmitter’s power into heat rather 

than radio waves carrying relevant data.

In those early years, the chief designer of the radio-links was Mikhail Ryazanskiy, 

the NII-885 deputy director and scientific chief. He explained to Korolev that his 

institute would be fully responsible for ground-based antennas; onboard antennas, 

one other hand, were organically associated with the design of spacecraft, including its attitude control system. After a few disagreements in the Council of Chief 

Designers, Korolev announced that, yes, OKB-1 would take on the development 

of that part of the radio-link called the onboard antenna feeder system (AFU) and 

that I would bear the responsibility for this problem.23 I did not object because back 

23. AFU—Antenno-fidernoye ustroystvo.
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ing assemblies. This same department developed instrumentation for the fuel tank 

depletion monitoring systems and, consequently, also for monitoring the operation 

of the N-1 lunar rocket engines.

From the first days of the space age we understood that we needed to devote 

a lot more attention to a source of electrical power for spacecraft than ones for 

rockets. It turned out that even a reliable storage battery for a rocket was absolutely 

unacceptable for a spacecraft in terms of weight and size. A special department of 

electrical power systems was staffed with “pure” electrical engineers. This department ordered and oversaw the development of storage batteries and solar arrays at 

subcontractor organizations and developed a monitoring system for buffer battery 

charge, voltage stabilization, and hazardous discharge protection. The problems of 

a reliable spacecraft power supply became more complicated as we ventured further 

into the “forest of space.” 

Boris Mikhaylovich Penek headed the power engineering department for two 

decades. A team of very enterprising engineers gathered in the department. Young 

specialists who had come to TsNII-58 during the mastery of nuclear reactors made 

up its core. Leonard Petrovich Kozlov, Nikolay Semenovich Nekipelov, and Aleksandr Ivanovich Shuruy monitored the work of the Scientific-Research Institute for 

Current Sources (whose chief designer was Nikolay Stepanovich Lidorenko), the 

Leningrad Institute of Current Sources, and other organizations. They developed 

the electrical circuits of the onboard electric power supply, were active as testers at 

the factory KIS and at the firing range, and during the flight-control process they 

kept watch over the expenditure of every ampere-hour. During the early stages of 

the spacecraft design, Bushuyev and I came to a compromise over conflicts between 

the designers and “rusty electricians” as to the buffer batteries’ weights and dimensions and the solar arrays’ area and efficiency.

This same power engineering department inherited a number systems for dealing with off-nominal situations, systems that were not unduly sought after; these 

included the emergency rocket (or spacecraft) destruction (APR) system, the emergency engine unit shutdown (AVDU) system, the electric automatic controls for the 

emergency rescue system (SAS), and the electric automatic controls for landing.25

All the departments that were developing systems needed designers who converted 

electrical diagrams into instrument drawings suitable for production. From my very 

first days at NII-88 in 1947, I entrusted the design department to Semyon Gavrilovich Chizhikov. We had started out together equipping the DB-A bomber with 

instrumentation back in 1935 at Bolkhovitinov’s OKB.

Modern-day computer technology enables a designer to draw an instrument 

25. AVDU—Avariynoye vyklyucheniye dvigatelnoy ustanovki; SAS—Sistema avariynogo spaseniya.

branch, Vilnitskiy established close relations with production. Together with Isaak 

Khazanov, who had been appointed chief of instrument production, he actively 

engaged in the organization of a special shop for control surface actuators and precise electromechanics. The complex engineering of docking assemblies, electric 

pumps for thermal control systems, antenna deployment drives, solar arrays, and 

control of the most powerful liquid-propellant rocket engines in the world got its 

start in his department.

I also collaborated very closely on theoretical issues with the chief electromechanical scientists in the space program, director of the All-Union ScientificResearch Institute of Electromechanics Andronik Gevondovich Iosifyan and his 

deputy, future Academician Nikolay Nikolayevich Sheremetyevskiy. The midlevel 

engineers who worked on actually developing electric motors under Iosifyan and 

Sheremetyevskiy respected Vilnitskiy very highly. There were tremendous disputes, 

but they eventually agreed to our requirements for the production of various electric 

power converters.

In 1983, Lev Vilnitskiy retired. He handed off the actuator design baton to 

Vadim Vasilyevich Kudryavtsev. At the same time, the volume of electromechanical 

design projects rapidly increased. We needed to develop complex electromechanical 

and electrohydraulic simulators to reproduce on Earth the processes taking place in 

space.

Kudryavtsev’s talent and irrepressible enthusiasm contributed to the development of unique simulators. The special Konus (Cone) building was constructed for 

them. Digitally controlled control surface actuators for the Energiya launch vehicles 

were tested on this unique simulation stand. Kudryavtsev was a pioneer in the digital control of powerful actuator units. Until the last days of his life he heroically 

struggled with the cancer that had consumed him, trying to prolong his life by 

devoting himself completely to his work. The valediction that he left this life as a 

talented engineer and manager at the zenith of his creative powers fully applies in 

his case.

In the field of electromechanics, problems of docking system dynamics and design 

took on an international scale. In the early 1970s, the Soviet and U.S. governments 

began negotiating for a rendezvous in space between the Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft. In the joint project with the Americans we aimed to “not give in” and use our 

own docking assembly design. Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, and member 

of the International Academy of Astronautics Vladimir Sergeyevich Syromyatnikov 

supervised this project; his team performed this historic mission honorably. For his 

work, Syromyatnikov has been well known to specialists in the field of cosmonautics in Russia, the U.S., and Europe.

The field of dynamics and docking hardware design required the organization 

of an independent department and widespread cooperation with other branches. 

Automatic docking in space of two multiton masses was possible only with organic 

interlocking, a joint design project for mechanics and electric-automation engineers. 

Viktor Kuzmin’s special department developed electric automatic controls for dock-
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rity, internal security, administrative support, technical archives, blueprint copying 

facility, and so on. In addition, Khazanov and I made broad use of the materials 

science, instrumentation, and main metallurgist departments, and also of the tooling, casting, and electroplating shops that OKB-1 and the factory shared. Despite 

our thematic independence, we were organically connected with the entire OKB-1 

structure. This was one of the reasons why after Korolev’s death I suppressed all sorts 

of internal and external ideas for creating an independent NII or KB for spacecraft 

control systems.

Our great advantage in the first years of the space race was the integrated systemic 

approach. A single organization created the launch vehicle, designed and produced 

the spacecraft, developed its control system, tested all the components of the large 

system, and controlled the flight. I would call the regime within the organization a 

totalitarian democracy.

Chief Designer Korolev was the dictator. Rather than submit to him, we listened 

to him and we argued with him. But we carried out his decisions and instructions 

without question—that was taken for granted. During the early years, the Americans expended a lot of energy coordinating specifications between companies. A 

single project involving hundreds of contracts demanded time that we didn’t need 

to spend.26

The hundreds of changes that cropped up during projects—major and minor 

adjustments—were quickly resolved during daily personal contact between the 

interested parties who called in all the consultants that were needed. Whereas the 

Americans wasted weeks coordinating complex issues between companies and drawing up protocols, OKB-1 settled them during hours of productive arguments and 

business meetings at the workstations. A great deal was resolved at the lowest levels 

so quickly that managers higher up the line found out about a problem only when 

they signed the fully thought-out document that dealt with that problem.

One more positive aspect of this integrated method of developing space technology was having powerful production facilities at the chief designer’s disposal 

that were capable not only of manufacturing a rocket or spacecraft, but that, from 

the very beginning of the design process, enabled the work force of the factory 

and complex of design departments to manufacture experimental units: mock-ups 

for developmental testing of the configuration, thermal modes, dynamics, pressure 

integrity, onboard systems complex, antenna parameters, and so on. These experi26. For management histories of NASA during the Apollo era, see for example, Arnold S. Levine, 

Managing NASA in the Apollo Era (Washington, DC: NASA-SP-4102, 1982); Stephen B. Johnson, 

The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs (Baltimore, MD: 

Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002). See also the essays by Robert C. Seamans, James E. Webb, 

and other Apollo-era NASA managers including Robert R. Gilruth, Wernher von Braun, George M. 

Low, Rocco A. Petrone, Samuel C. Phillips, and George E. Mueller in Edgar M. Cortright, ed., Apollo 

Expeditions to the Moon (NASA: Washington, DC, 1975).

without touching a pencil or drafting pen, and without using a drafting table or 

a drafting set. He or she has no need for Whatman paper, tracing paper, or blueprints for the reproduction of drawings. A designer’s idea takes shape in a digital 

file and is emailed to the manufacturing shop or transferred on a disk loaded into 

a machine tool station, or displayed on an assembler’s monitor screen. This high 

technology did not become commonplace until the very end of the 20th century. 

For the entire preceding century, a designer issuing a working document had to 

master the difficult art of technical drawing, know the production process, possess 

an artist’s imagination while complying with hundreds of standards and materials 

manuals, and keep in mind the actual manufacturing capabilities and deadlines. In 

this respect, the aviation and artillery systems for issuing drawing documentation 

were different.

Synthesizing the documentation was also a concern of the design department 

chief. The volume of design projects grew exponentially, and I had to make the 

decision to divide them into “onboard” and “ground” projects. The onboard instruments stayed in Chizhikov’s department while all of the “ground” instruments, 

including the ground testing station, known in the history of cosmonautics under 

code number “11N6110,” were transferred to the ground design department. Two 

“Grabinite” designers, Ivan Ivanovich Zverev and Boris Grigoryevich Pogosyants, 

headed the “ground” department. Chizhikov was also given a deputy, designer Grigoriy Ivanovich Muravyev of the Grabinite school who rapidly made himself at home 

in this new sphere. The best measure of the quality of a designer’s work were the 

evaluations he received from the chiefs of the shops where his ideas had materialized rather than those from his immediate supervisors. Chizhikov and Muravyev by 

rights won authority and respect at the factory not only among the workers but also 

from Turkov, the very demanding factory director.

The production cycle of any article in our technology ended with rigorous testing. This required a large amount of complex, scarce, and expensive test equipment. 

But that wasn’t all. We called the tests conducted on prototypes “design development tests.” Igor Fedorovich Alyshevskiy initally headed the laboratory and soon 

thereafter ran the special testing department.

By the mid-1960s, together with the instrument production that Isaak Borisovich Khazanov managed, we had transformed ourselves into an instrument and 

electric kingdom, a “kingdom” within Korolev’s “empire.” I had more than 1,300 

engineers and technicians working directly under me. At the production plant, 

Khazanov had a staff of more than 1,700 workers and process engineers under him. 

In all there were around 3,000 instrument specialists. If we had been an independent enterprise producing all the same items, we would have needed at least 1,000 

more employees for all the services supporting our activity: a commercial unit, procurement, book-keeping, library, guard service, transport, personnel, office of secu-
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1991.

Viktor Ivanovich Patsayev was already an engineer when he came to OKB-1. 

Before transferring to the group of cosmonauts he worked as a designer in Krayushkin’s antenna department. He completed a space flight in 1971 as test-engineer 

on Soyuz-11 and on the long-duration Salyut space station. He perished during the 

return to Earth and was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union title posthumously.

Engineer-physicist Nikolay Nikolayevich Rukavishnikov was involved for two 

years in the development and full-scale testing of automatic control systems and 

nuclear reactor shielding. In 1960, after the merger of TsNII-58 and OKB-1, he was 

appointed senior engineer and soon thereafter leader of a group in Kupriyanchik’s 

department. He developed electronic instruments, the precursors of modern-day 

computers, for the first automatic interplanetary spacecraft and also instruments for

the manual control of the L-1 spacecraft for the lunar fly-by.28

Rukavishnikov completed his first spaceflight as test-engineer on Soyuz-10, 

along with Shatalov and Yeliseyev. Docking for transfer to the long-duration Salyut 

space station failed to take place due to equipment malfunction. He completed his 

second spaceflight in December 1974 as flight-engineer of Soyuz-16 on a 7K-TM 

spacecraft for the Apollo-Soyuz Experimental Flight (EPAS) in preparation for a 

rendezvous with the U.S. Apollo spacecraft.29 His third spaceflight in April 1979 

as commander of Soyuz-33 on a mission to visit the long-duration Salyut-6 space 

station almost ended in tragedy. The spacecraft’s main braking engine failed, and 

the crew executed an emergency ballistic landing using a backup engine. In 1981, 

two-time Hero of the Soviet Union Rukavishnikov was elected president of the 

USSR Federation of Cosmonautics. His activity in this post often intersected with 

my work as director of “Korolevian” academic readings.30

In 1992, I agreed on behalf of the firm to fly to Tomsk to take part in an anniversary celebration and to strengthen business ties with a Tomsk electrical engineering firm. Nikolay Nikolayevich eagerly accepted my proposal to keep me company. 

Tomsk was his home town; he was an honorary citizen of this town. The CPSU 

regional committee, which in such cases had been in charge of receiving honorary guests, no longer existed, but the traditions of Party hospitality had been preserved.

Rukavishnikov and I stayed in a large regional committee hotel on the bank of 

the Tom, a tributary of the Ob River. As we strolled along the high bank admiring 

the wide river, Rukavishnikov said, “Just think, I could have been way over there 

28. The L-1 spacecraft was better known in public as the Zond series of vehicles. These were 

designed to send a dual-cosmonaut crew on a circumlunar flight in the late 1960s.

29. The 7K-TM was a special variant of the Soyuz spacecraft designed for ASTP.

30. The “Korolev Readings” are annual sessions devoted to papers on the Russian space program. 

Similar “readings” are also held in honor of many other Soviet scientists and cosmonauts (including 

Yuriy Gagarin and Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy).

mental units were specialized mock-up stands. They made it possible to introduce 

essential changes during the hardware design process.

Even after Korolev’s death, special testing facilities created for the entire field at 

the Scientific-Research Institute of Chemical Machine Building (NIIKhimmash) 

and at the Central Design Bureau of Machine Building (TsKBM) in Reutov continued to develop and implemented the lessons of his school.27

Our radio electronic departments seethed with passions that were 

more than purely creative. The desire to touch space “with our own hands” 

overcame the fear of the unknown. The engineers who had created the rocket and 

spacecraft systems understood better than anyone the dangers that human spaceflight entailed. And, nevertheless, from the teams in my departments alone, five 

men flew into space!

I am repeating myself, but I feel compelled to mention them again in alphabetical order. Vladimir Viktorovich Aksenov began working as a designer in Chizhikov’s 

department in 1957. He was promoted through all the levels of engineering work 

up to laboratory chief. In 1973, he became a member of TsKBEM’s cosmonaut 

corps. He participated in two spaceflights as flight engineer; in 1976 on Soyuz-22

and in 1980 on Soyuz T-2.

After demobilization from the army in 1964, two-time Hero of the Soviet Union 

Aleksandr Pavlovich Aleksandrov began work as a technician in Bashkin’s department while at the same time attending the MVTU night school department at our 

enterprise. He took a class of my lectures, received a higher education, and was space 

station shift flight director. He completed two spaceflights as flight engineer, in 

1983 on Soyuz T-9 and the Salyut-7 space station, and in 1987 on Soyuz TM-3 and 

the Mir space station. In 2003, I congratulated Aleksandrov on his 60th birthday 

and recalled that his father Pavel Sergeyevich and mother Valentina Vasilyevna had 

been employees of the Moscow GIRD under the direction of Fridrikh Tsander and 

then Sergey Korolev. I met his father, a lieutenant colonel, in Bleicherode, Germany, 

and later worked with him as the OKB-1 military acceptance representative.

After graduating from MVTU, Aleksey Stanislavovich Yeliseyev began graduate 

school at MFTI and in 1962, simultaneously began to work as a senior technician 

in Legostayev’s department, where he went on to attain the rank of senior engineer. 

He completed three spaceflights as flight-engineer, including two flights in 1969, 

on Soyuz-5, executing a transfer in open space to Soyuz-4, and a flight on Soyuz-8. 

In 1971 he flew on Soyuz-10. He is a two-time Hero of the Soviet Union, was NPO 

Energiya deputy general designer, and served as president of MVTU from 1986 to 

27. NIIKhimmash, formerly the NII-229, was the primary rocket-engine testing facility during 

Soviet times. TsKBM was the name of Vladimir Chelomey’s OKB-52 organization from 1966 to 

1983.
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chief engineer, I set up a sensors and measuring systems laboratory. When OKB-1 

was formed, this laboratory moved to Department No. 5, headed first by Yangel 

and then by me. During the great merger of 1960, laboratory chief Ivan Ivanovich 

Utkin convinced Korolev that it would be expedient to transfer his laboratories to 

NII-88 (now TsNIIMash). There he set up a specialized department, on the basis 

of which the Scientific-Research Institute of Measurement Technology was formed 

in 1966. The founders and managers of the nation’s leading governmental center 

of measuring instrumentation never failed to remind me that they were of “Korolevian” descent and that in their distant, hazy youth I had been their direct boss. Alas, 

today not a single one of them is still alive.

For our body of work in the development of control systems in the field of 

cosmonautics, three individuals—Rauschenbach, Legostayev, and myself—were 

elected full members, that is, academicians of the Academy of Sciences. Besides the 

three of us, the Russian Academy of Sciences has only one other scientist with this 

specialization, Corresponding Member Gennadiy Petrovich Anshakov, organizer of 

the school of control systems for reconnaissance and remote Earth sensing spacecraft at the Progress State Special Design Bureau (GSKB) in Samara.33

33. GSKB—Gosudarstvennoye spetsialnoye konstruktorskoye byuro. 

instead of here,” and he pointed to some barely visible tall smokestacks and buildings of another town on the horizon.

“I studied to be a nuclear engineer, and over there beyond the horizon is a Tomsk 

quite different from the old Siberian Tomsk. It’s an ultramodern nuclear Tomsk that 

produces plutonium or something else for nuclear weapons.”

“Do you have regrets, Nikolay Nikolayevich?”

“No, no regrets. Even when the failsafe engine developed by Isayev’s design 

bureau failed [on Soyuz-33] and I could have gotten stuck in orbit, I had no regrets 

and wasn’t even afraid.”

Ten years later, tired from fatigue, I sat down on a playground bench in an 

Ostankino courtyard. My memory clearly replayed the tranquil conversation about 

human destinies that Rukavishnikov and I had had on the bank of the Tom. I 

plodded out of the space housing complex on Khovanskaya Street after the memorial service—a ceremony at the gravesite at the Ostankino cemetery—after hearing 

reminiscences about cosmonaut Rukavishnikov at his funeral.31

As a student of the Moscow Engineering Institute of Geodesy, Aerial Surveying and Cartography (MIIGAiK) Viktor Petrovich Savinykh spent his graduate 

residency in Bashkin’s department.32 After defending his diploma project, he stayed 

there to work, but then transferred to the newly formed instrument department 

headed by chief optics specialist Stanislav Andreyevich Savchenko. Savinykh completed his first space flight in March 1981, as flight-engineer of Soyuz T-4 in a mission to the Salyut-6 station. He completed his second space flight in 1985, also as 

a flight-engineer on Soyuz T-13 on a mission to the Salyut-7 station. Together with 

Vladimir Dzhanibekov, Savinykh performed heroic work to restore the operating 

capability of the “dead station.” He completed his third flight in 1988 as flight-engineer on Soyuz TM-5 to the Mir station. His total time spent in space is more than 

252 days! Two-time Hero of the Soviet Union Viktor Savinykh has been president 

of MIIGAiK since 1989 and president of the Russian Association of Institutions of 

Higher Learning since 1990.

Space wasn’t the only place we sent our control systems specialists. By voluntarycompulsory agreement of the parties involved, our specialists bolstered the ranks of 

high governmental and Communist Party offices. Radio engineers Aleksey Alekseyevich Shananin, Aleksandr Ivanovich Tsarev, and Oleg Genrikhovich Ivanovskiy 

moved from Podlipki to the Kremlin to positions of importance in the MilitaryIndustrial Commission. Radio engineer Viktor Alekseyevich Popov received the 

office of CPSU Central Committee “instructor” in its Defense Department on Old 

Square.

In our history, both mergers and divisions have been successes that have contributed to the successes of space technology. In 1950, still in my post as NII-88 deputy 

31. Rukavishnikov died on 18 October 2002.

32. MIIGAiK—Moskovskiy institut inzhenerov geodezii, aerofotosyemki i kartografii.

Chapter 29

Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly 

to Koshka

In September 1959, we proved to the whole world that Block Ye, the third stage 

of the R-7A intercontinental missile, was capable of achieving escape velocity and 

delivering a payload to the surface of the Moon. The world did not know, though, 

that of the six three stage missiles with the code number 8K72, the Block Ye had 

only managed to work twice. In four launches, the mission fell short of Block Ye 

firing.

However, our enthusiasm, reinforced by the government decree dated 20 March 

1958, demanded that we move on to the next phase, a lunar flyby to photograph 

the far side of the Moon, invisible from the Earth. As was already our custom, no 

advance publicity about this was allowed.

Compared with a direct Moon shot, the mission to photograph its far side was 

immeasurably more complex. For the first time in the history of cosmonautics a 

spacecraft had to be created that was controlled both autonomously and by commands from the ground. A photo-television unit (FTU) was installed on the automatic station (AS), or Ye-2.1

 When the AS reached the lunar region, the orientation 

system was supposed to turn the station so that the camera lenses were pointed at 

the far side of the Moon not visible from the Earth. Meanwhile the control system 

would have to stabilize the AS, switch on the FTU, and shut it down after 40 to 50 

minutes.

According to the joint calculations conducted by Okhotsimskiy’s mathematical 

group at OPM, Lavrov’s at OKB-1, and Elyasberg’s at NII-4, the distance from the 

station to the lunar surface during the photography process would be around 7,000 

kilometers. They selected an extremely elongated elliptical orbit encompassing the 

Moon and the Earth.

To set up the requisite orbit skirting the Moon’s far side, the “celestial mechanics” from OPM proposed using the Moon’s gravitational pull. The trajectory of the 

flyby was calculated so as to obtain the maximum amount of information during 

the first orbital pass. There was supposed to be enough film on board for a second 

1. FTU—Fototelevizionnoye ustroystvo; AS—Avtomaticheskoy stantsii.

519
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of scanning, amplifying, forming a signal, and other processes necessary to feed the 

data to the radio-link. A new aspect of the process was the broad use of semiconductors—transistors—instead of vacuum tubes. At that time, this was considered exotic 

and was quite risky.

The spacecraft transmitted images to Earth via a radio-link, which also helped 

to measure the motion parameters of the spacecraft itself and to transmit telemetry 

parameters. The same radio-link was used for radio commands for onboard systems’ 

and for receiving response acknowledgements. This was a complex integrated radio 

system developed at NII-885 under Boguslavskiy’s supervision. During work on 

this system I had many rather friendly debates with him over the selection of the 

radio transmission principle.

While still in Germany studying German radio control and telemetry expertise, Boguslavskiy had criticized the Germans for using continuous-wave radiation 

instead of the pulse radiation that was widely used in radar. Developing new systems independently, Boguslavskiy pushed through pulse ideas in every way possible. 

I supported him in this. I had become used to working with pulse methods back in 

1943 while working with Popov on an aircraft positioning system.

Despite his previous preference for pulse methods, Boguslavskiy started to 

develop an integrated continuous-wave radio-link for the Ye-2. We radio specialists, 

and there were quite a few of us at OKB-1 at that time, tried to influence Boguslavskiy in reembracing his pulse “world view,” but he stood his ground.

S.P. got wind of our differences of opinion. He demanded explanations from 

Ryazanskiy, who was responsible for the radio system as a whole. The matter was 

brought up in a private conference. Boguslavskiy forthrightly declared that he was 

not retreating from his commitment to pulse methods, but that with this deadline 

it was only possible to develop a reliable system using tested continuous-wave methods. With that we settled our differences in the interests of deadlines and reliability.

As a rule, victors don’t have to justify themselves, but the faint and fuzzy image 

that was first transmitted was due to the radio-link’s insufficient power. Many years 

later, still good friends, Boguslavskiy and I discussed this episode after communications sessions during evening strolls around the grounds of the Simferopol and 

Yevpatoriya space communications radio centers.

Boguslavskiy was also responsible for the philosophy behind the entire complex 

of ground radio equipment, command unit, powerful radio transmitters, receiving 

and recording units, and antenna systems. Military unit 32103 and NII-885 were 

able to successfully construct and prepare the first space communications station 

on Mount Koshka in the Crimea for such a crucial job as the far side photography

mission because of the smooth working relationship between them.2 The southern 

side of the mountain where the station was built faced the sea. There was virtually 

2. Military Unit 32103 ran the Command and Measurement Complex or the ground 

communications segment of the Soviet space program. NII-885 was the primary research institute 

devoted to developing guidance systems for Soviet missiles.

orbital pass of the Moon and Earth, but in reality would there be a second orbital 

pass? There were many disputes about the trajectory selection. The problem was 

further complicated by the fact that, in order to downlink the photographic results 

successfully via radio-link during the return to Earth, the AS would have to be over 

the northern hemisphere since the nation’s first and (at the time) only interplanetary 

communications facility had been built in the Crimea on Mount Koshka in the area 

of Simeiz.

While discussing the trajectory proposed by the ballistics specialists, we demanded 

that they solemnly swear that during the station’s first orbital pass while coming 

back toward the Earth it would not graze the atmosphere and burn up. We fiercely 

debated over the station’s possible life expectancy. These arguments affected me 

directly because, depending on the length of its life cycle and the number of communications sessions, the designers and I would have to address a number of issues: 

determine the parameters for the power supply system and the program timing 

devices, arrange with Ryazanskiy and Boguslavskiy about the resources and number 

of commands in the radio system, and resolve a plethora of other issues that we 

would be facing for the first time. It was damn interesting to puzzle over and work 

on all of these cases, which are now textbook classics.

Systems production and testing took place in 1959. I already had a great deal of 

experience in the developmental testing of control system instruments for combat 

missiles, and I tried in every way possible to carry it over to the Ye-2 systems. My 

skepticism toward the issue of reliability was very strong and well founded. Using 

today’s standard of reliability theory, if you were to calculate the probability of 

photographing the far side of the Moon with equipment produced back then, the 

chances for success would be no higher than 20% to 30%.

Besides the stabilization and attitude control system developed in Rauschenbach’s department at NII-1, the item that caused the most trouble was the Yenisey

photo-television unit that everyone called the “bath and laundry trust company.” 

NII-380 in Leningrad, later known as the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute 

of Television, developed this FTU according to our specifications. A team of enthusiasts headed by Director Igor Rosselevich and engineers Pyotr Bratslavets and Igor 

Valik developed the self-adjusting photo-television unit within a period of time 

that was quite fantastic even by today’s standards. A dual-lens camera took pictures 

while automatically changing the exposure. The process began only upon receipt 

of a command indicating precise targeting on the moon. When the photographic 

session was completed, the film went to the automatic processing unit, where it was 

developed, fixed, dried, rewound into a special cassette, and prepared for transmission of the images.

I had been an amateur photographer since my childhood. Perhaps this is why I 

especially sympathized with the team of the photo-television unit specialists who 

took the brunt of the higher-ups’ wrath and the testers’ rebukes for the numerous 

failures and continuous disruptions of the preparation schedule during Yenisey testing at the firing range.

Cathode ray tubes and a photomultiplier were used to convert the negative 

image captured on film into electrical signals. The process involved the electronics 
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you could not always tell who the developer was and who the tester was. Usually a 

spacecraft arrived at the firing range without having been completely finished and 

tested at the factory. The systems developers knew about many of their mistakes 

before testing had begun in the Assembly and Testing Building at the engineering 

facility, and many more were discovered afterward.

The Ye-2, the first spacecraft equipped with a motion control system and a 

complex radio system, was a typical example of this process. As usual, testing took 

place under conditions of constant stress. Time flew before the launch window; it 

accelerated at an uncanny rate. The closer you got to the deadline, the more snags 

you found; there were more unforeseen defects, failures, and systems affecting each 

other for reasons unknown. Sometimes it seemed we were absolutely overwhelmed 

with obstacles with no end in sight and would have to report that “It is impossible 

to prepare the vehicle by the deadline. The launch must be canceled!” But this didn’t 

happen. We all believed in success and supported this belief in each other.

During Ye-2 preparation in September and October 1959, the developers of the 

world’s first spacecraft attitude control system, Ye. A. Bashkin, D. A. Knyazev, Ye. 

N. Tokar, V. P. Legostayev, Yu. V. Sparzhin, V. A. Nikolayev, A. I. Patsiora, M. M. 

Tyulkin, and A. V. Chukanov, who were all members of the same Rauschenbach 

team that we first saw at NII-1 with Keldysh, won me over with their engineering 

fanaticism. They found solutions to what seemed like the most hopeless problems.

After transferring to us at OKB-1 from NII-1, Bashkin soon became one of 

our leading specialists, the chief of the large spacecraft control systems department. 

Although he possessed invaluable experience with the space program, in his quest 

for new areas to apply his talents, he later switched over—to my regret—to work at 

the television center. Knyazev succeeded in organizing projects in a new field with 

us at OKB-1, specifically microthruster actuator systems. His tragic death in a plane 

crash was a terrible blow for all of us.

Bashkin and Knyazev each very clearly explained the problems they found in 

their operations to Keldysh and Korolev, who were quite anxiously monitoring the 

testing process on the system, especially since it had been produced by a team of 

nonprofessionals. A general feeling of optimism seasoned with a good portion of 

humor were usually enough to reassure them after another restless night.

It was much more difficult to understand problems with the radio equipment. 

If the radio commands failed, they caused onboard equipment to malfunction. But 

most often the culprit turned out to be the testing station rather than the system 

itself. At the very beginning of the space age an American rocket specialist very aptly 

stated, “If everything goes well during testing, it means that you missed something.” 

Usually that’s just what happened.

The Yenisey gave us the most trouble during preparations. During integrated realtime tests all the commands were executed, but the film came out first with spots 

and then overexposed and cloudy. We formed and exchanged all sorts of hypotheses 

and solutions. Valik and Bratslavets went without sleep for countless nights. One 

night a phone call from Arkadiy Ostashev woke me up. Almost shouting for joy 

no industrial radio interference. The Crimean climate made it possible to work yearround without a break.

The communications center was part of a large Command and Measurement 

Complex (KIK) system. At that time the KIK was still under the authority of 

NII-4 and General Sokolov. The practice we had gained during our 1958 launch 

failures confirmed that every cloud 

has its silver lining. When we finally 

achieved failure-free performance and 

pulled off a successful Moon shot, the 

long-range radio communications 

system had been thoroughly developed and tested.

The assembly and testing of 

the automatic station at the factory hadn’t been completed by the 

required deadline. Considering 

that all of the most qualified testers 

were at the firing range all the time, 

with Korolev’s agreement, Turkov sent 

the vehicle to the firing range for final 

testing and adjustment in August 

1959. By that time a system for preparing unfinished articles had already 

been set up at the engineering facility.

Arkadiy Ostashev and I shared the 

duties of constantly supervising and 

monitoring the testing. He generously 

agreed to be at the Assembly and Testing Building primarily at night, leaving me with the day to work, and 

also deal with the numerous higher 

ups who still preferred to catch up on 

their sleep at night, or to make progress reports to Moscow to quite highranking leaders. During this testing, we were simultaneously conducting launch 

preparations for the Ye-1 Moon shot, the one that carried the historic pendant to 

the Moon.

From the very start, the first spacecraft tests differed fundamentally from aircraft 

tests. A test pilot tests an aircraft. The aviation chief designer and his close associates would usually stand on the airfield, fret, and wait for the landing and the pilot’s 

report. In the case of a spacecraft at the firing range, before a launch, the testers and 

developers tested a spacecraft together. They formed such a close-knit team that 

A Ye-2A spacecraft shown on a dolly. Such 

a vehicle flew by the Moon in October 1959 

and captured the first photographs of the 

farside of the Moon. Later known as Luna-3, 

the vehicle passed over the southern lunar 

polar cap at a range of about 7,900 kilometers 

on 6 October. During its flyby, it took 29 

photographs which gave humanity its first 

view of the farside.

From the author’s archives.
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duty overhead traveling crane followed all his commands very precisely. The spectacle of the rocket cluster’s nighttime assembly was a real pleasure.

On 28 September at the Sport Palace in Luzhinki, a meeting took place on the 

occasion of Khrushchev’s return from America. Khrushchev was greeted by an auto 

worker, a collective farm brigade chief, an MVTU coed, and, on behalf of the scientific community, Academician Leonid Sedov. With all due respect and goodwill 

to Leonid Ivanovich, a great scientist and mechanical engineer of our day, I shared 

Korolev’s hard feelings. To this day, abroad some still call Sedov the “father of the 

Soviet sputnik.” The true creators never got their 15 minutes of fame to boost their 

spirits.

All those who spoke at the meeting, including Sedov, praised the achievements 

of “scientists, engineers, and workers who fulfilled humankind’s ancient dreams, 

those who led the way into space and to interplanetary flight.” Khrushchev’s speech 

genuinely elated all present at the meeting and the millions in the radio audience. 

And indeed, he was sincere when he said:

“Our time can and must be a time for the fulfillment of great ideals, a time of peace 

and progress. The Soviet government recognized this long ago... From this high podium, 

standing before Muscovites, before all my people, before the government and the Party, I 

must say that President of the United States of America Dwight Eisenhower displayed 

statesmanlike wisdom in his assessment of the current international situation. He displayed courage and will...

At the same time, I have gotten the impression that in America there are forces that 

are not acting in concert with the President. These forces advocate a continuation of the 

Cold War and the arms race...”3

At that time we all had not only underestimated these forces in the U.S., but 

we had not even thought that such forces also existed among us. They brought the 

world to the brink of catastrophe just three years later.4

And while ovations were thundering across the nation, we were preparing the Ye-2. Preparation at the launch site was proceeding relatively calmly. As I 

left the launch pad at T-minus 30 minutes to go to the tracking station, in keeping 

with tradition I told Leonid Voskresenskiy and Yevgeniy Ostashev to “break a leg.” 

Together, they replied, “Go to hell.”5

The rocket carrying the new lunar spacecraft lifted off just 20 days after the first 

lunar impact. On 4 October, the second anniversary of the beginning of the space 

age, Yuriy Levitan announced to the world that a “third cosmic rocket” had been 

3. Zhit v mire i druzhbe! [To Live in Peace and Friendship!] (Moscow: Politizdat Publishing House, 

1959), pp. 415–16.

4. Here, Chertok is alluding to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which he describes in Volume 3.

5. Russian superstition requires “Break a leg” to be answered with “Go to hell.” Not responding is 

considered bad luck.

he reported, “Boris Yeseyevich, the alchemists finally did it. The film is perfect. I 

request permission to give the order not to change anything and to prepare the last 

complex by morning.”

This was a week before the historic pendant on Luna-2 impacted on the Moon. 

After that historic event we flew home for a few days for “a change of underwear” 

and a breath of air in Moscow and Podlipki. The day after we returned to the firing 

range I appeared before Korolev for a progress report on Ye-2 preparations and to 

coordinate the program for the near future. He was very excited by the response to 

Luna-2—the international successes, the nationwide celebration, and the obvious 

regard of Khrushchev, whose return from America we were expecting on 28 September.

“Well, we won’t be meeting with him in Moscow,” remarked Korolev with visible 

regret. “We have to fly out to the firing range and prepare for a launch on October 

3rd or 4th. No later! Don’t be long. You and Ostashev make sure you leave in a 

couple of days and, look, we absolutely must not disgrace ourselves now. Lovell and 

the Americans will be tracking the launch. Keldysh wants the mission objective to 

be announced immediately after the vehicle goes into orbit. So if we don’t see the 

far side of the Moon, it will be a tremendous disgrace. Report to me as soon as you 

return to Site No. 2.”

On 17 September I returned to Site No. 2 and immersed myself in the continuous, round-the-clock stream of testing concerns. By 25 September we had received 

relatively solid assurance that, it appeared, all the bobiki were gone and we could 

move on to mate the automatic station with the third stage and then to the assembly 

and final testing of the entire cluster.

Soon thereafter I had the opportunity to admire the work of Captain Sinekolodetskiy. In soft slippers he deftly moved along the rocket boosters suspended beneath 

the roof and gave commands using gestures comprehensible only to him and the 

crane operator. These were signs similar to those used by the deaf, but the heavyCloseups of the Ye-2A (Luna-3) spacecraft shows the “top” and “bottom” of the vehicle. 

The left image shows the lens of the imaging system (Yenisey) in the center surrounded on 

the sides by various scientific instruments and sensors mounted on thermal shielding. The 

right image shows gas jet nozzles and a solar sensor for attitude control.

From the author’s archives.
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day before from the firing range for my new assignment. At the entrance to the airfield the duty attendant simply asked, “Charter flight? Your party has already gone 

through. Hurry,” and he pointed in the direction of the airplane. The Tu-104 was 

the first jetliner of our civil aviation.8 It was still a great rarity for domestic flights. It 

was easy to find this airplane on the airfield.

After climbing on board the aircraft, to my surprise, I saw Keldysh, Vladimirskiy, 

and Ryazanskiy—all smiling—and S.P.’s disgruntled, worried face. He pounced on 

me:

“Where’s Ostashev? I gave you two cars!”

“But, Sergey Pavlovich, two cars can’t make the road any shorter and can’t make 

us go twice as fast,” I objected. “Arkadiy will be here any minute now.”

In such instances it would have been useless to make excuses or to object. S.P. 

could not bear to wait idly if he was in a big hurry. He couldn’t rail against Keldysh. 

As I later found out, he had already blown up at Vladimirskiy and Ryazanskiy for 

“the failed transmission of the radio commands.” Now his deputy Chertok was late 

and Ostashev wasn’t there at all! And in a situation like this Keldysh still allows 

himself to smile! S.P. became more and more incensed, and about 10 minutes after I 

showed up, he commanded the crew to taxi and take off. S.P.’s agitation had reached 

the limit. To calm himself he went into the cockpit.

“We can’t wait any longer.”

They took away the boarding ramp and battened down the doors. The jet 

engines roared, and the airplane began to taxi to the takeoff strip. Suddenly, a car 

came careening across all the concrete runways on a course to intercept the taxiing 

airplane. Out jumped Ostashev, desperately flailing his carry-on bag. The airplane 

stopped. They quickly let down the onboard ladder and admitted the tardy passenger on board. S.P. came out into the passenger cabin, shook his fist at Ostashev 

and uttered words whose meaning one could only guess in the roaring crescendo 

of the engines.

For those times, the Tu-104 was a comfortable, top-of-the-line, high-speed aircraft. Instead of a little over a hundred passengers, there were only six of us. Except 

for Keldysh, this was the first time any of us had been on board such an aircraft. 

Smirking good-naturedly, he continued to joke that this flight was Korolev’s extravagance. Since we were already here, we should enjoy the “world class” accommodations and service. Having only flown in our own cargo-and-personnel Il-14 or Li-2 

service airplanes, we were not accustomed to well-dressed stewardesses. The aircraft 

and crew had been suddenly taken off of an international flight, and so the cute 

young ladies had the opportunity to serve a single table and treat us to a delicious 

dinner.

Soon S.P. was in a good mood. Responding to everybody’s praise for the air8. The Tupolev Tu-104, the first Soviet jet airliner, began regular scheduled civilian flights in 

September 1956 between Moscow and Irkutsk in the Soviet far east.

successfully launched. Despite promises, the hyper-cautious authors of the TASS 

report tossed out all references to the flight’s primary objective, that of photographing the far side of the moon.

By midday on 4 October, the State Commission was informed that the Control 

Center on Mount Koshka was monitoring and communicating “using all means.” 

Everything was OK on board and work was continuing according to the program. 

Early on the morning of 5 October, we left the firing range. The “bath and laundry 

trust company” team flew to the Crimea and the rest of us flew to Moscow. We 

celebrated the second anniversary of the first satellite launch on the Il-14 airplane 

en route to Vnukovo.6

After arriving in Moscow, on 6 October I convened a meeting hoping to determine, first of all, the status of operations on future spacecraft scheduled to reach 

Venus. Celestial mechanics determined the Venus launch dates, and a delay of even 

one week meant the dates would be postponed for at least a year. In the first half 

hour of conversation I realized that preparation of the Venus spacecraft was in a catastrophic state. However, my intentions to switch from the Moon to Venus proved 

to be obviously premature. The telephone rang; an unexpected call from Korolev:

“Boris, get here right away! Don’t bring any papers with you. Bear in mind, you 

won’t be going back to your office today.”

“Sergey Pavlovich, what about Mars and Venus? The situation is critical!”

“No, did you understand what I said?! You have enough deputies. Get here right 

away!”

When I arrived, S.P. was on the Kremlin hotline making arrangements with 

Vladimirskiy, then with Keldysh and Ryazanskiy about when we would take off 

from Vnukovo.7 Ostashev, who was summoned right after me, was trying to say 

something, but S.P. wasn’t listening.

“Radio communications with the spacecraft are very poor,” he said. “The telemetry is not coming through; radio commands are not getting on board. We are flying 

to the Crimea and have to be in place before the communications session starting at 

4:00 p.m.—that’s the time of radio coverage from the Crimea. Two cars are already 

parked down at the entrance. Figure out who takes which one. Stop by your homes, 

grab what you need, and drive to Vnukovo. A Tu-104 is waiting for us there—a 

charter flight. They’ll let you go straight to the plane. Departure is at 12:00. We 

need to arrive there ahead of time to look at the situation and decide what to do.”

We both understood that there was no time for inquiries and discussion. On the 

way to Vnukovo I stopped by my home at 3 Ostankinskaya, and, with a speed now 

familiar to my wife Katya, I repacked the carry-on bag I had brought with me the 

6. Vnukovo, Moscow’s first international airport, opened in 1941.

7. Sergey Mikhaylovich Vladimirskiy was a deputy chairman of the State Committee for RadioElectronics (GKRE), the ministry that oversaw the development of the lunar probe’s telemetry and 

communications systems.
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“There goes Boris!” laughed S.P. He was clearly pleased that everything was going 

precisely according to schedule. He even had time for an unscheduled look at Koktebel, the site of his romantic glider-borne youth.13 My poetic mood was interrupted by the helicopter’s commander. He entered the passenger cabin and, having 

correctly recognized Korolev as the boss, reported: “Wet snow is falling in the AyPetri area. Visibility is virtually zero. Landing is not advisable.”

Korolev understood that the decision was up to him.

“We’re in a big hurry. Cars are waiting for us at Ay-Petri. Perhaps we can risk it?”

The commander agreed that they could take a chance on landing, but he held 

his ground.

“It’s unwise to drive down from Ay-Petri in weather like this. It’s a big risk.”

Everyone agreed that there was no sense in us getting into an automobile accident. The commander suggested that we land on a helicopter pad in the mountains 

near Yalta. Korolev agreed. The commander got on the radio with the Yalta CPSU 

municipal committee (gorkom) and asked them to send cars to pick us up.14 He 

wasn’t authorized to tell them who we were and why we were landing near Yalta over 

the radio. According to the regulations of the security services, none of the local 

authorities were supposed to know about our flight into the Crimea. Nevertheless, 

when we climbed out of the helicopter and said farewell to our pilots, Yalta Party 

leaders had already driven out to meet us in ZIM and Pobeda automobiles.

The secretary of the Yalta municipal committee was obviously pleased that we 

were surprised: “You thought that you were here illegally? The cars couldn’t have 

been sent to Ay-Petri without my involvement. As you can see, news travels fast 

here. We tracked the helicopter. We are prepared to provide you and your companions everything you’ll need to relax after your stressful work. We find this more 

pleasant than indulging the whims of various high-ranking officials’ wives.”

Korolev thanked him on behalf of us all and said that he was sorry that we did 

not have even an hour for recreation and strolling.

“We are very pressed for time. Please take us to the control center in Simeiz.”

The Yalta boss was clearly disappointed. He had hoped that he might provide 

all the pleasures that the best of the resort palaces had to offer these highly classified developers of the secret lunar rockets and at the same time join them for some 

wining and dining. We squeezed into the ZIM and took off at top speed along 

the narrow winding Crimean road toward Simeiz. After leaving home at 11:00 

a.m., switching from an automobile to a jetliner, then to a helicopter, and back to 

an automobile, at 2:30 p.m. we were on Mount Koshka towering over Simeiz, a 

famous resort on the southern shore of Crimea.

The control center was located next to a branch of the Pulkovo Observatory. The 

13. Korolev visited Koktebel many times in his youth in the 1920s during his days as a glider 

pilot.

14. Gorkom—Gorodskoy komitet (literally, city committee)—was one of the local levels of the 

Communist Party structure.

plane, the dinner, and stewardesses, he declared, “Ah well, soon we’ll be getting 

these planes too and we’ll lure these young ladies away. But remember, we’ll only be 

allowed in such an airplane for good behavior. And if your radio commands fail to 

go through, Mikhail,” he said turning to Ryazanskiy, “you’ll be flying on the Li-2 

and it will be a long time before you see stewardesses like these again.”

“But now, my darling boys,” continued Korolev, “keep in mind that we will be 

landing at a military airfield. A helicopter is waiting to take us to Ay-Petri. Crimean 

officials will meet us there and take us straight to the control center. For relaxation, if there is any, they’ve reserved suites for us at the Nizhnyaya Oreanda (Lower 

Oreanda).9

Korolev had decided to fly our group to the Crimea just that morning. In a 

little over an hour he had managed to organize this surprise expedition supported 

by Aeroflot, the Air Force, the Crimean regional committee of the CPSU, and 

the USSR Council of Ministers Directorate of Affairs. His brilliant organizational 

skills came out even in problems that seemingly had nothing to do with systems 

engineering.

Our flight to the Crimea showed that Korolev knew how to maintain good 

relations with high officials of the Party and government hierarchy. Korolev’s name 

was no secret to them. They knew perfectly well who had actually delivered lunar 

pendants to two addresses, and they took into account Khrushchev’s regard for 

Korolev.

At the military airfield we exchanged a warm farewell with the hospitable Tu-104 

crew. Air Force commanders greeted us as we came down the boarding ramp, and 

we squeezed into a helicopter, its rotor already spinning. After crossing over the 

Crimean Mountains the helicopter flew along the shoreline. There I saw Koktebel 

and Karadag, the Zolotyye vorota (Golden Gates).10 The last time I was here was 

with Katya, Isayev, and a team from Bolkhovitinov’s OKB the year before the war.11

Unable to resist, under the racket of the helicopter’s engine I recited Pushkin:

How beautiful you are, o shores of Tauris

When seen from a ship at sea

As the Morning Star is shining

When you first appeared to me.12

9. Nizhnaya oreanda was (and still is) a plush resort hotel on the southern coast of Crimea 

frequented by the noble families during the Tsarist era.

10. Koktebel was (and still is) a beach resort on the eastern end of the Crimean coastline on 

the Black Sea. It is located near the strikingly beautiful Kara-Dag volcanic mountains, remnants 

from the Jurassic Era. The area was declared a national reserve in 1979. The Zolotyye Vorota (Golden 

Gates), named after one of Ukraine’s oldest monuments created in the 11th century, are beautiful rock 

formations in the Black Sea.

11. Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1, pp. 108, 153–155.

12. This is an excerpt from Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin’s Yevgeniy Onegin [Eugene Onegin]. 

For a recent translation, see Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin: A Novel in Verse, trans. Charles 

Johnston (London: Penguin, 2003). Pushkin spent some time at Tavrida in Crimea in 1820 which he 

memorialized in Eugene Onegin.
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Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly to Koshka

531

“Do you see that motor boat?” asked Boguslavskiy. “I requested that. A boat from 

the Black Sea Fleet is patrolling the bay. It’s carrying equipment to hunt for interference sources. In addition, during the communications sessions, as per our notification, the Black Sea Fleet ‘quieted down’ radio chatter and, when possible, stopped 

it completely. And down below, the State Traffic Patrol (GAI) isn’t allowing vehicles 

onto the mountain road.15 Interference has been reduced to a minimum. To tell 

you the truth, the power of the transmitters is low. But I think that if the “bath and 

laundry trust company” doesn’t let us down, everything will be OK. However, we’ll 

be receiving the picture from a range no greater than 50,000 [kilometers]!”

While telling me all this, he was eagerly smoking a Belomor, having turned down 

the Kazbek I offered him. When we returned from our smoking break, Korolev 

had already gotten himself worked up again. He demanded a report of the precise 

schedule for the next communications sessions and the actions to take in the event 

of failures.

Orientation on the far side of the Moon and then the activation of the FTU 

were supposed to begin early on the morning of 7 October. Bratslavets suddenly 

voiced his apprehension that from prior experience in simulations with the FTU 

the photography could take more than an hour. It turned out that here at the center 

the supply of special magnetic tape for the next recording of lunar landscape images 

from the far side had been used up. Well, that sent S.P. into a rage. I understood 

him. After all, if they’d let us know we could have grabbed some of that critical tape 

and brought it with us from Moscow. He let Ryazanskiy, Boguslavskiy, and Bratslavets have it with both barrels.

But you can’t fix anything simply by shouting about it. S.P. found satisfaction 

only in the concrete action resulting from the tongue-lashing. He called Moscow 

at once, found Minister Konstantin Rudnev, explained the situation, and asked for 

help. Then he made some more calls to our OKB-1 and explained everything to the 

staff there. After many conversations with Moscow he calmed down, and turning to 

Colonel Bugayev, he said, “A Tu-104 is coming into Simferopol on flight such-andsuch. The pilot will have a box containing the film. I’m arranging for a helicopter to 

be at the airport as soon as the plane lands. You must bring that film back here on 

that helicopter. I’m sorry, but this trouble is the fault of my comrades.”

The film incident was soon resolved, and everything worked according to 

Korolev’s schedule.

Already late in the evening, glancing over at Keldysh peacefully snoozing at some 

console, S.P. gave the last marching orders: “Ostashev will spend the night here, and 

we’ll go check out the Nizhnyaya oreanda. Don’t expect a peaceful morning. We’ll 

be back early.”

From Mount Koshka swept by the cold October winds we drove down in the 

15. GAI—Gosudarstvennaya avtomobilnaya inspektsiya. 

main structure was a flat rotary antenna with an area of 120 square meters. Transmitters and receivers were housed in trucks. The control center itself was crammed 

into a temporary wooden barrack. The photo-recording gear was installed in one of 

its tiny rooms. The image of the far side of the Moon was supposed to appear on the 

heat-sensitive paper of these instruments, which required no development process. 

Simultaneously the image was also recorded on conventional movie film, which 

required a prolonged chemical treatment process. It was not possible to develop the 

movie film on site. It was assumed that this would be done in Moscow.

The control center personnel—military and civilian specialists—lived in tents. A 

conventional wartime field kitchen was smoking nearby. Everything indicated that 

the military were in charge of all the operations here. They were already doing major 

construction on new control centers near Simferopol and Yevpatoriya. The center 

on Mount Koshka was temporary, so everything had a camp-like quality.

At our first operational gathering, Boguslavskiy, who was considered our technical director, reported that the bad antenna patterns of the spacecraft’s onboard 

antennas were evidently the main cause of the unstable communications during 

the first sessions. What must be must be. You can’t correct the patterns. Korolev 

wanted to speak in person with the operators directly responsible for radio communications. Among all his other rare qualities, as we used to say, S.P. also possessed 

a seventh sense for detecting “irregularities and sloppiness.” Right away he noticed 

and grasped that there were three people at once in command at the center, his 

favorite, Boguslavskiy (future doctor of technical sciences, future Hero of Socialist 

Labor, future Lenin Prize laureate), and Colonels Sytsko and Bugayev (also future 

laureates and chiefs of the new deep-space communications centers).

During the communications sessions the operators were turning the myriad 

control and adjustment knobs without a great deal of coordination. Not everyone 

understood when to execute a command and whose command to execute. They all 

respected Boguslavskiy, but any operator viewed the colonel standing over him as 

the more real authority.

“Attention!” commanded Korolev. “During the communications sessions I request 

that all reports go to Yevgeniy Yakovlevich Boguslavskiy. And I ask that all operators 

execute only his commands.”

A very simple command, it would seem, but a new order was established immediately at the control center. Boguslavskiy felt like he was in charge and took over all 

responsibility for “communication with the Moon.” It turned out that the colonels 

had quite enough to do. They stopped duplicating Boguslavskiy’s actions.

At 4:00 p.m. on 6 October, the telemetry receiving session took place. To everyone’s surprise, gradually, as the data was processed, it became clear that everything 

was working properly on board.

When the general tension had subsided after the session, Boguslavskiy and I 

stepped out for a smoke. A cold wind was blowing. From the observation deck a 

wonderful view opened up on the verdant resort coast below. The setting sun illuminated the azure bay. A lone motor boat putted along over the choppy sea.
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Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly to Koshka

533

couldn’t stand it and burst in on us in the cramped room.

“Well, what have you got there?

“We have determined that the Moon is round,” I replied.

Boguslavskiy pulled the paper with the recorded image out of the machine, 

showed it to Korolev, and calmly tore it up. S.P. didn’t even lose his temper.

“Why so soon, Yevgeniy Yakovlevich? After all, this is the first, you see, the first!”

“It’s bad. All sorts of junk. We’ll clean up the interference and the next frames 

will come out right.”

Gradually, one after the other the frames appeared more and more distinctly. We 

cheered and congratulated one another. Boguslavskiy assured us that everything 

would be much better on the film we would develop in Moscow. Already quite late, 

after parting with our fellow participants in the “campaign” on Mount Koshka, we 

departed once again for “our health resort.” This time Korolev allowed Ostashev to 

ride with us. I shared a luxurious suite with him. At supper the ban was lifted on the 

consumption of wines from the government wine cellars.

At our early breakfast Korolev proposed that we see how construction 

was going on the new deep-space communication center near Yevpatoriya.

We set off as a foursome—Korolev, Keldysh, Ryazanskiy, and I—on the drive from 

Simeiz to Yevpatoriya. After 3 hours on the road through the Crimea we were met 

by the deputy commander of Military Unit 32103, Colonel Pavel Agadzhanov; 

military unit 32103 was the organization that was actually in charge of the entire 

Command and Measurement Complex.

A military work force was building the Yevpatoriya center, which was simply 

known as NIP-16.16 Civilian specialists were involved in assembling and debugging 

the systems equipment, which had been developed at many different organizations, 

including NII-885, SKB-567, TsNII-173, and MNII-1. The antenna system, which 

was colossal for those times, was erected in the immediate vicinity of the magnificent Black Sea beaches. There were very few people in that area of the Crimean 

coast. During the peak resort seasons the sandy beaches that stretched for tens of 

kilometers seemed deserted.

According to preliminary calculations, for stable communications with spacecraft within the solar system, a dish antenna with a diameter of around 100 meters 

needed to be built on Earth. Optimists estimated that it would take five to six years 

to build these unique facilities. But the antenna specialists had less than a year 

before the first Mars launches! By that time the dish antenna for NIP-10 in Simferopol had already been built. This 32-meter diameter antenna was erected for future 

lunar programs. It had been hoped that it would begin operating in 1962.

16. NIP-16 was one of many Scientific Measurement Stations (Nauchno-izmeritelnay stantsiya, 

NIP) located across the Soviet landmass that made up the ground communications network for the 

space program, collectively known as the Command and Measurement Complex.

State Committee ZIM to the warm resort area and rushed to the Nizhnyaya oreanda. 

Despite the late hour, in the fashionable government health resort, the disciplined 

staff assigned us each a luxurious suite and announced that dinner was served. At 

the table spread with delicacies and wines S.P. sternly warned, “No drinking! Tomorrow we’re leaving at 6:00 a.m.”

We only got 4 hours of sleep that night.

On 7 October at 6:30 a.m. the FTU on board the lunar spacecraft went 

into operation. At this point the spacecraft was located on a straight line between 

the Moon and the Sun. During the communications session on Mount Koshka 

the team feverishly deciphered the telemetry, which contained glitches. I couldn’t 

restrain myself and said, “It’s the Moon that’s interfering with data transmission.”

We needed to conserve electric power so that the storage batteries wouldn’t discharge during FTU operation, so we shut down the telemetry. The photography 

was completed within the allotted 40 minutes. On the spacecraft, which was now 

flying toward the Earth, the crucial developing and fixing process began in the 

“bath and laundry” compartment.

The altitude from which the photography was conducted was extremely interesting for us. The trajectory measurements were processed in tandem at the NII-4 

ballistic center and OPM. Now Keldysh was sitting at the telephone, while Korolev 

was showing his impatience. In his calm voice Keldysh said, “They’ve recalculated 

for the third time, but that’s just in case. Meanwhile they assure me that we passed 

no more than 7,000 kilometers above the Moon’s surface and so it seems as if everything is going according to schedule. Now we need to make sure that the spacecraft 

doesn’t plow into the [Earth’s] atmosphere. The Moon was “disturbed” that we were 

having a look at its forbidden area, and now the ballistics specialists are finding out 

how this disturbance will affect the spacecraft’s trajectory toward the Earth.”

Hours of agonizing waiting passed, during which Ostashev and I incessantly 

pestered Bratslavets to reassure us with telemetry data that the FTU had functioned 

without a glitch. Astronomer Andrey Severnyy, director of the Crimean Solar Observatory, arrived on Mount Koshka at Keldysh’s invitation. He tried to add panic into 

the tense atmosphere of anticipation. In his words, there were absolutely no reason 

to fret over the successful operation of the FTU since, theoretically, we would not 

be able to receive any images for the simple reason that the film had been exposed 

to space radiation. It could have been saved only with a lead shield at least five to 

six centimeters thick.

We’ll wait to see!

I joined Boguslavskiy by the device that recorded directly onto electrochemical 

paper. A report was coming in from the receiving center: “Range—50,000. Signal 

stable. We have reception!”

They gave the command to reproduce the image. Again it was up to the FTU. 

On the paper, line by line a gray image was emerging. It was a circle on which 

you could distinguish details if you had a sufficiently active imagination. Korolev 
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534

Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly to Koshka

535

world; Krymenergo (the Crimean energy authority) ran power transmission lines; 

and military builders laid concrete roadways and built office facilities, hotels, and 

a full-service military post. The scale of the operation was impressive. They were 

on such a broad front that the deadlines mentioned by Agadzhanov hardly seemed 

realistic.

While we were talking, Gennadiy Guskov drove up. He was Gubenko’s deputy 

and supervised all the radio engineering work here; when necessary he also got 

involved in construction problems.

“Both the ADU-1000 units, receiving and transmitting, will be delivered on 

time! We won’t let you down,” he cheerfully reported.

“Why 1,000?” asked Keldysh.

“Because the total effective area of the antenna system is 1,000 square meters.”

“You don’t have to boast,” interjected Ryazanskiy. “The total area in your antenna 

won’t be more than 900!”

This was an argument between followers of different ideas, but now a mere hundred square meters didn’t matter.

For Agadzhanov and Guskov, work at NIP-16 served as a launching pad for 

careers that became part of the history of cosmonautics. Agadzhanov directed flights 

for many years and simultaneously headed a department at MAI. In 1984, by then 

a professor, he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. At that time he was working on the development of large computer systems 

to manage the branches of the armed forces.17

 Guskov also switched from pure radio engineering to its merger with computers. The NII that he organized in Zelenograd on the outskirts of Moscow (later it 

became NPO Elas) developed onboard computers for the flight control of spy satellites, the Salyut and Mir orbital stations, space communications systems, and many 

others. In 1984, he was also elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy 

of Sciences.18

Back then, in October 1959, tanned by the Crimean sun, Agadzhanov, Guskov, 

and those surrounding us who were in charge of the construction of various systems, 

had unwavering faith that everything would be up and running by the scheduled 

dates. To me it seemed that it would be a miracle if the NIP-16 builders would keep 

their promises. However, Korolev declared, scowling, “These deadlines are not satisfactory at all. NIP-16 should be in turnkey condition in the first quarter of 1960.” 

The gathering dispute was interrupted by the announcement that a plane departing for Moscow was waiting for us at the naval airfield in Saki. Colonel Sytsko 

17. Pavel Artemyevich Agadzhanov (1923–2001) served as deputy chief of the Command and 

Measurement Complex in 1957–71, during which period he effectively served as the “flight-director” 

for many important Soviet robotic and human space missions.

18. Gennadiy Yakovlevich Guskov (1918–) served as director and general designer of NPO 

Elas, the organization that designed many of the onboard digital computers for Soviet and Russian 

spacecraft.

SKB-567 Chief Designer Yevgeniy Gubenko accepted engineer Yefrem Korenberg’s bold proposal: instead of one large dish, combine eight 12-meter “cups” into 

a single structure on a common support and rotary mechanism. The production 

of such medium-sized dish antennas had already been well mastered. Now they 

needed to learn to synchronize and combine into the necessary phase the kilowatts 

radiated by each of the eight antennas during transmission. They would have to 

combine signals of thousandths of a watt reaching the Earth from distances of hundreds of millions of kilometers.

Developing the metal structures of the mechanisms and drives for the support 

and rotary mechanisms was another problem that could require several years. Not 

having lost his sense of humor, Agadzhanov explained that Khrushchev’s ban on 

the construction of state-of-the-art heavy ships for the Navy had rendered vital 

assistance to cosmonautics. Ready-made support and rotary mechanisms for large 

caliber gun turrets built for a battleship were quickly redirected, shipped to Yevpatoriya, and installed on concrete foundations built for two antenna systems, one for 

receiving and the other for transmitting.

The defense industry’s Gorky Machine Building Factory manufactured the 12-

meter dish antennas; the Scientific-Research Institute of Heavy Machine Building 

(NII Tyazhmash) assembled the metal structure to connect them; TsNII-173 of 

the State Committee of Defense Technology debugged the drive systems; MNII-1 

of the shipbuilding industry developed the electronics for the antenna guidance 

and control system using their naval experience; the Ministry of Communications 

provided the communications lines inside NIP-16 and its outlet to the outside 

Shown here are the technical leaders of the farside photography mission (Luna-3) during 

a break in their work on 8-9 October 1959 at Simeiz, Mount Koshka in Crimea. From the 

left are I. I. Pikovskiy, M. V. Keldysh, Kuznetsov, S. P. Korolev, Ye. Ya. Boguslavskiy, and M. S. 

Ryazanskiy.

From the author’s archives.
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536

Ye-2 Flies to the Moon and We Fly to Koshka

537

entrusted to a special commission of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences. 

After long arguments, proposals for names were handed over to the Central Committee for approval. They took their time.

Finally, Keldysh’s commission got the go-ahead and obtained the Academy Presidium’s decision to name the craters and cirques after prominent scientists and cultural figures such as Giordano Bruno, Jules Verne, Heinrich Hertz, Igor Kurchatov, 

Nikolay Lobachevskiy, James Maxwell, Dmitriy Mendeleyev, Louis Pasteur, Aleksandr Popov, Marie Curie, Tsu Ch’ung Chi, and Thomas Edison.

From reliable sources, we 

heard that officials debated over 

Tsu Ch’ung Chi the most.20 This 

mathematician who lived in the 

fifth century was supposedly 

famous in China, but none of 

my mathematician friends could 

explain why he was famous. But 

we couldn’t offend China, a great 

and friendly nation. A Central 

Committee directive stipulated 

that an American and a Chinese 

should be on the list. Well, they 

found an easy way out with the 

American; everyone was happy 

with Edison. But for a Chinese 

candidate they had to coordinate 

with the Chinese embassy. The 

embassy, in turn, asked Beijing, 

and that’s how Tsu Ch’ung Chi 

came to be on the list.

After all the consultations, the Academy Presidium’s decision was finally published on 18 March 1960. In the first draft of the names there was no crater named 

for Kurchatov. After his death in February, Keldysh and Korolev managed to have 

him included on the list. Now his name is next to Giordano Bruno’s on the lunar 

map.

It would seem that now the time had come for us to engage in other 

burning issues. Next on the agenda were Venus and Mars. But Keldysh wasn’t 

satisfied with the quality of the lunar photos. He consulted with Boguslavskiy’s 

competitors, who had impressed on him that the images could be substantially 

20. Tsu Ch’ung Chi (Zhu Chongzhi) was a Chinese mathematician of the fifth century who 

calculated the value of pi to the seventh decimal place.

The Yenisey imaging system used on Luna-3 was 

a relatively sophisticated instrument that used 

two lens systems, one a 200mm, f/5.6 wide-angle 

lens (for widescale images) and a 500mm, f/9.5 

lens (for high resolution photos). The system 

was developed by the Leningrad-based NII-380, 

later the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute 

of Television under Igor Rosselevich and Petr 

Bratslavets.

T.V. Prygichev.

proposed that we have lunch 

before we departed; Keldysh 

agreed. Only when he’d had a 

good lunch did Korolev finally 

relax, and, turning to the officers, he said, “Do you have 

any idea what a tremendous 

future this center has?”

“Come here in May, Sergey 

Pavlovich. It will be one of the 

best resorts in the Crimea!” 

said one of the officers.

“All you care about is your 

resorts! This one, of course, 

isn’t bad, but the main thing is 

that you don’t forget the deadlines!”

Upon his return to our 

OKB in Podlipki, to our surprise S.P. didn’t throw himself 

into daily business, but began 

inviting astronomers to his 

office to join him in examining photographs of the far side 

of the Moon. But more than 

that, with them, he discussed 

possible names for the newly discovered formations on the far side. Again and again, 

when we tried to enter S.P.’s office, his secretary Antonina Alekseyevna warned us, 

“He asked not to be bothered. Shklovskiy is in there now.”

Shklovskiy was already a well-known astronomer at that time.19 But was it our

business to think up names for the newly discovered craters on the Moon? Korolev 

was a strategist. He hurried to take the initiative in his own hands, fearing that 

those who might get better photos in the future would seize it. You needed to take 

everything you could from each space success.

On 27 October, newspapers published a photograph of the far side of the Moon. 

It seemed that the triumph was complete, but there was a misfire with the naming 

process. The CPSU Central Committee intervened, and this crucial work was 

19. Iosif Samuilovich Shklovskiy (1916–85), head of the radio-astronomy department at the 

Shternberg Astronomical Institute, was one of the most prominent Soviet astronomers of the 20th 

century. His memoirs were published posthumously in English as Five Billion Vodka Bottles on the 

Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991).

This image from the Luna-3 mission was originally 

published by the USSR Academy of Sciences as part 

of a lunar atlas in the mid-1960s. The Luna-3 images 

showed for the first time that the farside of the 

Moon lacked the large mare areas present on the side 

visible to the Earth. The Soviets identified and named 

a number of features on the farside including the 

Tsiolkovskiy crater on the lower right which appears as 

a sea with an island in it.

Don Mitchell.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

538

improved if the “air-to-ground” radio-link margin were increased. And it wasn’t difficult to do. The space communications center on Mount Koshka had done its part, 

and it was time to move near Simferopol or to Yevpatoriya. Construction of the 

new large-area, low-noise ground antennas had been completed there and a 10-fold 

increase in signal power at the ground receivers was possible.

It was difficult to argue against obvious truths corroborated by simple calculation. But no one wanted to repeat all the work that went into photographing the 

Moon using the same onboard equipment. Not even Korolev. I remember that 

Bushuyev and I—and even Tikhonravov—persuaded him to work on Keldysh and 

not force this job on us. Korolev hesitated. Under the astronomers’ pressure, Keldysh was uncompromising and managed to have a decree issued, which obligated us 

to one more launch to obtain high-quality photographs of the far side of the Moon 

in April 1960.

The schedule in 1960 was already supersaturated with combat and space launches. 

Preparation for the Vostok launches for human spaceflight, involving automated 

and dog launches—was under way at full speed. Two Mars spacecraft were also 

being prepared for the fall, and there was no time for them. And now the Moon 

was back in our sights again.

“We’d better concentrate our efforts on the soft-landing project. We’ll be performing it in two years. This is a lot more glamorous than repeating the photography,” I said at various meetings, adding that the onboard radio equipment for the 

next Moon shot would also not be ready soon. But we couldn’t avoid this lunar far 

side photography mission. As a result, two more hastily assembled automatic stations similar to the Ye-2 were sent to the firing range in early March 1960. Two new 

three stage 8K72 launch vehicles also arrived there.
Chapter 30

The Beginning of the 1960s

On 31 December 1959, Korolev assembled his inner circle at OKB-1 for the traditional end-of-the-year wrap-up and New Year’s celebration.1

 S.P. presented the Ye-2 

launch participants copies of the atlas Pervyye fotografii obratnoy storony Luny (First 

Photographs of the Far Side of the Moon) that the Academy of Sciences printing office 

had just issued. My copy was inscribed, “To my dear Boris Yevseyevich Chertok 

in fond memory of our many years of work together. 31.12.59. S. Korolev.” He 

enclosed a replica of the lunar pendant’s ribbon in the atlas.

The detailed description of the automatic station’s structure, its flight, and the 

technology for photographing and transmitting the images of the far side of the 

moon did not contain a single name of the authors of this project. Only the foreword, signed by Academy of Sciences President A. N. Nesmeyanov, cited the names 

Galileo and Newton, and the words of N. S. Khrushchev: “How can we not rejoice 

and be proud of such feats of the Soviet people as the successful launch, in 1959 

alone, of three cosmic rockets, which have won the admiration of all of humankind. 

All the Soviet people celebrate the men and women of science and labor who blazed 

the trail into space.”

Humankind admired us, and the entire Soviet population was proud of us without knowing our names. But we didn’t grumble over that. “It wasn’t just humankind that appreciated our achievement,” said S.P., “but also a wealthy French winemaker. He announced that he would give a thousand bottles of champagne to the 

ones who reveal the far side of the Moon. He was certain that we wouldn’t come up 

with anything and wasn’t afraid of the risk. But once he lost, he kept his word. Of 

course, there’s been a hitch. The vintner asked the embassy in Paris to let him know 

where to send the champagne. The embassy was at a loss and asked our Ministry 

of Foreign Affairs. After multilevel coordination, the ministry gave instructions to 

send the bottles to the Academy of Sciences presidium. So, now, we have the honor 

of receiving several dozen bottles of champagne from the Academy’s stock. You’ll 

1. Under Communism, New Year’s Eve took on all the secular attributes of Christmas festivities 

and was the biggest holiday of the year.

539
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540

The Beginning of the 1960s

541

frequency” instabilities had occurred and the engines had failed. Glushko was also 

busy with developmental testing on an engine for Yangel’s R-16 missile. Nedelin 

believed that it might be possible to begin flight-tests on the R-16 this year. Then 

we would be at a real disadvantage with the R-9. Korolev was quite right; successful 

testing of the R-16 could be the kiss of death for the R-9, considering the campaign 

that Yangel was waging, arguing the impracticality of liquid-oxygen propellant missiles for long-term combat duty.

For the third task, we needed to once again prepare a couple of rockets and 

spacecraft to photograph the far side of the Moon. Keldysh had held out for that. 

With obvious irritation Korolev spoke of his dispute with Keldysh and how he 

asked him not to insist on re-photographing the far side of the Moon. “But Keldysh 

believes,” he added, “that science will not forgive us if we pass up the opportunity 

to take better pictures with the Sun illuminating the Moon at an angle, when there 

will be great contrast between the shadows and light.”

Now we were finding possibilities for our Semyorka that we had never even 

thought of during its initial development. By building a third and then even a 

fourth stage onto the two stage combat cluster, we were making the Semyorka into 

a launch vehicle for spacecraft to do fundamental research on the solar system. “It’s 

difficult to argue with Keldysh,” continued Korolev. “He’s vice president of the 

Academy, I’m an academician, and we should enrich science with really fundamental discoveries, especially if they fall right in our laps.”

S.P. loved to talk on this subject somewhat tongue-in-cheek. He was trying to 

show us his supposedly casual attitude toward the Academy scientists. In actual 

fact—and I saw this on more than one occasion—this was his way of concealing his 

romantic dreams about really fundamental scientific discoveries from the pragmatists that surrounded him.

It was difficult to prove to marshals, generals, Communist Party leaders, and 

ministers that for the happiness of the Soviet people it was necessary to spend tens 

of millions of rubles to explore the Moon, Venus, and Mars. In this regard, cosmonautics was fortunate. It turned out that the main Party leader, Khrushchev, 

was perhaps a bigger romantic about space exploration than Korolev and Keldysh. 

Therefore, support from the very top was ensured for the most daring and still halfbaked space programs.

And Khrushchev wasn’t the only cosmonautics fan. Chief Marshal of the Artillery Nedelin also proferred attention and goodwill toward space projects. Back then 

no one was thinking about the potential for the military use of planetary exploration programs. Nedelin showed a breadth of thinking that was unusual for his 

boss Minister of Defense Marshal Malinovskiy, as well as his replacement, Marshal 

Andrey Grechko.4

For the fourth task, right after the Moon shot, we were supposed to prepare at 

4. Marshal Andrey Antonovich Grechko (1903–76), a famous World War II veteran, succeeded 

Malinovskiy and served as minister of defense in 1967–76.

snag a couple of bottles each, and the rest will be dispersed among the Party bigwigs 

and others who weren’t involved.” We sniped a lot about that. But still, you have to 

admit that French champagne received as a lunar congratulatory gift isn’t something 

that everyone gets to bring home to a family New Year’s party.

Having enjoyed ourselves, we moved on to discuss goals for 1960. We were 

in a preholiday mood; everyone was in a hurry, even S.P. Nevertheless, discussing 

the list of future projects took an hour or an hour and a half. I can’t quote Korolev 

because I didn’t take verbatim notes, but I will give an account of the gist of his 

comments and his assessment of the goals for the year ahead.

Our first urgent task was to successfully launch 8K74s (or R-7A ICBMs) into the 

Pacific Ocean. This was not going to please Eisenhower, but might make him more 

accommodating at the upcoming meeting with Khrushchev. “The meeting will be 

in May, perhaps in June,” said S.P. “I hear that they are rushing to build two cottages 

on the shore of Lake Baykal, one for Eisenhower and the other for Khrushchev.” As 

far as the cottages are concerned, I can attest that they really did exist. On vacation 

in 1972, Katya and I had a stroke of luck. While touring around Lake Baykal, the 

two of us spent an entire week in one of those fashionable cottages.

Khrushchev and Eisenhower, however, never met in those fabulously beautiful 

sites. Perhaps history would have turned out otherwise if the budding cooperation 

between the two national leaders had not been destroyed. On 1 May 1960, our S-75 

antiaircraft missile system designed by Petr Grushin, and aided by a guidance complex developed by Aleksandr Raspletin, shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance 

aircraft over the Urals.2 More than anything else, this spy plane destroyed the hopes 

for rapprochement between the USSR and the U.S.

The episode with the U-2 aircraft was a striking example of the primacy of military over civilian policy, which soon became an integral trait of U.S. policy during 

the Cold War years. Those who supported such a dreadful policy for the next 25 

years contributed to the stark militarization of public opinion and politics in the 

U.S., which in turn, fortified the similarly hard-headed positions of individuals in 

the Soviet Union. I concur completely with the claim from George F. Kennan, the 

former American ambassador to the Soviet Union, who wrote: “The more America’s 

political leaders were seen in Moscow as committed to an ultimate military rather 

than political resolution of Soviet-American tensions, the greater was the tendency 

in Moscow to tighten the controls by both party and police, and the greater the 

braking effect on all liberalizing tendencies in the regime.”3

But let’s return to our meeting in Korolev’s office. The second task was to speed 

up work on the new R-9 ICBM in every way possible. According to Korolev, RVSN 

Commander-in-Chief Nedelin attached exceptional value to this missile. Glushko 

was in a very difficult situation; during rig tests on his engines for the R-9, “high 

2. This is a reference to the shooting down of CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers.

3. Kennan quoted in A. M. Filitov, Kholodnaya voyna [The Cold War] (Moscow: Nauka, 1991).
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Voskresenskiy, and I—each having received a personal send-off and a bottle of 

French champagne, drove away in an excellent mood in Korolev’s old ZIM. We 

drove through 3rd Ostankinskaya Street, which would later become Academician 

Korolev Street. Korolev himself left in a ZIS-110, the most prestigious automobile 

of that time, to ring in the New Year at the Kremlin. We all went our separate ways 

in a good mood; so much interesting work lay ahead of us! Since then gatherings on 

31 December just before each New Year’s became a tradition with us.

We spent all of January 1960 discussing the future space projects. I met 

often with Mikhail Klavdiyevich Tikhonravov. With his innately subtle and refined 

sense of humor, he told me how in 1932, when Korolev, Pobedonostsev, and he were 

working at GIRD in Moscow, the universally respected Fridrikh Tsander would 

arrive every morning in the basement on Sadovo-Spasskaya Street and, before sitting 

down at his desk, would exclaim, “Onward to Mars!..” Back then, such exhortations 

would bring ironic smiles to everyone’s faces. “Now a little less than 30 years later, 

Sergey Pavlovich, who snickered at Tsander’s enthusiasm over Mars more than anybody, will soon begin his own briefings with this Tsander-like slogan. I don’t think 

any of us will be smiling ironically,” concluded Tikhonravov. He and I had this 

conversation in late 1959, when our infatuation with Mars really began.

The lunar successes of 1959 made planetologists in academic circles confident 

of the prospects for exoatmospheric astronomy. We were flooded with proposals to 

develop spacecraft for the exploration of Mars and Venus, to photograph the Moon 

again, and to execute a soft lunar landing. This hype was furthered by intra-academic competition between astronomers and geophysicists of various schools and 

fields. Lunar specialists rejected proposals to send spacecraft to Mars. Proponents of 

Mars explorations asserted that there was nothing to do on the Moon and the newly 

discovered capabilities of rocket technology should be used to explore the closest 

planets. The foreign press also contributed to the hype by reporting that America 

would not tolerate our supremacy and had already begun work on several designs 

for automatic interplanetary stations.

Indeed, the U.S. had begun launching the Pioneer series of spacecraft. In 1958 

and 1959, these spacecraft used a launch vehicle consisting of a first stage with 

liquid-propellant rocket engines adopted from the Jupiter combat missile and three 

upper stages with solid-propellant engines. The first launches were failures, but we 

knew that the American rocket specialists were right on our heels.7 The Jupiter 

rocket had been developed in the U.S. under von Braun’s supervision. In this regard, 

Korolev noted with satisfaction that the Americans still couldn’t get along without 

7. There were six attempted Pioneer launches in 1958–59, none of which achieved their primary 

objectives, although Pioneer 4 became the first American spacecraft to reach escape velocity. Only Pioneer 

3 and Pioneer 4 were launched by the Juno II launch vehicle derived from the Jupiter intermediate 

range ballistic missile. Of the remainder, three used the Thor Able I and one used an Atlas-Able launch 

vehicle. For a complete list, see Asif A. Siddiqi, Deep Space Chronicle: A Chronology of Deep Space and 

Planetary Probes, 1958-2000 (Washington, DC: NASA SP-2002-4524, 2002).

least two four stage rockets to launch spacecraft to Mars in October 1960. “As far as 

I know,” said Korolev, addressing Turkov and me, “we’ve never gotten manufacturing and testing of the 1M into gear.”5

“It’s been in gear for a long time now, Sergey Pavlovich, but we haven’t had 

a chance to move on it yet,” said Turkov. He didn’t think he needed to hold his 

tongue, and, switching to the offensive, he declared that he was still lacking a lot of 

drawings for manufacture and, as far as he knew, there was no hope of obtaining 

the items needed in time for the existing timetable. “The rocket’s fourth stage—the 

Block L with Melnikov’s engine—is still just in the preproduction shops,” concluded Turkov.6

 In the face of such disrespectful and panicky declarations, S.P. usually traded his amicable, businesslike tone for a furious and accusatory one, but this 

time he restrained himself. He understood that this fourth task for October was 

practically unrealistic, but as far as deadlines were concerned, he didn’t want to hear 

any proposals. He replied, “If we aren’t ready for the Mars launch in October, we’ll 

have to wait a year for the next launch window! Buck up. Besides, here, my friends, 

is the most important fifth task: we must manufacture, perform developmental testing on the ground, and launch at least four or five habitable spacecraft with recovery 

of their descent vehicles. It is essential for us and the space photo-reconnaissance 

experts to optimize the descent phase.”

The terms “piloted vehicle” and “spacecraft” were not yet used in 1959. We 

said simply “object” or “habitable object,” meaning that dogs would be flying, or 

we used the drawing identification numbers “article 1-KP” or “1K.” Korolev had 

already enlisted all of his deputies to develop a crewed spacecraft. But until the first 

experimental launches began, we didn’t have a great deal of faith that this event—the 

flight of a human being into space—would take place in the next two years. In late 

1959, a two-year deadline seemed to verge on the impossible to us. After hearing the 

goals for 1960, Voskresenskiy ventured to say that, “That works out to at least 10, 

and, if we have reserves, then 12 launches! That means, Sergey, we’ll only be going 

from the engineering facility to the launch site and back. There won’t even be time 

to look at the films and attend accident investigation commissions.”

Korolev wasn’t about to get involved in arguments about this on New Year’s Eve. 

He wished everyone good health and told us to enjoy ourselves at our New Year’s 

parties. Despite feelings of doubt, the end-of-the-year meeting described above 

ended on an optimistic note. Shaking hands with his closest associates in parting, 

Korolev had something special to say to each of us. Looking into my eyes and smiling like the cat that swallowed the canary, he said, “Don’t forget to pass on my New 

Year’s greetings to Katya today!”

Korolev’s four deputies—Sergey Okhapkin, Konstantin Bushuyev, Leonid 

5. The first generation of interplanetary spacecraft designed to fly to Mars were known as the 1M 

series.

6. Mikhail Vasilyevich Melnikov (1919–96), a deputy chief designer at OKB-1 in 1960–74, 

headed all rocket engine development work under Korolev. He was the designer of the S1.5400 engine 

for the Block L of the four-stage version of the R-7.
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high gain antenna at the Earth.

Tearing myself away from the overwhelming stream of routine matters involving 

the R-9 rocket, satellites, and multiple Moon shots, I often talked with Ryazanskiy 

and Boguslavskiy at NII-885 about versions of the radio system for communicating 

and receiving information from distances of hundreds of millions of kilometers. We 

had basked in setting the record for long-distance communications range at just 

over 300,000 kilometers, and now we needed to guarantee 300,000,000 kilometers. 

Among the electrical engineers there were two enthusiasts, Aleksandr Shuruy and 

Vitaliy Kalmykov. I tasked them and the conceptual designers with examining the 

problem of a power supply system for a year-long flight; I also gave them an ultimatum to design a single integrated power network for the entire AMS.10 I assigned 

German Noskin and Nikolay Rukavishnikov with devising a PVU (sequencer) that 

would make it possible to rapidly send various command time sequences on board.11

Unfortunately, we introduced this instrument only after the sequencer developed by 

SKB-567 had failed on Venera-1.

12

After the faltering communications during the transmission of photographs of 

the far side of the Moon on Luna-3, Mikhail Krayushkin and his group of antenna 

fanatics—who believed that the future of radio engineering was in antennas—

dreamed of creating the first high gain parabolic dish antenna for outer space.

Mishin and Bushuyev tasked Svyatoslav Lavrov and Refat Appazov to come up 

with optimal flight plans for interplanetary missions. At OPM, Dmitriy Okhotsimskiy started similar work at the request of Tikhonravov. Very quickly it became 

apparent that not one of the versions of the three stage R-7 available in the near 

future was capable of sending a decent-sized payload to Mars or Venus. And even 

then it was clear to us that it would be necessary to boost at least half a metric ton 

to escape velocity!

Mishin was the first to hatch the idea of placing one more stage, a fourth, on the 

three stage Semyorka. Thus, we got the idea to use a new oxygen-kerosene engine for 

this stage. We considered Sergey Okhapkin, another one of Korolev’s deputies, to 

be the most level-headed among us; he was responsible for the work of the design 

departments, for issuing the main working production documentation, and was 

directly involved in issues of the rocket’s structural integrity. Even he agreed with the 

idea of a fourth stage without hesitation.

Right after New Year’s, on 2 January, Khrushchev summoned Keldysh, 

Korolev, Glushko, and Pilyugin. Khrushchev was in a very forceful mood and said 

that success in space was now just as important to us as the production of combat 

10. AMS—Avtomaticheskaya mezhplanetnaya stantsiya (Automatic Interplanetary Station).

11. PVU—Programmno-vremennoye ustroystvo—literally means “programmed-timing device.”

12. Venera(-1) was launched on 12 February 1961 toward Venus. Communications with the 

spacecraft failed after last contact at a distance of 1.9 million kilometers from Earth. See Chapter 31.

the Germans and were still quite green.

Time and again Keldysh and Korolev were summoned to Khrushchev, 

who attached exceptional importance to the political side of space successes. In 

actual fact, Khrushchev not only supported Korolev’s and Keldysh’s space-related 

interests, but also demanded that Minister of Defense Rodion Malinovskiy and his 

deputy Nedelin support Yangel’s projects on high-boiling component combat missiles. Our friends from Dnepropetrovsk told us that Brezhnev—a native of Dnepropetrovsk, and now Central Committee Secretary for Defense Industries—had direct 

instructions to monitor Yangel’s OKB and the Dnepropetrovsk missile factory and 

to assist them.8 The folks in Dnepropetrovsk boasted that they now had their man 

in the Central Committee Presidium.9

Work on the already flying R-7 and R-7A missiles and on new designs was exceptionally demanding. The military blamed us, and rightfully so, for their insufficient 

reliability, the long launch preparation cycle, and limited accuracy. We understood 

these shortcomings all too well. When the rocket was used as a space launch vehicle, 

a third stage was added to the two primary rocket stages, and in the future, a fourth, 

needed only for operation in space. Partly because of the use of multiple stages, a 

spacecraft launch vehicle proved to be more complex and less reliable than a missile 

delivering a nuclear warhead.

The R-7 rocket was not trusted in its original two stage version to carry the first 

satellite into orbit until its sixth launch. In its three stage version it was thoroughly 

tested and had flown numerous times with mock-ups and dogs before it was trusted 

with the first human being. The four stage version of the launch vehicle, under the 

code number 8K78, was immediately stacked with the 1M automatic interplanetary 

station, whose historic mission was to fly past Mars. We had a fervent desire to beat 

the Americans and be the first in the world to answer the question, “Is there life on 

Mars?” With the new launch vehicle, we promised to bring just as much glory by 

revealing the secrets of Venus. What was hidden under Venus’ veil of clouds, which 

was impenetrable for Earth-bound astronomers? We were in a hurry, a desperate 

hurry.

Before going to Korolev with specific proposals, Mishin, Tikhonravov, Bushuyev, Rauschenbach, and I discussed the possibility of rapidly producing automatic 

interplanetary stations and an associated fourth stage for the R-7. Tikhonravov and 

designers Ryazanov and Maksimov studied possible layouts and mass constraints. 

Rauschenbach, Legostayev, Bashkin, and Knyazev invented—actually invented—

attitude control systems to make corrections and to aim cameras at planets and the 

8. From 1957 on, the person occupying the position of secretary of the Central Committee for 

defense industries was the de facto governmental head of the Soviet space program. Brezhnev served in 

this position in 1957–60 and 1964–65.

9. During the Khrushchev era, the Politburo was called the Presidium.
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Ustinov’s meeting, Mrykin’s speech had a sobering ring. “It seems to me that this 

complex problem cannot be solved by conventional means,” he said. “We need 

to concentrate all of our forces and enlist new cooperation. The VPK must make 

prompt decisions and not berate the designers from one meeting to another. OKB-1 

and its subcontractors need real help and continuous monitoring.” Before dismissing everyone, Ustinov warned that very soon Khrushchev would personally review 

our plans regarding space and wanted to do this right at OKB-1.

S.P. left for several days to think things over and to relax at the government vacation hotel Sosny, having tasked Bushuyev and me with drawing up a draft plan for 

the MV project and to come see him on 12 January. “But don’t put the launch dates 

beyond September,” he instructed.

As usual, the most difficult thing proved to be coordinating the dates with the 

factory. The deadlines for the development of the drawings and manufacture of 

the space probes seemed unrealistic to us. But when we arrived at Sosny, S.P. studied our schedules, scowled, and mercilessly set about correcting them, shifting the 

deadlines “to the left” by two and sometimes by three months. At the same time, he 

proposed increasing the number of spacecraft being fabricated from two to three. 

S.P. proposed that we simplify the version headed for Venus, removing any thermal 

shielding. “We’ll fly to Venus, that goddess of love, in the nude,” he said. “There 

isn’t time to optimize thermal shielding. If there is a failure in the last stage it’ll burn 

up in the Earth’s atmosphere anyway. But we’ll be able to prove that we are launching spacecraft, not combat missiles.”

On 15 January, after returning from Sosny, S.P. convened an all-hands briefing and announced inconceivable deadlines for the production and launch of three 

MVs in 1960. Few believed that these deadlines were realistic. S.P. delivered a speech 

full of threats against those who might be guilty of failing to meet these completely 

unrealistic deadlines.

We had some major issues on our hands. For example, What to do about 

the control system that must operate continuously for an entire year in space orienting the solar arrays toward the Sun, the parabolic dish antenna toward the Earth, 

and the entire spacecraft toward Mars or Venus? Each of our main developers took 

their stand. Having realistically evaluated the situation, Rauschenbach backed out 

of developing the solar array orientation system and the gyroscopes for the orientation of the entire spacecraft. Clearly he did not want to get involved in projects with 

risky deadlines. Pilyugin announced that, God willing, if he were really lucky, he 

could cope with the control of two more upper stages for the R-7.

Ryazanskiy proposed entrusting the entire radio communications problem to 

SKB-567, where Anatoliy Belousov had been appointed director in place of Yegeniy 

Gubenko, who had suddenly died, and Khodarev had been appointed chief engineer. Only this young company and also Vladimir Khrustalev—chief designer of 

optical instruments at the TsKB Geofizika—cheerfully declared, “We’ll do it.”

Soon thereafter, Andronik Iosifyan invited me to his luxurious mansion by the 

missiles. He was upset and threatened them saying, “Your work is going rather badly. 

Soon we will have to punish you for falling behind in space. Work is under way on 

a broad scale in the U.S. and they could beat us.” S.P. quoted Khrushchev from his 

notes at the meeting on 3 January, to which Keldysh, all the chief designers, and 

Korolev’s deputies were invited. A chaotic discussion began on the program of work 

on space for that year and the next few years. Keldysh insisted on one more lunar 

probe, the Ye-2F, which would use more advanced equipment for capturing and 

transmitting images of the far side of the Moon. I opposed this project in view of the 

workload for the Mars and Venus program. We had assigned this new program the 

acronym “MV.” Korolev added, “Don’t forget that we also have the Vostok.” And so, 

we all left the meeting, having failed to reach an agreement on anything.

On 7 January, Keldysh convened a large interdepartmental council on the Ye-2F 

and MV. For the Ye-2F, it was agreed that the objectives would be limited strictly to 

photography. The deadline for approving the mission was extended, but the launch 

was scheduled for April 1960. As for the MV project, for the first time we began to 

seriously sort out what was what. Okhotsimskiy, Lavrov, Kryukov, Rauschenbach, 

Khodarev, Ryazanskiy, and Pilyugin reported each on their own work, and for the 

time being, only with preliminary considerations. After the meeting, S.P. seated 

Kryukov and me in his car.13 In the strongest terms he reprimanded us, saying that 

we, his deputies, up until now had not sorted out who was responsible for what 

in the MV program. We were not coordinating the work, and those “idealists in 

Keldysh’s department” want the launch to take place in September of this year.

On January 9, Ustinov held a meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission and 

presented our report about the status of work on the Vostok and the heavy photoreconnaissance satellite. The future photo-reconnaissance satellite had already been 

named Zenit (Zenith).14 Bushuyev and factory Director Turkov presented reports. 

The deadlines of the schedule approved by Ustinov would slip by three to four 

months. Although our subcontractors were largely to blame for the failure to meet 

the deadlines, OKB-1 bore the brunt of the relentless criticism.

Referring to Zenit, Ustinov noted that, “This is a crucial intelligence tool. There 

is no mission more vital at this time.” Here he clearly castigated Korolev for his 

interest in the human spaceflight program. Korolev sat glowering in silence. Ustinov 

had openly attacked Bushuyev, Turkov, and me, but it was understood that the fire 

was directed at Korolev who could not cope with his deputies himself.

After a break, Ustinov tasked Georgiy Pashkov with preparing a report in a week 

with proposals for the MV program. At this juncture, military representative Aleksandr Mrykin felt he needed to get involved. In the highly charged atmosphere of 

13. Segey Sergeyevich Kryukov (1918–) was one of the top-ranking deputies at Korolev’s design 

bureau. He later succeeded Georgiy Babakin as head of the Lavochkin design bureau in 1971.

14. The Vostok piloted spacecraft and the Zenit military photo-reconnaissance satellite shared the 

same design layout but had entirely different mission goals.
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conducting two launches in September or October of that year. “The whole field of 

radio electronics is terribly excited,” said Korolev, having called me into his office. 

He instructed me to attend all the assemblies and meetings that Kalmykov and 

Shokin held and to report to him daily.

After Rudnev’s meeting with the GKRE staff and the institute directors, plans 

were worked out at a feverish pace, assignments were distributed, and questions 

were asked, for which no one had any answers. Many chiefs called me up directly, 

trying to understand what they needed to do. When I mentioned the deadlines, 

rather than argue, they politely said goodbye.

On 22 January, Kalmykov assembled all the potential participants in radio electronic projects in the GKRE conference room. I reported on the MV objectives, 

the main features of the flight program, orbits, and requirements for the radio communications system. The head of NII-4, General Sokolov, announced the military’s 

proposals for the creation of Crimean and Far Eastern control posts. During the discussion, Kalmykov turned over the meeting to his First Deputy Aleksandr Shokin 

because he was suddenly summoned regarding a message that an unknown aircraft 

had violated our air space. One of the meeting participants commented, “That’s 

what we need to be working on instead of this Martian science fiction.”

Shokin tried to pin me down, demanding proposals for the distribution of work 

between the leading organizations for near and far space. I proposed that there be 

two separate leading organizations. One would be assigned artificial satellite problems and the other, lunar and deep space exploration. In the debate Shokin accused 

me and OKB-1 as a whole of imposing our will on the different organizations. In 

his opinion, we were doing this haphazardly, randomly, based on our own sympathies and who our friends were. “We shouldn’t have to stand at the beck and call of 

OKB-1 anymore and wait to see what they will require of us. We should take the 

initiative ourselves and propose designs, keeping pace with or even moving ahead 

of OKB-1 requirements,” he said. “Wise words,” remarked Boguslavskiy, who was 

seated next to me.

Shokin was keyed up and abruptly cut off television institute (VNII-380) 

Director Igor Rosselevich and radio-communications institute (NII-695) Director Leonid Gusev, both of whom had spoken in support of my proposals. In this 

highly charged atmosphere the resilient Aleksey Bogomolov declared that if all the 

capacity of GKRE wasn’t enough, then OKB MEI was ready to take on designing 

and producing 30- and 64-meter diameter ground-based antennas, and not in the 

faraway Crimea, but here in the Moscow area, on the Medvezhiye Lakes. Hearing 

this, everybody laughed and some responded with caustic remarks. The directors of 

the main radio electronics institutes sensed the boldness of the young OKB MEI 

organization and clearly felt threatened by its promising proposals.

Sokolov brought everyone back from Martian orbits to Earth. “To build longrange communications tracking stations,” he noted, “we’ll need to concentrate 

10,000 workers in the Crimea alone. And then there’s Ussuriysk, from where we 

must monitor the third stage and, to a certain extent, back up the Crimean tracking 

Krasnyye vorota (Beautiful Gates).15 He presented me with his book The Problem 

of a Unified Theory of Electromagnetic and Gravitational Inertial Fields.

16 This work 

directly contradicted Einstein’s theory of relativity. If everything he said was true, 

then Andronik certainly deserved a Nobel Prize. But the theoretical physicists of our 

Academy of Sciences did not recognize Iosifyan’s scientific treatise. As is commonly 

known, Einstein spent the last years of his life attempting to develop a unified field 

theory. To this day, such a unified field theory has not been developed.

I requested that he stoop to the needs of “rusty electricians,” setting lofty and 

pure science aside; Iosifyan assured me of his full support for all our MV projects. 

He set up a “strike force” headed by Nikolay Sheremetyevskiy. This was the beginning of space-related work for the future academician and director of the All-Union 

Scientific-Research Institute for Electromechanics (VNIIEM), Nikolay Nikolayevich Sheremetyevskiy.17 Unfortunately, the team of top-notch electrical engineers 

that had gathered at NII-627 could not implement a single one of their ideas to 

meet Korolev’s fantastic deadlines, and instead limited themselves to the reliable but 

routine development of current and voltage converters.

Mrykin’s speech at the meeting in Ustinov’s office about the “concentration of all 

forces” had left its mark. On Ustinov’s instructions Rudnev assembled Kalmykov, 

Shokin, and the chiefs of the main directorates—all leaders of the radio electronics 

industry—in his office. The most erudite among all those present was State Committee on Radio Electronics (GKRE) Chairman Valeriy Kalmykov.18 When he first 

heard the mission statement that “Today, in January, we start from scratch, and in 

September, we launch,” he smiled, but he did not take issue with it. He had already 

been through Beriya’s school of deadlines with air defense missiles.19 In those days, 

taking issue could lead to arrest. In the best case scenario, you would be taken off the 

job. He had been in such situations more than once, and like many other ministers, 

he believed that, as a rule, official wrath came down not on the guilty parties, but 

the last ones in line. In a multitude of missed deadlines, the important thing was 

not to be at the very end.

Ustinov informed Korolev that at his request, Khrushchev had personally 

instructed Kalmykov to help us implement the MV program with the intention of 

15. This is a reference not to the ruins outside of Kiev, but the area in Moscow where the Krasnyye 

vorota metro station is located.

16. A. Iosifyan, Voprosy yedinoy teorii elektromagnitnogo i gravitatsionnogo inertsialnogo poley [The 

Problem of a Unified Theory of Electromagnetic and Gravitational Inertial Fields] (Yerevan, 1959).

17. VNIIEM, formerly known as NII-627, later developed Soviet weather and remote sensing 

satellites such as Meteor.

18. GKRE—Gosudarstvennyy komitet po radioelektronike—was the ministry in charge of developing 

most of the electronics and guidance systems for the Soviet missile and space industry.

19. In 1951–53, Kalmykov served as chief engineer of the Third Main Directorate (TGU) of the 

USSR Council of Ministers when he was a senior manager over the development of the first Soviet 

air defense missile system. Security services supervisor Lavrentiy Beriya oversaw the development of 

this project.
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many other chiefs, at his OKB, Korolev drove 

home the notion that this was not “support 

equipment,” like automobiles and telephones, 

but just as organically fused with the overall 

mission as the engine and the rocket itself!

On the morning of 29 January 1960, 

Tikhonravov asked me to go with him to see 

S.P. to work out our general course of action 

at the next meeting with Keldysh on the lunar 

program. Recalling Tikhonravov’s story about 

Tsander, I proposed that, “When we walk 

into S.P.’s office, let’s both shout, ‘Onward to 

Mars!’”

Tikhonravov smiled his sweet smile, but 

declined to indulge in such rowdiness.

Korolev felt wretched. He had just returned 

the day before from Kuybyshev and had a difficult landing at Vnukovo. There was evening 

fog, and they didn’t want to clear the airplane 

to land. They were redirected to Leningrad, 

but Korolev got permission to land through 

the Air Force command. He noted, “Unfortunately, not everyone at the top understands us. 

They don’t want to try to understand technology at all. They think that’s strictly our business. That’s why they can’t understand our difficulties. And those few that do understand our difficulties don’t have the necessary 

clout. We had a good relationship with Nikita Sergeyevich. But during the last 

meeting, even he demanded new space triumphs and he laid out our MV mission 

like this: ‘Tell me, is it theoretically possible to do this?’ Well, what is one supposed 

to answer? Of course, it’s all theoretically possible. ‘Then just don’t drag us into the 

technical details,’ said Khrushchev. ‘This is your business. Tell me what you need 

and do it.’ That’s the whole story. Then they don’t give us what we need, but we’ve 

still got the assignment that we need to carry out within an insane time frame.”

Despite Tikhonravov’s insistence, S.P. refused to discuss the lunar program. 

Instead, he asked which of the designers was doing work on MV. Tikhonravov 

responded that he had entrusted the project to Gleb Yuryevich Maksimov, but that 

he was monitoring the work himself and would enlist Ryazanov and other seasoned 

designers. I liked Gleb Maksimov for his thoughtful, constructively critical attitude toward design work. I supported Tikhonravov. S.P. grumbled that most of the 

people on Tikhonravov’s team had never even seen production and were afraid of 

factory problems.

Chief Designer Aleksei Bogomolov 

(1913-) served as head of OKB of the 

Moscow Power Institute (OKB-MEI) 

during a span of nearly thirty years. 

During this period, he was responsible 

for a wide range of telemetry, 

communications, and data recording 

systems for Soviet missiles and 

spacecraft.

From the author’s archives.

stations! At the same time, we still don’t have a decree and the construction sites 

haven’t even been finalized. Is it possible in seven months to build these antennas, 

the likes of which the world has never seen? It appears that, with exceptional effort, 

everything having to do with the onboard radio complex can be produced. But it’s 

difficult to say how it will be with the ground since we don’t have clear-cut specifications from GKRE.”

At the end of the meeting Kalmykov reappeared. He informed us that air defense 

radar stations were tracking an aircraft that had crossed our border from Iran at a 

very high altitude, but while they were weighing the issue of whether or not to shoot 

it down with missiles, the plane wisely turned around and left. The meeting was 

then adjourned with general, vague instructions.

In complex situations dealing with radio-electronics, I preferred to consult with 

Boguslavskiy. Ever since we’d worked together in Bleicherode I’d had faith in his 

decency, common sense, and objectivity, regardless of his departmental or company interests. About three years later, in 1963—I no longer remember the circumstances—Korolev said to me, “Of all of your friends and subcontractors in the 

radio field, the only ones whose objectivity I absolutely trust are Boguslavskiy and 

Bykov.20 Even Mikhail (he was referring to Ryazanskiy) can’t rise above the interests 

of his own company.”21 In a man-to-man conversation, Boguslavskiy said, “I don’t 

believe it will be possible to build a reliable multifunctional radio complex for the 

MV spacecraft in seven months. We’ll have to take a completely unjustified risk. 

Under these conditions, it’s impossible to do any serious laboratory study or testing 

of the components. There is neither the time nor the equipment to run service life 

or durability tests. I don’t want to start a rat race when there’s no hope for success, 

and I will try to dissuade Mikhail. Let Belousov, Khodarev, and Malakhov’s organization try to tackle that task. They have a new company. They need to win their 

‘place in the sun.’ If they flub up the job, they’ll be forgiven out of consideration 

for their youth.” Despite his stance, Boguslavskiy was at least prepared to persuade 

Mikhail Ryazanskiy to take on the development of antennas for the Crimean tracking stations; “we shouldn’t give up such ‘morsels’ to Bogomolov,” he noted.

And subsequently, the work in these fields was allocated along these lines right 

into the mid-1960s: SKB-567 produced the multifunctional radio complex and 

NII-885 took on the job of developing antennas for the deep space tracking station in Crimea. In general, this process also allowed radio-electronics to become an 

integral part of space technology. As the head OKB dealing with spaceflight, we had 

a stake in the existence and development of radio electronics systems. In contrast to 

20. Yevgeniy Yakovlevich Boguslavskiy (1917–69) served as deputy chief designer and then first 

deputy chief designer at NII-885, the main guidance systems institute, in 1950–69. Yuriy Sergeyevich 

Bykov (1916–70) served as chief designer of NII-695 (or MNII Radiosvyazi) in 1959–70 during 

which time he supervised the development of communications systems for several different piloted 

spacecraft.

21. Author’s note: I will write about Yuriy Sergeyevich Bykov later.
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missile was displayed at Mishin’s insistence as an alternative to the solid-propellant 

concept, which he did not support.

Space vehicle technology was presented by several displays, including the future 

Vostok crewed spacecraft with a special winch-driven sliding pilot’s seat, a heat 

shield–coated descent sphere that was prepared for ejection from an aircraft, and a 

launch vehicle for the future Vostoks along with the third stage (the Block Ye) and 

its external payload fairing. Interplanetary stations for missions to Mars and Venus 

had not yet really been designed, but here in the assembly shop it was already possible to touch them; they were shown off in the form of full-scale mock-ups. On 

the Mars probe, the solar arrays turned smoothly, orienting themselves toward a 

spotlight. The landing version of the Venus probe was also on display. Of course, 

we did not forget backup models of the first three satellites and first three lunar 

probes. We walked through this exhibit with the wonderment of explorers; we had 

done so much and in just 13 years! Without a doubt, our S.P. had done a brilliant 

job making everyone move heaven and earth to demonstrate our past, present, and 

future.

The visit was set for 4 February. Suddenly on 3 February we were informed 

that Khrushchev would not be there. CPSU Central Committee Secretary Brezhnev 

would visit us. According to the allocation of duties in the CPSU Central Committee Presidium, Brezhnev was in charge of the entire defense industry and missile 

technology. Korolev was quite upset that Khrushchev would not be there. Someone 

warned Sergey Pavlovich that, “Brezhnev is a very shrewd, smart man. Watch what 

you say.” S.P. passed on this warning to the briefers who were supposed to stand by 

the exhibits.

In the morning the top brass—Ustinov, Serbin, Rudnev, Grishin—and the primary chief designers gathered in the shop. They waited for a long time in the shop 

chief’s office, which had been set up for the meeting. The brass decided to meet 

Brezhnev at the facility entry gates. When everyone was already weary with anticipation, he appeared accompanied by Ustinov, Serbin, Korolev, and only one bodyguard.

Korolev announced the program for the day, and Brezhnev approved it. The tour 

of the exhibition began. He walked along, looking and listening attentively, without 

interrupting and without asking questions. From time to time he raised his extraordinarily bushy eyebrows in surprise. Korolev conducted the narrative very calmly, 

without losing his train of thought and without repeating himself. One could see 

that he was in fine form. Only when they reached the RT-1 did Korolev yield the 

floor to Sadovskiy.

After the tour they went up to the shop chief’s office, where tea had been prepared. During tea Korolev said that we would take a break and walk over to the 

OKB to have a roundtable discussion. Brezhnev perked up and told a relevant joke. 

“A middle-aged man was being carried around Moscow by his arms. He was holding his feet up in the air, afraid to step on the ground. Passersby were astonished. 

The people carrying him explained, ‘This is our director. They’ve taken away his 

Korolev then switched over to me and demanded a report on the latest events in 

radio-electronics. I began to speak, but he interrupted me, saying “You and Mikhail 

Klavdiyevich [Tikhonravov] don’t know everything. I had a very angry exchange 

with Kalmykov and Ryazanskiy. I told them that any day now Nikita Sergeyevich 

[Khrushchev] was going to visit us and we were going to present our proposals. 

They both promised to give it some more thought, but it’s still not clear what they’ll 

come up with.”

When Tikhonravov and I left Korolev’s office, still without a specific plan of 

action, I said, “Now, Mikhail Klavdiyevich, when Khrushchev visits us you will get 

the opportunity to greet him with Tsander’s slogan ‘Onward to Mars!’”

In anticipation of the “big visit,” there was a flurry of activity at OKB-1 and at 

the factory, which prepared a show of our achievements and future plans. S.P. personally supervised this process. The exhibition was set up in the factory’s assembly 

shop No. 39, the cleanest, brightest, and most spacious shop. The R-7A, also known 

as the 8K74, was assembled in its complete cluster. Its top-secret specifications were 

displayed on a placard. Shop No. 39 Chief Vasiliy Mikhaylovich Ivanov confessed 

that he had not been able to fully rig an authentic missile cluster. The nose cone was 

made partially of cardboard, the instrument compartment was completely empty, 

and main Blocks A and B had been temporarily removed from the 8A72.22 “But, 

who’s going to figure that out?” grinned Ivanov. In addition, full-fledged 8K74 

booster components had been laid out at work stations for horizontal tests. A row of 

warheads was ceremonially displayed, from the now seemingly innocuous R-1, R-2, 

and R-11 to the formidable intercontinental nuclear missiles. The display placards 

did not even hint at the warheads’ actual TNT equivalent. None of us was trusted 

to know this. Only the mass was indicated.

The most beautiful and impressive part of the display were the R-11, R-1, R2, and R-5M missiles standing in order of size, the future R-9 missiles, the global 

8K713, the brand-new solid-propellant RT-1 missile, and a mock-up of a “potbellied” micro-missile propelled by high-boiling components, which surprised everybody.23

The solid-propellant RT-1 was a three stage missile designed to have a range 

on the order of 2,500 kilometers. This design was developed under the leadership 

of Igor Sadovskiy, whom Korolev had appointed as his deputy for solid-propellant 

missiles in August 1959. This was the first real ballistic missile design in our country 

using propellant powders manufactured using a new process. This work, which had 

been actively supported by Korolev for some time, stood as one more testimony to 

what many viewed as his inscrutable intuition. The “potbellied” liquid-propellant 

22. The 8A72 was a three stage version of the R-7, designed for launching the early Zenit-2 

reconnaissance satellite.

23. The 8K713 was a proposed “global missile” (also known as the GR-1) designed to carry nuclear 

bombs into Earth orbit and potentially capable of targeting any location on the planet’s surface.
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The subsequent presentations of Pilyugin and Ryazanskiy were dull. They 

spoke in generalities about merging and consolidating institutes and strengthening 

the production base. Barmin, suddenly and for reasons unknown, supported the 

“potbellied” nitrogen-oxygen propellant pygmy that Mishin proposed instead of a 

solid-propellant version. Ending the roundtable session, Korolev made no specific 

proposals as to organization and future plans, but in guarded terms he rebuffed 

Glushko for being intolerant of criticism from other specialists.

I have kept my notes of Brezhnev’s closing comments. “It is very good that you 

‘lured’ me here,” he said. “But, of course, I myself cannot make any decisions. Your 

proposals need to be discussed in the Central Committee Presidium. You should 

prepare yourselves, and a bit more thoroughly. In my opinion, the material still 

needs work. You’ve got 10 to 15 days to get ready and present a concrete plan. But 

it would be good if you launched one of these ‘bugs’ (zhuchki) to cause a bit more 

of a stir.”

By mentioning this “bug,” Brezhnev immediately dashed the hope for a mutual 

understanding between the government and our company over deadlines. Not even 

Ustinov smiled. This attitude toward space technology grated on everyone. On that 

note, Brezhnev bade us farewell.

When the top brass had left, Grishin the wisecracker turned to us and said, “I’ve 

heard that Tikhonravov has a butterfly and bug collection. So tell him to pick out a 

‘bug’ that will cause a bit more of a stir in space.”

Mishin couldn’t stand it any longer. “He didn’t understand anything! These 

‘bugs’ cost us a lot! I can’t see any good in this conversation.”

“Well, you should still be a bit more careful how you speak!” warned Grishin.

After the “royal” visit, it wasn’t 10 to 15 days that went by, but almost 

two months before we had drawn up, coordinated, and sent a draft of the great 

kosmoplan to the GKOT and VPK. S.P. assigned Mishin, Kryukov, and myself to 

thoroughly edit the section on launch vehicles. We argued a great deal, and it got to 

the point of shouting. We even reverted to addressing each other formally.25

Our most amazing proposal was for a heavy launch vehicle with a 1,600-metric 

ton launch mass and a nuclear engine in the second stage. In those days the idea 

of a nuclear rocket engine had only been discussed and there had not yet been 

any experimental work confirming physicists’ optimistic calculations. But for some 

reason we believed that a nuclear reactor could be put on a rocket. It was a very 

alluring idea.For two weeks running Korolev spent all his time working on the plan. 

He got into heated arguments and debates. With Korolev’s input, Kryukov and the 

conceptual designers revamped various layouts for multistage launch vehicles with 

tandem and parallel staging designs. In response to “Valentin’s outburst,” S.P. set a 

25. The Russian language has two forms of the pronoun “you”; friends and family address each 

other using ty, while vy is formal and connotes a certain interpersonal distance.

private car and he’s forgotten how to walk. So we have to carry him to work and 

back home.’” The joke wasn’t new, but everyone laughed. It was a sensitive issue. 

Khrushchev was trying to reduce the number of service vehicles and transfer them 

to taxi stations. He had received reports that his decree was being successfully executed. Actually, the transfer of cars to taxi stations was trumped up. On paper the 

automobiles had been transferred, but in fact in the morning the taxi stations sent 

the cars back to their old owners, for which they were compensated at the going 

rates. This suited both sides. After that icebreaker, someone got up the nerve to 

say that one can laugh, but it’s difficult to work without cars. Managers can’t drive 

themselves, and we don’t have American-style services yet. The complaints were 

graciously received.

Next we entered the library building, where posters of future developments 

were on display. Korolev strolled briefly past the military technology and devoted 

the majority of the time to space. It was a very convenient opportunity to hint 

at the unrealistic deadlines for MV, but S.P. did not do that. The graphics on the 

posters was not the work of professional artists, but of the conceptual designers of 

Department No. 9, the space department.24 (When our guest had departed, Grishin 

rebuked Korolev, saying that any American magazine would have had more colorful 

pictures).

The general impression was that we still lacked a well-conceived, long-range 

plan of operations regarding cosmonautics—a kosmoplan, as we called it. The more 

substantive part of the report was when Korolev spoke about the optimization of the 

Semyorka and its conversion into a three stage and then a four stage launch vehicle.

When we had seated ourselves around the large round table, Glushko asked to 

speak. His speech was in stark contrast with S.P.’s report and was delivered with an 

aggressive, bristling demeanor. He proposed that we immediately switch to designing and producing a heavy launch vehicle using the RD-111 engine developed for 

the R-9. “We shouldn’t wait for a closed-cycle engine with exhaust gas afterburn in 

the combustion chamber, as certain incompetent comrades from OKB-1 propose,” 

Glushko said, as always, very convincingly in his soft-spoken voice.

Despite the speech’s accusatory tone toward OKB-1, Glushko’s face showed no 

emotion. When he said that certain individuals among those present chided him for 

being conservative, Mishin snapped and asked, “And who would that be?” Glushko, 

without missing a beat, responded, “That’s your guilty conscience speaking.” This 

brief skirmish was symptomatic of the technical disagreements that had intensified between Glushko and Korolev. As for the relationship between Mishin and 

Glushko, it deteriorated more and more, beyond recovery. Mishin stopped trying 

to compromise. On the contrary, he pitted Korolev against his old comrade-in-arms 

from the very infancy of rocket technology.

24. Korolev established his so-called “space department” or Department No. 9 at OKB-1 in 1957 

under Mikhail Tikhonravov.
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incontestable advantage of Glushko’s position. From then on, Korolev’s and Mishin’s 

disagreements with Glushko had grave consequences for Soviet cosmonautics.

The great kosmoplan got thoroughly bogged down in the offices of the Central 

Committee and VPK. Korolev often visited the “higher-ups,” argued with Ustinov, 

and was understandably impatient and edgy. Evidently at Ustinov’s prompting and 

with Brezhnev’s approval, the VPK staff decided to teach us a lesson for our rebelliousness and “conceit.”

We were counting on bonuses and awards for putting the R-7 into service and 

for the three Moon shot successes. After a lot of official red tape the Council of 

Ministers issued a decree calling for the payment of so-called governmental graduated bonuses. Basically, these bonuses were designated for the chief designers. The 

bulk of the creators, despite their extraordinary work, on average could count on a 

bonus of from 300 to 1,000 rubles. On the other hand, the workers at Dnepropetrovsk Factory No. 586 and Yangel’s OKB boasted that their bonuses were twice 

as big as ours. They were showered with medals, and 23 individuals became Lenin 

Prize laureates. In our organization, only 15 people were awarded the Lenin Prize 

for the Moon shots. People grumbled and privately seethed, but they could only 

vent among themselves.

Almost all my work time during the first months of 1960 was devoted 

to the Moon and Mars projects. Whereas the day-to-day lunar tasks were primarily organizational and routine—completing units, testing, assembling, and 

eliminating glitches and defects—unresolved problems continually cropped up on 

the Mars project. Every day there were new problems.

We managed to use a minimum of already seasoned people for the new Moon 

shots. For the most part a new contingent was involved with Mars: electronics 

experts who had transferred from TsNII-58, guidance experts from Rauschenbach’s 

department who had transferred with him from NII-1, and our old cadre of radio 

specialists.

We had no experience setting up radio communications at distances of millions 

of kilometers. By the end of the year, we would not be calculating signal power 

input to receivers using classic formulas, but ensuring the actual transmission of 

commands on board and receiving information contaminated with interference 

from the interplanetary station. Designing the antennas, solar arrays, sequencer systems, and an “ideology” for the attitude control computing devices required the 

continuous interaction of conceptual designers, radio specialists, design engineers, 

and our subcontractors, who were grappling for the first time with creating a radiolink 150 million kilometers long. I barely managed to scrape some time together to 

delve into the development of a general concept and configurations for a manned 

spacecraft. My deputy Yurasov and the young chief of the onboard complex control 

systems department, Karpov, were in this then-breakthrough field.

In this tower of Babel of systems, instruments, circuits, and cables, Yurasov and 

Karpov attempted to establish order and a minimum of standardization. “These 

goal of coming up with a three stage launch vehicle that would be capable of inserting a 30- to 40-metric ton satellite into Earth orbit by the end of 1961. During the 

course of the arguments, S.P. realized that this objective wasn’t feasible and finally 

settled for late 1962.

The plan contained a lot of everything: a heavy launch vehicle described in detail, 

electric rocket engines, automatic and crewed space vehicles, and proposals for their 

in-orbit assembly and construction. With Korolev’s approval, under pressure from 

Mishin and with objections from Kryukov, the proposals for the new launch vehicles stipulated using N. D. Kuznetsov’s engines for the first and second stages.26

When Glushko paid us a visit to study the plan, he did not sign it, of course, and 

promptly set off for Dnepropetrovsk to see Yangel to develop counterproposals for 

a heavy launch vehicle. He offered Yangel high-boiling component engines using 

the engine that he had already developed for the R-16 missile. By this time, Yangel’s 

OKB had already put into service the R-12 missile with a range up to 2,400 kilometers, equipped with a separable nuclear warhead.27 Its indisputable advantage over 

our R-5M was its greater range and the fact that its operators didn’t have to face the 

constant hassles of having to replace losses from evaporating liquid oxygen. Yangel 

had already started a modification of the R-12 for combat duty in a silo version. In 

this case, the missiles were maintained in launch readiness for long periods of time. 

At the firing range in Kapustin Yar they were successfully testing the medium-range 

R-14 missile, now with a range up to 4,500 kilometers. It was also equipped with 

a nuclear warhead and had a completely automatic control system.28 Yangel was 

preparing at a feverish pace to begin flight-tests on his own first two stage intercontinental missiles, designated R-16.

Glushko’s engines were used on all the missiles. The R-16 missile used hypergolic propellants (the oxidizer was a mixture of nitrogen oxides and nitric acid, and 

the fuel was unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine). The first stage engine generated a 

thrust of 150 metric tons near the Earth’s surface and could lift a 140-metric ton 

rocket. It was a real competitor to our R-9.

With such work in progress, Yangel could engage in the battle for primacy in 

the production of the heavy launch vehicle. The high-boiling component engines 

that Glushko had developed according to his own specific characteristics were inferior to similar oxygen-propellant engines that we had anticipated obtaining from 

Kuznetsov. But Glushko’s engines already existed, while Kuznetsov was just on the 

verge of beginning work in a field that was completely new for him. This was the 

26. Nikolay Dmitriyevich Kuznetsov (1911–95), a famous designer of aircraft jet engines, served 

as chief and then general designer of OKB-276 (later NPO Trud) based in Kuybyshev in 1953–94. In 

the early 1960s, Korolev invited Kuznetsov—who was not a specialist in rocket engines—to participate 

in several launch vehicle projects including the N-1.

27. The early version of the R-12 (or SS-4 Sandal) was declared operational in March 1959. A 

silo-capable version came on line in January 1964.

28. Flight-tests of the R-14 (or SS-5 Skean) began in July 1960.
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determined the performance factor of the “space-to-ground” radio-link.29 One of 

the theoreticians who had flown in with Keldysh had mentioned that the travelingwave coefficient decreases due to ionization of the area around the antenna.

One night during check-out tests at the MIK, Deputy Ministers Aleksandr 

Shokin and Lev Grishin came by. I was discussing the situation with Ryazanskiy 

and Boguslavskiy. Grishin recommended that to get rid of the ionization, the testers 

should be issued alcohol “to flush out the area.”

“In general, my faith in the engineering intuition of designers and testers has 

been shaken,” declared Grishin. Providing an example, he continued, “A main 

oxygen valve, which passed the inspection sampling tests with flying colors, was 

routinely dismantled, and it turned out that a part was missing. After that the military rep rejected the tests. If that part had been there the valve might not have passed 

the tests. They installed the part, repeated the tests, and sure enough, there was a 

glitch.” He provided another example. “And now your people have discovered a 

‘minus’ on the hull; they’ve found which cable it’s in and have decided to throw out 

the cable and send commands from the ground. What’s more, they’ve discovered a 

breakage in the temperature sensor. Because there’s no time to mess around with 

it, they decided to chuck it.” We could make all kinds of excuses, but wisecracking 

Grishin hit us where it hurt the most.

On 13 April the State Commission Chairman and Chief Marshal of Artillery 

Nedelin conducted the first meeting before the launch. Keldysh delivered a general 

report on the goals of the experiments. Bushuyev, Vernov, and Severnyy presented 

joint reports. Ryazanskiy, Rosselevich, and I reported on the readiness of the Ye-3 

systems, while Colonel Nosov reported on the firing range readiness (I underscore 

that in 1960 the contemporary term “cosmodrome” was not yet in use) and Colonel 

Levin reported on the readiness of all the Command and Measurement Complex 

services. At the launch site all the tests proceeded without incident. Meanwhile, 

at the MIK work was under way around the clock in preparation for a backup 

launch.

By morning we had replaced several systems, including the entire radio unit and 

the failed traveling-wave coefficient sensor that had prompted Grishin to snicker at 

us. We also repaired the Yenisey photo-television unit, which managed after all the 

tests to receive a “minus on the hull.” Soon after, the spacecraft was being mated 

with the rocket. Sinekolodetskiy’s installers were working like artists, balancing 

on the trusses of the erector and on the rocket boosters, “like circus performers,” 

according to Grishin. At 9 a.m., everyone who had worked at night grabbed some 

breakfast and headed off to take a nap, in order to be at the launch site at T-minus 

4 hours. 

The launch took place exactly at the prescribed time, at 18 hours 6 minutes 42 

29. KBV—Koeffitsient begushchey volny. 

new ‘passengers’ are like children,” complained Yurasov. “Each one hangs on to his 

favorite toy and is afraid to let go of it.”

I argued the need for an elementary systemic approach until I was blue in the 

face. But it was too late. Production did not allow us to introduce serious changes. 

It was very difficult for us to finally drive home the idea that we needed to tightly 

integrate the onboard systems into a single onboard control complex with interconnected software and hardware. With such an abundance of tasks, bringing order 

and harmony and reconciling disagreements between dozens of systems developers, 

conceptual designers, design engineers, subcontractors, and manufacturers faced 

with impossibly short deadlines required heroic efforts. Many disagreements were 

resolved more quickly and easily at the firing range during strolls on the concrete 

runway, in conversations at the hotels, or even at the launch site during the many 

hours of launch preparation.

On 7 April, I flew out to the firing range with most of the members of the State 

Commission and technical management to prepare and launch the Ye-2F, which 

had now been designated Ye-3, a designation previously intended for the lunar craft 

carrying a nuclear warhead. The Uralsk and Aktyubinsk airfields were waterlogged, 

and we flew into Tyuratam through Astrakhan. The lower Volga was still hemmed 

in by the spring flood. From the airplane, the thousands of tributaries of the famous 

Volga delta looked like a fantastic piece of art. Gradually, dry and barren steppes 

replaced this abundance of water. Soon the Aral Sea was shimmering in the sunlight, 

and a half hour later our Il-14 landed in our dear Tyuratam.

At the engineering facility they were busy around the clock preparing the first of 

the two recently arrived although not fully factory-tested Ye-3 lunar spacecraft. As 

was the case the year before, the most critical item proved to be the Yenisey phototelevision unit. The familiar NII-380 engineers Valik and Bratslavets, their faces 

unshaven and pallid from overwork, but yet optimistic, repeated cycle after cycle 

of tests, removing one blotchy test film after another. Once again Korolev had to 

arrange rapid air transport for new developing solution to be carried on a Tu-104 

from Leningrad to Moscow and then on an Il-14 to Tyuratam. The fresh photo 

chemicals were put to the test right away, and the Yenisey began to crank out films 

in excellent condition.

Korolev and Keldysh held a rowdy meeting to demonstrate the use of unsuitable 

photo chemicals and poor quality photo materials. They decided to schedule the 

first launch on 15 April and not to let up on the hard work in preparation for the 

second launch under any circumstances. On the night of 12 April, the first Ye-3 was 

mated with the cluster and sealed with a fairing, and the entire rocket was assembled 

and made ready for transport to the launch site.

Meanwhile, Boguslavskiy and I had completely worn ourselves out searching 

for defects in the radio complex on the second Ye-3. Recalling the shortcomings 

in the radio-link from our experience working on Mount Koshka, we were trying 

to achieve the maximum traveling-wave coefficient (KBV), which to a great extent 
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The Beginning of the 1960s

561

minus 15 minutes to step out of tracking station IP-1, where many spectators had 

gathered, into the steppe facing the launch site.

Taking my time, delighting in the fragrance of the steppe, I walked about 300 

meters and gazed at the rocket brightly illuminated by flood lights. I could hear the 

announcement “T-minus 1 minute” over the IP’s loudspeakers. Out on the steppe I 

was engulfed by a feeling of solitude; there was no one nearby, except the image of 

a beautiful dream embodied in the rocket. I thought that, “If something happens to 

her now, I and hundreds more of her creators will be powerless to help her.” And it 

happened! I had certainly courted disaster. All the engines of the rocket’s main stage 

produced a deafening roar. Standing 300 meters closer than usual, I felt the difference in the noise level.

But what’s going on? I see or surmise that the strapon booster closest to me is 

not lifting off along with the rest of the cluster and that, belching flame, it collapses. 

The remaining boosters reluctantly lift off, and when they appear to be directly over 

my head, they disintegrate. I can’t make out what is flying where, but I sense that 

one of the boosters, its engine roaring, is headed right for me. Run! Just run! To the 

IP—there are emergency trenches there! Maybe I have time. Back in my Komsomol

days I was a pretty good 100-meter runner. I once ranked as a champion sprinter at 

Factory No. 22. Now, on the steppe, brightly illuminated by the plume of a rocket 

booster flying at me, I probably set a personal record. But the steppe is not a running track. I stumble and fall, banging my knee badly. Behind me an explosion 

resounds and I feel a blast of hot air. Clods of earth thrown up by the explosion fall 

around me. Overcoming the pain in my knee, I limp toward the tracking station, 

away from the enormous bonfire blazing next to the spot where I had been standing. 

But where are the other boosters!? A blaze shoots up near the MIK. Don’t tell me 

some booster has struck the engineering facility— there are people there!

When I had limped to the trench, suddenly an agitated female scream burst from 

it, “I said get out!” I recognized the voice of Irina Yablokova, a scientific associate at 

Lidorenko’s institute. We considered her our chief manager of onboard storage batteries. The trench was filled to overflowing with officers of all ranks who had jumped 

in there. One by one, chuckling with embarrassment and shaking themselves off, 

they struggled out and ran to their vehicles, searching for the drivers, who had taken 

cover. Yablokova had a good laugh as she told us how she didn’t understand what 

was going on at first. But suddenly someone shoved her into the trench and then 

bodies started to pile on from all sides so that it became difficult to breathe. We 

went up to the Tral vans. It turned out that the valiant team of telemetry specialists 

had jumped out of the vans and taken cover where they could. The accident had 

caused a great deal of damage, but quite luckily not a single life was lost. The core 

booster fell and exploded right next to the MIK; the window glass and doors had 

been blown out, and inside, the plaster was crumbling down. One officer, thrown 

against the wall by the shock wave, had suffered contusions.

When Voskresenskiy saw how badly I was limping, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to announce that the accident investigation commission protocol would note 

seconds. I was in a tracking station (IP-1) next to the Tral receivers housed in the 

bodies of vans. It was now commonplace for military operators to sit at the consoles, 

while our telemetry specialists (Golunskiy, Vorshev, and Semagin) tracked parameters on the monitor screens. OKB MEI engineers Popov and Novikov and their 

assistants were also standing watch at their stations, ready to replace any system that 

acted up or come to the aid of the military operators. From a distance of 800 meters, 

during daylight, the rocket engines’ ignition flames can hardly be seen. But then the 

noiseless lapping flame of preliminary combustion appears, builds to the mounting 

rumble of main stage combustion, and the rocket is enveloped in flame; the rumbling becomes unbearable, and it smoothly lifts off from the trusses. Now the flame 

gushes in a clearly defined plume. No matter how many times I have feasted my 

eyes on a launch, I still can’t get used to it. You always fear that something is going 

to happen and the rocket’s soaring flight on its blinding fiery plume will turn into 

the confused somersaulting of blazing boosters.

The powered flight segment was going right on schedule. We heard reports from 

the telemetry machines: “Flight normal!”

At 120 seconds the four boosters of the first stage separate in an X-shape. The 

second stage moves along its trajectory, leaving behind a white vapor trail illuminated by the sun. Now we need to be closer to the telemetry specialists; only they 

and Bogomolov’s Kama radar systems could see what was happening with the rocket. 

Here’s the third stage startup report—one can breathe easier now!

And suddenly the news: pressure in the chamber is dropping, the engine has shut 

down. Well, it should be shut down. Vorshev states that the last stage engine shut 

down 3 seconds before the designated time. It’s over! Our efforts and all the trouble 

over photo chemicals and eliminating dozens of defects in the Ye-3 had been in vain! 

“There won’t be any movies,” said Grishin, who was standing not far away.

The next day, after analyzing the telemetry, the diagnosis was unambiguous 

and vexing to the point of tears. By all parameters, the flight had proceeded normally. Three seconds before the designated time for engine shutdown, the pressure 

downstream from the pumps fell by 50%, the pressure in the chamber decreased 

smoothly, the pressure sensor contact tripped, and the engine shut down. This had 

caused the spacecraft to be 130 meters per second below final velocity. Where it 

would end up was not yet clear.

Further investigation showed that there wasn’t enough kerosene! The third stage 

tank had not been completely fueled. I recalled Rudnev’s admonition—“We’re firing 

entire cities.” Here’s one more city gone out the window. This was the sloppiness 

of the tankers and controllers in Barmin’s service! Nedelin, Korolev, and Keldysh 

sequestered themselves with Barmin, Voskresenskiy, and Nosov for an investigation 

and report to Khrushchev. Meanwhile, the rest of us, who had no part in this sloppiness, now set our hopes on the second launch—the third for photographing the 

far side of the Moon.

After three sleepless days, the next rocket and Ye-3 lunar spacecraft were ready 

for launch on 19 April. This time, taking advantage of the twilight, I decided at T-
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that, “Among the injured was comrade Chertok, who violated established safety 

regulations and did not avail himself of the shelter prepared in advance by the firing 

range authorities.”

“Keep in mind,” said Voskresenskiy, “Korolev arranged with Nedelin for a special 

State Commission decree obliging the firing range authorities to evacuate everyone 

away from the launch site and to herd those remaining at IP-1 into the trenches.”

The next morning the State Commission circulated instructions for the immediate restoration of all damaged buildings at the launch site and engineering facility. Keldysh and his entire army of scholars were far more shaken that the others. 

Despite our resistance, they were the ones who had insisted on these launches. Now 

there was no hope of repeating a similar experiment in the next few years. Taking 

stock of our losses from the explosion and fire, we left the firing range for a short 

while. At the MIK, despite the broken glass, they were already unloading and setting up the next rocket at the work stations.
Chapter 31

“Onward to Mars...and Venus”

The celestial mechanics’ calculations confirmed that not every year was suitable for 

flying to Mars. In 1960, the optimal launch dates fell in late September or the first 

half of October.

Who could presume to announce to Khrushchev that it was unrealistic to create 

a rocket-space system for launches to Mars and Venus in the autumn of 1960 and 

that the plan needed to be postponed for a year until the next launch windows? No 

one wanted to be the first one to be “thrashed.” Now, many years later, I am amazed 

by the behavior of such sensible high-ranking individuals as Ustinov, Rudnev, and 

Kalmykov. Unlike Khrushchev, they had studied the technology and understood 

how unrealistic the missions were. But none of them had the courage to propose 

realistic dates. It was assumed that such initiative would come from Korolev personally or from the Council of Chiefs. Such initiative could not be viewed as ideological 

dissent from the Party line. In this case, no one would be threatened with arrest or 

other repression. But, nevertheless, despite common sense, from ministers to workers, we all devoted all of our efforts to carrying out the latest CPSU Central Committee and government decree.

These decrees usually began with the words, “Adopt the proposal of the USSR 

Academy of Sciences, Ministry of Defense, State Committee on Defense Technology, State Committee on Radio Electronics ...” and continued with a long list of 

state committees (after reform in 1965, a list of ministries replaced them), followed 

by a list of other organizations, then the surnames of the ministers and directors of 

all the previously listed organizations, and finally, the statement of the mission and 

the deadlines. The last points of the decree listed the individuals responsible for executing each part of the mission: state committee ministers, organization heads, and 

the chief designers personally. Thus, from the very beginning, it was established that 

no one at the top had ordered the flight to the Moon, Venus, or Mars, or to carry 

out any other space project. The Central Committee and Council of Ministers had 

simply agreed to the proposals coming from below, and rendered assistance, stipulating not only deadlines, but also making arrangements for financing, bonuses, 

allocating necessary funds for construction, production facilities in the Sovnarkhozy, 

and so on—everything that the drafters of the decree’s text had managed to coordi563
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“Onward to Mars...and Venus”

565

our approval.

The schedule stipulated that design documentation and specifications be issued 

to subcontractor organizations by 15 March, that working drawings be issued in 

April, that experimental spacecraft and the first 1M spacecraft be manufactured in 

July, and that the first 1M automatic interplanetary stations be sent to the firing 

range in mid-August and launched in late September or early October 1960. By 

contrast, the production cycle for modern (by this I mean late 20th century and 

early 21 century) spacecraft in the U.S. and Europe for interplanetary flights, including to Mars, is six to eight years! We raised a bit of a ruckus about this in Korolev’s 

office, but then in February 1960, we signed a schedule with a total timeline from 

conception to launch of eight months!

Not until early April, after deliberating with his main “old” staff of chief designers, 

did Korolev send to USSR Council of Ministers Deputy Chairman Ustinov, GKOT 

Chairman Rudnev, Minister of Medium Machine Building Slavskiy, Minister of 

Defense Malinovskiy, GKRE Chairman Kalmykov, GKAT Chairman Dementyev, 

GKS Chairman Butoma, and USSR Academy of Sciences President Nesmeyanov a 

draft of his letter to the Central Committee and a draft of the Central Committee 

and USSR Council of Ministers decree for the further exploration of space for their 

approval and signature.3

During the period from 1960 through 1962 (three years!), the draft called for 

the launch of the following:

-Ye-3—a flight around the Moon for higher quality photography of the Moon’s 

far side;

-Vostok—attitude-controlled satellites for photoreconnaissance of the Earth’s 

surface, descent from orbit, launch and landing with a person on board;

-1M and 2M—automatic interplanetary stations for missions to Mars in 1960 

and 1962 respectively;

-1V and 2V—automatic interplanetary stations for missions to Venus in 1961 

and 1962, respectively;

-Ye-6 and Ye-7—spacecraft for a soft lunar landing and an artificial lunar satellite, 1960–61;

-Elektron—dual satellites for studying the Earth’s radiation belts—1960;

-Zond—a spacecraft to study interplanetary space—1961.

Subsequently, over the next three to five years, the draft plan called for the production of the following:

-a new rocket-space system with a launch mass of 1,000 to 2,000 metric tons 

and a payload mass of 60 to 80 metric tons to be inserted into orbit as an artificial 

3. GKAT—Gosudarstvennyy komitet po aviatsionnoy tekhnike (State Committee for Aviation 

Technology); GKS—Gosudarstvennyy komitet po sudostroyeniyu (State Committee for Ship Building). 

Like the other state committees (GKOT, GKRE), these bodies were ministry-level institutions 

supervising various branches of the Soviet defense industry.

nate with Gosplan, Gossnab, the Ministry of Finance, and other ministries, that, as 

they used to say, “didn’t give a hoot” about the Moon and Mars.1

The events of the first year of the 1960s (now the last century) serve as a very 

illustrative example of the kinds of decrees issued by the Central Committee and 

Council of Ministers, which had adopted the proposals generated by the USSR 

Academy of Sciences, chief designers, and the ministers who patronized them. Here 

I will cite an example of how the decrees were initiated, prepared, and issued.

On 2 January 1960, Khrushchev summoned Korolev, Keldysh, Glushko, and 

Pilyugin. Korolev and Pilyugin told us, “Nikita Sergeyevich is very perturbed by the 

broad scope of space exploration projects under way in the U.S. He believes that now 

success in space is just as vital as combat missile production.” Khrushchev instructed 

Keldysh and the chief designers to prepare their own proposals for a detailed draft 

of a Central Committee and USSR Council of Ministers decree. The next day, 

Korolev and Keldysh held a meeting of the chief designers at OKB-1 summarizing 

the results of their conversation with Khrushchev the day before. Those attending 

the meeting decided to prepare, within a week, a detailed long-range research and 

development program for rocket and space systems. When Brezhnev visited OKB-1 

on 4 February, he reiterated Khrushchev’s recommendation that we prepare proposals for their serious discussion in the Central Committee Presidium. In private 

conversations Korolev commented on the month-long delay after Khrushchev’s first 

instruction, saying that Chelomey had gone directly to Khrushchev at the same 

time and independently of us with long-range proposals. Moreover, Ustinov had 

also given similar instructions to Yangel.

While an expanded long-range plan covering all conceivable areas of rocket and 

space technology was being prepared, Council of Ministers Deputy Chairman and 

VPK Chairman Ustinov supervised all day-to-day operations for all the organizations. Not expecting a general decree, Korolev sent letters to the policy-makers with 

proposals for speeding up work on the automated lunar stations, including a softlanding on the Moon, and for work on the 8K78 four stage launch vehicle (which 

would later be called Molniya [Lightning]).2

On 28 February, Korolev approved the schedule of operations for the production 

and launch of automatic interplanetary stations (AMSs) for Mars missions—the 

1M spacecraft. The schedule included deadlines that Bushuyev, Turkov, and I considered impossible to meet, but Korolev made each of us sign this schedule showing 

1. Gossnab—Glavnoye upravleniye gosudarstvennogo snabzheniya (Main Directorate for State 

Procurement)—was the main governmental agency providing logistical support for the Soviet 

economy.

2. The Molniya launch vehicle was named after one its primary payloads, the Molniya series of 

military and civilian communications satellites. During Soviet times, the real designations of boosters 

(such as 8K78 or 8K72) were kept secret. Instead, the official Soviet media would assign general names 

to boosters (such as Molniya and Vostok, respectively) that were merely the names of major payloads 

for those boosters.
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in 5 years, then surely in 10 years. In defense of our optimistic schedule, I should 

note that in the mid-1960s, even before their Moon landing, American scientists 

and managers of the aerospace industry were even greater utopians.

But let’s return to 1960. Since the time of the first satellite to the present 

day, any space program begins with a launch vehicle. And that will be the case 

until humankind comes up with other ways to insert spacecraft into space. During 

1959–60 we devoted our primary attention to launch vehicles. For the Mars and 

Venus missions, the two stage R-7A combat missile was used as the foundation to 

which we added a third stage, the Block I, and to it a fourth, the Block L.5 The 

new four stage rocket was assigned the code number 8K78, and the new interplanetary spacecraft—1M (“the first Mars vehicle”). A lead designer, Vadim Petrov, was 

appointed for the 1M, and we began to issue schedules. Despite the general hype, 

there was no documentation for the work of our factories or those of our subcontractors—not in January, not in February, not in March! And the launch was supposed to be in October (the very latest date was 15 October)! A present-day reader, 

even just slightly versed in technology, would grin and say that only the foolhardy 

could take on such a mission within such a time frame. But we did not consider 

ourselves foolhardy. We grumbled that we had very little time, but if we really, really 

wanted to, we could do it.

And what did we have to do? I will begin with the launch vehicle and the insertion sequence. In early 1960, after two years of studying alternative scenarios for 

inserting spacecraft into interplanetary trajectories, OPM theoreticians Okhotsimskiy, Eneyev, Yershov, and our ballistics specialists Lavrov, Appazov, and Dashkov 

agreed on a method for launching spacecraft toward Mars and Venus.

Keldysh devoted a great deal of attention to this problem. At our OKB-1, while 

keeping a close watch on the theoretical research, Mishin, Okhapkin, and Kryukov 

made corrections applicable to the specific features of the three stage R-7, which was 

already flying as the 8K72, later called Vostok. They directly supervised the development of the fourth stage.

Our research showed that the continuous firing regimen using the basic three 

stages and ending with the insertion of a satellite into an intermediate orbit provided the greatest efficiency in terms of payload mass. Depending on the designated 

planet and launch date, the fourth stage would be fired at a specific point in the 

satellite’s low intermediate orbit, boosting the interplanetary spacecraft to escape 

velocity. At the end of the boost segment and engine shutdown, the spacecraft 

5. In terms of designations, the Soviets typically used “Block” to denote stages of a booster, and 

“Object” to denote a payload. Of the first 14 letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, Soviet engineers used A, 

B, V, G, D, Ye, Zh, I, K, L, and M for designating Blocks or Objects, for example, Block A or Object 

D. The basic R-7A vehicle was the Block A (core) surrounded by four strapon boosters (Blocks B, V, 

G, and D). The third stage was the Block I while the fourth stages were either the Block L or M. The 

Block Zh was a paper design never actually built.

satellite;

-powerful, high-performance liquid-propellant rocket engines, including nuclear 

rocket engines, liquid-hydrogen engines, ion rocket engines, and plasma rocket 

engines;

-high-precision automatic and radio-based flight control systems and telemetry 

systems;

-integrated ground systems for the preparation and launch of heavy rockets;

-a system of satellites in geosynchronous orbit to relay radio and television broadcasts and for navigational purposes;

-a system of satellites at various altitudes for the systematic observation of the 

Earth’s surface for meteorological, geophysical, and astronomic purposes;

-a habitable heavy orbital station with a three- to five-man crew and a mass of 

25 to 30 metric tons;

-an automatic solar satellite in the closest possible orbit to the Sun;

-a space vehicle with a two- to three-man crew for lunar landing with an approach 

mass of 10 to 12 metric tons;

-an interplanetary vehicle with a two- to three-man crew with a mission to fly 

around Mars and Venus with a mass of 10 to 30 metric tons during approach to 

the planet;

-an interplanetary vehicle with a two- to three-person crew with a mission to disembark on the planets’ surface. Plan calls for group flight of three to four vehicles;

-powerful intercontinental rockets having a payload mass of 10 to 40 metric tons 

and a range of 3,000 to 12,000 kilometers;

-a system for the destruction of satellites, stations, and space rockets from the 

territory of the USSR;

-photographic and radio-reconnaissance systems aimed at any area of the Earth’s 

territory, military radio communications systems, navigation systems, etc.4

When Korolev briefed us, his deputies, about the text of these proposals, we said 

(Bushuyev quite timidly, and Mishin, Voskresenskiy, and I more emphatically) that 

it would be better to write up proposals for the next five to seven years, rather than 

for the next three to five years. Basically, that was the upshot of our internal discord. 

Korolev did not accept our amendments, arguing that, “If we hold off with a manned 

Moon landing, the Americans will get ahead of us; if we’re another year late with 

the manned mission to fly around Mars or Venus we’ll be forgiven, but if Chelomey 

or Yangel propose completely crazy deadlines, then these missions will be given to 

them.” And not only did we agree, we believed that this would be achieved—if not 

4. The April 1960 draft of the kosmoplan is reproduced as “Draft of the CPSU Central Committee 

and USSR Council of Ministers on the Future Mastery of Cosmic Space” in B. V. Rauschenbach and 

G. S. Vetrov, eds., S. P. Korolev i ego delo [S. P. Korolev and His Affairs] (Moscow: Nauka, 1998), pp. 

289–293. A later version from June 1960 is also reproduced in the same source (pp. 295–301) as 

“Draft Decree of the CPSU Central Committee and USSR Council of Ministers.”
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569

their selection.9

Isayev agreed to develop the high-boiling propellant-based KDU for the interplanetary spacecraft, but he asked for assistance from our production facilities. He 

was not about to mention being loaded down with Makeyev’s naval orders.10 “The 

journey to Mars is worth the risk,” he declared, and threw himself into the general 

hubbub in creating the AMS.

Gleb Maksimov’s group produced the draft plan of the spacecraft itself. Maksimov did not have a great deal of experience in the development of interplanetary 

spacecraft, but alas, no one had any experience yet. The conceptual designers’ imagination needed to be transformed into a specific layout incorporating Isayev’s KDU 

and our own attitude control and stabilization system and control system for all 

the onboard units. It needed to integrate Lidorenko’s solar array, buffer batteries, 

Belousov’s and Khodarev’s radio system, a large parabolic antenna, and many more 

devices of all sorts—each capable, if it failed, of wreaking havoc on the entire undertaking.

Our department inherited a lot of completely new tasks. We, the guidance specialists of OKB-1, would have to design from scratch a control system for 

the world’s first spacecraft bound for Mars. The primary task was to develop the 

logic and hardware for a system that would provide, as instructed from the Earth, 

virtually any orientation of the automatic Mars station during the operation of the 

vernier thrusters.

After meetings on Stromynka Street in Moscow at TsKB Geofizika with Vladimir Khrustalev, we arranged to develop sun and star trackers. The newly invented 

orientation system was multifunctional. Its first task was to provide constant orientation toward the Sun in order to ensure that the solar array was permanently 

illuminated to the required extent. We developed constant solar orientation (PSO) 

and approximate solar orientation (GSO) systems.11 The latter could be used in the 

event of PSO malfunction to spin the spacecraft about the solar axis. This spinning enabled us to charge the batteries from the solar array. The Sun alone was 

not enough to correct trajectory. The KDU axis needed to be set in virtually any 

position in space, depending on the calculations performed on Earth, to generate 

a correcting pulse. A second optical reference point was needed in addition to the 

Sun, for which we selected the bright star Canopus; Sirius served as a backup. As for 

the second task, TsKB Geofizika developed the star tracker with lenses that moved 

into prescribed angles, depending on the numerical data transmitted from Earth, 

9. Vakhtang Dmitriyevich Vachnadze (1929–) eventually became director of NPO Energiya, that 

is, the old Korolev design bureau. He served in this position in 1977–91.

10. Although better known in the West as a designer of rocket engines for spacecraft, Aleksey Isayev’s 

OKB-2 was primarily involved in producing engines for naval, tactical, and air defense missiles.

11. PSO— Postoyannaya solnechnaya orientatsiya; GOS—Grubaya solnechnaya orientatsiya.

would depart on an autonomous voyage into deep space. Its orbit en route to the 

planet would be monitored from Earth and guided by its own Correction Engine 

Unit (KDU).6 The proposed insertion sequence later proved to be all-purpose—it 

remained in use for all launches to Mars and Venus, for lunar spacecraft soft-landings, and even for the insertion of the Molniya communications satellite. Perhaps 

that is why all open publications refer to the four stage rocket developed in 1960 as 

the Molniya, while we simply called it the “seventy-eight”—referring to its design 

code number 8K78.

Rauschenbach, Yurasov, and myself, as well as all the guidance specialists at 

OKB-1, were really stirred up by the fever-pitched assignment of projects on the 

control system for the fourth stage (Block L) and the interplanetary spacecraft. After 

many arguments, the Council of Chiefs made a decision, which was reinforced by 

the orders of ministers and state committee chairmen that fourth stage guidance 

would be considered a continuation of the rocket guidance system, and thus its 

development would be entrusted to Pilyugin, while OKB-1 would be assigned to 

develop the guidance systems for the Mars and Venus spacecraft. The decision was 

an ideological victory for our young guidance team.

The first three stages of the rocket had more or less been tested out, and we were 

not particularly troubled by their performance. Yet, during every launch, even in 

hot weather, an uneasy chill would come over me. The fourth stage, however, was 

unique in that it would require the execution of an in-orbit startup in weightlessness, 

outside the zone of radio coverage from Soviet territory. A special startup support 

system (SOZ) was developed for the fourth stage engine.7 This system contained a 

solid-propellant engine with a low total thrust.8 The system imparted the required 

initial acceleration for the reliable startup of the fourth stage main engine.

Melnikov and his deputies, Raykov and Sokolov, developed the fourth stage’s 

liquid oxygen–kerosene engine under Mishin’s strict supervision. They were very 

proud of the fact that they were producing an engine with a closed-cycle configuration for the first time. After driving the turbine, rather than being ejected into the 

surrounding space, the generator gas passed into the combustion chamber, where it 

underwent afterburn, increasing the specific impulse. The primary concerns for the 

development of the fourth stage fell on Sergey Okhapkin. Sergey Kryukov handled 

the four stage launch vehicle’s general layout and the integration of dozens of design 

parameters.

Engine production required high standards of metalworking, the mastery of new 

materials, and very close cooperation with testers and designers. Korolev and Turkov 

tasked young engineer Vakhtang Vachnadze with introducing the new process to 

our factory and managing engine production. Once again they made no mistake in 

6. KDU—Korrektiruyushchaya dvigatelnaya ustanovka.

7. SOZ—Sistema obespecheniya zapuska.

8. In English, these are typically called ullage motors.
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source switchboard (BKIP) so as to recharge the buffer batteries.13 A special amperehour meter was installed to protect against overcharging. Working with two subcontracting institutes, the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Current Sources 

(VNIIT) in Moscow and the Scientific-Research Institute of Batteries (NIAI) in 

Leningrad, Aleksandr Shuruy developed a unified power supply system.14 Skipping 

ahead, I will say that this little space power plant did not let us down.

We were at the very beginning of our journey, and we still hadn’t tried our hand 

at systems engineering. One of our mistakes was that we dismissed electromagnetic 

compatibility problems as inconsequential. Our neglect of these problems soon 

came back to haunt us.

Outside Yevpatoriya, construction was under way at a furious pace on the Center 

for Deep Space Communications. Putting this center into operation would mark 

the real beginning of the Mars program. Agadzhanov, Guskov, and the many creators of the Yevpatoriya center did not let us down. By October 1960, NIP-16 was 

ready to go to work with a Mars spacecraft. But there was no spacecraft capable of 

flying to Mars or Venus yet.

Our factory received an order for two of the first Mars spacecraft 

code named 1M. Korolev gave Turkov just five months to manufacture them, 

including testing at the control and test station and shipment to the firing range! 

Within this same time frame, they also needed to design the fourth stage and conduct ground developmental testing. Our calculations, checked many times, showed 

that the optimal Mars launch date that year was 26 September. Any delay would 

force us to reduce the payload mass. We spent an entire year producing the first two 

“seventy-eights” and the first two Mars spacecraft. By today’s standards, that time 

frame was fantastic. Ignorance truly was bliss.

In my long engineering career, I often had the occasion to deal with situations 

when a young team would set out any way they could to create a new system within 

an incredibly tight time frame. You could explain such an approach by a lack of experience, which only comes from many failures. In those days, we were not required 

to carry out labor-intensive ground developmental testing of individual systems and 

the entire spacecraft on special mock-ups and rigs. As a result, it was possible to 

schedule deadlines for the production of a flight-ready flight model while ignoring 

the protracted cycle of ground developmental testing.

The item that was furthest behind schedule was the radio complex for the 1M. 

The entire managerial staff of the SKB-567—the developers of the radio complex—

comprised former NII-885 employees including Belousov, Khodarev, and the lead 

developer of the onboard radio unit, Malakhov. Like Belousov’s SKB-567, NII-885 

13. BKIP—Bortovoy kommutator istochnikov pitaniya.

14. VNIIT—Vsesoyuznyy nauchno-issledovatelskiy institut istochnikov toka; NIAI—Nauchnoissledovatelskiy akkumulyatornyy institut.

and oriented the KDU axis in space before firing it. OKB-1 and TsKB Geofizika 

dealt with the development of instruments and a reliable logic for searching for the 

requisite star. The third task of the orientation system was to aim the narrow beam 

of the parabolic antenna at the Earth.

It would have been so much easier to solve all of these problems if we could have 

put a computer on board; but that wasn’t developed for another 15 years! In 1960 

we had not even dreamed of this. And that is why it was necessary to complicate the 

radio system apparatus by introducing sequencers into it.

The strategy of flight control, making corrections, and obtaining information 

was designed to ensure sufficient time to cram in all the necessary operations while 

the AMS was still in the Yevpatoriya center’s coverage zone. In addition to transmitting commands to the craft to control the onboard systems, receive telemetry data, 

and measure coordinates, the radio system also needed to transmit numerical settings before a correction and perform a back check.

Engineer Vitaliy Kalmykov was expected to develop a unified system for electrical power distribution and the transmission of commands from the radio-link 

decoders and sequencers. In addition, he needed to create an inhibitor that would 

permit the vernier thrusters to perform a correction burn only when a star was in 

the star tracker lens’s field of vision.

When designing the onboard automatic controls and general electrical circuitry, 

one needed to understand the operating logic of each system. Each of the developers created his own “piece” of a complex system. After studying each of these 

“pieces,” the task of an engineer developing the logic and control system for an 

entire onboard complex was to assemble it all into a unified whole. “Departmentalism” within the cramped quarters of the spacecraft and in the single radio-link might 

lead to a dangerous situation when a command issued from the Earth would end 

up at the wrong address, causing an emergency situation on board. The command 

distribution logic would have to preclude such situations. In 1960, Yuriy Karpov’s 

team was simultaneously developing onboard complex control systems (SUBK) for 

the first Korabl-Sputniks and AMSs.12 On the Korabl-Sputnik, each system had 

“sovereignty,” which made it difficult to create a unified power supply system and a 

common control logic. For the AMS, on the other hand, we had to develop a unified logic and unified centralized electric power supply system. I assigned this task 

to Yuriy Karpov’s newly formed team. The need for systemic integration gradually 

seeped into the consciousness of each of its engineers. Automatic Mars stations were 

their first serious test, and it must be said that the general layout that Kalmykov 

developed passed it.

The creation of an onboard power supply was not a simple task. The core of the 

system was a system of flat solar arrays that were switched on via the onboard power 

12. The Korabl-Sputniks were the robotic precursors for both the Vostok crewed spaceship and the 

Zenit photo-reconnaissance satellites.
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ity and transferred it to Korolev, who had made this risky decision. I tried to argue, 

but S.P. gave me such a look that I shut up immediately. “Here’s the thing, comrade 

Belousov, and you all listen. You will perform the integrated testing at our facility. 

Chertok and Ostashev will be in charge. The tested equipment must be sent to the 

firing range from our shop No. 44 on 28 August.” One of the engineers hovering 

around tugged on my sleeve and whispered, “It’ll be at least a week before we debug 

a single unit. We can’t send you semi-finished products right after soldering.”

When we took our seats in the spacious ZIS-110 after looking over their tiny 

factory, Korolev angrily reprimanded me, “Boris, you’re incorrigible. You think I 

don’t understand that their operation is an utter failure. But now let them try to tell 

us that they can’t even send us the first unit part by part. I warned Kalmykov a long 

time ago that he was betting on the wrong horse.”

On 30 August, I, the designated chief of engineering operations at the engineering facility, flew to Tyuratam with Arkadiy Ostashev, whom Korolev had appointed 

as my deputy. Twenty-four hours later an An-12 cargo airplane delivered two semiassembled Mars spacecraft, 1M No.1 and No. 2. We immediately sent No. 1 for 

electrical tests and No. 2 to the pressure chamber to check for structural leaks. Pandemonium broke out as we sorted out the equipment that had arrived, the dozens of 

boxes, cables, and consoles; we tried to identify missing parts, looked for necessary 

test documentation and even people who had gotten lost somewhere in Moscow 

and Podlipki. Incoming and outgoing radiograms kept the communications lines 

busy around the clock. We had a month until the Mars launch.

I must confess that at that time I did not consider the situation hopeless—that 

was my still-meager space experience showing. In that same year of 1960, we had 

already conducted successful launches of the Korabl-Sputnik, which had been 

announced to the whole world. Perhaps we would be lucky here too. In addition, on 

the threshold of a missed deadline, there would always be one more wicked thought 

that would come to mind, “I’m not going to be the last in line. The flight doesn’t 

come down to me! After all, the rocket is new!”

Korolev assigned Leonid Voskresenskiy to supervise launch preparation of the 

four stage 8K78. Voskresenskiy studied the state of affairs with the fourth stage 

in detail. God had endowed him with the gift of foresight. Having listened to my 

problems, he advised me, “Forget about that radio unit and all the Mars problems. 

The first time we won’t fly any farther than Siberia!”

We had already become accustomed to working around the clock at the engineering facility. But in terms of sleep deprivation, the number of hourly technical 

problems, and the deluge of failures, September 1960 set a record. Among all the 

systems competing for the greatest number of bobiki, the record holder was the 

radio complex.

It started when the radio unit simply proved to be inoperable. At a review 

debriefing meeting on 9 September, Malakhov, the leading conceptual architect 

of the onboard radio complex, announced that the situation was far from hopeless 

and that he needed just a few days for tests—although some of the instruments that 

was subordinate at that time to the State Committee for Radio Electronics. They 

were responsible for producing the interplanetary radio complex within a fantastically brief period of time.

In August 1960, we returned with Korolev to Podlipki from the firing range 

after the successful flight of the third Korabl-Sputnik carrying the dogs Belka and 

Strelka.15 Despite the hype surrounding the successful landing of Belka and Strelka, 

I went to the factory to find out the state of affairs with the first Mars spacecraft. 

The launch was supposed to take place in October—just two months away—and in 

shop No. 44 the assemblers were fiddling around with a dismantled AMS engineering model. No testing had begun yet; Belousov’s radio complex hadn’t arrived yet. I 

burst into Korolev’s office. He was shouting loudly over the Kremlin “hotline” that 

they needed to isolate Belka and Strelka from the company of any other canines. He 

was suspicions that the medics would pull off some sort of sensational stunt for the 

sake of glory. Nevertheless, he listened very attentively to what I had to say. Right 

then and there he called Minister Kalmykov and his deputy Shokin on the Kremlin 

“hot line.” In harsh words he said that Belousov, the new chief designer of the radio 

complex, was going to completely disrupt the entire schedule; he, Korolev, would 

have to report to Nikita Sergeyevich [Khrushchev] personally that the Mars launch 

that had been promised for this year would not take place.

Having finished his loud conversation over the “hotline,” S.P. suddenly suggested, “Let’s go see Belousov right away. We’ll have a look and discuss everything 

there on site. Tell Bushuyev and Ostashev they should come, too.”

At 1 p.m. we were in Belousov’s office. Kalmykov and Shokin had arrived there 

too. Belousov’s design bureau and its rather puny pilot-production plant were 

located next to Moscow’s largest new construction project, the Lenin Komsomol 

automobile factory that was being upgraded and modernized. The managers of this 

new factory had laid claim to Belousov’s work area and had demanded their immediate eviction.

The individual assemblies of the radio complex for the 1M were undergoing 

debugging and engineering follow-up. They had not yet been checked out together. 

Integrated testing of the closed communications loop had not even been performed 

on laboratory mock-ups. The overall picture was depressing. Belousov and his deputies Malakhov and Khodarev did not defend themselves or offer excuses. They had 

already spent many sleepless nights, but promised to finish everything in just a little 

while.

After a brief discussion, Korolev suddenly proposed limiting the testing to 

individual assemblies and sending us the whole complex for installation on board 

the AMS without performing integrated tests. Such a bold proposal astonished 

Kalmykov and Shokin. It took away their responsibility for the equipment’s reliabil15. This was a test of the future Vostok crewed spacecraft designed to launch a person into orbit. 

Chertok includes a full description of the Vostok program in Volume 3.
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we pulled out the receivers six times. We modified the logic for issuing commands, 

resoldered the telemetry circuits countless times, and simply could not make the 

output of numerical commands match up with the required angular settings for the 

star and solar trackers. Each new activation simulating one of the onboard operating 

sessions generated new failures and inexplicable glitches. Each time, the unit had to 

be opened up and resoldered one more time.

It is unclear when our instrument production facility’s two female installers got 

time to rest. At any time of the day you could see Rimma and Lyuda at the MIK 

resoldering according to the latest change in an unpredictable instrument’s installation chart or producing a new cable. One of the engineers, having received a cable 

after a resoldering job, tested it with me present to see that it conformed to the 

diagram drawn in pencil on a scrap of paper. He discovered an error, got mad, and 

complained, “your installers let me down.”

I went up to Rimma to find out what had happened.

“I confess that I made a mistake after soldering for 17 hours without taking a 

break for dinner and breakfast. We gave up having lunch long ago.”

With around-the-clock testing, modifications, resoldering, and rechecking, it 

wasn’t until 27 September that we were finally able to begin full-scale integrated 

testing. We found such a number of deviations that it became obvious that it would 

be impossible to launch on the optimal date. Integrated flight-control program 

compliance tests in communications sessions failed for the most varied reasons. We 

repeated them until we were slaphappy, striving to get through the simulation of a 

normal flight at least one time without glitches.

Finally, on 29 September we managed to simulate an image transmission session. 

To everyone’s jubilation, we received some semblance of a test pattern. The phototelevision unit was supposed to transmit an image of Mars’ surface during a pass 

from an altitude of around 10,000 kilometers. But, alas, upon repetition we realized 

that it was unlikely that the FTU would work! Due to a procedural error putting in 

the preset values, the astro-correction session also went awry. Once again, we tried 

to repeat and once again something went wrong during another phase.

On 3 October, during a raucous session of the State Commission, so many 

comments were aimed at Belousov that I began to feel genuinely sorry for him. 

Ryazanskiy sized up the latest verbal flaying of Belousov, Khodarev, and Makakhov 

by noting, “It serves them right. It was no use taking on such a project with these 

deadlines.” Agadzhanov, who had made a special trip in from the Crimea, reported 

that Yevpatoriya was ready for operation, but he requested that the receivers’ bandwidth be expanded due to the drifting frequency of Belousov’s onboard transmitters. Korolev also made some scathing remarks to Minister Kalmykov, voicing a vote 

of no confidence toward SKB-567 and Belousov personally. He requested that the

SKB be transferred to Ryazanskiy as a branch before continuing work.16

16. This is actually what happened; SKB-567 was soon absorbed by NII-885.

had arrived from Moscow were not certifiable and the spares didn’t work at all. His 

announcement provoked an explosion of indignant laughter. I reported the state of 

affairs by radiogram to Korolev. He responded that he would be flying out in the 

next few days with Minister Kalmykov who would “dish it out” to this Malakhov 

and Belousov’s entire company.

After Malakhov and Khodarev made transmitters emit and receivers receive commands on the table, I insisted on installing all the units in their proper places in the 

body of the spacecraft and beginning joint tests with the other systems. We needed 

to make sure that the commands from the radio unit were not dispersed to false 

addresses and that the transmitters were capable of emitting the promised wattage 

through the flight-ready onboard antennas while also consuming no more than the 

approved number of amperes from the onboard sources.

All hell broke loose! The triodes in the transmitter broke down—we discovered 

that the wrong triode had been soldered in. The diodes in the transmitter’s power 

converter broke down—it was unclear why. The Taran microswitches failed due to 

their particularly poor quality. The command radio-link electronics burned out due 

to muddled-up installation. The electronic telemetry switch failed. The transmitter 

had begun operating, but suddenly it started to smoke! And so on, and so on. The 

daily list of glitches contained more than 20 items.

Malakhov, appearing after 1 or 2 hours of sleep, crawled halfway into the spacecraft along with his soldering iron. He was the only one who understood or had 

access to the radio unit. It was difficult to tell whether the smoke was coming from 

the solder or whether the instruments themselves were smoking.

By 15 September the State Commission headed by Rudnev and Kalmykov had 

arrived at the firing range. It was their custom to arrive at the MIK at night to make 

sure that no one was sleeping and that the “soldering” continued. Korolev, Keldysh, and Ishlinskiy were already at the firing range. Meetings on the Korabl-Sputniks took up much of the bigwigs’ time. Numerous guests and curious individuals 

involved in the human spaceflight program started to appear. The Vostok launch 

was close at hand. The brass kept track of business concerning the Mars launches 

only at night.

One night Rudnev and Kalmykov arrived at the MIK with Korolev. Rudnev 

turned to me with a not entirely civil question, “Every night when we come to the 

MIK I see the same butt sticking out of the spacecraft! Is it going to fly to Mars 

too?” He said this so loudly that the subject of Rudnev’s comment wrenched his 

other body parts out of the spacecraft, and when he saw the bigwigs, he prepared 

himself for further censure. However, they weren’t in the mood for it now. Malakhov reported that he needed another four hours.

“I’m already used to your needing 28 hours in every day,” said Kalmykov. “In 

a month you’ve asked me for over a hundred extra hours.” If he had elaborated 

further, we might have ended up in a loud discussion of the real state of things, an 

outcome undesirable in the presence of State Commission members. The managers 

soon left us.

Four times we pulled two transmitters out of the spacecraft for “standard repairs”; 
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resources was not a consideration, and extra experience would always be useful.

On 6 October, after three days of uninterrupted testing, modifications, refinements, and authorizations, I reported to Korolev that I was sending 1M No. 1 for 

assembly and integration with the fourth stage of the launch vehicle and switching 

all my resources over to the backup—1M No. 2. There was no longer any hope of 

making a pass close to Mars. The objective remaining was simply to test the fourth 

stage and perform a test-run of the spacecraft systems operation in a prolonged 

flight. This, in and of itself, would be a success.

On 10 October, 8K78 No. 1 integrated with spacecraft 1M No. 1 lifted off the 

launch pad and crashed. Studying the telemetry recordings, we quickly determined 

the cause. The first two stages operated normally. During the third stage (Block I) 

segment, the gyro horizon issued a clearly false command approximately 309 seconds into the flight. Evidently, a breakage occurred or a contact was disturbed in the 

command potentiometer. Because of the false command, the third stage deviated 

by more than 7o. At the same time, the gyro horizon’s terminal contact closed and a 

command was issued to shut down the engine. The entire Mars-bound stack fell to 

the Earth and burned up in the atmosphere over eastern Siberia.

The second launch of 8K78 carrying 1M No. 2 took place on 14 October, and 

it too, failed. This time the engineering defect was in the hydraulic system. A leak 

in the liquid oxygen line supercooled a kerosene valve that was supposed to open 

before ignition of the third stage engine while the vehicle was still on the launch 

pad. As a result, the liquid oxygen–drenched kerosene valve froze up. When the 

ignition command was issued, the valve failed to open and yet another Mars-bound 

stack burned up in the atmosphere over Siberia through the fault of the launch 

vehicle.

Kalmykov had every right to defend himself from the harsh attacks Korolev 

unleashed on him, yet he did not do so. In both cases OKB-1 was officially the 

guilty party. Aside from Viktor Kuznetsov, the contractors that we had accused of 

producing poor-quality equipment and missing deadlines had nothing to do with 

this failure. We could chalk up the previous crash to Kuznetsov; neither Korolev, 

nor I, nor my comrades bore any responsibility for the gyro horizon. But the general 

misery from two crashes in a row after a month and a half of intense, nonstop pressure was so excruciating that no one remembered their former hard feelings. The 

first launch window for flights to Mars closed. We switched over to Venus.

Two spacecraft were also prepared for the first Venus launches under 

the code number 1VA. In terms of its control system and onboard equipment makeup, the 1VA spacecraft were very similar to the 1M. The objective of 

the launches was to gain experience shooting for Venus, to conduct research en 

route from Earth to Venus and during the approach segment to Earth’s mysterious 

neighbor. It was impossible to design a descent vehicle and equipment to conduct 

direct research of the planet’s atmosphere and surface within this launch window. 

Although Keldysh tried to bring up the subject, he quickly realized that it was comMeanwhile, the ballistics experts and the conceptual designers calculated the trajectories for each postponed date, reporting that, “We’re going to miss the optimal 

date, so we need to look for weight reserves!”

Without hesitating, the State Commission decreed that the photo-television unit 

and Professor Lebedinskiy’s spectroreflectometer be taken off board.17 The latter 

instrument was supposed to determine if there was life on Mars. In order to facilitate making this decision, Korolev proposed that the instrument first be tested on 

the steppe not far from our site. To everyone’s delight, the instrument showed that 

“there was no life” on Earth in Tyuratam! Lebedinskiy took the State Commission’s 

decision like the death of a close friend. I reassured him, “You were lucky! The 

chances of making it to Mars are virtually nil. So you’ll have time to get your instruments into shape. At the very least, in a year you must prove with your instrument 

that we do have life here on the steppe.”

On the evening of 4 October, in the cottages, barracks, and hotels we celebrated the anniversary of the first Sputnik launch using the gift from the French 

winemaker. Of the thousand bottles of champagne that he had sent us for photographing the far side of the Moon, a nice round hundred were delivered to us from 

Moscow for the celebration. Our mood was anything but the best when we marked 

the anniversary. A year ago we had stunned the world with photography of the far 

side of the Moon. Last week we were supposed to have launched a spacecraft to 

Mars to photograph its mysterious canals and transmit the images to Earth. What if 

some other structures would be discovered there? But a month of round-the-clock 

work had shown that there wouldn’t be any sensation.

By a surprising confluence of random events (or perhaps there is a pattern here), 

I find myself editing this chapter for republication on 4 October 2004. Forty-four 

years have passed since humankind’s first attempts described in this chapter to discover intelligent life on Mars using automatic spacecraft. Mars proved to be such an 

intelligent planet that we haven’t managed to find even unintelligent, primitive life 

on its surface in all that time.

The entire month of September 1960, I had worked at the engineering facility with Arkadiy Ostashev on a schedule of 12- to 13-hour shifts. I almost always 

worked the day shift in order to brief the brass, while Ostashev worked primarily at 

night. When it became evident that we wouldn’t make the optimal date, our morale 

started to deteriorate—“better a horrible end than endless horror.” But promises had 

been made to Khrushchev about the flight to Mars, and the command “full steam 

ahead” was still in effect. It really made no sense to postpone the launches until 

next year. The production of launch vehicles was continuing successfully. Saving 

17. Andrey Vladimirovich Lebedinskiy (1892–1965) was one of the most prominent aerospace 

biomedicine specialists in the Soviet Union. In 1954–63, he served as the director of the Institute of 

Biophysics at the Academy of Medical Sciences.
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lead designer Vadim Petrov and Gleb Maksimov, “What were you guys thinking 

when you designed it like this? For this, you designers should have to drop your 

trousers and get a flogging right here in front of everybody. Then we should either 

make you modify the sensor or the fairing. Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t 

include time for a beating demonstration or for modifications. I’m not going to 

complain to Korolev. But if we don’t hit Venus, I’ll tell him the reason why.”

The endless processes of dismantling and reassembling the payload almost drove 

us berserk. We would dismantle it, determine the reason for the latest failure, replace 

the transmitter or find a loss of contact in the feeder cable, assemble it, activate a 

communications session, and discover a new failure that wasn’t there before. On 

the night of 25 January the fifth such assembly-disassembly cycle took place. This 

time the high-frequency switch that connected one of the two transmitters with the 

parabolic antenna failed.

At that time, Korolev had left the firing range for just three days. Now he was 

flying “home.” We had developed the unwritten tradition of driving out to the 

airfield to meet arriving brass regardless of the current work load. And so, deprived 

of a good night’s sleep, Keldysh, Ishlinskiy, and I drove over to the airfield to meet 

Korolev. En route Keldysh argued with Ishlinskiy about scientific works submitted 

as candidates for Lenin Prizes. We warmed up in the car, and as they argued I fell 

asleep.

It was a sunny day. Korolev, who was the first to deplane and obviously in a good 

mood, exclaimed, “It’s already springtime here! When I left Moscow the temperature was –24°C (–11°F).” I drove back with Korolev and Voskresenskiy. S.P. was 

not so much interested in Venus as he was in talking about his meeting with Frol 

Kozlov—the Party’s second ranking official after Khrushchev.18 He complained that 

our Devyatka had been squeezed out in favor of Yangel’s Shestnadtsataya.

19 He said, 

“After last October’s catastrophe, the bigwigs are sparing no effort to rehabilitate 

Yangel and his work.20 Worse than that, Frol told me straight out, ‘Yangel gets first 

priority, Chelomey is the backup, and you’re last in line.’”

“I asked Kozlov, ‘Does that mean we won’t be involved in space?’”

“He replied, ‘No, that’s not what we’re saying; you will absolutely be involved. 

We are attaching exceptional value to the Venus launch. But don’t be in a hurry. 

We’re not rushing you. If necessary, it can wait.’”

The next day and night—with Korolev, Keldysh, and Ishlinskiy attending and 

with an assemblage of inquisitive onlookers—we once again disassembled the AMS 

to look for defects in the power supply system automatic controls. We found out 

18. Frol Romanovich Kozlov (1908–65) served as secretary of the Central Committee for defense 

industries in 1960–64, that is, the effective Party leader of the Soviet space program.

19. Devyatka, literally “niner,” and Shestnadtsataya, literally “sixteenth,” were the nicknames for the 

R-9 and R-16 missiles, respectively.

20. This is a reference to the terrible disaster during the first attempted launch of the R-16 in 

October 1960. See Chapter 32.

pletely unrealistic. A pendant shaped like a small globe with the continents etched 

on it was placed on the 1VA. Inside this small sphere was a medal depicting the 

Earth-to-Venus flight path. On the other side of the medal was the emblem of the 

Soviet Union. The pendant was placed in a spherical capsule with thermal shielding 

to protect it during entry into Venus’ atmosphere at reentry velocity. We weren’t 

very concerned about which of the Venusians would discover this pendant. The 

important thing was to publicize a description of it and prove that the Soviet Union 

was the first to touch down on Venus.

The first automatic interplanetary station to be launched toward Venus, the 

1VA, was shipped to the firing range from our factory on 1 January 1961. The 8K78 

rocket boosters arrived at the firing range four days later. That day Rudnev held a 

session of the State Commission at the GKOT on the upcoming Venus launches. 

The session was very preliminary. First they heard Voskresenskiy’s report on the 

failure of the third stage of 8K78 launch vehicle during the two Mars attempts on 

10 and 14 October 1960.

I presented the second report. I reported on the objectives and schedule for the 

AMS launches to Venus. The primary objective was to hit Venus and to test out 

communications at a range of millions of kilometers and the control system during 

long-duration flight. The scheduled date of the first launch window was 20 to 23 

January; the second—28 to 30 January; and the third—8 to 10 February 1961. 

Based on the experience of the previous year’s Mars launch attempts, after hearing 

the reports from Voskresenskiy and myself, everyone present was so skeptical that 

they didn’t even ask any questions. Only Rudnev, as State Commission Chairman, 

asked a question, and it was directed more to himself than to me: “During the Mars 

launches, we never even determined if the spacecraft itself was reliable. We never 

got that far. What’s the probability that out of three launches we’ll send even one 

to Venus?”

“One out of three will definitely make it to Venus,” I cheerfully replied.

On 8 January 1961, I once again flew out to Tyuratam with the main group of 

engineers and installers. The team was well broken-in after the days and nights of 

“Martian” preparation. We were already psychologically prepared for the work. The 

equipment was simpler than that of the Mars shots. Once again the most unreliable 

element proved to be the radio complex. Debugging it devoured most of the time 

that remained before the first launch set for 4 February.

During preparation we discovered not only equipment failures, but also obvious 

mistakes committed during the design process. The setting of the attitude control 

system sun/star tracker depended on the launch date. The setting was performed 

at the engineering facility using 4 February as the reference date. After mating the 

automatic interplanetary station with the unit, the launch vehicle payload was 

enclosed in the payload fairing. In the event of a launch delay of 24 hours or more, 

the rocket would have to be removed from the launch site just to reset the sensor 

because there was no way to access it there.

Apropos this, Voskresenskiy, who supervised operations at the launch site, asked 
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The Commission convened with the participation of a large number of wellwishers. The proceedings had just begun when an officer ran in and whispered something to Kirillov. He excused himself and dashed for the door, asking permission en 

route to abscond with me as well. When we ran into the hall out of breath, a smiling Ostashev met us and explained everything. The load-bearing frame holding the 

1VA had been brought into the horizontal position and the crane had transferred it 

to the erector to be mated with the launch vehicle. Everything was going normally, 

but suddenly all the attitude control valves of the mated spacecraft began to clatter, 

whistling as they leaked the precious supply of compressed nitrogen. Everyone who 

had been working on the erector jumped down and dashed for the exit. Memories 

of the catastrophe at Yangel’s adjacent site were still fresh. Everyone knew that the 

AMS’s propulsion system was filled with nitric acid and kerosene. What if an engine 

started up all of a sudden? Arkadiy Ostashev, who was in the hall, was the first to 

realize what was happening. He gave the command to quickly de-mate the frame, 

hook up the ground console, and stop the AMS’s premature activity. It turned out 

that elastic deformation had caused the frame carrying the spacecraft to pull away 

from the load-bearing ring so much that the limit contacts designed to activate the 

first near-Earth communications session after separation from the launch vehicle 

had tripped.

Unable to stand the suspense, the entire State Commission took a break and 

came down to the hall. I proposed that we cap one of the two limit contacts, put a 

wider stop on the second one, and put in an electric inhibitor that would be removed 

once the assembly was vertical at the launch site. The proposals were implemented 

overnight and rechecked from the ground console.

In the cold morning, as per tradition, everyone drove out to the gates of the MIK 

for the rocket transfer. The gates swung open and the motor locomotive belching 

exhaust prepared to push the erector holding the rocket to the launch pad. Suddenly 

Korolev said to Kirillov:

“Stop the transfer!”

“Why, Sergey Pavlovich?”

“You scheduled this to start at 7 a.m, and it’s only 6:50.”

Everyone smiled and patiently hopped up and down in the cold for the prescribed 10 minutes. Precisely at 7 o’clock, turning to all those assembled, Rudnev 

loudly announced, “Sergey Pavlovich has taught us a lesson in precision. I support 

him and I request that henceforth, none of us do anything ahead of schedule.

These “instructions” had a light-hearted rallying effect.

On the very first day of tests at the launch site, we discovered that the third stage 

gyro horizon rapidly drifted and moved to a stop position, thus issuing an emergency engine shutdown command. After several tries we still couldn’t determine the 

cause of the defect. Viktor Kuznetsov accepted the blame and proposed replacing 

the instrument.

At 11 p.m. on 3 February, a 15-minute State Commission meeting was held 

right in the bunker. On behalf of Chief Designer Pilyugin, Finogeyev reported the 

that a remote control switch was on the blink. While we were at it, we corrected a 

defect in Konstantin Iosifovich Gringauz’ equipment, which was supposed to determine the condition of the interplanetary plasma throughout the journey.

Once again we assembled, tested, and sent the entire AMS to the pressure chamber for a leak check. By morning on 29 January, after the pressure chamber test, I 

was forced to make the decision to disassemble the AMS instead of handing it over 

to be integrated with the launch vehicle. We had determined that there was just 

noise—no valid signals—at the receiver output.

We checked everything in disassembled form. We found the causes. Once again 

we assembled the vehicle; once again we performed tests on the assembled hardware; and once again there was another leak check in the pressure chamber. In the 

brief intervals between the incessant testing, the cracking open of the systems, the 

modifications, and the pressure chamber leak checks, Ostashev and I, taking turns, 

managed to grab an hour of sleep.

In a state of continuous turmoil, without considering the details of the document, I signed a protocol on equipping the Venus descent vehicle with a pendant of 

the Soviet Union; running around at the MIK, I asked Korolev to approve it. His 

attitude toward that document was considerably more serious and he chewed me 

out. “It was typed sloppily,” he said. “Retype a clean copy on good paper. This is a 

document of national importance. We will sign it together but the State Commission chairman must approve it.”

We finally handed over the spacecraft for integration with the launch vehicle. 

Kirillov designated 7 a.m. on 1 February for the traditional departure from the MIK 

for the launch site.21 That night I admired the two launch vehicles. The next 8K78 

cluster, the third one now, was lying on the erector. In its nose cone was the elegant, 

gleaming 1VA with the metallic shine of its thermal insulation foil and blinding 

white paint of its thermal radiators. Nearby, the final horizontal tests were under 

way on the fourth 8K78 launch vehicle.

On 31 January, at 5 p.m., a meeting of the Council of Chiefs began on the third 

floor of the MIK service building. Korolev and Glushko presented proposals for a 

future heavy launch vehicle. The upshot of their presentations was that the powers 

that be had issued a directive shifting the project to military objectives. But it was 

not completely clear which objectives. For the first time, Korolev set the goal of 

manufacturing the launch vehicle components at the firing range instead of only 

assembling them. That was the only way to eliminate the problem of transporting 

the future gigantic rocket from Russia to Kazakhstan. Barmin smirked. Everyone 

else was silent. The troubles of the next few hours were on everyone’s mind. We 

needed to grab some dinner and meet for a State Commission session at 8 p.m. to 

make the decision to transport the Venus rocket to the launch site.

21. Anatoliy Semenovich Kirillov (1924–87) served as chief of the first directorate at the Tyuratam 

launch range. In this position, he was responsible for all launch operations at the range.
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the malfunction.

PT-200 developer Iosifyan asked, “But where did you put my converter?”

After a brief period of confusion it was determined that the PT-200 had been 

installed on the frame connecting the Block I with the Block L.

“What were you thinking?” the angry Iosifyan blurted out. “This electric device 

is not designed to work in a vacuum. Evidently the bearings broke down or carbon 

brushes ground against the commutator all at once the like sandpaper. Most likely, 

it was a combination of the two. I did not give permission to use this device in a 

vacuum!” It turned out that the guilty parties were Finogeyev, who had used the PT200 in his system without coordinating the conditions for its use with the developer, 

and I, who had supervisory responsibility over the actions of all the “rusty electricians,” as Korolev put it.

The cause of the crash was clear, but what could be done in the two days remaining before the last tests on the next launch vehicle? The time had been compressed 

to the extent that we needed proposals that required very few hours for their implementation. It was impossible to report to Korolev and then to the State Commission 

unless we had an actual proposal in reserve.

In search for solution, I went to the “working class,” to a brigade of our factory workers, to gain an understanding of how much time would be required to 

manufacture a special pressurized container. On the way I stopped off for a smoke 

break at the laboratory where our spacecraft control specialists had settled in. There 

I consulted with my comrades about the problem that had suddenly fallen in my 

lap. Anatoliy Patsiora, one of the attitude control system developers, pointed to the 

onboard storage battery that was in the laboratory for some reason.

“Will that work? Dump all the cells out of the pressurized housing and put the 

PT-200 inside!”

Aleksandr Shuruy was standing nearby. He was an expert on both the design of 

storage batteries and the PT-200 itself. He immediately checked out the idea on 

his slide rule; the solution was beyond a doubt. Several hours later the PT-200 was 

installed inside the pressurized container that had formerly housed the onboard storage battery. The teploviki—as we called the thermal control specialists—advised us 

to wrap the container in vacuum shield insulation and cover it with black and white 

stripes like a zebra.22 Iosifyan felt terrible about the failure caused by the PT-200. 

He approved the improvised packing of the converter into the ready-made storage 

battery container, but painstakingly checked the thermal control calculations. He 

didn’t stop there. He gathered Korolev, Rudnev, and Kalmykov, and brought them 

one night to the laboratory where we were finishing up the business of installing 

the PT-200.

Rudnev and Kalmykov, both chain smokers, gladly sat down for a smoke break. 

22. Teploviki is derived from the Russian word teplo meaning “heat.”

readiness of the launch vehicle control system. Ishlinskiy, who had been assigned to 

determine the possible causes for the gyro horizon’s abnormal drift, gave a 3-minute 

report with his innate professorial flair. The snoozing Keldysh gave a start, and 

violating the official rules of order, concluded, “Even a person who doesn’t know 

the gyroscope’s operating principles can see from your report that it is better to fly 

without gyroscopes.”

Grigoriy Levin reported that all the systems of the Command and Measurement 

Complex were ready. The ships Dolinsk and Krasnodar were in the Gulf of Guinea, 

the Voroshilov was standing by near Alexandria, and the Sibir and the Suchan were 

in the Pacific Ocean. The weather service reported a temperature of –15o (5° F), 

with light winds and clear skies. The State Commission members did not want to 

leave the bunker’s warm guest room. “Instead of the Gulf of Guinea, you guys get 

Tyuratam,” remarked State Commission Chairman Rudnev.

Ostashev left and headed to the Tral telemetry receiving station at the MIK. I 

went to IP-1, to the cozy cabin where the Tral units that received information from 

all the stages had been installed. At T-minus 3 minutes I stepped out into the cold 

darkness. A nighttime launch always made a stronger impression than a launch conducted in daylight. For seconds the steppe, as far as the eye can see, was illuminated 

by the single flame of five rocket engines. As the thunder receded into the distance, 

the light gradually faded and once again the steppe became dark, lonely, and bleak. 

Quickly I returned to the telemetry operators. They didn’t detect a single glitch 

visually. The last messages from Ussuriysk reported that it seemed that the stage 

four—the Block L—had separated, but things were still not fully clear; they would 

recheck. Soon everyone was rushing to Site No. 2 for the radiograms. Reports from 

the ships arrived there via Odessa and Moscow. But no, it wasn’t in the cards even 

on this third launch to test out the fourth stage. But the first three stages had presumably worked normally! We finally went out to the “dotted line,” that is, went 

into orbit as artificial satellites. After that the messages were muddled, but it was 

already clear that the fourth stage would not depart for Venus at the required time. 

A commission was immediately created to conduct an in-depth investigation under 

my chairmanship. I was also tasked with speeding up preparation for the launch of 

1VA No. 2.

The process of investigating what caused the failure of the first Venus launch had 

begun in my commission with a conflict between the “parties under investigation”: 

the launch vehicle control system, which Finogeyev defended; the power supply 

system, whose reliability Iosifyan vouched for; and our OKB-1 designers, whom 

Korolev had promised to make “walk to Moscow on the railroad tracks” if they were 

to blame for the failure of the Block L (fourth stage) to separate from the Block I 

(third stage).

The telemetry operators rescued everybody. Boris Popov brought graphs constructed per dispatches from the Kamchatka tracking station. The cause was obvious—the PT-200 current converter failed at the end of third stage operation. This 

converter powered the Block L control system, and this failure completely explained 
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grams... The scientific and technical mission objectives assigned for the satellite 

launch were accomplished.”

According to the forecast, the new heavy satellite that had ended up in near-Earth 

orbit would quickly plow into the Earth’s atmosphere. Given such a low orbit, the 

ballistics experts could not give a precise answer as to what the impact area might 

be, but they believed that most probably the heavy satellite would burn up over the 

ocean after making two to three orbital passes. Keldysh nevertheless was interested 

in knowing whether there was any information about the orbit of our new Tyazhelyy 

sputnik (Heavy Satellite).24 Lieutenant Colonel Levin informed him that the telemetry system was ready for its next operation, but only air defense facilities could 

observe the satellite. However, after receiving the ballistics specialists’ forecast, they 

had not detected anything. “A week has already passed,” said Keldysh, “and no one 

has sent us any protests, so everything must have disappeared in the ocean.”

The report by General Nikolay Kamanin, who was attending the State Commission session, cheered everyone up.25 Air Force Headquarters had communicated to 

him that after TASS’s report about our heavy satellite, Italian and French ham radio 

operators had supposedly received human calls for help and heard groans over our 

space frequencies. Based on these reports, some newspapers had surmised that the 

Tyazhelyy sputnik was crewed and that a cosmonaut had died in orbit in horrible 

suffering. Suddenly, firing range chief Aleksandr Zakharov announced, “All firing 

range services are ready for operation.” The next State Commission meeting was 

scheduled for 10 p.m. on 11 February.

We forgot about Tyazhelyy sputnik for the time being, but it jogged our memories a year and a half later! In the summer of 1963, Korolev asked me to come to 

his office, having alerted me over the phone. “Don’t bring any papers or charts,” he 

added. When I entered the small room of his office, he was smiling like the cat that 

ate the canary, an indication that he was in a good mood, and he began to unwrap 

a bundle of crumpled wrapping paper. From a small heap of shapeless pieces of iron 

he pulled out a slightly deformed, sooty medal and held it out to me, “I received a 

gift from the Academy of Sciences and decided that by rights it belongs to you,” he 

said.

When I first gazed at the gift, I must have looked pretty silly. This was the pendant from the first 1VA Venus spacecraft. Despite being scuffed up and sooty, you 

could distinctly make out the inscription:

“*1961* Union of Soviet Socialist Republics *”

At the center of the medal the sun was shining with the orbits of the Earth and 

24. In all official TASS dispatches from the period, this spacecraft was simply called Tyazhelyy 

sputnik, or Heavy Satellite.

25. Nikolay Petrovich Kamanin (1909–82) at the time (in 1958–62) was the deputy chief of 

the Air Force General Staff in charge of combat preparations. In this position, he was responsible for 

coordinating the training of cosmonauts. Although his title changed over the years, he continued to 

supervise cosmonaut training until 1971.

Cutting me off in the middle of my explanations, Rudnev requested that I say something more entertaining at this time of night. “Tell the esteemed ministers how you 

and Vasya Kharchev attempted to steal von Braun from the Americans,” chimed in 

Korolev.23 For a little while my story distracted the crowd gathered in the laboratory—from young engineers to high-ranking industrial leaders—from the everyday 

routine of our space work. In those days at the firing range a rather democratic 

style of interaction had developed between those involved in the operations—from 

young engineer to minister. This was by no means just for show—it was easier to 

work that way. Rudnev capped off my story saying, “I could listen to you all night, 

but tomorrow, I mean, today, you have to give a report to the State Commission. 

Let’s go, comrades. We won’t distract you any more.”

For all the operations, including leak testing, fastening, onboard installation, 

and the cycle of electrical tests, we spent less than 24 hours. We had not broken the 

general preparation schedule. It was announced that the next launch would be on 

12 February. It turned out that preparing for the next launch was easier than figuring out what went wrong with the previous one.

On the afternoon of 10 February a small group gathered in Korolev’s cottage to 

celebrate Keldysh’s 50th birthday. We toasted the birthday boy’s health with champagne, while he self-consciously mumbled that the best present for him would be a 

successful launch to Venus. That same day at 6:00 p.m., birthday boy Keldysh presided over the meeting of the State Commission on behalf of its Chairman Rudnev, 

who had departed for Moscow. I delivered a brief report on the causes of the previous crash, pointing out that the most probable cause was the failure of the PT-200 

DC-to-AC current converter, and announced that the converter for 1VA No. 2 had 

been installed in a pressurized container. My report was approved. The State Commission believed that the failure of the PT-200 converter was the most probable 

cause for the failure of the fourth stage engine to start up.

A heavy unguided satellite with a mass of around six tons, not counting the mass 

of the third stage, ended up in orbit. An argument flared up in the State Commission as to what official communiqué to issue in this regard. Even back then, it 

wasn’t difficult to detect such a satellite in near-Earth space. Korolev argued that we 

should announce nothing at all. Let the Americans torment themselves trying to 

figure out the satellite’s purpose. Keldysh categorically objected. Glushko proposed 

a compromise statement: “With the objective of practicing for the launch of a more 

powerful spacecraft, a satellite was launched. Having transmitted to the Earth all the 

necessary telemetry data, it fulfilled its mission during its first orbital pass.”

To Korolev’s displeasure, Glushko’s proposal was accepted, and a TASS report 

was issued noting that, “A Soviet heavy satellite is in orbit. It weighs 6,483 kilo23. This is reference to Chertok and Kharchev’s mini-adventure in trying to “acquire” the services 

of Wernher von Braun in occupied Germany in 1945. See Chertok, Rockets and People. Vol. 1, pp. 

294–296, 300–305.
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etary trajectory. At 9:17 a.m. NIP-16 triumphantly reported from Yevpatoriya that 

the first long-range communications session was proceeding normally. The second 

session at 4:23 p.m. confirmed that we really had launched a spacecraft to Venus. 

After gathering all the data, the ballistics experts from the Moscow ballistics center 

announced that an orbital correction would be required, and, if it went through, the 

pendant of the Soviet Union would be on Venus!

Gathering for breakfast at our “deluxe” dining hall after a sleepless night, we all 

agreed with Voskresenskiy that we had been given the chance to “rob Venus of her 

virginity.” We decided to celebrate such a historic event with a drink. Korolev was in 

a cheerful mood and announced, “Only the pendant, which has thermal protection, 

will make it to the surface of Venus. The wrath of Zeus will come down on those 

who signed the protocol arming the AMS with the pendant. Boris and I signed the 

document. So let’s have another dram so that Zeus will forgive us!”

In all the laughter and joking, everyone gladly joined in the toast. However, Zeus 

decided to anticipate our trespassing on the honor of the goddess of Love, and not 

to punish us ex post facto. Our collective jubilation was overshadowed by reports 

from Yevpatoriya. Telemetry data indicated unstable operation in the continuous 

solar orientation (PSO) mode, which maintained the required orientation of the 

solar arrays to charge the storage batteries. The operating logic for the onboard 

systems was set up so that if a PSO glitch occurred, the equipment would automatically reorient itself toward the Sun and after completing the orientation process, it 

would spin about its own “solar” axis. In this gyroscopic stabilization mode, rough 

orientation toward the Sun was maintained. Meanwhile, all systems consuming electric power, except for the thermal control system and sequencer, were shut down. 

Right then and there we discovered a stupid design flaw. The onboard receivers, 

which could have received control commands from Earth signaling the beginning 

of the next session, shut down along with all the other systems. After one “spin” the 

next communication session was only activated autonomously from the onboard 

sequencer and not until five days later. We faced five days of complete uncertainty 

and agonizing waiting.

Nevertheless, unaware of our uncertainties, TASS informed the world about the 

launch of the interplanetary station Venera-1.26 “The successful launch of a spacecraft to the planet Venus is blazing the first interplanetary trail to the planets of the 

Solar System.” That is how TASS ended its first report about the first attempt to 

reach Venus.

There was a lot of busy activity during those days; we were planning for an 

upcoming visit to OKB-1 by Air Force Commander-in-Chief Marshal of Aviation 

Konstantin Vershinin, and there were unending rush jobs at the firing range to 

prepare for the launch, scheduled for 10 March, of a Vostok carrying a dummy and 

26. At the time, TASS simply called the vehicle the “Automatic Interplanetary Station.” Venera-1

was a designation conferred several years later. Venera is the Russian word for “Venus.”

Venus depicted around it.

Korolev went on to explain that the medal and the remains of the structure in 

which it was packed were handed over personally to Keldysh from the KGB. The 

remains of the pendant had fallen into the hands of the KGB, not from space, but 

from Siberia. While swimming in a river—a tributary of the Biryusa River in eastern 

Siberia—a local boy hurt his foot on some sort of piece of iron. When he retrieved 

it from the water, rather than throw it into deeper water, he brought it home and 

showed it to his father. The boy’s father, curious as to what the dented metal sphere 

contained, opened it up and discovered this medal inside. This took place in a 

Siberian village, the name of which Korolev had not been told. The boy’s father 

brought his find to the police. The local police delivered the remains of the pendant 

to the regional department of the KGB, which in turn forwarded it to Moscow. In 

Moscow the appropriate KGB directorate found no threat to state security in these 

objects, and after notifying Keldysh as president of the Academy of Sciences, this 

unique find was delivered to him by courier.

Thus, I was awarded the medal that had been certified for the flight to Venus by 

the protocol that Korolev and I signed in January 1961. After the launch we were 

all certain that the Tyazhelyy sputnik and the pendant had sunk in the ocean. Now 

it turned out that it had burned up over Siberia. The pendant had been designed to 

withstand Venus’ atmosphere and therefore it reached the Earth’s surface.

According to the ballistics experts’ forecasts, the probability of the satellite splashing down in the Pacific Ocean was greater than 90%. The probability of falling on 

dry land was 10%, of which 3% was the probability for falling on the territory of 

the USSR. It came down precisely to that 3%. But if, using the theory of random 

processes, you calculate what the probability would be of finding the pendant on 

the territory of the USSR, this value would be virtually zero. But it happened! An 

event occurred, the probability of which was close to zero! Most unfortunately, at 

that time in the hurly-burly of my daily routine, I didn’t bother to find out the 

names of the boy and his father and the geographical location of the find. Their 

names deserved to be mentioned in the history of cosmonautics under the heading 

“Strange but True.”

But let’s get back to 1961. On 11 February at 7 a.m. under clear weather 

conditions, with an icy Tyuratam breeze, a four stage 8K78 was transported to the 

launch site for the fourth time. Preparation at the launch site was under way around 

the clock. Repairing to the warm bankobus (our term for the spacious dugout hut 

150 meters from the launch pad) to get warm and take a smoke break, the testers 

knocked on wood and in all seriousness stated, “It’s going well; this is the fourth 

one; it should pan out.”

And it did!

On 12 February at 7:04:35 a.m. the fourth 8K78 launch vehicle lifted off. For 

the first time all four stages worked through their sequences normally. The second 

1VA automatic interplanetary station had finally been launched on an interplan-
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During preparation for these first two Venus launches, almost all of the 

scientific-technical elite interested in interplanetary flight had gathered at the firing 

range. Taking advantage of the circumstances, Korolev and Keldysh convened a 

council during which programs for the future were discussed. Korolev presented his 

idea for producing a series of standardized automatic spacecraft for interplanetary 

research, reasoning that series production could cut costs. The council accepted 

his idea, and straight away Korolev gave the command to start designing a new 

spacecraft with a maximum degree of structural and onboard systems standardization, taking into consideration the experience gained on the 1M and 1VA. The new 

spacecraft was assigned the factory index 2MV.

According to the ballistics experts’ calculations, the earliest dates for launches of 

the new spacecraft series were August 1962 for Venus and October 1962 for Mars. 

The factory received the assignment to start up immediate production of at least six 

AMSs, three for Venus and three for Mars.

Soon after the decision to develop the 2MV, it became obvious that we first 

needed to development an analog—a spacecraft model to be used for intensive verification on the ground of flight modes simulating all nominal and potential offnominal situations. Today, a similar solution is considered a matter of course, and 

no spacecraft goes into space until all the onboard systems and the complex as a 

whole have been proven reliable on its analog on the ground. This process increases 

the total volume of production operations, and in any event, prolongs the production cycle of the first flight model. Such an analog had not yet been provided for 

the 2MV.

I found myself thoroughly engrossed with the new project only following my 

return from the firing range after Yuriy Gagarin’s flight and the investigation into 

the R-9 launch crashes.27 All the teams in Korolev’s OKB-1 and all of their subcontractor organizations continued to be in good spirits. No one was losing much sleep 

over the failures of the interplanetary flights. Gagarin’s triumph had overshadowed 

all other space-related events. Nevertheless, specific schedules had been set up for 

the 2MV, meetings were being held, and drawings were being issued; we were arguing over each science experiment and presenting reports before ministers and the 

VPK.

Considering our bitter experience, we insisted on developing a new high-performance radio-link in the SHF range. The onboard equipment of this radio-link 

operated using a high-gain parabolic dish antenna. In the intervals between the 

infrequent sessions using this radio-link, it was possible at any time to communicate 

over the UHF link, which used wide-beam antennas. For communication in an 

unoriented mode, an “emergency” VHF system was again developed that operated 

27. Yuriy Gagarin became the first human in space in April 1961 during his Vostok(-1) mission. 

During this same time period, OKB-1 also conducted a series of launches of the new R-9 ICBM, many 

of which failed to achieve their goals.

the next canine crew. Yet, Korolev and Keldysh and all their “Venusians” departed 

for Yevpatoriya to personally participate in the communication session scheduled 

for 17 February.

It is difficult to convey the stress that we felt as we waited for 1VA to make radio 

contact on its own without a prompt from Earth after five days of silence. In the 

small hall of NIP-16, where field telephones were the primary mode for exchanging 

information, the triumphant report “We have a signal!” rang out. Everyone broke 

into applause, but Korolev “stifled” us with one fierce look; silence quickly prevailed. During the session they took the risk of checking the PSO and again came 

up with a glitch; no other obvious problems were detected on board. Another five 

days remained before the next session.

On 22 February, the 1VA did not make radio contact. The session on 17 February, from a range of 1.9 million kilometers, was the last one. There was still a glimmer of hope that contact would be restored. After the first communication session, 

a detailed description of the AMS layout, flight trajectories, and instrumentation 

and control complex was prepared for publication in the press. An accompanying photograph depicted the same spherical pendant that had been stowed inside 

the AMS. After heated arguments, on 26 February, Pravda published the detailed 

material about the first flight to Venus without mentioning the radio blackout and 

without attributing the article to any authors. However, we never restored contact. 

According to the ballistics experts’ calculations, the silent Venera-1 passed Venus at 

a distance of approximately 100,000 kilometers in late May 1961.

Once again I was entrusted with a commission comprised of Rauschenbach, 

Malakhov, Khodarev, Ostashev, Maksimov, and military representatives to investigate the causes of the glitch and the loss of contact after 17 February. We were 

quickly able to determine the cause for the PSO failure. The optical sensor was not 

pressurized. Our thermal control specialists had been concerned only about the 

average temperature of the entire instrument, without performing calculations or 

conducting experiments to estimate the local temperatures of individual elements. 

The calculations showed that given a permissible average temperature, the maximum temperature reached in a sensitive element might exceed 80oC (176°F). This 

clearly led to the failure of the PSO system.

After lengthy arguments, we attributed the loss of contact to the failure of the 

sequencer developed for the radio complex. This had been done to cut down on 

mass. Korolev upbraided me harshly for giving in to the designers. I vowed that justice would prevail and on all subsequent AMSs we would install reliable event controllers that we had developed and that were manufactured at the Plastik Factory. 

But the most important action taken as a result of this incident was that henceforth 

command radio-link receivers would absolutely never be shut down. It was not 

permissible to save a trickle of energy while risking the loss of an entire spacecraft. 

We gained the experience of a spacecraft’s first interplanetary flight at such a high 

price.
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cal to ours.28

Without waiting for an in-depth investigation into the causes for the failure of 

the previous launch—we simply physically did not have enough time—we launched 

our next 2MV, spacecraft No. 4, toward Venus on 1 September. Once again the pendant was not destined to reach Venus’ surface. A valve feeding fuel into the combustion chamber of the Block L accelerating engine failed to open.

We launched the last of the three Venus spacecraft, 2MV-2 No.1, on 12 September. The engine of Block L operated for just 0.8 seconds and shut down due to a 

nonstabilized mode. Once again the blame fell on the control system that Pilyugin 

had developed. A more in-depth investigation of the last launch showed that upon 

the issuance of the primary command for the shutdown of the Block I (stage three), 

there was a violent perturbation and the Block L (stage four) spun sharply. As the 

fourth stage spun, air bubbles in the tanks moved into the intake ports and the 

Block L engine failed to start up.

And so, the 1962 season of Venus launches ended in disgrace. All three launches 

failed through the fault of the fourth stage. We didn’t have the opportunity to test 

out the spacecraft performance during even the first million kilometers of their 

interplanetary trajectories. How much effort had been invested in the development, 

manufacture, modification, testing, and retesting of the AMSs—all of it in vain?

But we didn’t have the opportunity to grieve for long. The Mars launch windows 

were approaching. The equipment for the 2MV Mars version was loaded into airplanes and flown, one after the other, to the firing range. Once again the sleepless 

nights of testing at the MIK at Site No. 2 began. On 15 October 1962 at 11 p.m., I 

departed Vnukovo airport with the main group of testers for one of our most stressful, interesting, and eventful missions.

After the assault on Venus, all sorts of measures were taken to enhance the reliability of the Block L. However, after thoroughly studying the causes of the failures 

and the actions taken to correct them, Voskresenskiy told me confidentially, “I recommended to Sergey that we put off work on Mars this year. We’re up to our ears in 

trouble. But he won’t listen to me. We didn’t conquer the Goddess of Love. I don’t 

think we’ll cope with the God of War any better.

“Our mission,” I protested, “is to pave the way. Pioneers have not always reached 

their goals, but those who have come after them have always been grateful.”

Smirnov, Keldysh, Ishlinskiy, Ryazanskiy, Kuznetsov, Bogomolov, Rauschenbach, Sheremetyevskiy, Kerimov, and all of our developers, testers, and representatives from subcontractor organizations who had been given a temporary leave of 

absence “due to family circumstances” flew in to the firing range. Once again for the 

umpteenth time, despite the string of failures, the now familiar firing range routine 

28. Mariner-2 was launched on 27 August 1962. The spacecraft accomplished the first successful 

planetary mission in space history when it passed by Venus on 14 December 1962 at a range of 34,762 

kilometers, gathering significant data on the Venusian atmosphere and surface.

using omnidirectional antennas.

Each of the 2MV spacecraft consisted of two compartments. A standardized 

orbital compartment contained communications and control equipment that was 

identical for Mars and Venus. A special compartment housed science equipment 

determined by the wishes of planetologists. In some cases, instead of a special compartment, equipment intended to land on the planet was installed as part of the 

descent vehicles, which of course, differed for Venus and Mars. Spacecraft designed 

for landings were given the code numbers 2MV-1 and 2MV-3, while those designed 

to conduct research on the planets while flying past them were dubbed 2MV-2 and 

2MV-4. The “fly-by” spacecraft had photo-television units installed on them.

To increase reliability and guarantee thermal control, the optical sensors were 

moved inside the pressurized service compartment from the external vacuum. We 

took responsibility for the automatic controls for the entire onboard complex away 

from Malakhov and transferred them as a separate task to the specialists in Karpov’s 

department, where the chief electrician was “our” Kalmykov (we differentiated “our” 

Vitaliy Kalmykov from Minister Valeriy Dmitriyevich Kalmykov).

We installed sequencers on these new AMSs that we had developed with element-by-element redundancy. The creators of this instrument later took pride in 

the fact that “chief designers come and go,” but their sequencer continued to be 

used for all subsequent AMS modifications. The unsuccessful experience of transferring the factory assembly and test cycle to the firing range was also taken into 

consideration. After all, there was more time and they were able to complete the 

main tests at the factory control and test station.

By the time testing began, an already battle-tested and broken-in team gathered 

once again at the firing range. It was very important that the people now understood each other much better; personal compatibility contributed to the technical 

compatibility of the systems. The efforts of two factories—ours in Podlipki and the 

Progress Factory in Kuybyshev—produced the 8K78 launch vehicles, which were 

delivered in advance to the firing range, where, rather than “standing in line” to be 

tested, they lay there already tested.

As per plans, in August 1962, the 2MV launches to Venus began. On 25 August, 

our fifth four stage 8K78 launch vehicle carrying the automatic interplanetary station 2MV-1 No. 3 with a mass of 1,097 kilograms worked normally through operation of the first three stages. The telemetry operators on the ship in the Gulf of 

Guinea had learned to quickly diagnose the status of the Block L systems from 

telemetry. This time we first received the reassuring message that the Block L engine 

had fired according to the program, but soon there was an alarming message—the 

engine had operated for just 45 seconds. The Block L failed to stabilize, and the 

failure was chalked up to the control system.

On 27 August, new State Commission Chairman Leonid Smirnov informed us 

that the Americans had launched the Mariner-2 spacecraft toward Venus; the list of 

scientific investigations that Mariner-2 was supposed to conduct was almost identi-
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the cabin, switched on the radio, and made sure it was operating properly over all 

the bands. At 2:10 p.m. I went outside and waited for the designated time. At 2:15 

p.m. under a bright sun a second sun flared up in the northeast. This was a nuclear 

explosion in the stratosphere—the test of a nuclear weapon code-named K-5. The 

flash lasted fractions of a second. The nuclear device on the R-12 missile was detonated at an altitude of 60 kilometers to test the capability for terminating all sorts of 

radio communications. According to the map, the detonation site was 500 kilometers away. After returning quickly to the radio receiver, I realized how effective the 

nuclear experiment had been. There was complete silence in all ranges. It was a little 

over an hour before communication was restored.29

The Mars launch took place at 7:14 p.m. By that time, the ionosphere had 

returned to normal after the nuclear explosion. In any event, all stations reported 

that telemetry monitoring was proceeding without incident. Finally, after all the 

disasters, the Block L operated according to the program and the AMS departed 

for Mars. Despite the mishaps with previous publications concerning launches to 

Venus, on 2 November, Pravda and Levitan hurried to report that a rocket bound 

for Mars had been launched in the Soviet Union.

While 2MV-4 was flying to Mars on a flyby mission, we immediately followed 

it up on 4 November with the launch of 2MV-3 No. 1 in a Mars-landing version. 

Alas, evidently, fate or the gods had granted us the preceding launch only for temporary moral support. Soon after launch, we received messages from the Gulf of 

Guinea that dashed all our hopes. Again there was a breakdown in the propulsion 

system, and the shutdown command was issued after 33 seconds.

Having successfully left Earth orbit for Mars, the primary objective of 2MV-4, 

or Mars-1, was to photograph the planet in a close flyby. The images were supposed 

to be transmitted via SHF radio-link using a high-gain parabolic antenna. This process required the reliable operation of the attitude control system. While we were 

preparing for the next launch, Yevpatoriya, which had begun VHF communications 

sessions according to the program, was sending optimistic dispatches saying that 

everything on board was normal, communications were good, but there was one 

glitch in the attitude control thruster system.

After the mission failure of 4 November, the State Commission agreed that Keldysh would fly to Yevpatoriya to clarify all the circumstances of the ongoing Mars-1

flight, I would fly with him along with the attitude control and guidance specialists, 

and Korolev would depart for Moscow. On 5 November, after arriving at NIP-16, 

we quickly realized that there would be no sensational photographs of Mars. The 

entire supply of gaseous nitrogen, which was the working medium of the attitude 

29. Here, Chertok is referring to one of a series of five R-12 missile launches conducted under 

the codename Operation K designed to test the aftereffects of nuclear explosions (specifically 

electromagnetic pulse effects) at high altitudes on antiballistic missile system (ABM) radars. Missions 

K-3, K-4, and K-5 were accomplished in September to October 1962.

was established, involving nothing but continuous work. There were small pleasures—above all, getting together with friends with whom you had parted company 

quite recently. There were jokes shared on the job, but most often in the dining hall, 

or en route to the MIK and to Site No. 10—the town at the range. There had been 

so much misfortune but none of us felt despondent.

The preliminary schedule called for three launches:

• on 24 October—2MV-4 No. 3 (a flight passing close to Mars);

• on 1 November—2MV-4 No. 4 (a flight passing close to Mars); and

• on 4 November—2MV-3 No. 1 (landing version).

The remedial measures taken on the Block L had required reductions in AMS 

mass. This was a very painful experience for us, because to a great extent, with these 

measures we had to reduce the primary objectives of the interplanetary flight.

And so, on 24 October, a Mars launch took place. All the “science” had been 

removed from the spacecraft, but in exchange, the Block L was equipped with a 

wealth of monitoring and measurement systems. During the time of radio coverage 

on the ships located in the south Atlantic, telemetry recorded the normal firing of 

the Block L engine, but 17 seconds later there was an explosion in the turbopump 

assembly. That is what the telemetry operators Raykov and Semagin, who were on 

board the ships, reported. Both groups were experienced enough to be correct in 

their diagnosis.

There was no connection between the failures of the Block L on the 8K78 and 

tests of the R-9 (8K75) combat missile. Nevertheless, in line with the axiom “when 

it rains, it pours,” right next to the 8K78 launch pad, at Site No. 51, the turbopump 

assembly of an R-9 missile exploded on 27 October.

The State Commission held a meeting on 29 October. We listened to a report by 

the chief engine expert of OKB-1, Mikhail Melnikov, who advanced his explanation 

of the explosion in the Block L, relying on Raykov’s reports and telemetry information received from the Dolinsk and the Krasnodar ships. His report was reassuring. 

He noted that, “In all probability, a foreign particle got into the turbopump assembly. The explosion was pure chance. The launches should continue.” Oh, these foreign particles! When necessary, they could be used to explain any crash.

We continued. On 30 October we transported the launch vehicle carrying AMS 

2MV-4 No. 4 to the launch pad while in the MIK they were testing the last 2MV-3 

No. 1. On the morning of 31 October, I left to attend the State Commission meeting. Before this, Vitaliy Kalmykov and his friend Kuyantsev, neither of whom had 

slept all night, reported that commands did not pass over the VHF (emergency) link 

to the descent vehicle of the spacecraft. Boguslavskiy remained behind to study the 

problem with them. During a break in the commission meeting I ran over to the 

hall and—“hooray!”—they had fixed the defect in the VHF link. The commands 

were getting through! By lunchtime the tests on the last spacecraft were finished. We 

sent it to the pressure chamber, and decided to take a 2-hour nap.

November 1 was a clear, cold day. A brisk north wind was blowing. At the launch 

site, preparations were under way for an evening launch. After lunch I ran over to 
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“Onward to Mars...and Venus”

595

next phase had begun—the design and manufacture of an improved series of standardized interplanetary spacecraft with the factory index 3MV. The primary action 

taken to increase the reliability of series 3MV spacecraft was the redundancy in the 

attitude control system thrusters. We decided to begin series launches of the 3MV 

automatic interplanetary station by testing the entire complex as an interplanetary 

probe while taking high-quality photographs of the far side of the Moon en route. 

The first launch of such a probe was scheduled for November 1963.

Despite the difficulties, misfortunes, and failures, funding for the program to 

reach Venus and Mars continued. Work on programs for a soft-landing on the 

moon using the same 8K78 launch vehicle was in progress simultaneously, and 

there were plans to insert Molniya-1 communications satellites in a highly elliptical 

orbit. The Mars launches in 1962 overlapped with the Cuban Missile Crisis. This 

time, Mars, the “God of War,” was unable to use missile technology to turn the 

Cold War into a hot one—World War III. But I’ll write of these events in the next 

book in this series.

control systems, had been lost. How? 

Telemetry data analysis enabled us 

to pinpoint that the guilty party was 

one of the valves in the attitude control system. It had remained open the 

entire time. Evidently, a large “foreign particle” had gotten under the 

valve seat and the entire precious gaseous nitrogen supply had whooshed 

through the open valve.

Right before the November holidays we ruined Korolev’s mood and 

that of all who had flown from the 

firing range to Moscow with him. 

Korolev immediately organized a 

project to analyze the production 

process of the attitude control system 

valves, which the aviation industry 

had manufactured. He even brought 

in criminal investigators. The cause 

of the valve failure was determined 

beyond a doubt. When we soldered 

the electromagnet winding, we used 

rosin, crumbs of which might have 

fallen under the valve seat and prevented the valve from fitting snugly 

on the seat surface. The resulting gap 

was quite sufficient for the entire 

supply of working medium to escape. This event was reproduced at the factory. 

This incident was discussed in depth in the State Commission and even higher at 

VPK sessions.

Nevertheless, the AMS flew to Mars, albeit without attitude control, but in every 

other aspect in very good working order. Communications sessions via the UHF 

link were conducted regularly, all the “science” that could work en route functioned, 

and (this was particularly gratifying) all the services of NIP-16, the Center for Deep 

Space Communications, got a test run and a training exercise. Communication 

via the UHF radio-link using the semidirectional antenna continued for 140 days. 

Contact was lost at a range of 106 million kilometers. But back then that was a 

distance record for space communications. On 15 December, Pravda published a 

description of the spacecraft’s trajectory, a photograph of the AMS, and the program 

of scientific investigations. By that time we already knew that that spacecraft would 

not reach Mars “alive and kicking.”

The Mars-1 flight gave all of us experience, which increased our optimism. The 

Shown here is the 2MV-4 type spacecraft, 

one of which was launched in November 

1962 and became the Mars-1 spacecraft. The 

spacecraft was designed to fly by Mars and 

take photographs. In the event, the vehicle lost 

attitude control, and communications were cut 

off prior to its flyby in June 1963. The two 

white hemispherical objects with the stripes 

on each side of the vehicle are thermal control 

radiators. The contraption at the top is the 

propulsion system.

From the author’s archives.

Chapter 32

Catastrophes

After two unsuccessful Mars launch attempts in a row, on 18 October 1960, we 

testers and developers felt gloomy as we left the firing range with Korolev. We had 

every reason for our somber thoughts. The year had begun with the failure of one 

of the three 8K74 combat missiles launched to a maximum range over the Pacific 

Ocean. In April, two launch vehicles carrying Ye-3 lunar spacecraft—designed to 

take pictures of the far side of the Moon—failed, one after the other. On our very 

first attempt in 1959, we had gotten photographs of the far side of the Moon. It had 

caused a stir throughout the world, although the quality of the “far side” images was 

poor. And it was through the fault of that same R-7A launch vehicle that we just 

couldn’t get the new high-quality photos that Keldysh and the lunar astronomers 

dreamed of seeing.

It was in the heat of July that the first test descent spacecraft for the future Vostoks

was lost with the dogs Chayka and Lisichka on board. And once again the launch 

vehicle was to blame!1 Now, in October, there had been two more failed launches. 

These spacecraft hadn’t even made it into near-Earth orbit, and we intended to fly to 

Mars. Over a period of 10 months there had been six failures of a launch vehicle that 

was officially in service as an ICBM! And in accordance with Korolev’s proposal, 

which all the chiefs and all of his deputies had supported, the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers proposed that we use that very launch vehicle in 

December 1960, that is, in two months, to launch a man into space!2

In the airplane on the way back from the firing range, I watched Voskresenskiy 

and Ostashev busying themselves, pouring the cognac they had on hand in case of a 

success and spreading out stale sandwiches on newspapers; I tried to say something 

optimistic: “Well, we had Belka and Strelka! They caused a lot of hoopla in the 

Hawaiian Islands in July, and our comrades weren’t shortchanged with the Lenin 

1. An attempt to launch a Vostok spacecraft carrying the dogs Chayka and Lisichka ended in 

disaster on 28 July 1960 when the launch vehicle exploded about 28 seconds into the mission.

2. Chertok will describe the Vostok human space program in Volume 3.

597
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Despite these figures, one publication cited the total number of deaths as 

180! Finally, in 2004, I received from the 

archives a Xerox copy of the official documents, which for years had been classified 

“Top Secret.” These documents confirmed 

the data signed by G. Ye. Yefimenko. I did 

not find any official data about deaths in 

hospitals, and so I don’t feel that I can 

refer to a total number of deaths. I can 

only confirm that the first R-16 missile, 

named “article 8K64,” killed, on average, 

more people without leaving the launch 

pad than did any 10 V-2 missiles that 

struck London during World War II.

The R-16 payload container had been 

filled with inert ballast, that is, it contained no explosives. Nevertheless, right 

on the launch site the missile killed 74 

testers, developers, and the Commanderin-Chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces, 

Chief Marshal of the Artillery Nedelin.

I would like to give readers a 

little background to the circumstances surrounding this accident.

OKB-586 Chief Designer Mikhail Yangel 

was an ardent supporter of missiles using 

high-boiling components. As far back as 

his stint as NII-88 director, he had come out against developing intercontinental 

combat missiles that used liquid oxygen as the oxidizing component. His hardnosed position severely worsened his relations with Korolev, who had proposed the 

new, liquid-oxygen R-9 intercontinental missile. As we saw it, the R-9 missile was 

supposed to enter the strategic armaments arsenal to replace the R-7 and R-7A. 

After the development of the R-9, Semyorkas were supposed to be removed from 

duty and fully converted to serve cosmonautics.

We had a strong rationale for this line of action. The Semyorka launch pads were 

open on all sides and quite vulnerable to attack. The complexity and duration of 

their launch preparation, which took at least 7 hours, did not conform to the new 

doctrines of nuclear missile war. If American nuclear delivery vehicles delivered the 

first strike, the Semyorka launch pads would certainly be destroyed. We would no 

longer have intercontinental missiles for a retaliatory strike. We needed to develop 

new intercontinental missiles that would have reliably protected launch pads and 

Lt.-Col. Yevgeniy Ostashev (1924-60) 

was one of the victims of the Nedelin 

Disaster in 1960. His official title was 

chief of the 1st Directorate at the firing 

range, i.e., responsible for flight-testing 

of Korolev’s missiles at Tyuratam. 

Although the disaster was caused by a 

Yangel missile, Ostashev was at the firing 

range only to provide moral support to his 

colleagues. His brother Arkadiy Ostashev 

was a senior civilian engineer at Korolev’s 

OKB-1.

From the author’s archives.

Prizes!”3

Voskresenskiy interrupted me and, raising his glass, he proposed a toast, “To the 

end of failures!”

“Let’s drink to that,” said Korolev, “But keep in mind that leap year isn’t over yet.”4

And unfortunately, it turned out he was right.

On the evening of 24 October, Korolev called Ostashev to his office. 

Shabarov, who had remained at the firing range, had sent a radiogram reporting 

a serious accident involving Arkadiy’s brother, Yevgeniy Ostashev. Korolev recommended that Arkadiy fly out to Tyuratam the next morning. Later, after receiving 

top-secret information from Moscow sources, Korolev informed only his deputies 

that a fire and explosion had occurred during preparation of an R-16 missile at 

Yangel’s launch Site No. 41. There had been casualties. How many and who was 

still unknown. A government commission had already been formed, with Brezhnev 

himself as chairman.

This was the most horrific disaster in the history of missile and space technology. 

In the following description of the disaster, I have used the accounts of Yevgeniy 

Shabarov, who was at the firing range at that time, Arkadiy Ostashev, who arrived 

the day after the catastrophe, NII-944 Chief Designer Viktor Kuznetsov, OKB MEI 

Chief Designer Aleksey Bogomolov, and Chief Designer and VNIIEM Director 

Andronik Iosifyan, all of whom, as luck would have it, survived the accident.

In the second book of the Russian-language version of Rockets and People, based 

on Arkadiy Ostashev’s account, I indicated that a total of 126 persons were killed. 

He had mentioned that number in 1990, citing data obtained at one time in the 

firing range main office.5

According to the official report of Artillery Major General Grigoriy Yerofeyevich 

Yefimenko who was firing range chief of staff in 1960, 57 servicemen and 17 industrial representatives (or a total of 74 people) died in the explosion and fire right at 

the launch site.6 The soldiers and officers who died at the launch site and those who 

died later in the hospital from wounds, burns, and poisoning were buried in a mass 

grave in the Baykonur municipal park. Eighty-four soldiers and officers were buried 

in that grave. The bodies of the industrial representatives were flown back to where 

they worked. If you accept the official data, there were 17 of them. Thus, the total 

loss of life was 84 plus 17 or 101 persons.7

3. Belka and Strelka were the first living beings recovered from orbit after flying for 26 hours in 

Korabl-Sputnik-2 in August 1960.

4. Russian superstition holds that leap years are unlucky.

5. B. Ye. Chertok, Rakety i lyudi: Fili—Podlipki—Tyuratam [Rockets and People: Fili—Podlipki—

Tyuratam] (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1996), p. 397.

6. This list that Chertok cites was first declassified and published in 1994. See I. D. Sergeyev, ed., 

Khronika osnovnykh sobytiy istorii raketnykh voysk strategicheskogo naznacheniya [Chronicle of the Main 

Events in the History of the Strategic Rocket Forces] (Moscow: TsPIK, 1994), pp. 248–262.

7. In other words, 57 soldiers died during the accident, 27 soldiers died later of injuries, and 17 

civilians (total) died, making a total of 101 fatalities.
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R-12 missile was issued after Yangel had been named chief designer of OKB-586.9

After flight tests at Kapustin Yar, the R-12 complex was put into service simultaneously with our R-5M and R-7A missiles in March 1959. The missiles went into 

series production at Factory No. 586 in Dnepropetrovsk, Perm Machine Building 

Factory No. 172, Orenburg Machine Building Factory No. 47, and Omsk Aviation 

Factory No. 166. The thermonuclear warhead of the R-12 missile complex had a 

yield of 2.3 megatons. With a range of 2,100 kilometers, the missile posed a real 

threat to all NATO countries bordering the Soviet Union. Skipping ahead, I will say 

that over the years, 2,300 R-12 missiles were produced. The missile was in service 

for more than 30 years—from March 1959 through June 1989.10

Yangel’s high-boiling component R-12 missile squeezed out Korolev’s liquidoxygen R-5M missile as a serious contender. However, in order to shore up his success, with the support of the military Yangel proposed one more medium range missile, the R-14. Its development began in 1958, and its flight-tests were conducted 

in Kapustin Yar in 1960. The R-14 was designed for a maximum range of 4,500 

kilometers. Its nuclear warhead also had a yield of 2.3 megatons.

Although Yangel’s high-boiling component R-12 and R-14 missiles were capable 

of destroying all the United States’ NATO allies, only Korolev’s liquid-oxygen R-7 

and R-7A missiles posed a real threat to America itself. However, there were just four 

very vulnerable launch pads for our Semyorkas, two in Tyuratam and two at the new 

firing range in Plesetsk.11 A new “massive” intercontinental missile was absolutely 

necessary, and as soon as possible. That is why Yangel, with the active support of 

Khrushchev and Nedelin, began to develop the two stage R-16 intercontinental 

missile. In their drive to develop new missiles, they were motivated by the slogan 

“our country needs a secure nuclear shield!” And as soon as possible. The reliability 

of the propulsion systems and control systems proved to be of defining significance 

in the competition for a new generation of R-9 and R-16 intercontinental missiles. A single chief designer, Valentin Glushko, developed fundamentally different 

engines for both missiles.12

In 1962, the R-12 and R-14 missiles, which had already been put into service, 

came close to blowing up the world during the Caribbean (or Cuban Missile) Crisis. 

9. Development of the R-12 was officially approved in August 1955, about 14 months after 

Yangel’s official appointment as chief designer of OKB-586.

10. In the West, the missile was known as the SS-4 (by the U.S. Department of Defense) and 

Sandal (by NATO).

11. The original missile launch facility, the Scientific-Research and Testing Range No. 53 (NIIP53), was established in January 1957 near the town of Plesetsk. The range was converted into a testing 

range and then a future space launch facility in August 1963. Since 1966, more satellites have been 

launched into orbit from the Plesetsk facility than any other location in the world.

12. Glushko’s design bureau produced engines for the first stage of the R-9 (the RD-111) engine 

and the first and second stages of the R-16 (the RD-218 and the RD-219, respectively). Another 

organization, the Kosberg design bureau, produced the second stage engine of the R-9 (the RD0106).

would enable us to deliver a retaliatory strike in around 10 minutes. In the 1960s 

we spoke of 10-minute combat readiness. Today nuclear missile launch readiness is 

measured in individual seconds.

Which of the intercontinental missiles, Korolev’s R-9 or Yangel’s R-16, would 

stand on combat duty in secure silos to protect the country? That is what strained 

the relations between Korolev and Yangel. I feel compelled to note that Korolev’s 

first deputy, Vasiliy Mishin, was a more vehement defender of liquid-oxygen missiles and greater opponent of the high-boiling component missiles proposed by 

Yangel than even Korolev himself. There were two reasons for that. First, Korolev 

began to understand better than Mishin and all of his deputies that for combat purposes the best competitor for both liquid-oxygen and high-boiling missiles would be 

solid-propellant missiles. Immediately after the merger with TsNII-58, he organized 

solid-propellant projects.8 Second, Korolev felt apprehensive, although he did not 

directly express this to any of his close associates, that in the long term, combining 

projects involving piloted cosmonautics and intercontinental flights with the development of nuclear missile systems in a single organization would be a very difficult 

undertaking, even for him.

Nor did Glushko remain on the sidelines. He developed first- stage engines for 

both the R-9 and R-16 two stage missiles. Over the years of producing R-1, R-2, 

R-5M, and R-7 missiles, Glushko’s design bureau had created an extensive firing 

test facility and had gained invaluable experience developing liquid-oxygen engines. 

Despite this, he got into a competition with an obvious trend toward developing high-boiling component engines using nitric acid as oxidizers and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine as fuel. Both of these hypergolic components were toxic 

and explosive. The rank-and-file military testers detested them compared with 

the “noble” liquid-oxygen, ethyl alcohol, and kerosene engines. However, when it 

came to maintaining hundreds of missiles in a constant state of launch readiness 

for months and even years, the high-boiling component missiles had incontrovertible advantages. The intense evaporation of liquid oxygen after a missile was fueled 

necessitated the constant replenishing of the tanks. As a result of such losses, special 

storage facilities were designed for the R-9 missile with systems to compensate for 

evaporation losses. Fueling a missile with oxygen took place right before launch. In 

principle, high-boiling component missiles could stand by in a fueled state and did 

not require additional readiness time for the fueling process. This had been proven 

in the operating experience of the R-12 medium-range missiles that Yangel had 

developed prior to 1960 using Glushko’s engines.

The development of the single stage medium-range R-12 missile had begun 

under Yangel’s leadership in 1951, when he was still Korolev’s deputy. The development was transferred to Dnepropetrovsk in 1953. The government decree on the 

8. The OKB-1 began development of an experimental long-range solid-propellant missile system, 

the RT-1, in November 1959. The missile first flew in April 1962.
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were tolerated in the interests of saving time.

The first government decree on the development of the R-16 missile (8K64) was 

issued on 17 December 1956, i.e., before the beginning of flight-tests on our first R7 intercontinental missile. This decree called for flight-development tests to begin in 

July 1961. To speed up development, Yangel managed to free his OKB and Factory 

No. 586 from their naval projects and from the series production of anti-aircraft 

and air-launched cruise missiles. Despite usual expected delays, the first R-16 missile arrived at the firing range for flight-development tests in September 1960, ten 

months ahead of the deadline set by the government rather than behind schedule.

The decision about the chief designer of the missile guidance system 

was unconventional for those times. Yangel counted on traditional cooperation: he recommended that Pilyugin be the chief designer of an autonomous guidance system (with no radio control). However, at the insistence of his then-direct 

superior Ryazanskiy, who did not want to complicate his relations with Korolev, 

Pilyugin turned Yangel down. Furthermore, Ryazanskiy believed that an intercontinental range needed a combined guidance system—an autonomous system plus 

mandatory radio correction to ensure the requisite accuracy. Yangel categorically 

objected to using radio control. Not without reason, he believed that a combat missile must have a fully autonomous guidance system.

After Pilyugin turned him down, Yangel managed to persuade Viktor Kuznetsov 

to be the chief designer of an autonomous guidancel system with increased accuracy. 

Though capable of developing and delivering a new gyro-stabilized platform for the 

inertial system, Kuznetsov did not have the intellectual or the production base to 

develop the entire ground and onboard electrical complex for the guidance system. 

Nevertheless, the government decree for the development of the R-16 missile designated V. I. Kuznetsov as chief designer of the guidance system.

The next time we met, I told Viktor Kuznetsov, “In my opinion, you’re out of 

your element here. Not one of your remarkable gyroscope specialists is capable of 

developing a common electrical circuit for the complex.”

To my surprise, he replied, “I have no intention of getting involved with that. 

Mikhail Kuzmich arranged this with the VPK. OKB-692 is being created in Kharkov. The chief designer of that OKB will be Boris Mikhaylovich Konoplev. And 

that’s where all the onboard and ground electrical circuits will be developed, in 

Kharkov.”

Indeed, by 1957, a high-capacity instrument group had been created in Kharkov 

to manufacture instrumentation for missiles. One of the leading specialists of NII885, Abram Markovich Ginzburg, had been appointed chief designer at the Kommunar Factory. He was the same man about whom Serov, Lavrentiy Beria’s deputy 

had said in 1947, “Show me this Ginzburg.” At that time Pilyugin had hidden 

Ginzburg, telling Serov that he was currently at the rig replacing a relay.14

14. Chertok describes this event in Chapter 2 of this volume.

Fortunately for humanity, none of these missiles was launched against the U.S. 

in 1962. But in and of itself, there were those who cited the journey of the R-12 

and R-14 missiles from the USSR to Cuba and back as proof of the superiority of 

high-boiling component missiles. But this was still in the future, two years after the 

catastrophe.

When Yangel entered into competition with Korolev for the intercontinental 

missile, he still only had experience in the experimental development and operation of the intermediate range R-12 missile. These missiles used nontoxic kerosene 

as fuel. The new toxic unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine propellant (UDMH) was 

being used on R-14 missiles for the first time.13 Viktor Kuznetsov developed a special gyro-stabilized platform for the R-14 missile. Working with Pilyugin, he created 

an inertial and autonomous guidance system that required no radio correction.

Back then it seemed to us that Glushko did not show the necessary diligence 

and enthusiasm for the experimental development of engines for our R-9 missile. 

One of the reasons for this was the “high-frequency” phenomenon that appeared in 

powerful liquid-oxygen engines when their specific characteristics were augmented. 

After a series of mysterious breakdowns of liquid-oxygen engines during rig tests, we 

discovered that high-frequency pressure fluctuations in the chamber preceded the 

failures. This high frequency resulted in destruction of the combustion chamber or 

engine nozzle. On engines for the R-9 missile, high frequency proved to be a curse 

that disrupted their delivery deadlines for the assembly of the first missiles. Neither 

the theoreticians nor the testers were able to explain why high frequency occurred 

in liquid-oxygen engines. Skipping way ahead, I’d like to mention that even on the 

successful Semyorka, which has been flying for decades in its modification called 

the Soyuz launch vehicle, to this day, high frequency will sometimes appear out of 

nowhere in the core booster.

The R-16 missile was way ahead of the deadline for the beginning of 

flight tests. The military builders built Site No. 40 for the R-16 missile on the 

barren steppe of the Tyuratam firing range. There were two launch sites, the new 

engineering facility’s Assembly and Testing Building, a hotel, and everything else 

that was needed for flight tests of the new intercontinental missile. In 1960 they 

built at the same pace as they had on the firing range in 1957, but now with tremendous experience and their own industrial base.

The Strategic Rocket Forces Command and the commander-in-chief himself, 

Chief Marshal of the Artillery Nedelin supported Yangel with undisguised enthusiasm. The availability of other options made it possible to objectively compare the 

actual performance specifications of the new generation of intercontinental missiles. 

The military acceptance staff of the Yuzhmash Factory had a very liberal attitude 

toward departures from the strict rules of ground experimental development, which 

13. In Russian, the name of the fuel is abbreviated as NDMG (Nesimmetrichnyy dimetilgidrozin)

or simply geptil.
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tested, simulating all phases of launch preparation and flight. During rig testing, 

the behavior of the circuits was also studied during possible fault conditions. Nevertheless, again and again we realized that even on the launch pad, during missile 

preparation, situations arose that had not been simulated in advance on the test rig, 

and, therefore, for the next launch we would have to introduce changes, holding up 

the preparation process. In such situations the schedule was shifted. From the firing 

range Pilyugin monitored the checkout process in Moscow via radiograms, and he 

permitted work to continue only after receiving an official radiogram confirming 

the validity of the decisions made based on the rig test results. Ever since the series 

of R-7 failures in 1958, this procedure had been introduced for virtually all systems. 

Korolev demanded that it be meticulously followed and inured the chairmen of the 

State Commissions to this practice.

Developmental testing of electrical circuits is very tedious and is boring for a creative personality. This was drudgery akin to looking for improperly placed commas 

and typos in a multivolume work. After a circuit had undergone developmental 

testing, the final edition of the test instructions was issued. The instructions were 

supposed to be put together in such a way that during missile preparation, the tester 

and launch chief would not be intimidated by their ignorance of the subtleties of 

the circuit’s logical connections. Any deviation from the instructions would have to 

be analyzed and permitted by the system’s chief designer after consultation with his 

specialist, who provided a detailed presentation of all possible consequences of the 

infraction.

If they had adhered to these rules during the preparation of the guidance system 

and the R-16 missile itself for the first flight-development tests, it probably would 

not have been on the launch site in October 1960. Their desire to beat out the 

R-9 missile that was close on their heels was very great. The first R-16 missile was 

prepared for launch in October 1960; at that time our R-9 missile was still at the 

factory in Podlipki waiting for the delivery of an engine from Khimki.

Design errors and production defects caused most of the failures and catastrophic 

malfunctions of missiles during launch preparation and in flight over the preceding 

13 years (beginning in 1947). On the other hand, the majority of failures that are 

today called “catastrophic” are the result of insufficient knowledge of the operating 

conditions. As far as the catastrophe—and it truly was a catastrophe, not a failure—that occurred at the firing range on 24 October 1960, one cannot explain it 

using the terminology or classification system of reliability engineering developed 

for rocket technology.

Chief Marshal of Artillery Nedelin, the commander-in-chief of the Strategic 

Rocket Forces, was the chairman of the State Commission on the testing of the 

R-16 missile. He and Yangel decided to give the nation a gift in honor of the 43rd 

anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. They would execute the first 

launch before 7 November! Such was the tradition in our country: to have workers’ 

gifts arrive just in time for holidays celebrating revolutions, significant dates, or the 

opening of Communist Party sessions. Right off the bat, they were under extreme 

Ten years later it would have been appropriate to appoint Ginzburg chief 

designer of the new OKB-692. I have no doubt that he would have done a splendid 

job of developing a guidance system complex for the new intercontinental missile, provided that Viktor Kuznetsov developed all the gyroscopic command instruments and ensured the required accuracy. Two circumstances, however, interfered 

with that sensible decision. First, there was item five on Ginzburg’s personal history 

form (ethnicity).15 Second, Boris Mikhaylovich Konoplev, who had begun to feel 

cramped at NII-885, came forward out of the blue as an applicant to the post of 

OKB-692 head and chief designer.

For me, Boris Konoplev was not only a comrade-in-arms from our days preparing for the transpolar flights of 1937, but he was also an authority on radio guidance 

systems. He came out with a design for a long-range missile radio guidance system 

back in 1949 for the N-3 theme.16 We tested the radio system together on the R-2R 

missile at the Kapustin Yar firing range. His entire engineering career was involved 

with radio engineering. Even in his personal family life, Konoplev was devoted to 

radio engineering. Ryazanskiy believed that Konoplev’s wife had a better grasp of 

the theoretical bases of radio engineering than Konoplev himself.

Thus, the R-16 missile had one more fundamental difference from all preceding 

ones. For the first time since 1946, the Central Committee and government made a 

decision whereby the missile guidance system was produced without the participation of Ryazanskiy and Pilyugin. Konoplev’s talent as an innovator in the field of 

radio engineering systems was incontestable, although it irritated his radio specialist 

colleagues. However, I do recall from my encounters with him in 1937 during the 

preparation of the transpolar flights that Konoplev’s working style had a peculiarity that is typical of many talented inventors, but hazardous for a chief designer. 

He strove to solve a new problem as quickly and with as much originality as possible, without paying a great deal of attention to outside experience. While working 

with Konoplev on the R-5R, I realized that, first and foremost, he was enthralled 

with testing the viability of new principles.17 Konoplev was not interested in who 

would subsequently conduct all the dirty work of service testing the system and 

how. Konoplev’s obsession with his own new ideas prevented him from objectively 

embracing much that was already tried and true.

The new electric integrated circuits developed at OKB-692 operated using a 

different logic from those developed by Pilyugin. Moreover, these circuits required 

rigorous developmental testing. Pilyugin permitted the delivery of electrical instruments and all cables for Korolev’s rockets only after each set had been thoroughly 

15. Here Chertok is suggesting that Ginzburg’s Jewish background was a liability.

16. The N-3 theme, performed in 1948–51, was an exploratory program to research layouts for an 

intercontinental ballistic missile.

17. The R-5R was an experimental missile launched several times in 1955 to test an experimental 

radio guidance system for the future R-7 ICBM.
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ity of the Fatherland was appealing to 

his men to engage not in battle, but 

in self-sacrificing work? After all, this 

wasn’t the front. No one was being sent 

to a certain death. It wasn’t like there 

was some health risk, much less a lifethreatening situation.

In order for the reader to grasp 

the circumstances surrounding 

the launch preparation for the 

first R-16 missile, I have used a literary work by KB Yuzhnoye General 

Designer Stanislav Konyukhov and Lev 

Andreyev, Yangel: Lessons and Legacy.18

Of all the literature available on the 

history of rocket technology, the work 

by Konyukhov and Andreyev was the 

first to provide a detailed and credible 

account of what really happened on 

24 October 1960, 41 years after the 

fact.19

The startup of a rocket engine, its 

operation, and shutdown in flight 

constitute a complex multiphase process. The hydraulic system feeds the 

propellant components—oxidizer 

and fuel from the fuel tanks—according to commands issued by the control system. The chief designer of the 

18. S. Konyukhov and L. Andreyev, Yangel: uroki i naslediye [Yangel: Lessons and Legacy] 

(Dnepropetrovsk: GKB Yuzhnoye, 2002).

19. There are numerous published accounts in Russian of the Nedelin disaster. For books, see M. 

I. Kuznetskiy and I. V. Strazheva, eds., Baykonur—chudo XX veka: vospominaniya veteranov Baykonur 

ob akademike Mikhaile Kuzmichye Yangelye i kosmodrome [Baykonur—Miracle of the 20th Century: 

Recollections of Baykonur Veterans on Academician Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel and the Cosmodrome] 

(Moscow: Sovremennyy pisatel, 1995); M. I. Kuznetskiy, Baykonur Korolev Yangel (Voronezh: IPF 

‘Voronezh,’ 1997). Newspaper and journal accounts include articles in Ogonek [Spark] no. 16 (April 

15–22, 1989); Krasnaya zvezda [Red Star] (October 24, 1990); Rabochaya tribuna [Working Tribune] 

(December 6, 1990); Krasnaya zvezda (October 16, 1993); Istochnik [Source] no. 1 (1995): Voyennoistoricheskiy zhurnal [Military-Historical Journal] no. 5 (1995); Nauka i zhizn [Science and Life] no. 

1 (1999); Novosti kosmonavtiki [News of Cosmonautics] no. 12 (1999); Istoricheskiy arkhiv [Historical 

Archive] no. 5 (2000). For a published account in English, see Asif A. Siddiqi, “Mourning Star,” Quest

3 no. 4 (Winter 1994): 38–47.

In the Soviet military, Marshal Mitrofan 

Nedelin (1902-60) was the most vociferous 

advocate of developing and adopting modern 

strategic missiles. Without his guidance and 

vision, the Soviets might not have invested 

enormous resources into developing the 

early ICBMs such as the R-7 and R-16. For 

his leading role, Khrushchev appointed him 

commander-in-chief of the new Strategic 

Missile Forces in 1959. Some would say 

his recklessness and hubris was a major 

contributing factor to the terrible disaster at 

Tyuratam in late 1960 that killed so many.

Asif Siddiqi.

pressure with tight deadlines preparing to test the new intercontinental missile. The 

military testers who survived the catastrophe and who had been with us for every 

sort of all-hands rush job since 1947, said that they had never seen such a violation 

of testing standards.

The most important cause of the catastrophe was haste, a hurry unjustified by 

any military or governmental need. In this instance, if the ambition to present a gift 

in honor of a holiday results in a missile being delivered to the launch pad without undergoing developmental testing on the ground, who is to blame? The first 

person liable in such a case is the chief designer. But then there is also the military 

acceptance staff, which knows the weak points at least as well as, and sometimes 

better than, the chief designer. The regional engineer (the chief military acceptance 

officer) gave his consent to clear the missile for flight tests. He was the second liable 

individual. On further investigation, one finds that technically, these first two liable 

individuals can cite the procurement of a guidance system that had not undergone 

developmental testing, a system that Boris Konoplev, the system’s chief designer and 

his senior military representative had cleared for flight tests. So now there are at least 

four who were technically guilty. They would have had every right to say, “We need 

to do such-and-such—eliminate these particular glitches to obtain the necessary 

assurance.” None of them ventured to do this, even though they were not under the 

threat of any censure.

Without any special instructions, by early 1960 we in Korolev’s team had worked 

out a style for behaving and for conducting operations at the launch site. No rush 

jobs were permitted until the missile had been fueled with the rapidly evaporating 

liquid oxygen. Korolev himself set the example for a cool, unhurried demeanor. 

Each glitch was analyzed calmly and thoroughly.

Did State Commission Chairman Nedelin know about the breaches in the missile’s developmental testing cycle? One can only assume that he had access to the 

relevant reports. But for each glitch described in these cases a decision followed 

to “permit” it. The decision was logically valid and backed up by the appropriate 

authoritative signatures.

Such violations, legally justified by an official clearance for flight tests, typically 

lead to subsequent violations right on the launch pad. In the case of the R-16, 

during the prelaunch testing process, glitches occurred one after the other, disrupting the original preparation schedule. In such a situation the primary remedy was 

to work round-the-clock. The test team did not leave the launch site for 72 hours. 

I often found myself in such situations while preparing for missile launches, when 

the launch control team and main staff of testers never had an opportunity for rest. 

Typically, we faced such situations from the need to launch within a window strictly 

determined by celestial mechanics.

But in this case, astronomy had nothing to do with it. Not only did State Commission Chairman Nedelin not grant permission to rest, but he appealed for even 

more self-sacrificing work before the great holiday. Who would dare question the 

Chief Marshal of Artillery, who for the sake of strengthening the defense capabil-
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The R-16 first stage sustainer engine constituted three autonomous assemblies, 

each containing two combustion chambers, connected by a single start system that 

activated the oxidizer and fuel start tanks and the automatic control assembly.20 The 

engine had a ground-level thrust of 226 metric tons and an operating time of 90 

seconds. The engine was shut down by control system commands that actuated the 

pyrotechnic valves, shutting off the flow of oxidizer and fuel into the gas generator of 

the turbopump assembly. After 90 seconds of flight, the first stage electroautomatic 

controls turned over the control function to the second stage automatic controls, 

which started up the second stage engine according to the timeline loaded into 

the memory of the second stage control system. The second stage sustainer engine 

consisted of a single assembly with two chambers, oxidizer and fuel start tanks, and 

their automatic control assemblies. It had a thrust of 90 metric tons.21 Separate fuel 

and oxidizer lines ran from the fuel tanks to the engines. The turbopump assemblies, which generated the required pressure to feed the propellant components into 

each line, ensured the stable operation of the sustainer engines.

Because hypergolic, toxic, and aggressive components were used in R-14 and 

R-16 missiles, to reliably seal the tanks and pipelines leading into them when the 

fueled missile was on the launch pad over an extended period of time, and also to 

prevent the aggressive components from entering into the pump chambers prematurely, special barriers—blowout discs—were installed on the flanges of the fuel and 

oxidizer pipelines. When the explosive cartridge was triggered, the disc opened up 

and allowed propellant components to fill the chambers of the turbopump assembly 

pumps.

The intense evaporation of the oxygen in Korolev’s missiles after fueling was a 

drawback, requiring rapid preparation and launch of the missile after fueling. Similarly, if the discs in Yangel’s missiles ruptured, they could not remain on the launch 

pad for longer than 24 hours. Over a 24-hour period, the aggressive components 

destroyed the gaskets, leaks developed, and a real fire hazard was created if the nitrogen tetroxide and geptil came into contact.

The engine startup process was possible only after the blowout discs were ruptured 

according to the missile preparation timeline immediately before launch. Before the 

beginning of flight-development tests, no reliable signaling system had been developed for the startup automatic controls system to confirm that the discs had opened 

up. This parameter had to be worked into the engine startup automatic control 

devices, precluding the possibility of subsequent commands passing through until 

it had been absolutely confirmed that the discs had been blown out. During flighttests of the R-14 missile, beginning in June 1960 in Kapustin Yar, there were serious 

glitches with the reliability of the disc opening mechanism. Yangel was briefed on 

this by his first deputy, Vasiliy Budnik, who supervised the tests. However, they did 

20. This was the RD-218 engine, made up of three RD-217 modules (“autonomous assemblies”).

21. This was the RD-219 engine, which was essentially a high altitude version of the RD-217.

engine is the developer of the hydraulic system and of the control logic that fires the 

missile and shuts down the engine. The chief designer of the control system is the 

developer of the electrical control circuit that starts up and shuts down the missile. 

But in this case, the automatic controls and all the electric circuits of the control 

system, including the propulsion systems testing equipment, were developed not by 

control systems chief designer Kuznetsov, but by OKB-692 Chief Designer Konoplev. The chief designer of each system has his own deputies, who, interacting with 

one another, are responsible not only for understanding the systems but also for 

jointly developing a common logic and for reliable performance, including possible 

off-nominal situations.

The logical interaction of the hydraulic and electrical systems must undergo 

developmental testing on control system rigs and on firing test rigs during testing 

of the entire propulsion system complex as per special instructions. Factory tests 

on each missile check the systems’ interaction logic, the functionality of all the 

elements, and that there are no random production process errors. A mandatory 

recheck is performed at the firing range at the engineering facility and at the launch 

site. The missile’s chief designer approves all instructions for missile testing and 

launch preparation.

As a rule, the effector mechanisms in the hydraulic system are valves that have 

two positions: “open” and “closed.” The “open”—“close” process was executed on 

first generation missiles in two stages: an electrical command was issued to the electro-pneumatic valve, which opened or shut off the flow of high-pressure gas to the 

hydraulic valve. This system was reusable and reversible: it was possible to open and 

close the pneumatic and hydraulic valves on an unfueled missile for multiple tests at 

the factory and at the firing range. In their attempts to streamline and simplify the 

system, the [R-16] engine specialists and the control specialists did away with the 

two stage setup, eliminated the electro-pneumatic control valves, and introduced 

single stage pyrotechnics. An electrical command detonated the explosive cartridges, 

which were built right into the structure of the hydraulic valves that open or shut off 

the fuel feed. Pressure from the gases formed during the explosion opened or closed 

the hydraulic valves. The number of special heavy tanks and pipelines for the highpressure control gas was reduced. However, the pyrotechnics made the valves nonreusable. After the detonation of the explosive charges the valve had to be replaced; 

access would have to be provided to it for maintenance and recharging so it could be 

used again. The integrity of the electrical circuit and of the ignition filaments of the 

explosive charges were checked by applying “nonfiring” current. Here, there would 

have to be an absolute guarantee that the nonfiring current was much lower than 

the current required to ignite the explosive charge...

During all the cycles of factory and firing-range tests on a missile, to avoid 

setting off nonreusable valves, they were disconnected from the general electrical 

supply, replaced with an “equivalent” in the form of a signal light indicating that at 

the proper time the command reached the connector, which would be hooked up 

to the explosive charge after the tests.
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After the first stage engine gathers thrust exceeding the weight of the missile, 

the missile lifts off of the launch pad. As it lifts off, the connectors connecting the 

onboard electrical network with the ground network pull apart and the liftoff contact closes. From that moment everything that happens on board is under the control of the flight sequence. Signals for the execution of commands according to the 

flight sequence are strictly timed in relation to the reference point, the moment the 

liftoff contact tripped. There were no controlling onboard computers at that time, 

so programmed sequencers (PTRs) generated commands for stage one and two.22

The timers were camshafts, which were turned by a step motor. The cams closed 

specific contact groups activating relays in the main distributor of the onboard electrical equipment system. Relays activated by PTR commands or another control 

system command source actuated corresponding propulsion system controls. A special pulse generator sent pulses to the step motors. These pulses powered the step 

motor mounted on the gyro-stabilized platform to change the pitch angle depending on the specified flight trajectory.

Before launch, the PTRs of stage one and stage two and the gyro-stabilized platform sequencer are supposed to be set at “zero”—the initial position. Pulses begin 

to flow to their step motors only after the command arrives from the relay that 

was actuated at the moment the missile lifted off from the launch pad. However, 

high-current pulses passing through cables when the explosive cartridges go off or 

when other onboard power consumers are activated are capable of generating false 

pulses in common bundles of the cable network; these false pulses can cause the 

step motors to shift the PTR program and the pitch angle from the initial position. 

Control system Chief Designer Konoplev and the staff of the missile’s chief designer 

were responsible for checking the control system for this type of parasitic crosscoupling by exposing the onboard network to actual current pulses. They did not 

conduct such tests on integrated test rigs or on special experimental units.

The missile was transported to the launch site on 21 October. During 

the prelaunch testing process, they detected no substantial glitches preventing them 

from making a decision to begin fueling. On 23 October, the missile was fueled 

with the propellant components and compressed gasses and preparation began for 

its launch, which the State Commission decreed was to take place that very evening.

As soon as the missile appeared at the launch site the missile team worked virtually around the clock. Moscow was putting the pressure on. Khrushchev kept 

phoning Yangel and Nedelin. State Commission Chairman Nedelin, in order to 

set an example, was at the launch site almost the entire time overseeing the missile 

22. PTR—Programmnyy tokoraspredelitel—literally represents “programmed current distributor,” 

but they were basically mechanical sequencers which activated systems onboard the rocket in a given 

and preplanned sequence.

not have time to take any radical measures to increase the reliability of this assembly 

before the R-16 flight-tests began. Chief Designer Yangel and military acceptance 

committed a fundamental error by clearing the missile for flight-tests when it was 

already known that the disc opening mechanism was unreliable.

One more barrier was placed in the path of the components as they left the 

turbopump assembly—the main control valves, which covered the inlet into the 

engine combustion chambers. The main control valves automatically opened only 

when the pressure at their inlets reached a specific value.

The second stage engine startup process after disc blowout proceeded as follows. 

When the control system issued a command to start up the engine, a special electropneumatic valve operated and gas from the onboard high-pressure system was fed 

into the start tanks containing fuel and oxidizer. The pressure of the gas forced the 

propellant components into the gas generator, where they combined and ignited. 

The gas formed during combustion passed into the turbine, on one shaft of which 

were the oxidizer and fuel line pumps. A powder combustion starter provided the 

initial “crankup” of the turbopump assembly, and then the turbine gas generator 

switched to consuming propellant components collected downstream from the fuel 

and oxidizer pumps. As the turbine spun, the pressure in the chambers downstream 

from the pumps increased, and when it reached a certain value, the main oxidizer 

and fuel valves opened. Propellant components rushed into the combustion chambers, combined, ignited, and the engine started.

Remember that two separation barriers were provided in the propellant component lines, before the fuel and oxidizer were combined: blowout discs and main 

valves. The shutdown systems for the first and second stage engines were analogous. A command issued from the control system for both lines—fuel and oxidizer—operated the cutoff pyrovalves. These valves shut off the supply of propellant 

components, the turbopump assembly shut down, pressure in the system abruptly 

dropped, and, finally, the cutoff pyrovalve for the line feeding oxidizer to the chambers operated (i.e., closed) in the combustion chamber head.

The process for starting up an R-16 missile does not differ fundamentally from 

the established startup procedure for other missiles with liquid-oxygen engines. It 

has been preserved for almost all missiles to this day. After the missile is fueled and 

made ready for launch, based on all parameters, the missile team leader issues the 

command from the launch control panel to start up the launch execution program. 

According to this program, the gyro assemblies of the gyro-stabilized platforms are 

started up, pyrotechnic devices fire causing the onboard self-activating batteries to 

fill with electrolyte, the power supply switches from ground sources to onboard 

buses, and the blowout discs in the oxidizer and fuel lines are detonated.

Having monitored the display lights to see that all preparatory commands were 

issued, the launch chief presses the “launch” button. The missile is now completely 

under the control of the launch sequence, that is, the missile is controlled by the 

series of commands issued by the guidance system in automatic mode to execute the 

launch without human participation.
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during its first launch on 15 May 1957. That time the flight lasted 103 seconds and 

the missile exploded at high altitude without inflicting any damage except to our 

morale.

In heated arguments with opponents of the oxygen-kerosene engines, Vasiliy 

Mishin loved to argue that, “We have no insurance against fires when propellant 

lines leak near a high heat source, but your missiles will burn and explode for no 

apparent reason when there is the tiniest hint of a leak of hypergolic components!”

Besides the danger of mechanical seal failure in a blowout disc’s fittings themselves, the disc’s detonation could adversely affect the electrical system. The explosive charges that blew open the discs contained a metallic filament that acted as an 

igniter. As voltage was fed to it, the filament became red hot, burned, and ignited 

a powder charge. It was assumed that a positive determination that the electric 

circuit powering the explosive charge was broken could prove for the ground monitoring system that the disc had been blown out. In fact, quite often, burned filament remains came into contact with the metallic housing of the explosive charge, 

thereby indicating a “housing contact,” that is, the signal circuit falsely confirmed 

the integrity of the explosive charge. The OKB-692 electricians and OKB-586 

supervisory electricians were unquestionably at fault, since they had developed and 

approved a system with such a defect. But it wasn’t simply a monitoring issue. The 

contact between the filament remnants and the housing caused the occurrence of 

high-ampere currents—an immediate short-circuit, which, if it continued for a prolonged period, was capable of damaging the cable network insulation and the wiring 

in current distribution instruments. They should have called on the experience of 

NII-885 and OKB-1, which had taken this feature of pyrotechnics into consideration.

Yangel, his two deputies Berlin and Kontsevoy, and Glushko’s deputy Firsov 

made an excessively risky decision: to detonate the blowout discs without sticking 

to the nominal prelaunch preparation timeline when everyone had already left the 

launching pad; instead they decided to do this immediately after fueling, when 

more than 100 people were still at the launch site. And for this, they proposed quite 

an original method to determine whether the discs had been blown out, not relying 

on an electrical effect, but on the powerful water-hammer sound and characteristic 

“gurgling” when the lines fill up with liquid at the moment the discs are blown out. 

Specialists who had experience testing propulsion systems in Zagorsk were ordered 

to climb into open hatches and to assess by ear whether the discs had been blown 

out. And they did in fact crawl in, and even without gas masks, because they would 

interfere with their hearing! That, in and of itself, was a flagrant violation of safety 

procedures. If a propellant component leak had occurred, in the best case scenario 

these “listeners” would have been in danger of severe poisoning and burns.

To begin with, they were supposed to blow out the discs in the first and second 

stage oxidizer lines, since that component did not pose a fire hazard. They could 

blow out the discs in the fuel lines only after they had determined by visual inspection that the oxidizer line was leak-tight. The decision to blow out the discs “manupreparation process. A team of military testers who had experience preparing and 

launching intercontinental Semyorkas conducted all the operations, but this was 

their first time at the new launch site and they had been tasked with rapidly preparing and launching this first new missile without any preliminary training on an 

engineering model.

I mentioned earlier that we manufactured a special engineering version of the 

Semyorka. The designers needed one of these engineering units for fit checks and 

interfacing with ground launching and fueling equipment, rather than performing those tasks on a flight unit of the missile. Likewise, the testers and the firing 

range launching team needed it for training before the first fight unit arrived. In the 

Council of Chief Designers, Korolev repeatedly harped on the need to fabricate an 

engineering model. Operations for its manufacture in conjunction with the launch 

equipment and many days of training for the entire staff were inserted into all the 

schedules. What prevented Yangel from drawing on this experience? Perhaps it was 

his confidence that the R-16 launch equipment was much simpler than that of the 

R-7; the main thing, however, was that there was no time for preliminary training 

of the launch team. The launch of the first R-16 missile had to be pulled off as the 

latest gift before the 43rd anniversary of the Great October Revolution.

The majority of the preparatory operations for the first R-16 took a lot more 

time than had been scheduled. Despite their exhaustion from three days of preparation, the team of testers fueled the missile with all the propellant components by 

the end of the day on 23 October. This is when the testers encountered their first 

unforeseen situation. The developers of the missile and propulsion systems were not 

sure that the propellant lines would maintain their pressure integrity after the blowout discs were detonated. The fact is that back during preparation of the first R-14 

flight unit in July 1960, when the blowout disc in the oxidizer line was detonated 

a leak developed under a flange seal in the oxidizer line. The launch was postponed 

for this reason, and Budnik, Yangel’s first deputy, decided to drain the propellant 

components and remove the missile from the launch pad.

However, during the draining process, a small fountain of fuel squirted out of 

the coupling between the drainage hose and the missile drainage line. When it 

hit the concrete where there were tiny splashes of oxidizer diluted with water, the 

stream of fuel ignited in the air. The mini-fire was put out with fire extinguishers. 

After Budnik sent this alarm signal from Kapustin Yar, special attention should have 

been paid to making sure the fittings containing the blowout discs were intact after 

the discs were blown out. But they were pressed for time, and this work had not 

been tested for the R-16. Vasiliy Budnik flew out to the firing range and was present 

at the R-16 launch site, but did not interfere with the preparation process.

It seemed to me that I had gotten to know Yangel well enough working with him 

from 1950 to 1953. Why had he not categorically demanded that the blowout discs 

undergo thorough developmental testing? Everyone was already aware of the precedent set long before the first R-14 missile launch attempt. Our Semyorka, already 

famous by that time, burned up in its powered flight phase due to a fuel line leak 
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detonating the pyrotechnic valve, opening up access for the compressed air to enter 

a rubber bag containing electrolyte. As the bag inflated, a blade cut it open, and 

the electrolyte flowed into the battery. The second stage ground power supply was 

disconnected at that time, and, in violation of all the rules, all the electric automatic 

controls were connected to the onboard power buses. This gross violation of a very 

logical standard procedure occurred because during the last few hours, controllers 

discovered that the self-activating battery was at the limit of its capacity given the 

low temperature that had set in over the past few days. Therefore, the decision was 

made to keep it in an activated state in a warm place and to put it on board after the 

announcement of T-minus 30 minutes. Until it was installed on board, the second 

stage batteries were inside a van, where they were maintained at a temperature of 

+30oC (86°F) under the immediate control of a representative of the ScientificResearch Institute of Current Sources.

Actually, the second stage onboard battery was installed and hooked up to the 

onboard network before the official announcement of T-minus 30 minutes. Therefore, the main distributor was replaced and the discs were blown out on the second 

stage with the onboard battery hooked up.

On the evening of 23 October, the State Commission held a session during 

which they would have to make a decision covering the whole array of incidents. 

The meeting participants had to decide what to do with a missile that—after being 

fueled with hypergolic, toxic, aggressive propellant components—was on the 

verge of breakdown. During the State Commission meeting, attendees proposed 

to replace the main distributor, to replace the falsely actuated pyrotechnic cutoff 

valve, and to continue work. At that fateful meeting, only one State Commission 

member—firing range department chief Lieutenant Colonel S. D. Titov, argued 

vehemently against this proposal. After expressing his view that the control system 

had not undergone sufficient follow-up development, he uncompromisingly proposed to, “Drain the propellant components, neutralize the missile at the firing 

range, and send it to the factory for modification.”Alas! This would have been the 

only absolutely correct decision.

Lieutenant Colonel Titov understood that his speech contradicted the State 

Commission chairman’s mindset. A lieutenant colonel had dared to disagree with 

the marshal! Everyone else, on the other hand, including review team members 

who were more experienced and not subordinate to the marshal or Chief Designer 

Yangel, decided to continue work at the launch site and to conduct the launch the 

next day! Closing the State Commission meeting, Nedelin summed up the situation, “We’ll modify the missile on the launch pad. The nation is waiting for us!”

I knew Viktor Kuznetsov, Andronik Iosifyan, and Aleksey Bogomolov well and 

had great respect for them. The people at this meeting were experienced, competent 

individuals, independent of Nedelin, Yangel, and [State Committee] Deputy Chairman Grishin. More than once I had witnessed them disagreeing with Korolev and 

taking issue with ministers. Except for Grishin, who was killed, I had the opportunity to ask each of them, “Why did you agree to continue the operation? After all, 

ally” and to use the subjective method to determine that the disc had been blown 

out was made and coordinated with State Commission Chairman Nedelin. Based 

on the “disc” issue alone, the missile should not have been cleared for launch, but 

the main customer, Nedelin, was in a hurry.

Following instructions, civilian engine specialists from OKB-456 crawled into 

the first stage aft compartment up to their waists, and when the command was given 

over the public address system to blow out the discs in the oxidizer line one by one, 

they started to listen. They were supposed to first give a leak integrity report and 

then wait for the command to blow out the discs in the fuel line.

Darkness had already fallen. It was pitch black in the aft compartment. The “listeners” attuned themselves to the acoustic signals of the blowout discs in the second 

stage. Out of the blue, a sound occurred in the first stage aft compartment accompanied by a very strong shock. Several seconds later there was a bright flash in the 

vicinity of the first stage engine and the aft compartment was filled with the smell of 

burned powder explosive. Subsequent examination showed that the blowout discs 

in the first stage lines had been detonated instead of those in the second stage. The 

bright flash was the result of some false command that had detonated the explosive 

cartridges of the gas generator cutoff valve on the first stage engine. In addition, they 

found a tiny leak from the fuel line through the turbopump assembly shaft seal.

After analyzing the events, specialists from Yangel’s OKB, headed by Deputy 

Chief Designer V. A. Kontsevoy and lead engineer K. Ye. Khachaturyan and the 

electrical system developers from Konoplev’s OKB came to the conclusion that the 

main distributor of electrical commands needed to be removed from the missile in 

order to study the causes for the confusion and transmission of unauthorized commands. And if the operations were to continue, the engine specialists would have to 

replace the gas generator cutoff valve on the first stage engine.

In addition to these glitches, the control panel operators in the bunker had 

detected that the PTRs and gyro-stabilized platform pitch angle sensor were not in 

the “zero” initial position. Analysis of this off-nominal situation showed that it was 

caused by impulse noise. It was determined beyond a doubt that the system issuing program pulses to the step motors of the pitch command sensors and program 

timers had insufficient interference protection. It was obvious even to nonspecialists 

that eliminating such an effect would require special tests for onboard systems crosscoupling. It was absolutely impossible to conduct such operations on the launch 

pad on a fueled missile. But Konoplev argued it was possible to conduct the first 

launch of a missile with this fundamental defect, and the State Commission agreed 

with him.

There was another deviation from the standard missile preparation process: 

the second stage onboard self-activating batteries became operational prematurely. 

According to the standard process, the self-activating batteries were supposed to be 

activated by compressed air pressure after all the checks had been conducted during 

the launch process when there were no longer any people on the launch pad. In the 

case of the R-16, compressed air fed into the battery when the command was issued, 
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stayed on for the launch. Also present was Chief of the “Korolevian” First Directorate of the firing range Ye. I. Ostashev, who was not supposed to be there at all, but 

he wanted to give the marshal some documents and also to support his colleague 

Grigoryants by being there. The latter had been appointed Chief of the “Yangelian” 

Second Directorate of the firing range.

It was still morning when the NII-4 chief, General A. I. Sokolov approached the 

marshal and dared to warn him about the danger of being on the launch pad in the 

immediate vicinity of the fueled missile. The marshal snapped back at him, “If you 

are a coward, then leave!

The offended Sokolov departed for the airfield and flew to Moscow. By accusing Sokolov of cowardice, Nedelin saved his life. Three months later Sokolov was 

appointed chairman of the State Commission in place of Nedelin to continue flighttests on the R-16 missile.

Twilight had descended on the launch pad, and they still needed to perform the 

operation to blow out the second stage discs. To make sure the operation didn’t fail, 

they decided to perform it manually, disc by disc, rather than using the disc blowout 

control panel as called for by the instructions.

Engineers K. Ye. Khachaturyan, Ye. A. Yerofeyev, and Senior Lieutenant V. A. 

Makulenko climbed the ladder of the erector to the upper service platform, opened 

the hatches in the interstage compartment, disconnected the connector, and fed 

electric current directly from the technological battery that had been hoisted up 

there. They determined by the sound that the start tanks had filled. However, a 

captain who was with them asserted that only one disc had detonated. Later they 

realized that he was right. It was not clear what was going on with the second stage 

blowout discs. OKB-456 engine specialists, OKB-586 electricians, and military testers climbed up to the upper service platform to perform the blowout operation. 

They needed to disconnect and then reconnect the connectors of the second stage 

main distributor, and, for safety, do the same with the connector to the second stage 

engine powder combustion starter.

After all the operations had been performed, all the deputy chief designers sent 

their inspectors, and the launch crew members performed the checks. After T-minus 

60 minutes the stairway leading to the upper service platform and the platform itself 

were swarming with people. Many military and civilian personnel not needed for 

the preparatory operations had crowded right onto the launch pad near the area 

where Marshal Nedelin and Deputy Chairman Grishin were sitting.

The postaccident top-secret report (special file) to the Central Committee signed 

by Brezhnev’s commission states that, “At T-minus 60 minutes, besides the 100 

individuals needed for the operation, 150 additional individuals were present on 

the launch pad.” Yangel, his deputies Kontsevoy and Berlin, Konoplev, Glushko’s 

deputy Firsov, and Second Directorate Chief Grigoryants were discussing the situation and giving instructions to their specialists right next to the missile.

After completing missile launch preparation, the testers evacuated the area and 

went to the observation post located approximately one kilometer from the launch 

site. They were not in a hurry to evacuate. Fate had already divided them all into 

we all had 13 years of preparation and launch experience. We knew perfectly well 

what a gamble it was to modify electrical circuits on a fueled missile. What kind of 

obsession was this?” And no one could give me a clear answer why seemingly sensible, independent, and responsible individuals did not support Titov.

Highly experienced chief designers such as Kuznetsov, Iosifyan, and Bogomolov 

could well imagine that the decision to replace the main distributor and the pyrotechnic cutoff valves on a fueled missile with its blowout discs detonated and the 

onboard batteries activated was more than a risky undertaking. And, in fact, the 

vote of either Chief Designer Kuznetsov or Chief Designer Iosifyan at the State 

Commission meeting could have been decisive!

Modifications were performed all night. The main distributor was removed and 

opened up. Inspection showed that the insulation on the wires of one of the bundles 

conducting current to detonate the blowout discs had completely melted and the 

bare wires were in contact with one another, forming parasitic circuits.

The propulsion system’s electrical circuit had been constructed so that the rotary 

switch on the control panel, from which the detonation commands were issued, 

needed to be set in the “O-1” position to detonate the blowout discs in the first 

stage oxidizer line and in the “G-1” position to detonate the discs in the fuel line.23

Then voltage was fed through the appropriate circuits of the main distributor to the 

explosive cartridges of the discs. The control panel did not limit the duration of the 

command and the ensuing short-circuit current.

While the propulsion system engineers were trying to determine by “sound and 

smell” whether the second stage blowout discs had been actuated, the burned-up 

explosive cartridges in the first stage shorted the circuits passing through the main 

distributor with the remains of their own incandescent filaments. The short-circuit 

current melted the insulation. A false command to actuate the explosive cartridges 

of the gas generator cutoff valves of one of the first stage propulsion system assemblies actually passed over the bare wires.

As of the morning of 24 October, all the efforts of the civilian specialists and 

military testers were aimed at eliminating the catastrophic defects. Individuals who 

already had experience preparing missiles at Kapustin Yar and at Korolev’s launch 

site were, for the first time, confronting a high-ranking military leader’s decision to 

continue with the risky preparation and launch of a missile with a defective control 

system. But even in the smoking room no one dared to gripe because Marshal Nedelin had taken a seat by the launch pad not more than 20 meters from the missile and 

was attentively monitoring the actions of the crews on the ground and at all levels 

of the erector. Industrial representatives joined him on his bench, and he compared 

notes with them about the progress of the operations.

Several meters from Nedelin stood firing range Chief K. V. Gerchik and his 

deputy A. I. Nosov, who had been appointed to a new post in Moscow, but had 

23. The letters O and G stand for okislitel (oxidizer) and goryucheye (fuel) respectively.
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Most likely because Khachaturyan went down into the bunker and thus survived, 

he was the first specialist to discover the reason why the command was transmitted 

to start up the second stage engine.

Here is his version:

“When I went down into the bunker I found the always calm and collected Matrenin 

in somewhat of an agitated state, which Aleksandr Sergeyevich explained saying that 

Grigoryants was putting tremendous pressure on him and always rushing. Continuing our conversation, we stopped by the smoking room and had a cigarette. I started to 

reassure him, uttering a bunch of platitudes. And suddenly at that moment we heard 

incomprehensible chaotic, violent noises and explosions. Matrenin and I ran into the 

control room. Senior Lieutenant V. N. Taran, the preparation and launch control panel 

operator, and engineers from our design bureau whose responsibilities included monitoring the pre-launch circuit setup, were there at that time.

They looked horrible: ashen and wild-eyed. I dashed to the periscope and saw our 

missile burning on the launch pad. This hideous conflagration was accompanied by the 

explosions of the solid-fuel braking engines and the high-pressure tanks.”

Forty years later we were able to see on television what happened at the launch 

site. On that fateful day, operators from the Ministry of Defense film studio had set 

up equipment to film the launch; everything was ready to roll long before launch 

time. When the unauthorized startup of the second stage engine occurred, the director of the film crew gave the order to switch on the remote-controlled movie cameras. This enabled many vital moments of the incident to be recorded.

Propellant components splashing out of the tanks soaked the testers standing 

nearby. Fire instantly devoured them. Poisonous vapors killed them. Of course, the 

quality of the film frames is not up to today’s standards, but when viewed in slow 

motion you can see how the missile and erector burned and how the frantic people 

trapped on the service platforms jumped straight into the fire and were instantly 

consumed. The enormous temperature at a significant distance from the epicenter 

of the fire burned peoples’ clothing, and many of those fleeing who got bogged 

down in molten asphalt burned up completely. The film chronicle does not show 

what happened to people who reached a relatively safe area.

Running for their lives, they found themselves in the ditch surrounding the 

launch site or on sand; instead of throwing off their flaming clothes or falling to the 

ground to extinguish the flames, like burning torches, they attempted to flee farther 

from the launch site and got tangled in the barbed wire surrounding it. Rescue 

workers arriving on the scene attempted to help the people who had run to them. 

They flung them to the ground and threw sand on them. It was 2 hours before the 

fire fighters managed to contain the fire and the launch site became accessible to the 

rescue workers.

According to one account, when Yangel arrived in the smoking room he was 

surprised that a cigarette lighter could cause a blinding bright flash. That was the 

moment the fire started. Risking his life, he darted toward the roaring blaze trying 

to lead frantic people out of the fire. He suffered burns to his hands before he was 

the living and the dead. Yangel spent almost the entire time on the launch pad. The 

stressful situation gave him a craving for cigarettes and he gladly accepted Andronik 

Iosifyan’s invitation, literally just a few minutes before the explosion, to go into the 

smoking room about 150 meters from the launch site. Iosifyan also invited Deputy 

Chairman Grishin to have a smoke, but for some reason he stayed behind. That 

cost him his life. The smoking room was also a sort of club, where the members 

could discuss the situation and temporarily relieve the psychological pressure. Aleksey Bogomolov was already there. He didn’t smoke, but he was sensible enough not 

to be hanging around the launch pad. Viktor Kuznetsov, his deputies Tsetsior and 

Raykhman, and Yangel’s first deputy and formerly also Korolev’s deputy Budnik had 

accepted the invitation of chief designer of ground electrical equipment Goltsman 

to take cover under the ramp where the diesel generators were located that supplied 

power to the entire launch pad in the event of a national network power failure.

Second Testing Directorate Chief Grigoryants, the director of operations, 

announced T-minus 30 minutes at 7:05 p.m. Approximately 1 hour before the 

accident, OKB-586 lead designer Khachaturyan, who had been busy on the upper 

service platform of the erector “manually” blowing out the explosive discs, after 

performing many off-nominal operations, climbed down, reported the situation to 

Yangel, and was given the following instructions, “There’s nothing for you to do 

here. Go over to the bunker and help Matrenin.”

Carrying out Yangel’s instructions, Khachaturyan phoned missile crew chief 

Matrenin in the bunker, informing him about the decision that had been made 

and telling him to begin setting up the launch circuit. When he left for the bunker, 

he noted that despite the announcement of T-minus 30 minutes, the ladder on the 

erector was heavily congested like a main thoroughfare; some were climbing down, 

others were waiting their turn to climb back up. Yangel’s order saved Khachaturyan’s 

life. After the catastrophe he was the first one to discover the connection in the 

general electrical system that was the direct cause of the command to start up the 

secondstage engine of the missile standing on the launch pad.

Khachaturyan’s recollections cited in the book Yangel: Lessons and Legacy also 

include criticism directed at me. True, using information obtained from Arkadiy 

Ostashev, and later from the “Kharkovite” Ginzburg, I committed an error in the 

treatment of the direct circuit error. As the primary immediate supervisory officer 

over the missile’s general electrical system, which was developed by OKB-692, Khachaturyan had the opportunity to give a more credible account in his own memoirs. 

It is just a shame that the truth was first published 41 years after the catastrophe. 

Better late than never!24

24. Author’s note: Teaching a course called “large rocket-space systems” to students at MFTI and 

MGTU, in the unit on “reliability and safety,” I utilize the account of the events of October 1960 as a 

very instructive example. To one degree or another, the lessons of the past have remained relevant for 

almost half a century.
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mission even before Yangel’s message arrived. The decision calling for the creation 

of a governmental commission and detailing its makeup was signed on 25 October, 

after the commission had already arrived at the firing range.

TOP SECRET

(special file) 

No. P308/22

To Comrades Brezhnev and Kozlov

Excerpt from Central Committee Presidium session protocol No. 308 

dated 25 October 1960

Ministry of Defense issue

Approve the Commission comprising comrades Brezhnev, Grechko, Ustinov, Rudnev, 

Kalmykov, Serbin, Guskov, Tabakov, and Tyulin to investigate the causes of the catastrophe and take action at [the installation of] military unit 11284.

CENTRAL COMMITTEE SECRETARY28

28. APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 409, l. 49. First published in 1994 in Sergeyev, ed., Khronika osnovnykh 

sobytiy istorii raketnykh voysk strategicheskogo naznacheniya, p. 241

Asif Siddiqi.

Movie cameras recorded the grizzly aftermath of the R-16 explosion at Tyuratam as in 

desperation men tried to run away from the growing conflagration that melted everything 

around the rocket.

taken by force to the hospital at Site No. 42. Yangel dispatched a message to the 

Central Committee, the text of which was published for the first time in the book 

Chronicle of the Main Events in the History of the Strategic Rocket Forces in 1994.25

The print run was very small, and it was never put on sale.

In the Archives of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF), rocket forces 

historians sought out Yangel’s message, which was transmitted through Nedelin’s 

office over a secure line code-named Purga-3. Here is the text of that message:

MESSAGE

At 6:45 p.m. local time, 30 minutes before the launch of article 8k-64, during the 

final pre-launch operation a fire broke out causing the destruction of tanks containing 

propellant components.26

The incident resulted in up to 100 or more human casualties, including several dozen 

fatalities.

Chief Marshal of the Artillery Nedelin was on the launch pad for the tests. They are 

now searching for him.

Please arrange emergency medical care for those who suffered burns from the fire and 

nitric acid.

Yangel

Purga-3

Office of Comrade Nedelin27

Yangel and Khrushchev spoke to each other. When Yangel reported that they 

hadn’t found Nedelin, and that guidance system Chief Designer Konoplev and his 

deputy, Glushko’s deputy, and two of Yangel’s deputies were among the fatalities, 

Khrushchev asked, “And where was the technical director of testing at this time?”

I have quoted Khrushchev’s words from the book by Andreyev and Konyukhov. I 

think they should be interpreted not as a criticism of Yangel—“And why are you still 

alive?”—but rather as natural indignation over the fact that the technical director 

was unable to ensure testing safety.

Khrushchev informed Yangel: “A commission headed by Brezhnev is flying out 

to you.”

I believe that a report sent to Moscow in the line of duty by a KGB representative 

immediately after the catastrophe prompted the decision to form the State Com25. Sergeyev, ed., Khronika osnovnykh sobytiy istorii raketnykh voysk strategicheskogo naznacheniya.

The book was issued by the publishing office of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces.

26. The code name of the R-16 was the “8K64.”

27. All of the documents cited here by Chertok are from the Sergeyev book published by the 

Strategic Russian Rocket Forces. This document bears the additional text, “Read by the members of 

the CPSU CC Presidium. V. Malin. 24.10.60. Hold in CC Presidium archives. 20.1.62. V. Malin.” 

The original is in the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF), fond [collection] 

3, opis [register] 50, delo [file] 409, list [page] 50. First published in 1994 in Sergeyev, ed., Khronika 

osnovnykh sobytiy istorii raketnykh voysk strategicheskogo naznacheniya, p. 240.
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immediate testing supervisors at the launch site, that is, Chief Designer Konoplev, 

Yangel’s deputies Kontsevoy or Berlin, and Grigoryants and Matrenin, who supervised the actions of the military operators. I have no right to accuse any of them 

specifically. But based on the logic of the events, one of them gave the operator sitting at the control panels in the bunker the command to set the circuit in the “zero” 

initial state when there were more than 100 people on the launch pad.

The fact is that after the last cycle of integrated tests was performed, the circuit 

needed to be set in the initial state before the missile was fueled. The integrated 

tests at the launch site were performed before fueling. These were the last checks 

to see that the control system instruments and cable network were in good working order. These tests simulated the whole readiness setup cycle and involved the 

passage of commands prior to “launch,” the actuation of the liftoff contact, the 

control system’s generation of all the commands to the effectors of other systems, all 

the way down to the passage of the main command to shut down the second stage 

sustainer and control engines and separation of the nose cone. However, irreversible 

actuations of effectors, such as the detonation of explosive cartridges, are not typically executed during integrated tests. Therefore, assemblies containing explosive 

cartridges are disconnected from communications instruments—such as the main 

current distributors of the control system—and simulators are hooked up instead.

Arkadiy Ostashev, who flew to the firing range because of the death of his 

brother, Chief of the First Testing Directorate Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeniy Ostashev, undertook his own “private” investigation of all the circumstances surrounding 

the catastrophe. The version he told me was that Grigoryants, who had been on the 

launch pad, gave the order to begin preparing the circuit for launch readiness, while 

Matrenin delivered the specific command to the officers sitting at the control panels 

in the bunker.

This is at odds with Khachaturyan’s recollection; according to him, while the circuit was being reset to the initial state, he and Matrenin stepped out of the control 

room to have a smoke. The one who executed the fateful operation was an officer 

operating a control panel, who acted under the supervision of OKB-586 staff members. He was the one who performed the specific act, but there were very many who 

were actually responsible and culpable for what happened.

Yangel displayed real courage, having declared to the chairman of the State Commission investigating the causes of the catastrophe. “I ask that no one be blamed for 

what happened. I am culpable for everything as the chief designer who was not able 

to keep an eye on all the subcontractors.”

The chief designer is not capable and not obliged to analyze all the connections in a complex electrical circuit. His deputies, the control system curators, and 

developers of the missile testing process are supposed to do that at the factory and 

at the engineering facility. To a great extent Yangel’s behavior also determined the 

behavior of the State Commission that arrived at the firing range on the morning 

of 25 October.

What was the cause of the fire and explosion? Here is the testimony of Khachaturyan, who according to Andreyev’s and Konyukhov’s book, was the first to discover 

the “direct effector” of the command to start up the second stage engine on the 

launch pad rather than in flight.

“The morning after the nightmarish evening of 24 October, I was sitting there analyzing the layout of the electrical circuit for the propulsion system control system. I started 

to feel ill when I saw that when the step motors were reset in the initial state with voltage present on bus D (the specialists referred to this as having the activated second-stage 

onboard battery hooked up to the onboard cable network), voltage flowed unimpeded 

through the working contacts of the timer to the VO-8 electric start tank pressurization 

valve. Everything was so technically simple in terms of the electrical circuit and so tragically terrible in its consequences! Just then Komissarov entered the room (at that time 

Boris Alekseyevich Komissarov was the chief of the military delegation at the Yuzhnoye 

factory and KB; later he became deputy chairman of the VPK). I came to my senses a bit, 

and showed him on the diagram how the command to start up the second stage engine 

had been issued yesterday during the control system launch preparation.”

Specialists have a right to ask questions: errors in electrical circuits are by no 

means rare, but why hadn’t this specific error been identified during the many cycles 

of integrated tests at the factory, at the engineering facility, and at the launch site 

before fueling? The immediate developer of the circuitry at OKB-692 bore the 

responsibility for the error. The curators of the control system at the KB Yuzhnoye, who approved the circuitry with the error, bore the responsibility for failing to detect it. I would forgive both groups. In a complex circuit it might not be 

possible to spot errors on paper. But why was the ground developmental testing 

and multistep testing process set up so that circuitry errors did not come to light 

before the catastrophic event? The KB Yuzhnoye deputy chief designer, the respective department chief, the testers, and the KB Yuzhnoye military representatives 

bore the responsibility for this.

A second group of issues: Regardless of who committed the error allowing a false 

command to be issued to fire the second stage engine on the ground, this command 

should not have been executed over that circuit because the second stage onboard 

batteries were supposed to feed power to the automatic controls only after launch, 

and, second, even if this inhibitor had also been removed, that is why blowout discs 

had been placed in the lines, so that the propellant components would not reach 

the engine ahead of time.

Both levels of inhibitors had been removed despite elementary safety considerations. According to standard procedure, the onboard batteries of the second stage 

should not have been activated until all checks had been performed, after T-minus 

1 minute, when there were no people on the launch pad. And according to standard 

procedure, the blowout discs were supposed to be detonated immediately before 

launch.

And, finally, there was the last fateful decision that could only be made by the 
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were test commission chairman Chief Marshal of Artillery M. I. Nedelin, guidance 

system Chief Designer Konoplev, missile Deputy Chief Designers Kontsevoy and Berlin, 

engine Deputy Chief Designer Firsov, Deputy Chief of the Firing Range Colonel Nosov, 

and Firing Range Directorate Chiefs Lieutenant Colonels Ostashev and Grigoryants. 

Fifty-three individuals suffered various degrees of injuries and burns. The injured 

received immediate medical attention and leading medical specialists were called in to 

treat them.

Deceased military servicemen were buried in a communal grave on the grounds of 

the firing range with military honors. Deceased industrial workers were returned to their 

home towns for burial. Materials concerning assistance and the establishment of pensions 

for the families of the deceased will be presented at the USSR Council of Ministers.

Numerous conversations with persons directly involved in testing, with eyewitnesses 

to the catastrophe, and individuals who were injured, attest to the commendable and 

courageous behavior of those who faced extremely severe conditions. Despite the serious 

consequences of the event, the firing range personnel and industrial workers are ready 

and able to correct the flaws that have been revealed and to complete the experimental 

development of the R-16 missile.

In the interests of recovering from the catastrophe and fulfilling the assignment to produce the R-16 missile, the commission has conducted an investigation involving leading 

industrial specialists and has held a meeting with the firing range command staff and 

has outlined the following actions:

- perform additional checks and conduct additional developmental testing on the R16 missile control system complex;

- review and optimize a procedure for pre-launch preparation and missile launch 

execution, heighten operational security on the launch pads and intensify safety measures 

for those involved with testing;

- increase the quality of experimental development and production of assemblies and 

instruments at KBs, institutes, and factories;

- restore the damaged launch pad within 10-15 days and finish building and rigging 

a second launch pad with the intention of beginning R-16 missile flight tests in November of this year;

- in view of the death of a number of leading specialists, take action to find qualified 

staff to strengthen the ranks of the firing range and industry.

Conducting the aforementioned measures will make it possible to fulfill the designated testing program for the R-16 missile.

Attachments:

1.Technical findings – 4 pages.

2.Lists of killed and injured – No. 3386s – 16 pages.

3.Top Secret photographs 5 items/ex. No. 1 from film 680 – 2 items and ex. No. 1 

from film 684 – 3 items*

L. Brezhnev

A. Grechko

D. Ustinov

The following is the Central Committee State Commission report.

TOP SECRET

(special file) 

CPSU CC

As instructed by the Central Committee, the commission has conducted an on-site 

investigation into the circumstances of the catastrophe that occurred on 24 October 

1960, at USSR Ministry of Defense NIIP-5 during the testing of an R-16 missile.

With the participation of leading specialists, the following causes of the catastrophe 

were determined:

As of 26 September, the R-16 missile was located at the firing range in the Assembly and Testing Building. During the missile’s technical preparation process, individual 

defects in control system equipment and cable network were found and corrected by the 

industrial and military specialists at the firing range.

On 21 October the missile was transported to the launch site and on 23 October the 

pre-launch tests, which proceeded without incident, were completed. That same day the 

missile was fueled and its launch preparation began according to the approved procedure. 

During the preparation process, when the command was issued to detonate the explosive discs in the second-stage oxidizer lines, the control panel issued a false command, and 

in fact, the explosive cartridges in the first-stage fuel line were detonated. In addition, 

the explosive charges of the gas generator cutoff valves in the first assembly of the firststage sustainer engine detonated spontaneously and the main distributor of the onboard 

cable network malfunctioned 

This circumstance forced the commission to suspend further launch preparation until 

these defects could be clarified. On the morning of 24 October the missile launch review 

commission made the decision to continue launch preparation, thereby permitting a 

departure from the approved procedure.

The violation of the launch preparation procedure consisted in the fact that the step 

motors of the second-stage control system were reset to their initial position with the 

engine startup system already fueled and with the onboard power supply activated. As a 

result of this, the second-stage sustainer engine started up prematurely, its flame burned 

through the bottom of the first-stage oxidizer tank, and then the second-stage fuel tank 

disintegrated, which resulted in an intense fire and the complete destruction of the missile 

on the launch pad. (The technical findings on this matter are attached).

The test directors showed excessive confidence in the operational safety of the article’s 

entire complex. As a result, they made individual decisions hastily without proper analysis of the possible consequences.

During the missile’s launch preparation there were serious flaws in the organization 

of the work and security. At T-minus 60 minutes, besides the 100 individuals needed for 

the operation, 150 additional individuals were present on the launch pad.

Seventy-four military and civilian workers died in the catastrophe. Among the dead 
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627

circuits from separate power sources rather than from the detonation control panel. After 

this, the pre-launch missile preparation was continued.

While conducting subsequent missile preparation operations, on 24 October 1960, 

at 6:45 p.m. local time, a fire broke out on the missile in the area of the stage 2 aft compartment leading to the destruction of the missile and the ground equipment assemblies 

located at that time on the launch site in the vicinity of the launch pad.

The fire broke out after the announcement of T-minus 60 minutes while the control 

system step motors were being reset to their initial position. By that time, the barrier discs 

in the oxidizer and fuel lines of the stage 2 sustainer and control engines had been blown 

out, a leak check had been performed on the lines, and by order of the review team, the 

stage 1 and stage 2 self-activating batteries, which had been activated on the ground, 

were hooked up.

The fire on the missile was caused by the premature actuation of the VO-8 electropneumatic start tank pressurization valve, triggered by a command issued by the timer 

when the control system step motors were reset to the zero (initial) position. The actuation of the VO-8 electro-pneumatic valve, in turn, caused the stage 2 sustainer engine 

to start up.

One should note that the fire on the missile might not have occurred if, in this instance, 

the control system step motors had been set in the zero position before the onboard batteries were hooked up, as stipulated in the engineering plan.

The commission identified the actuation of the VO-8 electro-pneumatic valve and 

startup of the stage 2 sustainer engine by analyzing the technical documentation. The 

condition of the missile remains unambiguously confirmed this fact (see missile remains 

inspection protocol).

Additional analysis of the control system integrated circuit showed that the circuit 

does not preclude the untimely actuation of the VO-8 electro-pneumatic valve during 

launch preparation operations on the missile, in those cases when the control system might 

require readjustment after disc detonation and activation of the batteries (for example, 

when the launch trajectory needs to be changed because of prolonged delays and launch 

preparation, or when the circuit is dead).

CONCLUSIONS AND PROPOSALS

1. During missile launch preparation a number of incidents occurred indicating that 

there were abnormalities and defects in the cable network, onboard batteries, blowout 

disc detonation control panel, and distributor A-120 of the control system.

The testing management team did not attach the proper significance to this, and to 

eliminate the aforementioned abnormalities and defects, it permitted a number of deviations from the established launch preparation procedure without sufficiently working 

through and analyzing the consequences.

While conducting the final operations on the fueled missile, a large number of people 

who were not involved with the execution of any operations were allowed on the launch 

pad without any justification.

2. The direct cause of the catastrophe was a defect in the integrated circuit of the control system, which allowed the untimely actuation of the VO-8 electro-pneumatic valve 

K. Rudnev

V. Kalmykov

I. Serbin

A. Guskov

G. Tabakov

G. Tyulin29

The following is the text of the technical findings in its entirety.

TOP SECRET

(special file)

TECHNICAL FINDINGS

of the commission investigating the causes of the article 8K64 catastrophe 

No. LD1-ZT, which occurred during its launch preparation 

at military unit 11284 on 24 October 1960

Article 8K64 No. LD1-ZT was transported to the launch site on 21 October 1960, 

at 8:00 a.m. Missile launch preparation was conducted without noteworthy incidents 

until 6:23 p.m. on 23 October, after which operations were halted due to the discovery 

of the following abnormalities while conducting a routine operation to detonate the 

blowout discs in the stage two oxidizer lines:

1. Instead of the blowout discs in the stage 2 oxidizer lines, it turned out that the 

blowout discs in the stage 1 fuel lines were detonated.

2. Several minutes after the aforementioned blowout discs were detonated, the pyrocartridges of the cutoff valves in the assembly 1 gas generator of the stage 1 sustainer 

engine detonated spontaneously.

As a result of the subsequent investigation of the causes for the aforementioned abnormalities, on 24 October it was determined that the erroneous execution of a command 

to detonate the blowout discs and the spontaneous triggering of the gas generator’s pyrocartridges occurred due to design and production defects in the detonation control panel 

developed by OKB-692 of the State Committee on Radio Electronics (GKRE).

These same circumstances caused the A-120 main distributor to malfunction (the 

onboard cable network was not damaged).

In accordance with the decision of the testing review team, the gas generator cutoff 

valves and the A-120 instrument were replaced.

Also, the decision was made to detonate the stage 2 barrier discs using stand-alone 

29. The document has the following notations: “Reported to members and candidates of the 

CPSU CC Presidium. V. Malin. Keep in CPSU CC Presidium archives. 20.1.62. V. Malin.” APRF, f. 

3, op. 50, d. 409, ll. 51-54. First published in 1994 in Sergeyev, ed., Khronika osnovnykh sobytiy istorii 

raketnykh voysk strategicheskogo naznacheniya, pp. 242–244.
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those who died. He said that because there was no one to hold accountable for the 

errors and miscalculations that were committed, and since the managers responsible 

both for the technical side and for operational safety were all killed—except for 

Yangel and Mrykin—the nation’s leadership had decided not to conduct a special 

investigation, but to let all the participants who survived draw the appropriate conclusions themselves. This was a wise decision.

Second, no one knew why the high commission, without any serious study, had 

stipulated that flight-tests would continue in November after all defects were eliminated, that is, within one month. One could forgive Brezhnev and Grechko. They 

were justified in not understanding the amount of work that needed to be done in 

order to fix the missile. But Ustinov, Rudnev, Kalmykov, Tabakov, and Tyulin—if 

they didn’t understand this, they must have sensed it. However, without hesitation, 

they put their signatures after Brezhnev’s.

Actually, the flight-tests were continued a little more than three months later. 

And I consider this to be a heroic feat for the organizations of Yangel and Sergeyev 

(who had been appointed to replace Konoplev), and for all the remaining creators 

of the R-16.31

Third, despite Brezhnev’s assurances, one individual was punished. And this one 

person was a woman. In early November 1960, at the initiative of GKRE Chairman Kalmykov, who was in charge of OKB-692, an extended technical session for 

R-16 missile control system specialists was held in Kharkov with the participation 

of control system developers of other missiles. N. A. Pilyugin headed the session, 

which was attended by VPK Deputy Chairman G. N. Pashkov, GKOT Chairman 

K. N. Rudnev, Central Committee Defense Industries Department Sector Manager 

B. A. Stroganov, Chief Designers Kuznetsov, Iosifyan, Lidorenko, and Yangel’s first 

deputy, V. S. Budnik.

According to the recollections of meeting participant K.Ye. Khachaturyan, after 

calling the meeting to order, the floor was given to I. A. Doroshenko. She reported 

to the attendees that, in view of the fact that the blowout discs had not undergone thorough developmental testing, a new process operation had been introduced during launch preparation to check their actuation “by sound,” and seemed 

to imply that this had caused the fatalities. At the end of the meeting Kalmykov read 

an order that dismissed I. A. Doroshenko from her job and barred her from working 

at defense enterprises in the future.

In fact, Doroshenko was not punished for an error committed in an electrical 

circuit, but for inappropriate behavior. Instead of being contrite, she attempted to 

shift the blame for what happened onto the unreliable blowout discs. Due to inexperience or her own pride, she had failed to size up the situation and ended up in 

the role of the woman who gets thrown overboard during a storm to save the ship. 

31. Vladimir Grigoryevich Sergeyev (1914–) succeeded Konoplev as chief designer of OKB-692, 

the organization now known as NPO Khartron.

controlling the startup of the stage 2 sustainer engine during launch preparation. This 

defect was not identified during all the preceding tests.

The fire on article LD1-ZT might not have occurred if the control system step motors 

had been reset in the zero position before the onboard batteries were hooked up.

3. OKB-692 shall work with NII-944, OKB-586 and VNIIEM to modify the integrated circuit of the control system in order to ensure the complete safety of missile launch 

preparation and its reliable operation during preparation and launch.

4. OKB-586, NII-944, and OKB-692 shall insert changes into the operational 

technical documentation based on the results of preparing article No. LD1-ZT at the 

technical position and launch site, and also based on the results of modifying the integrated circuit.

Yangel

Budnik

Tabakov

I. Ivanov 

Ishlinskiy

Tretyakov

Kuznetsov

Tyulin

Iosifyan

Medvedev

Tsetsior

Doroshenko

Bokov

Matrenin

 Vorobyev

Favorskiy30

These documents, which were declassified in 1994, require further comment. 

First, not only do the Central Committee commission report and the technical 

findings not mention specific guilty parties by name, but they also do not bring 

charges against any organization. When he first arrived at the firing range early 

on the morning of 25 October, addressing the assembled testing participants, Brezhnev said, “Comrades! We do not intend to put anyone on trial; we are going to 

investigate the causes and take actions to recover from the disaster and continue 

operations.”

The next day, 26 October, at a session of the Central Committee Commission, 

Brezhnev expressed condolences on behalf of the Central Committee, the government, and Khrushchev himself, on the occasion of the deaths of the firing range testers and industrial specialists and officially announced that all the necessary actions 

would be taken to render assistance to those who were injured and to the families of 

30. APRF, f. 3, op. 50, d. 409, ll. 55-58. First published in 1994 in Sergeyev, ed., Khronika 

osnovnykh sobytiy istorii raketnykh voysk strategicheskogo naznacheniya, pp. 245–247.
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known to me. They spoke honestly about the “destruction of the missile and the 

ground equipment assemblies.” But for some reason they did not mention that at 

T-minus 60 minutes, in addition to the 100 persons that were needed to work on 

the launch pad, as many as 150 other people were also there. And the majority of 

these 250 individuals were “destroyed” or “damaged” at least as much as the ground 

equipment. 

The firefighting brigades brought in from all the sites and the ambulance crews 

who rushed to help found a terrible scene. Among those who managed to escape 

from the missile, some were still alive. They were transported straight to the hospital. The majority of the dead were unrecognizable. Their bodies were laid out 

in specially designated barracks for identification. Arkadiy Ostashev, who arrived 

the day after the catastrophe, spent 14 hours in the barracks trying to identify his 

own brother Yevgeniy. Nedelin was identified by the “Gold Star” medal that had 

survived. Konoplev’s body was identified by size. He had been taller than anyone 

else at the launch site.

Cigarettes saved the life of Yangel, Iosifyan, and everyone keeping them company in the smoking room, which was located a safe distance from the launch site. 

Iosifyan had talked Bogomolov, who never smoked, into joining him in the smoking room to discuss the situation. Iosifyan and Bogomolov had experience working 

at our launch sites. They wanted to persuade Yangel to take the helm, call for a break 

in missile preparation, let everyone rest, and calmly discuss a further plan of action. 

Both of them considered the troubleshooting actions of Konoplev and his specialists dangerous. They talked Deputy Chairman Lev Grishin into joining them for a 

smoke. He promised to catch up with them, but for some reason got delayed. Eleven 

days later, he died in the hospital in agonizing pain. The firing range chief, General 

Konstantin Gerchik, managed to move a little farther away from the marshal toward 

the smoking room. He was taken to the hospital in serious condition; badly burned 

and poisoned, he survived, spending more than six months in hospitals.

The best burn treatment specialists were summoned from Moscow to attempt 

to save the survivors. Funeral arrangements needed to be made, the next of kin 

needed to be notified, and arrangements needed to be made for them to fly to the 

firing range. Soldiers and officers were buried in a mass grave in the municipal park. 

It wasn’t until three years later that an obelisk bearing the names of those interred 

there was placed over it. Deceased civilian specialists were placed in zinc coffins and 

flown back for burial in the towns where they had lived or worked. Konoplev and 

his staff were buried in Kharkov; Yangel’s deputies and staff—in Dnepropetrovsk.

No official reports emerged about the catastrophe at the missile firing range. 

Relatives, close friends, and all eyewitnesses were urged not to speak of the true scale 

of the incident. Acquaintances at funerals in other cities were supposed to be told 

that there had been an accident or an airplane crash.

It was simply impossible to remain quiet about the death of Marshal Nedelin. 

A brief governmental report was issued about the tragic death of Nedelin in an 

airplane crash. No mention was made as to the fate of the crew and other passenActually, this one woman—the developer of the general electrical circuit—was not 

to blame for what happened.

In and of itself, the situation at the launch site after the missile was fueled was 

a blatant violation of safety regulations. One could, for the sake of a great goal, 

compel a dozen testers and electricians to fiddle around with their own connector 

plugs, test gauges, and portable batteries right on board the missile. But it was the 

responsibility of the director of testing to clear the launch pad of every single person 

not involved in that work, regardless of rank or title. First and foremost, the firing 

range chief was responsible for doing this.32 But he was subordinate to Nedelin.

Yangel, the chief designer of the missile; Konoplev, the chief designer of the 

control system; and their deputies for testing should have halted any electrical tests 

until everyone not needed for the troubleshooting operations had been cleared off 

of the launch site. They had the right. They did not exercise it.

Sometimes efforts to observe fundamental safety are viewed as cowardice. If a 

general on the front lines goes from trench to trench under a hail of bullets without 

cowering, he is commended: “Look what a brave man we have!” Despite the mortal 

danger, the soldier at his side will not cower either. But in this case the brave men 

are risking only their own lives.

The testers themselves were so tired that, to a certain degree, they can be posthumously exonerated for their various errors and rash acts. They didn’t think things 

through; didn’t grasp the situation; they were rushed. As they say in such situations, 

“Forgive them, Lord, for they knew not what they did.” But it was the duty of the 

electric circuit developers to know what they were doing. Under conditions when 

all the electric inhibitors preventing stage two engine startup had been removed, for 

absolutely unknown reasons, the launch control officer in the bunker decided to 

conduct the cycle of operations that set the stage two program timer to the initial 

position. One can only assume that one of Yangel’s deputies gave him permission 

to do so if he requested it over the intercom system. He did not have the right to 

perform such an operation without authorization, without having coordinated with 

the test director. The one who gave the OK for that operation must have either 

forgotten or didn’t even know that it needed to be checked against the logic of the 

circuit—in case anything might happen.

The command to set the PTR into the initial position was the last and fateful 

error in a long chain of events that set the stage for the biggest catastrophe in the 

peacetime history of missile technology. While being set in the zero position, the 

PTR fed power to the stage two engine startup circuit. All the circuit safety inhibitors had been removed beforehand during the process of troubleshooting. And, the 

engine executed the command.

The technical findings document cited above was signed by 17 people well 

32. The firing range chief at the time was Konstantin Vasilyevich Gerchik (1918–2001) who served 

in that capacity in 1958–61.
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according to the master schedule and for reporting any discrepancy to the launch 

director.

No organizational measures could guarantee against possible operational errors 

and glitches when there were systems failures. Special teams were created to develop 

“fool-proofing” proposals reducing the number of manual operations as much as 

possible, increasing the number of automatic functions and introducing an automatic emergency fire-extinguishing system. They did not manage to implement all 

the sensible solutions right away on R-7 missiles. This would require far-reaching 

changes. The measures were implemented on a priority basis. Everything that could 

be devised for safety enhancement was implemented on R-9 missiles, and later—on 

our new undertaking—the RT-2 solid-fuel intercontinental missile, better known 

under code number 8K98.

Exactly three years to the day after the catastrophe described above, 

on 24 October 1963, at that same firing range in one of the silos of the R-9 missile 

site, a fire broke out, costing the lives of seven military testers. This time the missile had not been fueled. The testers were conducting routine servicing procedures 

without having first bothered to check whether the silo had permissible oxygen 

vapor levels. A second mass grave appeared in the Leninsk municipal park. After 

that incident, 24 October was considered bad luck at the firing range. Tacitly, it 

became a day off from work, and military testers even avoided serious domestic 

chores at home.

Five years later the new firing range chief found this to be harmful superstition 

and ordered that 24 October be considered a normal work day for all servicemen. 

On that day, the residents of Leninsk, school children, and relatives who fly in 

for the occasion manage to scrounge up fresh flowers and place them on the mass 

graves. The floral selection in Tyuratam is very meager during those cold October 

days.

Having recovered from the shock, Yangel’s Dnepropetrovsk team delivered 

the R-16 missile for flight-development tests three months later.35 After that, everything took its proper course. Besides the R-9, new competitors emerged for the R16—missiles developed by Chelomey and then solid-fuel missiles. In his later post 

as General Secretary and Chairman of the Defense Council, Brezhnev would have 

to be a peacemaker in the missile “civil war” that had flared up between the schools 

of the chief designers and the ministers, generals, and Party officials who stood 

behind each of them. This is a distinct and as-yet little studied field in the history 

of our missile technology.36

35. The first successful R-16 lifted off on 2 February 1961.

36. This so-called “little civil war” peaked in 1969 over a decision to select from competing options 

for a new generation of strategic ICBMs offered by Yangel and Chelomey.

gers.33 Nedelin’s funeral on Red Square took place with the traditional ritual. An urn 

containing his ashes was placed in the single row in the Kremlin wall columbarium 

behind Kurchatov’s urn. The number one physicist who had supervised the development of the first atomic bomb and the chief military ideologue of the nuclear 

missile strategy were right next to one another. Lev Arkhipovich Grishin, the most 

optimistic and quick-witted of all the directors of the missile field at that time, who 

“died in the line of duty,” was buried in Novodevichye Cemetery.34 A government 

decree signed by Kosygin called for what were for those times good pensions for the 

families of the deceased.

Yangel had witnessed the tragedy from beginning to end. His missile destroyed 

its creators before his eyes. Though his physical injuries were minor, the psychological shock left him unable to work for a month. Iosifyan and Bogomolov, who 

soon thereafter arrived for joint work with us, spent a long time explaining what a 

miracle it was that they had come away from there alive and implored Korolev to 

be prudent. Even without their pleadings, Korolev understood that technical and 

organizational conclusions needed to be drawn from this tragedy. Although it was 

the R-16 missile—a competitor of the R-9—that had suffered this catastrophe, we 

were all subdued by the scale of what had happened. Too many friends, acquaintances, and just plain good people were among the dead. Regardless of who the 

chief designer had been, the missile was not his, but ours. We were all citizens and 

patriots of our nation.

New procedures were introduced at Site No. 1. Much more rigorous procedures 

were put in place for access to what we called “ground zero”—the main concrete 

pad of the launch site. Special security was established as soon as fueling began. 

All those involved with preparation wore special color-coded armbands. As launch 

drew closer, an ever-increasing number of colored armbands were required to leave 

the launch pad. The last to head for the bunker after the announcement of T-minus 

15 minutes were those wearing red armbands.

For the first time, master scheduling of operations at the launch site was initiated. 

The precise time and place for the performance of each operation were indicated on 

a master schedule. Once the executive officer of the military unit, the firing range 

directorate officer supervising him, and the industrial representative had executed 

their operation, they were supposed to leave the work station until the next call or 

evacuate to a predetermined area. The total number of operators and inspectors was 

reduced after many operations were combined and integrated. Each director, crew 

chief, or testing brigade military and industrial representative was required to thoroughly study his own operations and bore full responsibility for conducting them 

33. Nedelin’s death was reported in the West at the time. See for example, Osgood Caruthers, 

“Chief of Rockets Killed in Soviet,” New York Times, October 26, 1960, p. 22.

34. Famous Soviet citizens who had not achieved heroic status were typically buried in the 

Novodevichye Cemetery instead of the Kremlin Wall.
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Commission investigating the catastrophe. The commission comprised Valentin 

Petrovich Glushko (at that time General Designer of NPO Energiya), launch complex Chief Designer Vladimir Pavlovich Barmin, TsSKB-Progress General Designer 

Dmitriy Ilyich Kozlov, Chief of the Main Directorate of Space Assets of the Ministry 

of Defense Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Maksimov, and Commander of the Strategic 

Rocket Forces Chief Marshal of Artillery Vladimir Fedorovich Tolubko. Employees 

of leading firms who might be able to help investigate the causes of the catastrophe 

were called in to work in the commission.

Vladimir Fedorovich Karashtin, chief of ground systems (our Complex No. 6) 

from NPO Energiya, took part in the work of one of the groups. When he returned 

from Plesetsk he was very reluctant to share his impressions. He told me categorically that the military fuel servicers were the culprits. During the fueling process 

there was an oxygen leak. To stop it they tossed a wet, dirty rag on the spot; soon, 

oksilikvid (a liquid oxygen mixture) explosives formed, resulting in a fire.

I was reminded that when the fourth stage of our Semyorka Block L failed, without knowing the cause of the failure and lacking the necessary telemetry information, the engine specialists put forward a version involving oksilikvidy. According to 

the explanations of rocket propellant chemistry specialists, oksilikvidy form when 

liquid oxygen comes into contact with an organic compound, for example, various 

lubricating compounds. When exposed to heat, shock, or some other influences, 

supposedly such a component can self-ignite or explode.

In due course, Leonid Voskresenskiy and I conducted experiments to confirm 

the explosive hazard posed by a mixture of liquid oxygen and used motor oil. The 

mixture stubbornly refused to self-ignite or explode. As far as the Block L stages 

were concerned, the oksilikvidy theory was soon tossed out because before the next 

launch the true cause of their failure was always determined. The culprit turned out 

to be the electrical circuit that supplied power to startup the Block L engine.

“Could it be that this situation also reminded them of oksilikvidy, but the culprit 

is electricity?” I asked.

“No, the electricity hypothesis was rejected right away. There was also a peroxide 

hypothesis. But there was no proof at all for it.”

Without having determined the true cause, after much argument the commission subscribed to the “dirty rag” version as the “most probable.” Since all the probable culprits had died, there was also no one to punish. However, time showed that 

the true culprits were still alive, the “dirty rag” had nothing to do with it, and all 

those lying in the mass grave under the obelisk had done their duty honorably.

But before I continue, I must explain to the reader why the “peroxide hypothesis” 

that the commission rejected had come up. The fact was that our distinguished “old 

lady,” the Semyorka, still had a birthmark that had been passed on to all Glushko’s 

liquid-oxygen propulsion systems since the German V-2. In addition to the main 

propellant components—liquid oxygen as the oxidizer and kerosene as the fuel—

concentrated hydrogen peroxide was used. It was a sort of a relic from the old days 

of missile technology. The Germans were the first to use it in the V-2 propulsion 

Our missile technology would have shaped up much differently if it had not 

been for the death of Nedelin. Among the high-ranking military leaders of that 

time, he was the only marshal and deputy minister of defense who had gained 

an understanding of our problems. He was a military technocrat, and therefore 

military and civilian specialists respected him. We really felt Nedelin’s loss after 

Marshals Moskalenko, Biryuzov, and Krylov replaced him one after the other. These 

men were distinguished military commanders from the World War II era with a 

great deal of experience managing combined-arms operations. Our Navy and Air 

Force adhered to the rule that specialists who had served at sea and in the air were 

appointed commanders-in-chief. After Nedelin’s death, when it came to the rocket 

and space forces, this natural and reasonable order was disturbed.

Having returned to the firing range after the November holidays of 1960, we 

did not rush from the airfield to our hotel rooms at Site No. 2. Our entire staff 

visited the fresh mass grave. We placed bouquets of red carnations and roses we had 

brought with us from Moscow atop the now dried flowers there. Our hats in our 

hands, we stood in prolonged silence by the wreath-covered mound. At such times, 

each individual thinks about something quite personal and inevitably something 

universal. Here lie our comrades-in-arms. They were destroyed by the R-16 missile, 

the competitor of our R-9. But the R-16 was also our missile. It was created for our 

nation, to protect us, my family, my Moscow. The road to space was paved with 

combat missiles.

Little did I imagine back then that 33 years later I would be on a scientific-technical council of the Russian Space Agency defending a project using a Tsiklon rocket 

to insert six satellites for a communications system developed by us into space. The 

modern Tsiklon is a launch vehicle developed without Yangel, based on subsequent 

R-16 modifications.37 And I certainly could not have imagined that I would be 

delivering my report in Russia, in Moscow, but not in the Soviet Union.

In closing this chapter I must write of one more catastrophe. The high 

Party and technical investigative commissions took just two days to determine the 

causes of the catastrophe of 24 October 1960—the biggest ground disaster in the 

history of missile technology. A little less than 20 years later, on 18 March 1980, at 

our northern firing range in Plesetsk a catastrophe occurred during launch preparation of a rocket that had long served as a launch vehicle—the R-7 rocket, produced 

at the Progress Factory in Kuybyshev (now Samara). Forty-eight people died in that 

explosion and fire. This time there were no “extras” on the launch pad. All those 

killed were experienced in missile launch preparation.

Leonid Vasilyevich Smirnov, the Military-Industrial Commission chairman and 

deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, was appointed chairman of the State 

37. Technically, the Tsiklon launch vehicle (and all its various modifications) was based on the R36 ICBM whose design genealogy can be traced back to the earlier R-16.
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ing in the commission’s work.39 I have been assigned to sub-commission No. 1, which 

is involved with analyzing the materials and developing scenarios for the cause of the 

disaster.

Jumping ahead, I will mention that the explosion and fire resulted in the death of 

48 individuals. Thus, the Plesetsk disaster is the space industry’s second worst after the 

preceding ‘Nedelin’ disaster in Tyuratam.

I was taken straight to the main office of the commission where a few people were 

assembled. All the aforementioned people except for L. V. Smirnov were in the room. 

Valentin Petrovich Glushko was the first to fill me in on the situation. He knew me 

personally since I had presented reports on the kinetic and explosive properties of rocket 

propellants a number of times at his ‘Rocket Propellants’ Council. Most of these reports 

had dealt with the relevant properties of HYDROGEN PEROXIDE. Glushko had long 

wanted to find a way to make peroxide break down at a rate slow enough to enable it to 

be stored for a fairly long time in ampulized, i.e., pressurized tanks, without danger of 

the tank exploding. I had several rather heated discussions with Glushko in this regard 

after presenting reports to his Council. He did, however, greet me quite amiably.

Glushko sized up the situation approximately as follows. ‘We have invited you as a 

chemist, a specialist on the kinetic and explosive properties of propellant components. The 

cause of the explosion has not yet been ascertained—we’re counting on your help. Please 

pay particular attention to hydrogen peroxide.’ At this point in the conversation Academician Barmin interjected: ‘But, please, don’t concentrate just on peroxide. After all, 

there’s kerosene and oxygen...’ Glushko cut him off and in a completely unexpected—and 

for him almost outrageous—manner, he bellowed, ‘Am I going to talk or are you going 

to prevent me!’ As I said, I had observed Glushko many times before and my recollection 

was that he never even raised his voice—he spoke almost in a whisper. In a word, I was 

somewhat shocked.

Thus began the work of the commission. There were a lot of iron scraps, but all of 

them were covered with dirt and soot. The fire lasted a long time; everything got stuck 

in deep snow. There was no solid data or witness testimony about how the fire started; 

whether it went from the top down or from the bottom up, etc. Those who were nearby 

died. Those who escaped—for example, those in the so-called ‘octagon’ boxes in the lower 

part of the launch complex— heard the sounds at the beginning of the accident, but they 

did not see the fire start or how it developed.

I will not go into detail about the hypotheses that were advanced. There were several, 

but they all had few conclusive facts to back them up. Or there was almost no proof at 

all—material evidence was missing. As a result, certain investigators began to formulate 

the so-called upper “oxygen” scenario, relying more and more on the fact that it was a 

possible cause, if not the real one. They envisioned a model for the formation of so-called 

39. Maksimov was, in fact, not chief of Glavkosmos, but chief of the Main Directorate of Space 

Assets (GUKOS). Glavkosmos, created in 1985, was the public face of the Soviet space program in the 

late 1980s.

system. Under the effect of a catalyst, peroxide violently breaks down into water and 

oxygen. The gas vapor formed during this process in the closed chamber of a gas 

generator is directed at the turbine, which then drives the pumps feeding oxygen 

and kerosene into the engine combustion chambers.

As far back as the tests performed at Kapustin Yar on the German A4 (V-2), 

everyone involved with that new technology knew that hydrogen peroxide was very 

temperamental. It could begin to break down when it came into contact with materials that seemed nonhazardous. Therefore, during fueling and when the missile was 

held on the launch pad, we monitored the temperature in the peroxide tank very 

closely.

It was Professor Aleksandr Shteynberg, the chief research associate of the Russian 

Academy of Sciences Semyonov Institute of Chemical Physics, a doctor of physical 

and mathematical sciences, who provided a conclusive explanation of what happened on 18 March 1980 in Plesetsk. Using the opportunity of my stay in St. 

Petersburg, he handed me a memo that he had composed, which in my opinion has 

great value not just for missile technology. Considering its historic value, I am citing 

it here in a slightly abridged version.

Brief description of the circumstances of the investigation 

into the cause of the catastrophe at the Plesetsk cosmodrome on 18.3.80

“On 19 or 20 March 1980, as chief of the Department of Kinetic and Explosive 

Properties at the State Institute of Applied Chemistry (GIPKh, Leningrad) of the Ministry of Chemical Industry, I was summoned by the institute’s first deputy director, Yevgeniy 

Sivolodskiy, who ordered me to get ready to catch the morning flight to Arkhangelsk with 

him the following day.38 From there we would travel by train to Plesetsk in connection 

with the disaster that occurred there on the night of 18 March.

The following morning Sivolodskiy’s chauffeur met me at the institute entryway. He 

said that his boss had gone to the institute polyclinic this morning to get a work release 

from his doctor. I was ordered to fly alone.

...During launch preparation of the R-7 rocket, an explosion and fire occurred. A 

large number of cosmodrome employees were killed and the launch pad was completely 

destroyed. The State Commission is working under the leadership of VPK Chairman 

and Deputy Premier Leonid Vasilyevich Smirnov. All the leading firms involved with 

the rocket and with what happened have sent representatives to the commission. General 

Designers Glushko, Barmin, and Kozlov, Commander-in-Chief of the Rocket Forces 

Marshal Tolubko, Glavkosmos Chief [sic] Gen. Maksimov, and others are participat38. GIPKh—Gosudarstvennyy institut prikladnoy khimii.
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

638

Catastrophes

639

and filter. I requested that highly-trained specialists who had worked with me be summoned to the institute: L. Ye. Volodina, L. V. Shirokova, S. P. Amelkovich, and S. L. 

Dobychin. They all had studied rather extensively both hydrogen peroxide and the appropriate structural materials. These outstanding individuals came right away. Several 

hours later, A. S. Tolstov and Comrade Istomin (unfortunately I do not remember his 

first name and patronymic)—an employee of Barmin’s company, who was responsible for 

fueling, arrived with the aforementioned parts. I took all the parts into the laboratory. 

The colleagues I had summoned and the people who had flown in from the cosmodrome 

went ...[Sivo]lodskiy remained in his own office to wait.

...The parts had NO traces on them—they were completely clean. I put peroxide in a 

microburette and began to apply it one drop at a time to the shiny seam of the filter mesh. 

Three seconds had not passed before a yellow deposit formed on the point of contact with 

the peroxide. There was smoke and actual loud explosions began accompanied by tongues 

of yellow flame. The explosions continued as long as even a trace of peroxide remained 

on the surface of the seam. The spectral analysis that was performed immediately in S.L. 

Dobychin’s laboratory showed that instead of using super pure FOOD-GRADE tin as 

a soldering material, so-called ‘quick solder’ was used—radio solder with a 40% lead 

content. We knew that lead was categorically forbidden in structures in which hydrogen 

peroxide was used. It is not the metal itself but its oxide that is a very strong catalyst for 

peroxide breakdown. The latter forms virtually instantaneously when lead comes into 

contact with such a powerful oxidizer as concentrated hydrogen peroxide. The low durability of lead and its oxide is a property that exacerbates the spontaneous decomposition 

of peroxide. The effect of the reaction’s intense heat release and the powerful gas generation destroys the solid material and disperses the catalyst into the volume of chemically 

active liquid. If this liquid flows slowly or is allowed to sit even briefly, an explosion is 

inevitable. (A year before this incident, in August 1980, I managed to determine the 

cause of an explosion similar in nature in an organization where the catalyst was also a 

lead oxide—red lead.)

...We wrote a quick procedure for testing ALL filters in the warehouses of Plesetsk 

and Baykonur. The procedure was put to use immediately and it turned out that both 

warehouses contained whole batches of such filters waiting to be used. Documentation 

analyzed by A. S. Tolstov at the Frunze Factory in Sumi where these filters were made 

showed that in March 1980 the lead filters had already been delivered to Plesetsk. As far 

as I know, after rejecting all the filters and returning to the use of pure tin solder, there 

have been no more problems associated with peroxide at the cosmodromes during the past 

24 years.

I should add a few words of explanation. Specialists know that the number of materials compatible with hydrogen peroxide is NEGLIGIBLE. Super pure tin is on this short 

list. The old saying that ‘hydrogen peroxide breaks down if you look at it cross-eyed’ isn’t 

far from the truth. On the other hand, many know that soldering stainless steel using 

super pure (food-industry) tin is a pain: the solder doesn’t want to flow on steel. It is not 

surprising that the development engineer in Sumi, who was not well-versed in chemistry, 

oksilikvidy—compounds of liquid oxygen and organic materials—the material of the 

damp rag that in many cases was wrapped around a joint in the oxygen line when there 

was a leak. It was a fairly well-known fact that this ‘unauthorized’ method was used at 

both cosmodromes.

...After working extensively on the problem, the Commission issued a statement that 

the circumstances described above had caused the disaster. It should be stressed that the 

situation was extremely tense. One could almost physically sense the desire of the majority of the participants not only to find the cause, but also to save the reputation of the 

organization where this commission member belonged. This accusation did not have the 

slightest thing to do with the cosmodrome’s military staff. It was quite clear that they 

wanted to know the truth. After all, their safety literally depended on it. I personally 

worked very closely with them and above all with the chief of the cosmodrome’s analysis 

department, Colonel A. S. Tolstov and the cosmodrome’s chief engineer, Colonel L. N. 

Yashin. A number of others conducted themselves commendably as well. Among them, I 

should also mention the chairman of sub-commission No. 1, Deputy General Designer 

A. V. Soldatenkov, and General A. A. Maksimov

But, I repeat, there was little material for the analysis of this [oksilikvidvy-based] 

and other hypotheses. There was rather strong pressure from members of the commission 

who were cosmodrome outsiders. It seemed to me that we needed to look more closely into 

the peroxide scenario since there was one indisputable fact pointing to its validity. During 

the so-called equalization operation [at the time of the accident], when they monitor 

the peroxide filling the toroidal tank by checking the level in a glass tube—a vessel connected to the tank—the peroxide level suddenly dropped dramatically. The individual 

monitoring the process managed to report this over the intercom. The explosion occurred 

almost immediately thereafter. Nevertheless, this very fact was considered insufficient for 

the subsequent development of the lower ‘peroxide’ scenario...

Sixteen months passed. On 26 July 1981, Sivolodskiy sent his car for me. I was vacationing at a dacha in Sosnovo outside Leningrad. The first deputy director ordered me 

to fly immediately to Plesetsk, where during launch preparation of a rocket carrying the 

Bulgaria 1300 satellite, it seems a similar disaster almost occurred.40 While filling the 

same R-7 rocket tank with peroxide, the fueling assembly began to heat up. This system 

comprised a nozzle, similar to one on a fire hose, equipped with a filter—a tightly knit 

stainless steel mesh. Very fortunately the crew chief (later we learned his name—Konstantin Menyayev) kept his wits about him and gave the command to drain the tank, and as 

they used to say back then, ‘poured the component into the ditch.’

‘I asked to send a radiogram requesting that A. S. Tolstov immediately arrange a 

special flight to send out fueling accessories from the cosmodromes: rubber hose, nozzle, 

40. Interkosmos-22 (IK-B-1300), a joint Soviet-Bulgarian satellite was launched into orbit on 7 

August 1981 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

640

Catastrophes

641

R-16 flight tests resumed three months later. After the disaster on 18 March 1980, 

launches employing the R-7 launch vehicle continued virtually uninterrupted. And 

after the death of seven astronauts during their return to Earth aboard the Shuttle 

Columbia on 1 February 2003, American Shuttle flights were discontinued for more 

than two years! Space disasters have occurred for the most diverse reasons and on 

different scales both in the Soviet Union and in the U.S. In all the cases I’m familiar 

with, the common factor is that those who were truly to blame for the disasters 

remained alive and faced no censure.

switched to POS solder—a tin and lead alloy.41 This solder (radio solder!) flows beautifully on stainless steel. But the fact that such a change in the manufacturing process 

of peroxide filters was not coordinated with the peroxide chemists/developers (GIPKh, 

Leningrad), that it was approved at all levels of the MOM, and signed by Academician 

Barmin is of course a disgrace, a shame, and per se, a crime. Even more shameful is 

the fact that after the incidents described above in 1981, for a seemingly endless period 

of time the bureaucracy didn’t want to remove the blame from those who had died, 

particularly Private First Class Yarulla Velikoredchanin, and give the innocent victims 

their due. In December 1999, a government decree did just that. Dmitriy Viktorovich 

Ivanov, an officer from Plesetsk who has since passed away, played perhaps the leading 

role in bringing the affair to this end. He wrote and published a book about the Plesetsk 

disaster, Entering the Town of Mirnyy...42 And in spring 2000, NTV broadcast the 

program Independent investigation (hosted by Nikolay Nikolayev), which discussed the 

main circumstances of both the disaster and the investigation on the whole rather truthfully. The program let many of those involved in these events, including the author of this 

memo, say a few words. NTV sent me a videotape of this broadcast. I was awarded for 

my work with an Honorary Diploma of the Cosmodrome that said a lot of nice things 

of which I am proud.

Chief research associate of the Russian Academy of Sciences N. N. Semyonov Institute 

of Chemical Physics

Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Science, Professor Aleksandr Shteynberg.”

Reflecting on the story of the Plesetsk disaster investigation, I recalled one of my 

conversations with Vladimir Nikolayevich Pravetskiy. It was during his stint as chief 

of the Third Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Health. He often visited 

Baykonur while manned flights were being conducted. After one of those sleepless 

nights I complained to him that a failure had occurred that we hadn’t figured out; 

it had corrected itself, but to be on the safe side we had removed all the instruments 

and cables related to the failure. During stand-alone tests we found no defects in 

those instruments and cables.

“In medical practice,” said Pravetskiy, “situations occur that we call ‘paired incidents.’ Sometimes even an experienced physician can’t form a diagnosis. If time permits, he waits. Sooner or later a second patient will show up with similar symptoms, 

but they are so clearly manifested that the diagnosis can be made flawlessly. That’s 

what we call a ‘paired incident.’”

I tried to establish a connection between the scale of a rocket-space 

disaster and the subsequent period of time required to restore the system. 

Alas! I couldn’t find a consistent pattern. After the disaster on 24 October 1960, 

in which more than 100 people (counting those who died in hospitals) perished, 

41. POS—Pripoy olovyanno-svinitsovyy.

42. D. V. Ivanov, Pri vyezde v Mirnyy gorodok... [Entering the Town of Mirnyy...] (Moscow: ZAO 

izdateskiy dom Gamma, 1997).

Index

20th Party Congress in 1956, 171, 342

1K (Vostok) spacecraft, 542

1M (Mars) spacecraft, 542, 544, 564-565, 567, 

571, 572-573, 577

2M (Mars) spacecraft, 565

2MV (Mars/Venus) spacecraft, 589

2MV-1 (Venus landing) spacecraft, 590, 592

2MV-2 (Venus flyby) spacecraft, 590

2MV-3 (Mars landing) spacecraft, 590, 593

2MV-4 (Mars flyby) spacecraft, 590, 592-593, 

594

3MV (Mars/Venus) spacecraft, 595

1V (Venera) spacecraft, 565

1VA (Venera) spacecraft, 577-578, 581-582, 

584-585, 588

2V (Venera) spacecraft, 565

7K-TM (Soyuz) spacecraft, 515

7R, 318; see also R-7 ICBM

8A72 launch vehicle, 552

8K51 missile, 318; see also R-5M missile

8K64 missile, 599, 626; see also R-16 ICBM

8K71 ICBM, 317-318, 421, 425, 435; see also 

R-7 ICBM

8K71PS (Sputnik launch vehicle), 386

8K72 launch vehicle, 440, 519, 538, 567; see 

also Luna launch vehicle

8K74 ICBM, 417, 421-425, 435, 540, 552, 

597; see also R-7A ICBM

8K75 ICBM, 592; see also R-9 ICBM

8K78 launch vehicle, 440, 544, 564, 567-568, 

573, 578, 580, 586, 590, 592, 594; see also 

Molniya launch vehicle

8K98 ICBM, 488, 633; see also RT-2 ICBM

8K713 global missile, 552

8Zh38 missile; see R-2 missile

11N6110 ground testing station, 512

212 cruise missile, 460, 462

302 rocket-plane, 462-463

643

A

A4 missile, see V-2

A9 missile, 66, 220

A10 missile, 66, 220

Abramov, Aleksey S., 292

Abramov, Anatoliy P., 165, 252, 254, 261, 298-

301, 319, 327-328

Abramovich, Genrikh N., 465, 468

Academician B. N. Petrov Gold Medal, 112

Academy of Artillery Sciences, 309, 394

Academy of Sciences (USSR/Russian), 3, 22, 50, 

78, 112, 128, 182, 190, 198, 211, 212, 224, 

259, 262, 285-287, 296, 349, 391, 402, 406, 

438, 446, 454, 471, 504-505, 517, 535, 537, 

539, 541, 548, 563-564, 585-586; and gets 

involved in missile program, 93-108, 243-

244; and 1958 elections, 411-412

Academy of Sciences Department of Applied 

Mathematics (OPM), 190, 438-439, 470-

471, 519-520, 532, 545, 567

Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation 

and Remote Control, 50, 94, 112-113, 122, 

292

Academy of Sciences Institute of Physical 

Chemistry, 124

Academy of Sciences Metallurgy Institute, 124

Academy of Sciences Physical-Technical

Institute (FTI), 396-397, 470, 481

Academy of Sciences Semyonov Institute of 

Chemical Physics, 636, 640

accidents during missile launches, 129-131, 

270-271, 592, 633; see also R-16 disaster and 

Plesetsk disaster of 1980

Adlershof, 38

ADU-1000 dish antenna, 535

A. E. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, see 

Academy of Sciences Physical-Technical 

Institute

Aeroflot, 528
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

644

Index

645

Baltic Factory, 426

bankobus, 34-35, 181

Barcelona, 394

Barmin, Vladimir P., 18-19, 25, 30, 33, 34, 

84, 127, 143, 156, 209, 244, 250, 271, 294, 

319, 328, 335-336, 339-341, 344-345, 347, 

351-352, 407, 417, 461-462, 555, 560, 580, 

635, 637, 640; and first Hero of Socialist 

Labor award, 285; and design of R-7 launch 

pad, 293-302; and election as Corresponding 

Member of Academy of Sciences, 411-412

Barrikady Factory, 41, 77, 81

Bashkin, Yevgeniy A., 473, 475, 506-507, 514, 

516, 523, 544

Bashkir, 500

Battle of Kursk, 464

Battle of Stalingrad, 77-78

Bauman Higher Technical Institute (MVTU), 

28, 50, 98, 118, 166, 172, 486, 505, 514-

515, 525

Baykonur Cosmodrome, 420, 598, 639; and 

selection of site, 306-312; and construction 

of, 313-336

Before the First Launch (book), 314

Belaya river, 500

Beletskiy, Vladimir V., 471

Belka (dog), 572, 597

Belousev, Anatoliy, 547, 550, 569, 571-575

Bereznyak, Aleksandr Ya., 465, 496

Berg, Aksel, I., 3-4, 10, 205, 217, 411

Beriya, Lavrentiy P., 5, 7-8, 21, 23, 62, 78, 

150-152, 156, 160, 171-173, 175, 201-205, 

207-208, 212, 221, 228, 283, 314, 342, 465, 

468, 603

Beriya, Sergey L., 62, 201-208, 216, 228

Berkut air defense system, 208-209, 216

Berlin, 5, 17, 27, 39, 136, 184, 192, 193, 326, 

464

Berlin, Lev A., 613, 617, 623, 625

Berthier, Louis Alexander, 381

Beskudnikov, 87

BI (or BI-1) rocket-plane, 3, 217, 347, 462, 496

Bilimbay, 465

Biryusa river, 586

Biryuzov, Sergey S., 634

BKIP (onboard power switchboard), 570-571

Black Sea, 204, 533

Blagonravov, Arkadiy A., 375-376, 394

Blasig, Kurt, 43, 60

Blass, Hermann, 43, 60

Bleicherode, 17, 26, 58, 75, 109, 122, 173, 182, 

189, 225, 247, 291, 323, 335-336, 412, 514, 

550

Blyumin, Izrail, 193

Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, 206

Boeing B-29 Super Fortress, 189, 220, 231, 274

Boeing B-52 bomber, 235

Bogomolov, Aleksey F., 106-107, 332-333, 398, 

400, 417, 426, 499-500, 550-551, 560, 591, 

631; and R-16 disaster, 598, 615-616, 618, 

632

Boguslavskiy, Yevgeniy Ya., 110, 135, 138, 

179-180, 184, 273, 331, 534, 545, 549-550, 

558-559, 592; and Luna-3 mission, 520-521, 

530-533, 537-538

Bokov, Vsevolod A., 444, 628

Bolkhovitinov, Viktor F., 18, 85, 457, 462, 465, 

467, 494, 496, 506

Bolkhovitinov OKB, 18, 511, 528

Bolshevik Factory, 8, 77, 78

Bolshevo, 309, 439

BON (Special Purpose Brigade), and first V-2 

launches, 30-42; and first R-1 launches, 

128-129

Bondaryuk, Mikhail M., 232-234, 465

Borisenko, Mikhail I., 30, 34, 40, 110, 183-

184, 306, 331

Branets, Vladimir N., 473, 487, 506

Bratslavets, Petr F., 520, 531-532, 558

Brazilionit telemetry system, 110, 125, 127, 

138, 183, 272

Brezhnev, Leonid I., 406, 544, 557; and visit 

to OKB-1 in 1960, 553-555, 564; and R-16 

disaster, 598, 617, 620-621, 626, 629, 633-

634

Brodie, Bernard, 393

Brodskiy, Emil, 79-80, 112, 146, 431

Bruno, Giordano, 537

Budnik, Vasiliy S., 75, 120, 149; and R-16 

disaster, 609, 612, 618, 628-629

Bugayev, Nikolay I., 530-531

Bulgakov, Boris V., 113, 225

Bulganin, Nikolay A., 12, 14, 17, 468

Bulgaria, 192 

Bunkin, Boris V., 217

Buran intercontinental cruise missile, 234-238, 

469

Buran space shuttle, 357

Burya intercontinental cruise missile, 232-234, 

236-237, 387, 469-470

Bushuyev, Konstantin D., 5, 18, 50, 60, 64, 

120, 164, 168, 276, 279, 285, 294, 301, 

Afanasyev, Sergey A., 194, 263-264; and run-in 

with Beriya, 150-152

Agadzhanov, Pavel A., 533-535, 571, 575

Aircraft Coordinate Radio Locator, see ROKS

air defense missiles, 199-217

Air Force, see Soviet Air Force

Air Force NII, 220, 229, 405, 465

Akkerman, Naum A., 444

Akhtuba river, 31, 141

Aksenov, Vladimir V. (cosmonaut), 514

Aktyubinsk, 558

Akvatoriya project, 425-429

Albring, Werner, 43, 51, 60, 69

alcohol (at firing ranges), 343

Aleksandrov, Aleksandr P., 514

Aleksandrov, Anatoliy P., 262, 481-482, 487, 

494, 497, 507

Aleksandrov, Pavel S., 503

Aleksandrov, Pavel S., 514

Aleksandrova, Valentina V., 514

Alekseyev, Leonid I., 167, 296, 506

Alferov, Zhores I., 397

All-Russian Institute of Aviation Materials, see 

VIAM

All-Union Committee of Inventions, 302

All-Union Conference on the Stratosphere, 96

All-Union Council of Engineering Associations, 

209 

All-Union Institute of Agricultural Machine 

Building (VISKhOM), 85, 459, 463, 474

All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of

Current Sources, see VNIIT and NIIT

All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of

Electromechanics, see VNIIEM

All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of

Television, 520; see also NII-380

Almaz (design bureau), see KB-1

Alperovich, Karl S., 199, 207

Alyshevskiy, Igor F., 512

Amelkovich, S. P., 639

An-12 cargo plane, 573

Andreyev, Lev V., 607, 620, 622

Andronov, Aleksandr A., 113

Anokhin, Sergey N., 203-204, 463

Anshakov, Gennadiy P., 517

antenna development (for ground and space

segments), 508-510, 533-535, 549

anti-Party group (in 1957), 342

anti-Semitism, 47, 78, 82, 227, 437, 604

Apollo lunar landing missions, 436

Apollo spacecraft, 515

Appazov, Refat F., 125, 128, 189-190, 297, 348-

349, 545, 567

APR, see Automatic Missile Destruction system

Aral Sea, 284, 558

Archive of the President of the Russian Federation (APRF), 620

Arefyev, Vyacheslav P., 250, 253, 407

Aremenian Academy of Sciences, 198

Arkhangelsk, 254, 257, 364, 407, 636

Artamonov, Nikolay N., 123

Artillery Engineering Academy, 309

artillery tradition of missile industry, 90;

see also Grabin, Vasiliy V.

Arzamas-16, 277, 281-282, 287, 423

Askania company, 43, 52, 60

Assembly and Testing Building, see MIK

ASTP (Apollo-Soyuz Test Project), see EPAS

Astrakhan, 558

astronavigation systems (for cruise missiles), 

219-238

Astronomical Institute of the Academy of

Sciences, 128

atomic bomb, 115, 170, 206, 272-287, 327

attitude control systems (for spacecraft), 471-

476, 569-570

Auer, Werner, 69

Austria, 192

Automatic Missile Destruction (APR) system, 

279-280, 283, 304, 325, 348, 511

AV-611 submarine, 260

AVD, see Emergency Engine Shutdown system

Avduyevskiy, Vsevolod S., 236

aviation industry (Soviet), downturn in the late 

1950s, 235-236

Ay-Petri, 528-529

Azov Optico-Mechanical Factory, 500

Azov sea, 500

B

B-29 airplane, see Boeing B-29 Super Fortress

B-67 submarine, 253, 260, 261

Babakin, Georgiy N., 118, 209-211, 216, 236, 

501

Babkov, Oleg I., 487, 506

Bagramyan, Ivan K., 79

Bahnmodel, 61-64, 68, 185

Bakhchivandzhi, Grigoriy, Ya., 87-88

Bakin, Boris V., 317

Baku, 197

Baku Polytechnical Institute, 195

ballistics computations (for missiles), 189-191
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

646

Index

647

launch of lunar missions in 1960, 558-562; 

and launch of Mars spacecraft in 1960, 567-

577; and launches of Venera spacecraft in 

1961, 577-588; and launches of Mars/Venera 

spacecraft in 1962, 589-595

Chertok, Mikhail B. (Chertok’s son), 467

Chertok, Valentin B. (Chertok’s son), 467

China, 537

Chizhikov, Boris S., 112

Chizhikov, Marina B., 112

Chizhikov, Semyon G., 75, 111-112, 120, 280, 

412, 457, 511-512, 514

Chkalov, Valeriy P., 278

Chronicle of the Main Events in the History of 

the Strategic Rocket Forces (book), 620

Chudakov, Aleksandr Ye., 108, 127

Chukanov, Aleksey V., 523

Chukotka (ship), 426

Churchill, Sir Winston, 27, 174, 240, 467-468

CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 318

cinetheodolites, 190

Cold War, 22, 72, 172, 230, 239-241, 246, 393, 

415, 427, 429, 436, 447, 454, 488, 540, 595

collective 88 (German scientists in USSR), 45, 46

Cologne, 71

Columbia (Space Shuttle) accident, 641

Command and Measurement Complex (KIK), 

190, 346, 436, 451, 471, 522, 533-535, 559, 

582; and creation of, 425-429

Commission for the Study of the Stratosphere, 

96

Commission on Military-Industrial Issues under 

the USSR Council of Ministers, see VPK

communications systems (ground), see Command and Measurement Complex and 

Simferopol and Yevpatoriya

communications systems (spacecraft), 557-558, 

589-590

Communist Party, 16, 22, 26, 47, 289, 342, 

406, 415, 435-436, 467, 516, 541, 605-606

Communist Party politics and the missile industry, see Party politics

computers for the space program, 500, 535

control systems for spacecraft, founding Soviet 

industry for, 495-517

cosmonauts, 500-501, 506-507, 514-517

Cosmonautics Day, 107

Council of Chief Designers, 33, 42, 68, 107, 

178, 186-187, 193, 198, 209, 234, 244, 250, 

259, 262, 265, 273, 287, 295, 309, 324, 

381-382, 387-389, 391, 394, 396, 404, 408, 

412, 417, 424, 428-429, 471, 508, 563, 568, 

580, 612

Council of Labor and Defense, 459

Council of Ministers, 5, 9, 10-16, 22-23, 110, 

175, 180, 208, 248, 257-258, 274, 275, 289, 

292, 308, 317, 332, 382, 404, 418, 425, 450, 

468, 472, 477, 485, 492, 557, 563-565, 597, 

625, 635

Council of Ministers Directorate of Affairs, 528

Council of National Economy, see Sovnarkhoz

Council of People’s Commissars, 463

Council of Veteran Baykonur Builders, 314

Council on Motion Control, 194

Crimea, 204, 436, 520-522, 526, 528-529, 536, 

549, 575

Crimean Solar Observatory, 532

cruise missiles (postwar Soviet), 219-238

Cuba, 217, 602

Cuban Missile Crisis, 217, 237, 595, 601-602

Curie, Marie, 537

D

D-1 submarine launched missile system, 260-261

D-2 submarine launched missile system, 260-261

D-5 submarine launched missile system, 262

Dagestan ASSR, 307

Dal air defense missile system, 234

Dashkov, Aleksandr A., 567

DB-A bomber, 219, 511

DC-3 aircraft, 18 

Degtyarenko, Grigoriy I., 30, 110, 125, 127, 

189, 442, 445

Dementyev, Petr V., 405, 468, 489

Demidov, 91

Denezhkin, Igor N., 313

Department G (German scientists in USSR), 44

Department of Applied Mathematics (OPM), 

see Academy of Sciences Department of 

Applied Mathematics

Department U (Chertok’s department at NII88), see NII-88 Department U

Derviz, Sergey P., 197

Devyatka, see R-9 and R-9A ICBM

disasters during missile launches, see accidents 

during missile launches

Dnepropetrovsk, 148-152, 162-164, 181, 245, 

375, 406, 408-409, 544, 556-557, 601, 631, 

633

Dobychin, S. L., 639

docking systems (for spacecraft), 510-511

“Doctors’ Plot”, 82-83

372-373, 375-376, 387-389, 393, 408, 412, 

431-432, 457, 465, 475, 481, 504, 511, 538, 

542-543, 544-545-546, 559, 564, 566, 572; 

and becomes head of “second territory,” 483-

487, 495-496

Butoma, Boris Ye., 425, 565

Buzukov, Anatoliy I., 466

Byelorussia, 1

Bykov, Yuriy S., 550

C

Cape Canaveral, 325

Caspian Sea, 307

Catherine the Great, 371, 405

Center for Deep Space Communications, 571, 

594; see also Yevpatoriya and NIP-16 tracking 

station

Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute, see TsAGI

Central Artillery Design Bureau, see TsAKB

Central Committee (of the Communist Party), 

9, 22-23, 75, 76, 78, 82, 84, 95, 102, 105, 

116, 146, 155, 156, 161-163, 169, 171, 257-

259, 264, 287, 289, 292, 310, 317, 323, 332, 

342, 345, 364, 415, 439, 450, 472, 482, 485, 

492, 499, 536-537, 557, 563-565, 597, 604, 

617, 620, 624, 628-629

Central Committee Defense (Industries) 

Department, 155-156, 428, 516, 629

Central Committee Secretariat, 155, 407

Central Design Bureau of Experimental 

Machine Building, see TsKBEM

Central Design Bureau of Machine Building, see 

TsKBM

Central Institute of Aviation Fuels and Lubricants, 124

Central Institute of Aviation Motor Construction, see TsIAM

Central Intelligence Agency, see CIA

Central Scientific-Research Institute No. 108, 

see TsNII-108

Central Scientific-Research Institute of Communications, see TsNII Svyazi

Central Scientific-Research Institute Ferrous 

Metals, see TsNIIChermet

Central Scientific-Research Institute for Artillery 

Armaments

Central Specialized Design Bureau, see TsSKB

Chachikyan, Ruben G., 469-470

Chadayev, Ye., 15

Charnko, Yevgeniy V., 261

Chayka (dog), 597

Checheniya, Leonid S., 407

Chekunov, Boris S., 350-351, 351

Chelomey, Vladimir N., 60, 235-236, 246, 320, 

365, 375, 410, 412, 436, 482, 489, 564, 566, 

579

Chelyabinsk, 407

Chernov, Vadim V., 126, 132-133, 136, 273

Chernyakov, Naum S., 234, 236

Chertok, Boris Ye., 18, 34, 38, 39, 40, 374, 

389-391, 412, 458; and giving lectures at 

university, 27-28; and at Kapustin Yar for 

first V-2 launches, 30-42; and salary, 44; 

and German specialists in USSR, 43-73; 

and demonstration at NII-88 in late 1940s, 

80-82; and transfer of Isayev and Tsybin to 

NII-88, 84-88; and time as Chief Engineer 

of NII-88, 89-90; and reminiscences of V. 

A. Golubtsova, 99-105; and Department U, 

109-118; and first launches of R-1, 119-140; 

and formation of Novostroyka, 142-148; and 

reorganization of NII-88 in early 1950s, 156-

171; and transfer to OKB-1, 161; and staff 

in the 1950s, 166-168; and relationship with 

NII-885 institute, 177-188; and air defense 

missiles, 199-217; and development of 

navigation systems for Soviet cruise missiles, 

219-238; and development of early submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 247-264; 

and testing of R-11 missiles, 266-268; and 

deploying nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles, 272-287; and development of R-7 guidance system, 296; and selection of Baykonur 

site, 306-312; and first visits to Baykonur, 

318-336; and 1st launch of R-7 ICBM, 

337-353; and R-7 launches in 1957-1959, 

355-368, 393-399, 415-419; and illness in 

1957, 369-378; and Lenin Prize, 389; and 

R-7A test launches in 1960, 421-433; and 

early lunar missions in late 1950s, 435-455; 

and work at NII-1 in mid-1940s, 465-469, 

474-475; and merger of OKB-1 with TsNII58, 477-483; and time as head of “second 

territory,” 483-489, 495-496; and development of space control system industry in 

Soviet Union, 495-517; and Order of the Red 

Star award, 496; and Luna-3 farside photo 

mission, 519-538; and planning for future of 

space program in 1960, 539-545, 554-557, 

565-567; and preparations for Mars/Venus 

missions in 1960, 545-551, 564-565; and 

visit of Brezhnev to OKB-1, 552-555; and 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

648

Index

649

Flight-Research Institute (LII), 87, 138

Floating Measurement Complex No. 1, see 

PIK-1

Florianskiy, Mikhail S., 190

Fonarev, 123

Fourth Pacific Ocean Hydrographic Expedition, 

see TOGE-4

Frolov, 104

Frolova, Vera N., 111, 226

Frunze Factory, 420

Frunze Factory (Sumi), 639

G

G-1 German missile project (also R-10), 39, 46, 

50-61, 65, 66

G-1M German missile project (also R-13), 66

G-2 German missile project (also R-12), 66

G-4 German missile project (also R-14), 66

Gagarin, Yuriy A., 187, 275, 335, 357, 589

Gagarin Complex (at Baykonur), 327; see also 

Site No. 1

Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, 236

Galileo, 539

Gallay, Mark L. 463

Gas Dynamics Laboratory, see GDL

GAU, see Main Artillery Directorate

Gaushus, Ernest V., 473, 506

Gaydukov, Lev M., 13, 15-16, 34, 89, 173, 468

GDL (Gas Dynamics Laboratory), 85, 549

General Arnold (U.S. ship), 432-433

Generator program, 244-245

Geofizika, see TsKB Geofizika design bureau

Geondzhan, Georgiy G., 193

George Washington (nuclear submarine), 260

Geran program, 244-245

Gerasimov, K. M., 208-209

Gerchik, Konstantin V., 417, 616, 630-631

German Democratic Republic (East Germany), 

69

German rocket scientists, 1, 13-15, 109-111, 

125, 171, 177-178, 189-190, 290, 407-408; 

and first V-2 launches, 37-40; and experience 

in the Soviet Union, 43-68; and end of work 

in Soviet Union, 68-73

Gestapo, 192

GG-1 horizon gyro, 125

Ginzburg, Abram M., 34-35, 38, 40, 177, 181, 

603-604, 618

GIPKh, see State Institute of Applied Chemistry

GIRD (Group for the Study of Reactive 

Motion), 85, 379, 459, 514, 543

Girointegrator gyroscope system, 193

GKOT, see State Committee of Defense

Technology

GKRE, see State Committee on Radio

Electronics

Gladkiy, Viktor F., 172-173, 188-189, 444-445

Glavsevmorput (Main Directorate of the North 

Sea Route), 139

Glazkov, Georgiy P., 177, 180

Glennan, T. Keith, 447-448

Glikman, Boris F., 444

Glushko, Valentin P., 18, 25, 29, 30, 33, 34, 41, 

43, 67, 85, 123, 126, 127, 132, 134, 138, 

143, 150, 156, 157, 173, 178, 227-228, 235, 

243-244, 250, 268, 273, 335-336, 347, 351, 

356, 359-360, 375, 381-382, 394, 417-418, 

437, 444-446, 453-454, 545, 564, 580, 584, 

635-637; and salary, 44-45; and German 

specialists, 48-49, 59, 60, 64; and first Hero 

of Socialist Labor award, 285; and election 

as Corresponding Member of Academy of 

Sciences, 286-287; and R-7 engine design, 

290-292, 301-302; and propellant debate 

over ICBMs, 408-410, 540-541, 554-557, 

599-602; and election as full member of 

Academy of Sciences, 411-412; and time at 

RNII, 457-462, 465-466; and arrest and time 

in prison, 457, 460, 465; and R-16 disaster, 

613, 617, 620

Goddard, Robert H., 464

GOKO, see State Committee of Defense

Goldobenkov, Aleksandr K., 195

Gold Star of the Soviet Union (award), 31

Golembiovskiy, Igor N., 70

Goltsman, Aleksandr M., 19, 30, 143, 271

Golubkina, Kseniya T. (Chertok’s mother-inlaw), 389, 467

Golubkina, Yekaterina (Katya) S. (Chertok’s 

wife), 159, 215-216, 370-371, 373, 389-391, 

429, 467, 526-528, 540

Golubtsova, Valeriya A., 96-108, 127

Golunskiy, Nikolay P., 272-273, 334, 343, 351-

352, 363, 452, 560

Gonor, Lev R., 16-17, 31, 41, 43, 46, 50, 58-

60, 93-97, 109, 115, 117-119, 122-124, 126-

127, 138, 142-147, 177, 179, 200, 209-210, 

215, 227-229; and anti-Semitism, 47; and 

career at NII-88, 75-92; and departure from 

NII-88, 157-160

Gorbunov Palace of Culture, 264

Goreglyad, 12

dogs (on suborbital flights), 244

Dolinsk (ship), 582, 592

Don telemetry system, 125, 138, 142, 183, 267, 

273

Dora labor camp, 27

Dornberger, Walter, 78-79, 247, 464

Dorofeyev, Boris A., 187-188, 351

Doroshenko, Inna A., 628-630

Douglas (aircraft company), 18

Dryden, Hugh L., 454

Dudkin, Ivan I., 101

Dukhov, Nikolay L., 277, 279, 281-282, 286-

287, 423

Dukhovnov, Yuriy F., 172-173

Duks Factory, 404

Dunayev, Yuriy A., 396-397

Dushkin, Leonid S., 462

Dzerzhinskiy Artillery Academy, 321

Dzhanibekov, Vladimir A. (cosmonaut), 507, 

516

Dzhusaly, 308, 316, 319

E

East Germany (German Democratic Republic), 

69, 70

Edison, Thomas, 537

Effa, Mark, 193

Egypt, 481

Einstein, Albert, 198, 548

Eisenhower, Dwight D., 394, 416, 427, 429, 

447-448, 525, 540

Ekibastuzkaya Thermoelectric Plant, 108

EKR (Experimental Cruise Missile), 221-222

Electro-Vacuum Institute, 411

Elektron satellites, 402, 565

Elektropribor Factory, 191-192

Elektrostal Factory, 124

Elektrougli firm, 122

Elyasberg, Pavel Ye., 190, 397, 439, 471, 519

Emergency Engine Shutdown (AVD) system, 

280, 325, 348, 352, 418, 449, 511

Emergency Rescue System (SAS), 511

Energiya booster, 357, 510

Energiya Rocket-Space Corporation, see RKK 

Energiya

Eneyev, Timur M., 471, 567

Entering the Town of Mirnyy (book), 640

EPAS (Apollo-Soyuz Experimental Flight), 167, 

515

ESA, see European Space Agency

European Space Agency (ESA), 420

Experimental Cruise Missile, see EKR

F

Factory No. 1, 12, 18, 235, 404; see also

Progress Factory

Factory No. 9, 77

Factory No. 16, 465

Factory No. 22, 99, 112, 117, 213, 488, 561

Factory No. 23, 488

Factory No. 24, 420; see also Frunze Factory

Factory No. 25, 281-282

Factory No. 47, 601

Factory No. 84, 18

Factory No. 88, 16, 41, 76, 89, 91, 93, 126, 164

Factory No. 92, 477, 479

Factory No. 166, 601

Factory No. 172, 601

Factory No. 293, 3, 18, 85, 86, 195, 217, 465-

466

Factory No. 301, 209-211, 217

Factory No. 385, 258

Factory No. 456, 493

Factory No. 586, 164, 245, 408, 557, 601, 603; 

and R-1 missile production, 149-152; see also 

Yuzhmash

Factory No. 627, 196-198

Falunin, Fedor F., 148, 409

Farmakovskiy, Sergey F., 192

Favorskiy, Viktor V., 628

F. E. Dzerzhinskiy Artillery Academy, see

Dzerzhinskiy Artillery Academy

FED Cameras, 181

Federal Republic of Germany, see West

Germany

Federation of Cosmonautics, 500, 515

Fedorov, Petr I., 465-466

Fedorov, Vladimir P., 462

Fedoseyev, Aleksey F., 212-215, 281-282

FIAN (P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute of the 

Academy of Sciences), 96, 108, 126-127, 267

Fili (Moscow suburb), 214, 264, 488-489

Filina, Larisa A., 130

Filipov, Valentin, 112

Finogeyev, Vladlen P., 182, 187, 249-250, 253-

257, 417, 581-582

Firsov, F. G., 613, 617, 625

First Main Directorate (PGU), 7-8, 23, 208

First Photographs of the Far Side of the Moon 

(book), 539

First Stages (memoir), 110

Flerov, I. A., 461
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

650

Index

651

IP-1 (tracking station), 346-347, 351, 362, 452, 

560-562, 582

IP-3 (tracking station), 325, 347

Iran, 307

IS tank, 277

Isaakyan, Aleksandr V., 503

Isanin, Nikolay N., 248-264

Isayev, Aleksey M., 18, 49, 50, 60, 85-86, 118, 

209, 211-213, 234, 250, 259, 263, 268, 457, 

465, 469, 496, 516, 528, 569

Ishlinskiy, Aleksandr Yu., 192, 225, 237, 351, 

428, 444, 574, 579, 582, 591, 628

...It Was a Time That Needed Korolev (book), 

130

Ivanhoe (novel), 351

Ivanov, Dmitriy V., 640

Ivanov, Ivan I., 628

Ivanov, Vasiliy M., 303, 552

Ivanovskiy, Oleg G., 110, 516

Iyevlev, Vitaliy M., 396

Izvestiya (newspaper), 70

J

Japan, 460

Jena, 30, 193

Jodrell Bank Observatory, 453-454

Jupiter IRBM, 543-544

K

Ka-15 helicopter, 426

Kabalkin, 111

Kabanov, 12, 13

Kadyshevich, Abo D., 217, 411

Kaftanov, 15

Kaganovich, Lazar M., 342

Kalashnikov, 60

Kalashnikov, Viktor A., 111, 117, 148-150, 

268, 292, 371-372, 408-409, 504-505

Kaliningrad, 169, 326; see also Podlipki

Kalmykov, Valeriy D., 5, 47, 191, 208, 212, 

332, 545, 548-550, 552, 563, 565, 572-575, 

577, 583, 590, 621, 626, 629

Kalmykov, Vitaliy P., 570, 590, 592

Kama river, 500

Kama tracking system, 426, 560

Kamanin, Nikolay P., 585

Kamchatka, 307, 333, 346, 359, 383, 396, 398-

399, 418, 425, 431, 436, 582

Kapitsa, Petr L., 7, 21, 175

Kapustin Yar (State Central Range-4, GTsP-4), 

9, 26, 30, 55, 56, 69, 81, 85, 89, 90, 116, 

120, 141, 153, 166, 169-171, 216, 244, 252, 

266, 274, 297, 304-311, 313, 319, 321, 329, 

423, 556, 601, 604, 609, 612, 616, 636; and 

creation of, 14; and first V-2 launches from, 

30-42, 45-46, 72; and first R-1 launches, 60, 

126-140

Karadag, 528

Kara-Kum Desert, 284, 313, 327

Karas, Andrey G., 39

Karashtin, Vladimir F., 635

Karaulov, 190

Karmanov, 87

Karpov, Yuriy S., 401, 408, 507, 557-558, 570, 

590

Kartashev, Anatoliy A., 148

Kasho, Aleksandr S., 334, 337-339, 343-345, 

431

Kassirskiy, Iosif A., 371-372, 377, 391

Katyusha unguided rockets, 19, 28, 73, 425, 

460-464

Kazakhenergo, 323

Kazakhstan, 272, 307-308, 311-312, 319, 325-

326, 342, 346, 357, 366, 372, 580

Kazan, 18, 73, 228, 465, 499-500

Kazantsev, A. P., 196

KB-1 design bureau, 65-66, 180, 185, 203, 208-

210, 216

KB-11 design bureau, 282

KB Khimmash, 86; see also OKB-2

KB Yuzhnoye, 607, 622; see also OKB-586

Keldysh, Mstislav V., 86, 230, 286, 309, 351, 

364, 372, 375-376, 394, 396, 399-400, 409, 

413, 428, 436, 439-440, 443-445, 447, 454, 

457-458, 494, 506, 523-524, 526-527, 531-

537, 534, 541, 544-546, 551, 558-560, 562, 

564, 574, 577-578, 579, 582, 584-586, 588, 

589, 591, 597; and time as head of Burya 

project, 232-234, 236-237, 387; and origins 

of Sputnik, 379-383; and work at NII-1 in 

1940s and 1950s, 469-475

Keldysh Research Center, 459; see also NII-1, 

RNII, NII-3

Kennan, George F., 540

Kennedy, John F., 174

Kennedy, Sr., Joseph P., 174

Kennedy, Jr., Joseph P., 174

Kerimov, Kerim A., 30, 591

KGB (Committee of State Security), 152, 174-

176, 283, 286, 439, 484, 586, 621

Khachaturyan, K. Ye., 614, 617-619, 622, 623, 629

Khalkin-Gol, 460

Gorelik, 113

Goremykin, Petr N., 10

Gorizont gyroscope system, 30, 52, 193

Gorkovskiy Factory, 209

Gorky, 477, 480

Gorky Machine Building Factory, 534

Gorky University, 167, 296

Gorodomlya, 33, 43-69, 76, 111, 178, 394, 

395, 407

Gosplan, 4, 12, 23, 164, 173-175, 499, 564

Gossnab, 564

Govorov, Leonid A., 79

Govyadinov, Vladimir A., 90, 114, 180, 210

Grabin, Vasiliy V., 83, 476, 494-496, 498, 506-

507; and merger of his organization

with OKB-1, 477-489

Great October Revolution, see Russian

Revolution

Great Palace of the Kremlin, 78

Great Purges, 117

Grechko, Andrey A., 541, 621, 626, 629

Grigoryants, Ruben M., 617-619, 623, 625

Grigoryev, Mikhail G., 310

Grigoryevna, Anna, 159

Gringauz, Konstantin I., 580

Grishin, Lev A., 493, 553-555, 559-560; and 

R-16 disaster, 615, 617-618, 631-632

Gröttrup, Helmut, 33, 37, 44, 51-61, 66-67, 

110, 247; and return to Germany, 69-73

Gröttrup, Irmgardt, 71-72

Gröttrup, Ursula, 70-72

ground communications network, see

Command and Measurement Complex

ground measurement station (NIP), 9

Group for the Study of Reactive Motion,

see GIRD

Grushin, Petr D., 217, 540

GSKB Spetsmash, 18-19

GTsKB-1, 12

GTsP-4, see Kapustin Yar

Gubenko, Yevgeniy S., 331-332, 534-535, 547

guidance systems (for missiles), for early postwar 

missiles, 177-189

GULAG, 8, 9, 314

Gulf Guinea, 582, 590, 593

Gurovich, Ilya M., 314-316, 325

GURVO, see Main Directorate of Reactive 

Armaments, 306

Guskov, Gennadiy Ya., 306, 535, 571, 621, 626

GV-1 vertical gyro, 125

Gvay, Ivan I., 461

H

Hamburg, 70

Helmholtz, Ludwig von, 64

Hero of Socialist Labor (award), 21, 47, 58, 77, 

165, 187, 209, 224, 227, 262, 277, 282, 287, 

389, 406, 478, 487, 505-506, 530

Hero of the Soviet Union (award), 500, 514-516

Hertz, Heinrich, 537

Hiroshima, 274

Hitler, Adolf, 27, 53

Hoch, Hans, 37-39, 43, 46, 51, 52, 60, 61-64, 

68, 69, 125, 185

Hungary, 481

hydrogen bomb, 274-287, 327, 415, 420, 422-

423

I

IG-1 longitudinal acceleration integrator, 125

Il-2 fighter bomber, 405

Il-14 airplane, 316, 319, 526-527, 558

Il-28 bomber, 405

Ilyushin, Sergey V., 404

Indikator-D radio system, 106, 127, 331

Institute Berlin, 114, 461, 496

Institute Nordhausen, 29, 35, 44, 45, 53, 84, 

123, 125, 128, 152, 156, 173, 496, 503

Institute of Atomic Energy, 481-482

Institute of Automation and Remote Control, 

see Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation and Remote Control

Institute of Machine Science, 262

Institute of Theoretical Astronomy, 349

Institute RABE, 17, 25, 35, 43, 44, 53, 85, 93, 

112, 123, 125, 128, 135, 177, 180, 181, 182, 

193, 194, 225, 297, 496, 503

Instrument Building Factory (Leningrad), 501-

502

Integrator system, 30

Interkosmos Council, 107, 236

International Academy of Astronautics/Cosmonautics, 107, 167, 505, 510

International Astronautical Federation, 69, 394

International Geophysical Year (IGY), 365, 382, 

394

International Space Year (1992), 236

Ioffe, Abram F., 6

Iordanskiy, Viktor N., 89, 123

Iosifyan, Adronik G., 19, 30, 122, 125, 150, 

510, 547-548, 583; and work at NII-627, 

194-198; and R-16 disaster, 598, 615-616, 

618, 628-629, 631-632
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

652

Index

653

postwar cruise missiles, 219-232, 237; and 

arrest and time in prison, 221, 254-255, 

457, 460, 465; and creation of postwar ballistic missiles, 239-246; and development of 

early submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 

247-264; and deploying nuclear weapons on 

ballistic missiles, 272-287; gets first Hero of 

Socialist Labor award, 285; and election as 

Corresponding Member of the Academy of 

Sciences, 286-287; and designing the R-7, 

293-306; and selection of Baykonur launch 

site, 306-312; and first visit to Baykonur, 

316-317; and construction of Baykonur, 318-

326, 328, 330; and 1st launch of R-7 ICBM, 

337-353; and temper, 343; and R-7 launches 

in summer 1957, 355-368, 369, 372, 375; 

and origins of Sputnik, 379-383; and launch 

of early Sputniks, 383-391, 399-400; and 

anonymity, 394; and propellant debate over 

ICBMs, 408-411, 540-541, 554-557, 599-

602; and election as full member of Academy 

of Sciences, 411-413; and early lunar missions 

in late 1950s, 436-455, 473-474; and time at 

RNII, 457-462, 465-466, 469; and merger 

of OKB-1 with TsNII-58, 477-489; and 

development of space control system industry 

in Soviet Union, 495-517; and Luna-3 farside 

photo mission, 519-538; and planning for 

future of space program in 1960, 539-545, 

554-557, 565-567; and preparations for 

Mars/Venus launches in 1960, 545-552, 564-

565; and visit of Brezhnev to OKB-1, 552-

555; and launch of lunar missions in 1960, 

558-562; and meetings with Khrushchev, 

545-546, 564; and launch of Mars spacecraft 

in 1960, 567-577; and launches of Venera 

spacecraft in 1961, 577-588; and launches 

of Mars/Venera spacecraft in 1962, 589-595; 

and R-16 disaster, 598, 604-606, 609, 612, 

616, 632

Korolev Memorial House-Museum, 130, 413

Koroleva, Nina I. (Korolev’s second wife), 130-

131, 361

Koroteyev, Anatoliy S., 459

Korshunov, L. A., 248

Kosberg, Semyon A., 437; death of, 437-438

Kosmodemyanskiy, Arkadiy A., 27-28, 50

kosmoplan (1960 decree on future of space 

program), 554-557, 565-567

Kosmos Hotel (Moscow), 413

Kostikov, Andrey G., 460-463, 465-467

Kostin, Pavel I., 85, 88-89

Kostoglot, 371

Kosygin, Aleksey N., 632

Kotelnikov, Vladimir A., 106-107, 127, 250, 

331-332

Kourou (French Guiana), 420

Kovalev, Sergey N., 262

Kozlov, Dmitriy I., 165, 405-406, 417, 420, 

635, 637

Kozlov, F. I., 253

Kozlov, Frol R., 236, 579, 621

Kozlov, Leonard P., 511

Krasnaya Zarya Factory, 177

Krasnodar (ship), 582, 592

Krasnoyarsk, 82, 159, 164

Krasnoyarsk Machine Building Factory, 263-

264, 479

Krasnushkin, Petr, 230

Krasnyy kavkaz (cruiser), 205-206

Krayushkin, Mikhail V., 110-111, 374, 383, 

509, 515, 545

Kreiselgerät Factory, 191, 220

Kremlin, 110, 151, 175, 516, 526, 543, 572

Kremlin Wall, 632

Kriss, Petr Zh., 105-106

Kronshtadt Factory, 426

Kronstadt, 256

Krug, Karl A., 100, 196

Krupp (German company), 43, 189

Krylov, Aleksey N., 192

Krylov, Nikolay I., 634

Krymenergo, 535

Kryukov, Sergey S., 262, 294-295, 301-302, 

389, 546, 555-556, 567-568

Kudinovo, 122

Kudrevich, B. I., 192

Kudryavtsev, Vadim V., 510

Kuksenko, Pavel N., 201, 204-208

Kulebakin, Viktor S., 122

Kuntsevaya Cemetery, 108

Kupriyanchik, Petr N., 507-508, 515

Kurbatov, Vladimir I., 356, 417

Kurchatov, Igor V., 6, 7-9, 21, 123, 156, 286, 

481-482, 537, 632

Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute, 8

Kuyantsev, Vladimir V., 592

Kuybyshev, 105, 235, 404-407, 417, 420, 551, 

590, 635

Kuzmin, Viktor P., 510-511

Kuznetsov, Nikolay D., 556

Kuznetsov, Nikolay N., 13

Kharchev, Vasiliy I., 27, 584

Khariton, Yuliy B., 78, 277, 281-282, 286-287, 

422, 424

Kharkov, 164, 174, 181, 408, 420, 497, 603, 

629, 631

Khazan, Mariya A., 186, 331

Khazanov, Isaak B., 498-499, 502, 510, 512-

513

Khimki, 3, 18, 29, 33, 43, 59, 85, 86, 123, 126, 

134, 157, 209-211, 217, 228, 292, 302, 445, 

465-466, 493, 605

Khitrik, Mikhail S., 186-187, 189-190, 442

Khlebnikov, Boris I., 417

Khlybov, Nikolay N., 34, 193

Khodarev, Yuriy A., 546-547, 550, 569, 571-

572, 574-575, 588

Khrabrovitskiy, Daniil Ya., 310

Khristianovich, Sergey A., 230, 232

Khrulev, 14

Khrunichev, Mikhail V., 12, 15, 380

Khrunichev Factory, 235

Khrushchev, Nikita S., 108, 171, 175, 235-236, 

345, 364-366, 373, 387-388, 394, 399, 404, 

406-407, 410, 415, 418, 427, 429, 435, 437, 

440-441, 444, 451, 453-454, 482, 484, 488, 

493, 524, 528, 534, 540-541, 544, 547-549, 

551-554, 560, 563, 567, 572, 576, 579, 601; 

and 20th Party Congress, 342; and missile 

diplomacy, 415-416; and visit to the U.S. 

in 1959, 447-449, 525; and meetings with 

Korolev, 545-546, 564; and R-16 disaster, 

611, 620, 629

“Khrushchev thaw”, 171, 494

Khrustalev, Vladimir A., 547

Khvorostyanov, 253

Kibalchich, Nikolay I., 413

Kiev, 164, 499

Kievpribor, 499

Kiev Radio Factory, 499

KIK, see Command and Measurement

Complex, 190

Kirillov, Anatoliy S., 321-322, 331, 369, 417, 

580-581

Kirpichnikov, N. I., 10

KIS (control and testing station), 502-503

Kiselev, 129-131

Kislovodsk sanatorium, 117, 181

Kisunko, Grigoriy V., 412

Kleinbodungen factory, 29

Kleymenov, Ivan T., 73, 459-460, 463, 466

Klyuchi, 333, 397

Knyazev, Dmitriy A., 473, 475, 523, 544

Kocheryants, Samvel G., 277, 281

Kogan, B. M., 198

Koktebel, 373, 528-529

Kolyma, 254, 365

Komarov, Vladimir L., 94

Komarova, Larisa I., 473, 506

Komarovskiy, Aleksandr N., 314

Kometa cruise missile, 203-206

Komintern Factory, 461

Komissarov, Boris A., 128, 622

Komissarov, Oleg, 169

Kommunar Factory, 181, 603

Kompressor Factory, 461

Komsomol, 117, 256, 258, 561

Kondratyuk, Yuriy V., 413

Konev, Ivan S., 79

Konopatov, Aleksandr D., 438

Konoplev, Boris M., 139-140, 170, 183-184, 

306, 331, 408, 497; and R-16 disaster, 603-

604, 606, 608, 611, 614, 617, 620, 623, 625, 

629-631

Konovalov, Boris, 70

Kontsevoy, Vasiliy A., 613-614, 617, 623, 625

Konus building, 510

Konyukhov, Stanislav N., 607, 620, 622

Kopt, Yevgeniy I., 445

Korabl-Sputnik, 570, 572-574

Korean War, 206, 479

Korenberg, Yefrem, 534

Korolev (city), 169; see also Podlipki

Korolev, Sergey P., 5, 18, 26, 27-28, 29, 30, 

31, 34, 36, 50, 75, 76, 80, 82, 84, 87, 89, 

90-91, 94, 97-99, 108, 109, 112, 114-115, 

116, 142, 146, 149, 170, 173, 178, 179, 182, 

184-188, 191, 193, 209, 211, 215-216, 270-

271, 286, 313, 332, 334-336, 393, 396-397, 

406, 417, 419, 422, 424, 429, 431-432, 457, 

470-472, 491, 493-494, 534, 563-564; and 

comparison to Kurchatov, 8-9; and appointment as Chief Designer, 16-17; and housing, 

26; and first V-2 launches, 30-42; and salary, 

44; and German scientists in the USSR, 

47-49, 51, 54-58, 60, 65-66, 73; and R-3 

project, 66-68; and problems with chain of 

command, 81, 156; and first R-1 launches, 

119-123, 126-140; and letters to wife, 

130-131; and reorganization at NII-88 in 

early 1950s, 156-169; and relationship with 

Yangel, 162-163, 408-410; and his deputies 

in the 1950s, 164-166; and development of 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

654

Index

655

M

M-5RD missile, 243, 305-306

M-56 bomber, 235

Macheret, Lev, 101-104

Magnus, Kurt, 37-40, 43, 44, 46, 52, 60, 61, 

69, 125

MAI (Moscow Aviation Institute), 132-133, 

167, 186, 535

Main Artillery Directorate (GAU), 11, 12, 13, 

21, 83, 120-121, 128, 200, 231, 461, 502

Main Directorate of Reactive Armaments 

(GURVO), 306, 330

Main Directorate of Space Assets (GUKOS), 

635

Main Directorate of the North Sea Route, see 

Glavsevmorput

Makarov, 190

Makarov, Aleksandr M., 144-145

Makeyev, Viktor P., 165, 182, 246, 259, 569; 

and development of early naval missiles, 249, 

257-264

Makhov, V. A., 7

Maksimov, Aleksandr A., 635, 637-638

Maksimov, Gleb Yu., 457, 472, 544, 551, 569, 

579, 588

Maksimov, N. D., 18

Maksyuta, Yuriy I., 426, 429, 432-433

Makulenko, V. A., 617

Makushechev, Veniamin T., 182

Malakhit design bureau, see TsKB-16 design 

bureau

Malakhov, 550, 571-575, 588, 590

Malenkov, Georgiy M., 2, 7, 11, 17, 21, 23, 

96-97, 102, 105, 108, 205, 274, 281-282, 

342, 468

Malinovskiy, Rodion Ya., 236, 364-365, 541, 

544, 565

Maloletov, Petr I., 43

Malyshev, Vyacheslav A., 47, 175, 275, 286, 

380, 481

Marat (battleship), 256

Mari ASSR, 307

Marks, Konstantin I., 293

Mars (planet), 435

Mars spacecraft/program, preparation for 

launches in 1960, 500-501, 537-538, 541-

551, 557-558, 563, 567-576; and launches in 

1960, 576-577, 597; and launches in 1962, 

589-595

Mars-1 mission, 593, 594, 595

Mashinoapparat Factory, 150

Maslov, Gleb S., 292-293, 417

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, see MIT

Matrenin, Aleksandr S., 618-619, 623, 628

Maxwell, James, 537

Mechta (lunar probe), 436; see also Luna-1

Medvedev, Nikolay S., 628

Medvezhiye Lakes, 549

MEI (V. M. Molotov Moscow Power Engineering Institute), 96-108, 195-196, 331-332, 

509

Melikova, Aleksandra G., 111, 280, 349

Melnikov, Mikhail V., 18, 165, 291-292, 309, 

347, 412, 437, 542, 568, 592

Melnikova, Zoya, 111

Memoirs (book by Sakharov), 275-276

Mendeleyev, Dmitriy I., 537

Menshikov, Viktor I., 39, 128, 270

Messina-1 telemetry system, 110, 125, 127, 183

MFTI, Moscow Physics and Technology

Institute

MGU, see Moscow State University, 118

MIFI, see Moscow Engineering and Physics 

Institute

MiG-9 aircraft, 405

MiG-15 fighter, 405

MIK (Assembly and Testing Building), 294-295, 

300, 316-317, 320, 322-323, 330-331, 333, 

337-338, 344, 352, 357, 361, 363, 366-367, 

369, 417, 432, 522, 559, 561-562, 574, 580-

581, 602

Mikhoels, Solomon M., 82

Mikoyan, Artem I., 203, 206, 228, 404

Military Academy of Communications, 202, 

205

military acceptance of missile industry products, 

502-503

Military-Industrial Commission, see VPK

military unit 11284 (Baykonur Cosmodrome), 

621

military unit 32103 (Command and Measurement Complex), 521, 533

Milshteyn, Viktor N., 466

Ministry of Agricultural Machine Building, 

11-15

Ministry of Armaments, 11-15, 17, 28, 43, 56, 

66, 68, 86, 124, 149, 150, 202, 205, 208, 

231, 469, 493

Ministry of Armed Forces, 4, 11-15, 18, 282

Ministry of Aviation Industry, 11-15, 23, 44, 

65, 85, 86, 118, 180, 211, 233, 275, 469, 

501

Kuznetsov, Viktor I., 5, 19, 25, 30, 33, 34, 40, 

50, 58, 63, 84, 125, 127, 136, 148, 156, 

179-180, 182, 184, 186, 220, 244, 250, 

262-263, 335-336, 347, 351-353, 407, 409, 

417, 446, 451, 458, 472, 577, 581, 591, 602; 

and work at NII-10, 191-194; and first Hero 

of Socialist Labor award, 285; and election 

as Corresponding Member of Academy of 

Sciences, 411-412; and R-16 disaster, 598, 

603-604, 608, 615-616, 618, 628-629

Kzyl-Kum desert, 313

Kzyl-Orda region, 307-308

L

L-1 circumlunar spacecraft, 515

La-5 fighter, 227

La-7 fighter, 227

LaGG fighter, 227

Lake Balday, 289

Lake Baykal, 427, 429, 540

Lake Lagoda, 192

Lake Seliger, 43-45, 49, 407

Lakuzo, Nikolay, 132, 146-147, 347, 351

Lange, Franz, 43

Langemak, Georgiy E., 73, 459-460, 466

Lappo, Vyacheslav I., 417

Lapshin, 60

Lapygin, Vladimir L., 187-188

Larionov, Andrey N., 196

Latvia, 229

launch escape systems (for manned vehicles), see 

Emergency Rescue System

Lavochkin, Semyon A., 65-66, 138, 209-217, 

227-238, 274, 281, 469; death of, 211

Lavochkin Factory, 110, 138, 501; see also Factory No. 301

Lavrov, Svyastoslav S., 34, 125, 128, 168, 189-

190, 297, 348, 349, 408, 439, 452, 519, 

545-546, 567

Layka (dog), 244, 388-389, 396

Lebedev, Yevgeniy F., 167-168, 296-299, 301, 339

Lebedev Physics Institute of the Academy of 

Sciences, see FIAN

Lebedinskiy, Andrey V., 576

Legostayev, Viktor P., 473, 505-506, 517, 523, 

544

Lehesten, 29, 32, 49, 123

Lelyanov, Andrey I., 484-485

Lenin, V. I., 389

Lenin Komsomol Automobile Factory, 572

Lenin Prize, 187, 389, 487, 530, 579

Leningrad, 1, 77, 78, 97, 177, 192, 202, 220, 

298, 389, 407, 409, 426, 549, 472, 500-501, 

520, 551, 558, 571, 636, 638, 640

Leningrad Metal Works (LMZ), 297-301, 303, 

318, 339-341

Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, 77, 

167, 173

Leningrad Rubber Technology Institute, 124

Leninsk (town), 311, 320, 326, 420, 633

Leninskiy Komsomol (nuclear submarine), 

260-261

Lermontov, 366

Levanevskiy, Sigizmund A., 100-101, 170, 219

Levchenko, Viktor I., 219-220

Levental, Ye. B., 225

Levin, Grigoriy I., 127, 559, 582, 585

Levitan, Yuriy B., 358, 429, 435, 525-526, 593

Leypunskiy, Aleksandr I., 481

Li-2 transport aircraft, 18, 316, 527-528

Lidorenko, Nikolay S., 30, 125, 511, 561, 629

Lidov, Mikhail L., 471

LII, see Flight-Research Institute

Likhnitskiy, Mark I., 19, 30, 34, 127

Likhobory, 457-458, 474

Lilienthal, Otto, 64

LIPAN (Instrumentation Laboratory of the 

Academy of Sciences), 8

Lisichka (dog), 597

Lisovich, Izrael M., 223-224, 226-227, 229, 

233-234, 237, 469

List, Grigoriy N., 123

Litvinov, Viktor Ya., 405-407

LMZ, see Leningrad Metal Works

Lobachevskiy, Nikolay I., 537

Lomakin, Mikhail I., 344, 366-367

London, 119

Lovell, Bernard, 453-455

Lubyanka prison, 8

Luna program, early attempts in 1958-1960, 

416-417, 435-455, 519-538, 541, 558-562

Luna-1 mission, 447, 492

Luna-2 mission, 446-447, 451-452, 492, 519, 

524

Luna-3 mission, 492, 508, 519-538, 545, 597

lunar landing (human), plans for, 566-567

lunar missions, early attempts in 1958-1960, 

416-417, 435-455, 519-538, 541, 558-562

Luzhinki, 525

Lyapidevskiy, A. V., 281-282

Lyubertsy, 83

Lyulka, Arkhip M., 465
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

656

Index

657

MVTU, see Bauman Higher Technical Institute

Myasishchev, Vladimir M., 234-238, 469, 488-

489

Mytishchi, 81

Mytishchi Machine Building Factory, 148

Mytishchi Tank KB, 111

N

N-1 lunar rocket, 66, 188, 305, 357, 511; 

origins of, 555-556, 565-566

N-3 theme for long range missile, 275-276, 604

N-209 aircraft, 100, 170, 195, 219-221

Nadashkevich, Aleksandr, 213

Nadiradze, Aleksandr D., 246

Nagasaki, 274

Narimanov, Georgiy S., 189, 190, 397, 444

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space

Administration), 436, 454

Natanzan, Miron S., 444-445

National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 

see NASA

NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 

152, 601

Nautilus (nuclear submarine), 259-260

Navaho cruise missile, 231

Navy, the, see the Soviet Navy

N. E. Bauman Higher Technical Institute, see 

Bauman Technical Institute

Nedelin, Mitrofan I., 137, 170, 254, 266-267, 

284, 309, 314, 322, 325, 327, 335-336, 339-

341, 345-346, 349, 351, 364-365, 372, 403-

404, 431-432, 436, 540-541, 544, 559-560, 

562, 607; and appointment as commander of 

Strategic Rocket Forces, 418-419; and R-16 

disaster, 599-634

“Nedelin Disaster,” see R-16 disaster

Negin, Yevgeniy A., 284-285

Nekipelov, Nikolay S., 511

Neptune reconnaissance aircraft, 428

Nesmeyanov, Aleksandr N., 375-376, 539, 565

Nesterenko, Aleksey I., 309, 321-322, 324-326, 

336, 345-346

Neva (magazine), 397

Nevskaya, Olga A., 127, 272-273

Newton, Isaac, 539

New York City, 247

NIAI (Scientific-Research Institute of Batteries), 

571

NII-1 institute, 25, 67, 75, 85-86, 93, 165, 

230, 233-234, 291, 396, 411, 424, 444-445, 

486, 497, 504-506, 520, 523, 557; history of, 

457-472; and development of attitude control 

systems, 472-476; see also RNII

NII-1 Branch No. 1, 465

NII-1 Branch No. 2, 12

NII-3 institute, 93, 396, 457, 465-466; see also 

RNII and NII-1

NII-4 military institute, 127, 168, 189-191, 

309, 379, 425-426, 439, 471, 519, 522, 549, 

617

NII-6 institute, 460

NII-10 institute, 5, 125, 191-194, 253

NII-12 institute, 466

NII-20 institute, 12, 30, 67, 110, 125, 139, 

183-184, 197, 201, 205, 208

NII-46 institute, 30

NII-49 institute, 67, 220, 250, 252, 407, 409

NII-88 institute, 29, 93, 97, 104, 108, 120, 

130, 139-140, 142-145, 149, 163, 177-178, 

180, 184, 186, 188, 190-191, 200, 202-203, 

209-211, 216, 222-223, 227, 229, 242-244, 

246, 248, 276-277, 285, 295, 297, 309, 337, 

349, 396, 398, 424-425, 462, 469-471, 474, 

493, 511, 516-517, 599; and creation of, 

10-18; and German specialists there, 43-69; 

and its first director Lev Gonor, 75-92; and 

organizational structure, 84-86; and subordinate Department U, 109-118; and changes in 

leadership in early 1950s, 155-171

NII-88 Branch No. 1 (Germans), 43-68, 407-

408; and end of work in the USSR, 68-73

NII-88 Branch No. 2 (rocket engine testing), 

124, 142-148, 292; see also Novostroyka and 

NII-229 and NIIKhimmash

NII-88 Department U (Chertok’s Department), 

89-90, 109-118, 120, 127, 142, 145-146, 

148, 161, 201, 210, 222-223, 227, 229, 419

NII-88 Scientific-Technical Council (NTS), 

50-61

NII-88 OKB-1 (Korolev) design bureau, see 

OKB-1

NII-88 OKB-2 (Tritko) design bureau, 91, 160

NII-88 OKB-2 (Isayev) design bureau, 209

NII-88 OKB-10 (Charnko) design bureau, 261

NII-88 SKB Department No. 3 (Korolev’s 

Department), 48, 81, 84, 90, 120, 122, 160, 

188-189, 220

NII-229 institute, 124, 303, 322, 337; see also 

Novostroyka and NII-88 Branch No. 2

NII-303 institute, 252

NII-380 institute, 520, 558

NII-627 institute, 19, 548; and background of, 

Ministry of Chemical Industry, 11-15, 636

Ministry of Defense, 9, 30, 177, 200, 209, 314, 

323, 403, 416, 425, 429, 436, 471, 486, 563, 

619, 624

Ministry of Defense Industries, 258, 275, 381, 

481-482, 493

Ministry of Electrical Industry, 11-15, 19

Ministry of Finance, 14, 564

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 429, 539

Ministry of General Machine Building (MOM), 

128, 194, 406, 438, 640

Ministry of Health, 389, 640

Ministry of Higher Education, 15, 20, 332

Ministry of Machine Building and

Instrumentation, 11-15

Ministry of Medium Machine Building, 275, 

282, 481-482

Ministry of Radio-Electronics Industry, 191

Ministry of Radio Industry, 381

Ministry of Railways, 323

Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry, 5, 11-15, 29, 

191, 425-426

Ministry of the Communications Systems 

Industry (MPSS), 30, 42, 177, 179-180, 534

Mints, Aleksandr L., 212-215, 411-412

Mir publishing house, 39

Mir space station, 507, 514, 535

mischgerät, 37

Mishin, Vasiliy P., 5, 18, 44, 50, 53, 64, 69, 75, 

76, 120, 156, 164-165, 166, 168, 226, 232, 

247, 259, 261-262, 272, 286, 291, 335, 347, 

369, 372, 375, 389, 408, 437, 444, 457, 

465, 469, 544-545, 553, 555-557, 566-568, 

613; and Hero of Socialist Labor award, 285; 

and design of R-7 launch pad, 294-295; and 

development of liquid oxygen systems for R-9 

ICBM, 410-411, 600; and election as Corresponding Member of Academy of Sciences, 

411-412; and conflict with Glushko, 554-555

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 

113

Mitenkov, Fedor M., 262

Mitkevich, Olga A., 117, 213

Mnatsakanyan, Armen S., 400

MNII-1 institute, 29-30, 253, 533-534

mobilization economy, 1

Moiseyev, Nikita N., 494-495

Moiseyev, Nikolay D., 62-64, 113

Moisheyev, Igor, 220, 226

Molniya launch vehicle, 420, 564, 568; see also 

8K78 launch vehicle

Molniya-1 communications satellite, 595

Molotov, Vyacheslav M., 342

MOM, see Ministry of General Machine

Building, 194

Monino, 178

Montania Factory, 43

Moon, see lunar missions

Mordvintsev, Leonid A., 126

Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), see MAI

Moscow Council of People’s Deputies, 459

Moscow Electromechanical Scientific-Research 

Institute (MNIIEM), see VNIIEM

Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute 

(MIFI), 481, 508

Moscow Engineering Institute of Geodesy, 

Aerial Surveying and Cartography

(MIIGAIiK), 516

Moscow Mashinoapparat Factory, 19

Moscow Physics and Technology Institute 

(MFTI), 296, 471, 487-488, 504, 506, 509

Moscow Power Engineering Institute, see MEI

Moscow Prozhektor Factory, see Prozhektor 

Factory

Moscow State University (MGU), 62, 118, 167, 

169, 296, 401, 425

Moskalenko, Kirill S., 634

Mossovet (Moscow Municipal Council of 

People’s Deputies), 412

Mount Koshka, 520-522, 526, 529-533, 538

Mozzhorin, Yuriy A., 127-128, 236, 348-349

MPSS, see Ministry of the Communications 

Systems Industry

Mrykin, Aleksandr G., 128-129, 142, 274, 330, 

336, 351-352, 364, 370, 380, 418, 441, 546-

548, 629

Mukhanov, Valentin M., 166-167

Mukhina, Vera, 327-328

Müller, Eric, 60

Munich, 394

Munich Technical University, 39

Murayev, Grigoriy I., 127, 512

MV spacecraft (Mars/Venus exploration of 

1960), 546-547, 550-551, 554

M. V. Frunze Factory, see Frunze Factory

M. V. Keldysh Research Center, see Keldysh 

Research Center

M. V. Keldysh Research Center: Seventy Years 

on the Frontiers of Rocket-Space Technology 

(book), 459

M. V. Khrunichev Factory, see Khrunichev 

Factory
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

658

Index

659

557, 599-601, 603, 613-614, 617-618, 623, 

628

OKB-692 (Konoplev) design bureau, 603-604, 

608, 613-614, 618, 622, 626, 628-629

OKB MEI (Bogomolov) design bureau, 107, 

116, 118, 127, 183, 250, 332-334, 426, 499-

500, 549, 560, 598

Okhapkin, Sergey O., 120, 165, 372, 383, 389, 

393, 408, 412, 542-543, 545, 567-568

Okhotsimskiy, Dmitriy Ye., 190, 428, 438, 471, 

519, 545-546, 567

Omsk Aviation Factory, see Factory No. 166

Operation K-5, 593

OPM, see Academy of Sciences Department of 

Applied Mathematics

organization of postwar missile industry, 16-21

organization of Soviet space program, 491-493; 

process of decree preparation, 563-564

Order of Kutuzov, 79

Order of Lenin, 77, 78, 197, 285, 478, 495

Ordzhonikidze, Grigoriy (Sergo) K., 459

Orenburg Machine Building Factory, see Factory 

No. 47

Orlovich, Teodor M., 102-104

ORM-65 rocket engine, 462

Ostashev, Arkadiy I., 127, 273, 431, 522-524, 

527, 531-533, 572-573, 576, 581-582, 588, 

597-598, 618, 623, 631

Ostashev, Yevgeniiy I., 321, 328, 331, 344-345, 

347, 350-351, 366-367, 369, 417, 453; and 

R-16 disaster, 598-599, 617, 623, 625, 631

Ostashkov, 45

Ostekhbyro (Special Technical Bureau), 197

Ostryakov, Nikolay N., 192

Ovchinnikov, 111

P

Pacific Ocean, 333, 424-433, 540, 582, 586, 

597

Pallo, Arvid V., 49, 462

Panchenko, Yevgeniy 306

Panferov, Viktor N., 89

Panther tank, 479

Panzerwagen, 32, 34

Papanin expedition, 100

Parshin, 12

Party politics and the missile industry, 81-82, 

90, 116, 117, 157, 161, 168, 226-227, 259, 

406-407, 467, 485, 496-497, 505

Partytysyachniki, 102

Pashkov, Georgiy N., 15, 75, 333, 336, 546, 

629; life story, 172-176

Pasteur, Louis, 537

Patsayev, Viktor I. (cosmonaut), 515

Patsiora, Anatoliy I., 473, 523, 583

Pavlenko, Oleg M., 432-433

Pavlov, Nikolay, 284

Peenemünde, 31, 32, 33, 37, 44, 51, 53, 59, 61, 

62, 66, 72, 78-79, 88, 114-115, 193, 247, 

464

Penek, Boris M., 511

People’s Commissariat of Ammunitions, 461-

463

People’s Commissariat of Armaments, 480

People’s Commissariat of Aviation Industry 

(NKAP), 463, 468

People’s Commissariat of Defense, 461

People’s Commissariat of Defense Industry, 

460-461, 463

People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry 

(NKTP), 101, 459-460, 463

People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs, see 

NKVD

People’s Commissariat of Military and Naval 

Affairs, 463

People’s Commissariat of Munitions, 460

Peresypkin, Ivan T., 336

Perm Machine Building Factory, see Factory

No. 172

personnel appointments in the missile industry, 

156-157, 161, 167-168, 496-497, 505

Pervukhin, Mikhail G., 6, 7, 12

Pervyshin, Erlen K., 317

Peter the Great, 91

Petri, Van Fried, 394

Petropavlovskiy, Boris S., 73

Petrov, Boris N., 112-113, 122, 287

Petrov, Georgiy I., 396, 444

Petrov, G. N., 196

Petrov, Nikolay I., 292

Petrov, Vadim I., 567, 579

Petrov, Vyacheslav V., 112

Peyse, 43

PGU, see First Main Directorate, 7

Philby, Kim, 174-175

PIK-1 (Floating Measurement Complex No. 1), 

425-426

Pikovskiy, I. I., 534

Pilyugin, Nikolay A., 18, 25, 30, 33, 34-35, 38, 

40, 50, 57, 58, 67, 84, 113, 117, 125, 127, 

129, 132, 136, 138, 140, 142, 143, 146, 148, 

162, 172, 183, 211-216, 220, 244, 247-250, 

194-198

NII-648 institute, 400

NII-885 institute, 18, 29-30, 67, 90, 110, 

113-114, 116-117, 125, 138, 140, 157, 162, 

177-191, 194, 209-210, 220, 253, 291, 306, 

327, 497, 508, 521, 533, 545, 550, 571-572, 

603-604, 613

NII-944 institute, 194, 598, 628

NIIAP (Scientific-Research Institute of Automation and Instrument Building), 188

NII Avtomatiki, 209

NIIKhimmash, 144-145, 514; see also NII-88 

Branch No. 2 and Novostroyka and NII-229

NIIP-5 (Scientific-Research and Test Firing 

Range No. 5 or Tyura-Tam/Baykonur), 432, 

624; and selection of launch site, 306-312; 

and creation of, 313-336

NIP-6 tracking station, 333

NIP-7 tracking station, 333

NIP-10 tracking station, 508, 533; see also 

Simferopol

NIP-16 tracking station, 533-535, 571, 587-

588, 593-594; see also Yevpatoriya

NIIPM (Scientific-Research Institute of Applied 

Mechanics), 194

NII Shchelkovsko, 170

NIIT (Scientific-Research Institute of Current 

Sources), 30, 511; see also VNIIT

NII Tyazhmash (Scientific-Research Institute of 

Heavy Machine Building), 534

Nikolai, Ye. I., 192

Nikolayev, 50

Nikolayev, Nikolay, 640

Nikolayev, Vadim N., 473

Nikolayev, Valentin A., 523

NISO (Scientific Institute of Aircraft Equipment), 292

Nitochkin, Aleksey A., 315

Nixon, Richard M., 449

NKVD (People’s Commissariat of Internal 

Affairs), 8, 207

Nobel Prize, 548

nomenkletura, 161

Nordhausen, 17, 25, 41, 43

Noskin, German V., 500-501, 545

Nosov, Aleksandr I., 321, 331, 347, 347-348, 

351, 355, 359, 417, 453, 559-560, 616-617, 

625

Nosovskiy, Naum E., 10, 13

Novikov, Mikhail Z., 333, 417, 560

Novodevichye Cemetery, 5, 632

Novostroyka, 124, 144-148, 166, 188, 212, 

292, 318; see also NII-88 Branch No. 2 and 

NII-229

Novozhilov, P. V., 252

NPO Elas, 535

NPO Energiya, 236, 514, 635

nuclear warheads (for missiles), 422-424, 431-

432, 509, 601

nuclear weapons, development of, 6-9; and first 

use on missiles, 272-287

N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy, see Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy

O

Ob river, 515-516

Oberth, Hermann, 51

Object D (satellite), 376, 380-381, 399-400

Obninsk, 481

Obolenskiy, Nikolay A., 150

October Socialist Revolution, see Russian 

Revolution

Odessa, 582

OKB-1 (Korolev) design bureau, 112, 149, 186, 

188-191, 228, 230, 248, 253, 258-260, 265, 

291, 296-297, 300, 324, 341, 349, 381, 383, 

389, 395, 397, 401, 403, 406, 408, 410-411, 

424, 435, 437, 439-440, 442, 445, 448, 471, 

475, 486-488, 493-495, 497, 499-500, 503, 

505-506, 508, 513-515, 517, 519, 521, 523, 

531, 539, 547, 549, 552, 554, 564, 567-57, 

577, 582, 587, 589, 592, 613; and creation 

of, 90-91, 160; and organization in early days, 

163-169; and independence from NII-88, 

246, 316; and merger with TsNII-58, 477-

489, 491-492; see also TsKBEM

OKB-1 Branch No. 1 (“second territory”), 172; 

formation of, 482-489, 495

OKB-1 Branch No. 3, 406, 417

OKB-2 (Isayev) design bureau, 86

OKB-12 (Abramov) design bureau, 292-293

OKB-23 (Myasishchev) design bureau, 235, 488

OKB-52 (Chelomey) design bureau, 488; see 

also TsKBM

OKB-52 Branch No. 1, 488

OKB-301 (Lavochkin) design bureau, 209, 

211-217, 234

OKB-456 (Glushko) design bureau, 18, 48, 67, 

126, 138, 148, 265, 290-292, 424, 466, 614, 

617; and German specialists there, 43, 44-45, 

48-49, 178

OKB-586 (Yangel) design bureau, 148, 556-
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

660

Index

661

272-273, 275, 279-280, 289-290, 305; and 

flight-testing of, 171, 242-243

R-5A missile, 243-244

R-5M (SS-3) missile, 163, 164, 187, 243, 289, 

304, 313, 318, 361, 365, 397, 404, 423, 552, 

556, 600-601; and declared operational, 245-

246; and equipping with nuclear warhead, 

272-287

R-5R experimental missile, 243, 306, 604

R-7 (SS-6) ICBM, 52, 66, 73, 106, 164, 168, 

189, 235, 237, 252, 276, 285, 315, 317-318, 

329, 408, 410, 421-422, 424, 429, 435, 

437, 440-441, 446, 470, 509, 544-545, 547, 

554, 557, 567, 599-600, 602, 605, 633; and 

design conception, 289-306; and selection 

of launch site for, 306-312; and telemetry 

systems for, 331-334; and 1st launch in 1957, 

337-353, 355, 612-613; and R-7 launches 

in 1957-1959, 355-368, 383, 397, 395-400, 

402-404, 415-419; and launch of Sputnik, 

380-391; and production of, 404-408; and 

declared operational, 417-418, 432; and conversion to space launch vehicle, 419-420; and 

disaster at Plesetsk in 1980, 634-641

R-7A (SS-6) ICBM, 235, 417-419, 430, 435, 

492, 519, 540, 544, 552, 567, 597, 599-601; 

and test launches in 1960, 421-433

R-8 missile, 408

R-9 (SS-8) ICBM, 410-411, 431-432, 492, 

540-541, 545, 552, 579, 589, 592, 599-602, 

605, 632-634; and disaster in 1963, 633

R-10 (German missile project), see G-1

R-11 missile, 170, 187, 243, 289, 365, 404, 

552; and conversion into naval version, 247-

264; and flight-testing, 266-268

R-11A missile, 243-244

R-11FM naval missile, 187, 289, 297, 492; and 

development and history of, 247-264

R-11M missile, 164, 168, 187, 243, 258, 261, 

404

R-12 (SS-4) missile, 163, 365, 423-424, 556, 

593, 600-602

R-12 (German missile project), see G-2

R-13 missile, 259-260

R-13 (German missile project), see G-1M

R-14 (SS-5) missile, 601-602, 609-610, 612

R-14 (German missile project), see G-4

R-16 (SS-7) ICBM, 375, 540-541, 556, 579, 

640; and origins of, 408-410, 603; and disaster in 1960, 598-599

R-16 disaster, 579, 581, 598-634, 637, 640; and 

number of fatalities, 598-599; and formation 

of investigation commission, 621-622; and 

report of accident commission, 624-628

R-101 missile, 84-85

R-102 missile, 85

R-103 missile, 85

R-110 missile, 85

Radar Council, see Special Committee No. 3

radar technology, 2-5

Radio-Control Ground station, see RUP

Rakhmatulin Khalil A., 89

R&D, Soviet process of in missile industry, 502-

504, 512-514

RAND (U.S. thinktank), 393

Rashkov, Semyon A., 65, 85, 89, 109, 115-116

Raspletin, Aleksandr A., 216-217, 412, 540

Rauschenbach (Raushenbakh), Boris V., 236, 

263, 457, 458, 486, 497, 504, 506, 517, 

520, 544, 546-547, 557, 568, 588, 591; and 

development of first attitude control systems, 

470-476

Raykhman, Oskar Yu., 193, 618

Raykov, Ivan I., 18, 291, 347, 356, 408, 568, 

592

Razygrayev, 445

RD-100 engine, 49, 126, 144, 185

RD-111 engine, 554

RDA-1-150 engine, 462

Reactive Scientific-Research Institute, see RNII

Red Army (RKKA), 459, 461

reliability of early ballistic missiles, 265-270, 

304-305

Renegar, Harold, 448

research and development, see R&D

Reshetin, Andrey G., 397

Reshetnev, Mikhail F., 165

Reshetnikov, Valentin I., 194

Reutov, 488, 514

Reutov, Aleksandr P., 207

Revolutionary Military Council, 459

Rheintochter missile, 13, 85

Richard, Paul E., 228

Riedel, Walter, 394

RKK Energia (Energia Rocket-Space Corporation), 39-40, 505-506; see also OKB-1 and 

TsKBEM

RKKA, see Red Army

RKO (orbit radio monitoring) system, 499

RKS (apparent velocity control system), 52, 

305, 442-443

RNII (Reactive Scientific-Research Institute), 

259-260, 262-263 273-274, 291, 297, 302, 

329, 330-331, 335-336, 347, 350-351, 359-

360, 363-364, 382, 408-410, 417, 440, 442, 

444, 446, 453, 458, 465, 467, 469, 472, 497, 

509, 545-547, 555, 564, 568, 581-582, 590, 

602-604, 629; and job at NII-885, 177-188, 

191, 193; and first Hero of Socialist Labor 

award, 285; and election as Corresponding 

Member of Academy of Sciences, 411-412

Pioneer (U.S.) program, 543-544

Pistolkors, Aleksandr A., 509

Plastik Factory, 500-501, 588

Plesetsk, 9, 312, 407, 432, 601, 634-640

Plesetsk disaster of 1980, 634-641

Pleshko, Anatoliy P., 466

P. N. Lebedev Physics Institute of the Academy 

of Sciences, see FIAN

Po-2 airplane, 56, 462

Pobedonostsev, Yuriy A., 27-28, 44, 46, 48, 50, 

59, 64, 73, 75, 77, 81, 86, 89, 90, 93, 94, 95, 

109, 115-117, 160, 184, 210, 221, 543; and 

departure from NII-88, 156

Podlipki (Moscow suburb, later Kaliningrad, 

now Korolev), 16, 18, 26, 28-29, 51, 58, 59, 

65, 68, 75, 76, 84, 91, 97, 126, 136, 146, 

148, 149, 178, 223, 234, 302, 337, 367, 384, 

409, 457, 474, 479, 486, 516, 524, 536, 572-

573, 590, 605

Pogosyants, Boris G., 507, 512

Poland, 467-468

Polaris A-1 naval missiles, 260

Polikarpov, Nikolay N., 404

Polikovskiy, V. I., 465

Politburo, 1, 105, 108, 204, 236, 342; see also 

Presidium

Polonskaya, Nellya, 296

Polyarniy, Aleksandr I., 67

Popkov, Ivan V., 253, 255

Popov, Aleksandr S., 537

Popov, Boris M., 582, 560

Popov, Roman I., 3, 116, 217, 411, 466, 521

Popov, Viktor A., 516

Portnov-Sokolov, Yuriy P., 293

Pospelov, Germogen S., 101-105, 373

Powers, Francis Gary, 217

power systems for spacecraft, 511-512

Prandtl, Ludwig, 43

Pravda (newspaper), 384, 588, 593, 594

Pravetskiy, Vladimir N., 640

Presidium (later the Politburo), 275, 544, 553, 

555, 564

press releases (preparation of), 428-429

Priss, Georgiy M., 186-187, 351

The Problem of a Unified Theory of Electromagnetic and Gravitational Inertial Fields 

(book), 548

Progress Factory, 404, 406, 420, 590, 635; see 

also Factory No. 1

programmed sequences (PTRs), 611, 614, 

630-631

Pronin, Aleksandr, 280, 349

Prozhektor factory, 19, 30, 327

Prudnikov, Ivan S., 123, 279, 281, 285, 397

PT-200 current converter, 582-584

PTR, see programmed sequencer

Pulkovo observatory, 529-530

purges, see Great Purges

Pushkin, Aleksandr S., 528

Putze, Oswald, 45

Q

Quaternion Application in Problems of SolidState Orientation (book), 506

R

R-1 missile, 19, 28, 41, 48, 50, 52, 54, 55, 78, 

81, 84, 115, 162, 170, 181, 183, 189, 193, 

206, 219, 222, 231, 247-248, 265-266, 268-

269, 272, 274, 293, 331, 355, 404, 461-462, 

552, 600; and first launches in 1948, 119-

140; and second series of launches, 141-142; 

and ground firings, 143-145; and declared 

operational, 149-154, 242; and production 

of, 163-164

R-1A missile, 50, 139, 243

R-1D missile, 243-244

R-1V missile, 243-244

R-1Ye missile, 243-244

R-2 missile, 65, 84, 115, 126, 137, 149, 150, 

158, 162, 170, 181, 184-187, 189, 219, 231, 

248, 265-266, 268-270, 272, 274, 279, 331, 

355, 404, 552, 600; and comparisons with 

German G-1, 48-52; and declared operational, 242; and use of radioactive payloads, 

244-245

R-2A missile, 243-244

R-2E experimental missile, 50, 65, 137, 184, 

243, 265-266

R-2R experimental missile, 604

R-3, 126, 139, 184, 219, 275-276; and origins 

of, 66-68

R-5 (SS-3) missile, 164, 170, 187-189, 216, 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

662

Index

663

NISO

Scientific-Research and Test Firing Range No. 5, 

see NIIP-5

Scientific-Research Institute No. 10, see NII-10

Scientific-Research Institute No. 88, see NII-88

Scientific-Research Institute of Batteries, see NIAI

Scientific-Research Institute of Current Sources, 

see NIIT

Scientific-Research Institute of Heavy Machine 

Building, see NII Tyazhmash

Scientific-Research Institute of Measurement 

Technology, 517

Scientific-Research Institute of Reactive

Armaments, 465

Scientific-Research Institute of Reactive

Projectiles, 12

Scientific-Research Institute of Rubber

Industry, 124

Scientific-Research Institute of Thermal

Processes, 396

secrecy in the missile industry, 317-318

selsyns, 196

Sedov, Leonid I., 394, 525

Semagin, Konstantin P., 560

Semenikhin, Vladimir S., 223-224

Semikhatov, Nikolay A., 182-183, 259, 261-

263, 497

Semipalatinsk, 272

Semyachkin, Vladimir S., 473

Semyonov, Yuriy P., 506, 508

semyorka missile, see R-7

Senate Armed Services Committee (U.S.),

448-449

separable nosecone on early missiles, 49-50

Serbin, Ivan D. (“Ivan the Terrible”), 146, 156, 

553, 621, 626

Sergeyev, Dmitriy, 51, 58, 59, 61, 109, 115-116

Sergeyev, Vladimir G., 6299

Serov, Ivan A., 14, 32, 135, 171-172, 181, 603; 

and first V-2 launches, 35-38

Serp i Molot Factory, 124

Seventh Main Directorate (of Ministry of

Armaments), 17-18

Severnyy, Andrey B., 559

Severodvinsk (Molotovsk), 253-257

Severov, Aleksey A., 397

Sevruk, Dominik D., 34, 123, 134

Shabarov, Yevgeniy V., 39, 278, 284, 298,

319, 431, 598

Shabranskiy, Vitaliy L., 123

Shaefer, 51

Shaefer, Ursula, 45

Shakhurin, Aleksey I., 465, 468

Shananin, Aleksey A., 110, 516

Shapiro, Yakov M., 64

sharashka (prison engineering camp), 123, 207

Shashin, Fedor G., 349

Shatalov, Vladimir A., 515

Shchelkin, Kirill I., 277, 286-287

Shchennikov, Yevgeniy A., 25, 467

Shcherbakova, Nadezhda P., 127

Shcherbakova, Nadya P., 111

Shchetinkov, Yevgeniy S., 459

Shchukin, Aleksandr N., 5, 205, 212, 216

Shefner, K. I., 196

Shelest, Petr Ye., 499

Sheremetyevskiy, Nikolay, N., 195, 197-198, 

510, 548, 591

Shestakov, Semyon A., 214

Shestnadtsataya, see R-16 ICBM

Shevelev, Vladimir K., 401, 507

Shilov, Dmitriy, 112

ship-based communications network,

creation of, 425-429, 582

Shirokova, L. V., 639

Shishkin, Oleg N., 169

Shishkin, S. N., 32

Shklovskiy, Iosif S., 536

Shmulevich, Mikhail A., 465-466

Shmyglevskiy, Igor P., 473, 506

Shokin, Aleksandr I., 4, 548-549, 559, 572

Shtarkov, Arkadiy I., 498

Shteynberg, Aleksandr, 636, 640

Shtokolov, Boris A., 462

Shubnikov, Georgiy M., 314, 316, 324-326

Shuler, 225

Shulgin, 301

Shumarov, Mikhail I., 111

Shuruy, Aleksandr I., 511, 545, 571, 583

Shustov, Anatoliy A., 507-508

Siberia, 573, 577, 586

Sibir (ship), 426, 582

Siege of Leningrad, 192

Silver Dust (film), 245

Simeiz (control center for lunar missions),

529, 533

Simferopol, 508, 530-531, 533, 538

Sinekolodetskiy, Nikolay P., 344, 524, 559

Sinilshchikov, Yevgeniy V., 65, 84-85, 89, 90, 

94, 109, 114-115, 160, 180, 200, 209-210, 

222

Site No. 1 (at Baykonur), 315, 320, 322-323, 

48, 85, 221, 396; and history of, 457-472; 

and development of attitude control systems, 

472-476; and Purges at, 460-461; see also 

NII-1

Rockets and People (book), 598

Rodin, Aleksandr L., 153

Rokossovskiy, Konstantin K., 79, 80, 146

ROKS (Aircraft Coordinate Radio Locator) 

system, 3, 411

Roosevelt, Franklin D., 27

Roshchin, Viktor F., 397

Rosselevich, Igor A., 520, 559

Rostokina, Inna A., 351

Rostov, 500

Rostov University, 167, 296

RP-318-1 rocket-glider, 462

RS-82 rocket-propelled projectile, 460

RS-132 rocket-propelled projectile, 460

RSM-25 submarine-launched ballistic missile, 

262

RSM-40 submarine-launched ballistic missile, 

262-263

RT-1 solid propellant missile, 552-553

RT-2 solid propellant ICBM, 488, 492, 633

RTS-5 telemetry system, 332

Rubaylo, Igor F., 167, 296-301, 339-342

Rubin transponder, 333, 400

Rudnev, Konstantin N., 117, 184, 295, 380, 

387, 431-432, 444, 446, 453-454, 493, 531, 

548-549, 553, 560, 563, 565, 574, 578, 

581-584, 621, 626, 629; and appointment 

as NII-88 director, 159-161; and R-7 tests in 

1957-1959, 356, 360, 364-368, 418

Rudnitskiy, Viktor A., 18, 30, 33, 34

Rudolph, 60

Rudyak, Yevgeniy G., 252-253

Rukavishnikov, Nikolay N. (cosmonaut), 500-

501, 508, 515-516, 545

RUP (Radio-Control Ground Station), 306-

307, 333, 450

Russell, Jr., Richard B., 448-449, 453

Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, 133

Russian Academy of Navigation and Motion 

Control, 39

Russian Academy of Sciences, see Academy of 

Sciences

Russian Association of Institutions of Higher 

Learning, 516

Russian Engineering Academy, 133

Russian Revolution (of 1917), 3, 197, 404

Russian Revolution, anniversaries of, 40, 387, 

441, 444, 605-606, 612

Russian Space Agency, 634

RVGK, see Supreme Command Reserve

RVSN, see Strategic Rocket Forces

Ryabikov, Vasiliy M., 15, 17-18, 47, 183, 208, 

212, 216, 231, 380, 409-410; and involvement with R-7 testing, 323, 335-336, 339, 

342, 345, 356

Ryazanov, Yevgeniy F., 376, 472, 544

Ryazanskiy, Mikhail S., 18, 25, 27-28, 30, 33, 

34, 40, 50, 57, 58, 67, 84, 90, 110, 114, 

117, 125, 127, 140, 156, 157, 160-161, 173, 

211-216, 220, 244, 247-250, 306, 313, 325, 

331-332, 334-336, 347, 349-350, 382, 408, 

417, 429, 450, 454, 497, 508, 534, 546-547, 

550-552, 555, 559, 575, 591, 603-604; and 

job at NII-885, 177-186, 191, 193; and first 

Hero of Socialist Labor award, 285; and

election as Corresponding Member of 

Academy of Sciences, 411-412; and Luna-3 

mission, 520-521, 526-528, 531, 533, 535

S

S-25 air defense missile system, 216-217

S-75 air defense missile system, 217, 540

Saburov, Maksim Z., 4

Sadovskiy, Igor N., 552-553

Sadovyy, Viktor F., 276-277, 281, 285

Sakhalin (ship), 426

Sakharov, Andrey D., 275-277, 286-287, 422, 

424

Salyut space stations, 535

Salyut (-1) space station, 515

Salyut-6 space station, 515-516

Salyut-7 space station, 514, 516

Samara, 405, 420, 517, 635

Sänger intercontinental rocket-bomber, 66

Sapozhnikov, Illariy N., 193-194

Sarapul Aviation Parts Factory, 500

Saratov, 36-37

Sary-Shagan, 346

SAS, see Emergency Rescue System

Savchenko, Stanislav A., 506-507, 516

Savinykh, Viktor P. (cosmonaut), 507, 516

SB-1 design bureau, 200, 202-203

Schmetterling missile, 13, 65, 85

Schmidt, 44

Schüler, M., 38-39

Schultz, Werner, 394

Schwartz, Willi, 44

Scientific Institute of Aircraft Equipment, see 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

664

Index

665

Stalin Prize (award), 21, 76, 78, 119, 192, 487

Stalingrad, 30-31, 77, 81

State Commission (for V-2), 31-33, 34, 37-38, 

40-42

State Commission (for R-1), 81, 127, 134, 136, 

419

State Commission (for R-7), 335-336, 339, 

344-346, 348, 350, 355-356, 360, 364, 366, 

403, 417-418, 427-428

State Commission (for R-16), 605, 611-612, 

614-617

State Commission (for Luna), 443-446, 451-

452, 454, 526, 558-559, 562

State Commission (for Mars), 574-576, 590-

594

State Commission (for Venera), 578, 580-585, 

590-592

State Committee of Defense or State Defense 

Committee (GOKO), 2, 7, 22, 105, 461, 

463, 465

State Committee of Defense Technology 

(GKOT), 258, 446, 485, 493, 534, 555, 563, 

565, 578, 629

State Committee on Radio Electronics (GKRE), 

331, 548-550, 563, 572, 626, 629

State Central Design Bureau No. 1, see GTsKB-1

State Institute of Applied Chemistry (GIPKh), 

636, 640

State Institute of Reactive Technology (GIRT), 

462-463

State Optical Institute, 96

State Traffic Patrol (GAI), 531

St. Basil’s Cathedral, 151

Stepan, Georgiy A., 109, 148, 292

St. Petersburg, 248

Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN), 236, 260, 263, 

310, 404, 503, 540, 602, 635; and formation 

of, 418-419

Strela (computer), 190

Strelka (dog), 572, 597

Stroganov, Boris A., 629

Stupinskiy Light Alloy Industrial Complex, 124

Stuttgart Technical University, 39

SUBK (onboard complex control system), 507, 

570

submarines, Soviet, 182-183; and first submarine-launched ballistic missile, 247-264

Suchal (ship), 426, 582

Sukhomlinov, F. G., 43

Sukhopalko, Mikhail V., 320, 370

Sukov, M. P., 32

Sulimov, Oleg A., 169

Sulimovskiy, N. A., 248

Sultan, Amet-Khan, 204

Supreme Command Reserve (RVGK), 404

Supreme Soviet, 79, 274

surface-to-air missiles, 109, 114-115, 157-158, 

180, 199-217, 281

Sverdlovsk, 77, 164, 217, 347, 497

Syromiatnikov, Vladimir S., 167, 510

Syr-Darya river, 307-308, 311, 320, 342, 366

Sytsko, Georgiy A., 530, 535-536

T

T-1 theme for intercontinental ballistic missile, 

275-276

T-34 tank, 479

Tabakov, Gleb M., 124, 145-146, 148, 621, 

626, 628-629

Taganrog Radio Engineering Institute, 401, 507

Taming the Fire (film), 263, 310

Tank Depletion and Synchronization System, 

see SOBIS

Tank Emptying System, see SOB

Taran microswitch, 574

Taran, V. N., 619

Tashkent, 314, 319-320, 326

TASS (press agency), 309, 371-372, 383-384, 

397, 427-428, 432, 435, 453-454, 526, 584-

585, 587

TB-3 aircraft, 100, 213

Terentyev, V. P., 32

TGU, see Third Main Directorate

Third Main Directorate (TGU), 5, 18, 180, 

208, 210

Thuringia, 28

Tiger tank, 479

Tikhonravov, Mikhail K., 50, 380, 389, 412, 

457-458, 462, 472, 487, 494, 497, 538, 543, 

544-545, 551-552; and origins of Sputnik, 

379-383, 470-471

Titov, S. D., 615

Tkachev, 106

TOGE-4 (Fourth Pacific Ocean Hydrographic 

Expedition), 426-431

Tokar, Yevgeniy N., 471-473, 504, 506, 523

Tolstov, A. S., 638-639

Tolubko, Vladimir F., 635, 637

Tomsk, 515-516

tracking stations (for R-7), 346

Tral telemetry system, 106, 183, 332-333, 338, 

346, 351, 356, 359, 363, 388, 400, 417, 426, 

326-329, 357, 432, 632

Site No. 2 (at Baykonur), 315-316, 320, 322-

323, 326, 343-344, 346, 357, 361, 367, 384, 

453, 524, 582, 591, 634

Site No. 10 (at Baykonur), 315, 320, 323, 325, 

357, 366, 453, 592

Site No. 31 (at Baykonur), 432

Site No. 41 (at Baykonur), 598, 602

Site No. 42 (at Baykonur), 620

Site No. 51 (at Baykonur), 592

S. I. Vavilov Institute of Natural History and 

Technology, see Vavilov Institute of Natural 

History and Technology

Sivolodskiy, Yevgeniy, 636, 639

SK-2 telemetry system, 426

SKB-567 design bureau, 331, 533-534, 545, 

547-548, 550, 571-572, 575

Skotnikov, Boris P., 473

Slavskiy, Yefim P., 565

Sliozberg, Mikhail, 201-202

Slonimer, Boris M., 73, 460

Smirnitskiy, Nikolay N., 34-35, 36, 38, 128, 

134-135

Smirnov, Leonid V., 150, 590-591, 635-637

SOB (Tank Emptying System), 331, 386, 399

SOBIS (Tank Depletion and Synchronization 

System), 293, 304, 331, 331

Society for Space Travel (Verein für Raumschiffahrt), 464

Sofrinsk Test Range, 12, 461

Sokolniki (suburb), 25, 144, 467

Sokolov, Andrey I., 127, 270-271, 425, 522, 

549-550, 617

Sokolov, Boris A., 291, 568

Sokolova, Tatyana V., 397-398

Sokolovskiy, 14

Sokolovskiy, Vasiliy D., 79

Soldatenkov, Aleksandr M., 420, 638

Sömmerda, 53

Sorg, 39-40

Soroker, Teodor G., 195

Sosnovik, Isaak A., 507

Sosny, 547

Soviet Air Force, 528, 634

Soviet Anti-Fascist Jewish Committee, 82

Soviet Military Administration in Germany 

(SVAG), 14

Soviet missile program, reasons for early successes, 117-118

Soviet Navy, 11, 534, 634

Sovkov, Georgiy V., 145, 147-148, 498

Sovnarkhoz (Council of National Economy), 

404, 406, 438, 493, 498-501, 563-564

Soyuz-5 mission, 514

Soyuz-8 mission, 514

Soyuz-10 mission, 514-515

Soyuz-11 mission, 515

Soyuz-16 mission, 515

Soyuz-22 mission, 514

Soyuz-33 mission, 515-516

Soyuz T-2 mission, 514

Soyuz T-4 mission, 516

Soyuz T-9 mission, 514

Soyuz T-13 mission, 516

Soyuz TM-3 mission, 514

Soyuz TM-5 mission, 516

Soyuz launch vehicle, 329, 410, 602

Soyuz spacecraft/program, 500

Space Shuttle Columbia (accident), 641

Sparkasse group (at Institute Nordhausen), 125, 

128, 189, 297

Sparzhin, Yuriy V., 523

Special Committee (atomic bomb), 6-9, 21, 23, 

156

Special Committee No. 2 (reactive technology), 

9-17, 20, 89, 97, 118, 124, 137, 201, 210

Special Committee No. 3 (radar council), 2-4, 

6, 231

Special Committee of the Council of Ministers, 

492

Special Design Bureau of the Kompressor Factory, 461

Special Purpose Brigade, see BON

Special Train No. 1, 33

Special Train No. 2, 33

Spetselektromontazh, 317

Spiridonov, Aleksey S., 60, 163

S. P. Korolev Memorial Home Museum, see 

Korolev Memorial Home Museum

Sprinson, M. I., 466

Sputnik, 73, 239, 435, 491, 576; and origins of, 

364-365, 375-376, 379-383; and launch of, 

383-391

Sputnik-2, 388-390, 491

Sputnik-3, 395, 399-400

Sputnik launch vehicle, 420

Stalin, Iosif V., 1, 2, 6, 8, 15, 16, 17, 21-23, 

26, 27, 78, 83, 94, 97, 105, 108, 135, 137, 

155, 156, 160, 173-175, 200-201, 204-208, 

213, 221, 231, 240, 342, 390, 406, 463, 468, 

479-480, 482, 484-485, 496; and death of, 

171-172, 478-479
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

666

Index

667

200-203, 205, 208, 211, 212, 214-215, 231, 

295, 310, 379, 410, 468, 477, 479-485, 493, 

498, 546-548, 553, 557, 563-565, 621, 626, 

629; and German scientists, 47, 48, 56-58; 

and appointment at VPK, 175-176

Ust-Kamenogorskaya Plant, 108

Utkin, Ivan I., 157, 168, 398, 517

V

V-2 (A4) missile, 11, 13, 19, 28, 72, 78, 84, 93, 

153, 181, 188-189, 242, 247, 266, 293, 329, 

464, 466, 468, 599, 636; and first launches 

from Kapustin Yar, 29-42, 45-46; and possible improvements to in late 1940s, 48-69; 

and improvement into R-1 missile, 119-140

V-300 surface-to-air missile, 217

V-611 submarine, 249, 251

V-629 submarine, 261

V-667A submarine, 260, 262

Vachnadze, Vakhtang D., 568-569

Valik, Igor, 520, 523, 558

Van Allen, James, 401

Vanguard (U.S. satellite program), 376

Vanichev, Aleksandr P., 396

Vavilov, Nikolay I., 95-96

Vavilov, Sergey I., 94-98, 108, 122

Vannikov, Boris L., 7, 8, 12, 36, 156, 208, 212, 

214-216, 380, 468, 481

Vannikov, Rafail B., 36

Vasilyev, Anatoliy A., 153, 321

Vasilyev-Lyulin, Georgiy I., 224-225

Vasilyevskiy, Aleksandr M., 79, 175, 206

Vavilov Institute of Natural History and Technology, 108, 237

VDNKh (Exhibition of National Economic 

Achievements), 412-413

VEI (All-Union Electrical Engineering Institute), 195-196

Vekshinskiy, Sergey A., 411

Velikoredchanin, Yarulla, 640

Venera program, preparation for 1961 launches, 

526, 537-538, 541-551, 557-558, 563; and 

launches in 1961, 577-588; and launches in 

1962, 589-595

Venera-1 mission, 545, 586-588

Venus, 435, 526

Venus exploration program, preparation for 

1961 launches, 526, 537-538, 541-551, 557-

558, 563; and launches in 1961, 577-588; 

and launches in 1962, 589-595

Verne, Jules, 537

Vernov, Sergey N., 108, 127, 401-402, 559

Vershinin, Konstantin A., 587

Vertikant gyroscope system, 30, 52, 193

Vetoshkin, Sergey I., 5, 17, 32, 34, 47, 50, 

56-59, 81, 86, 88, 89, 118, 127, 137, 142, 

159, 179, 183, 200, 202, 208, 210, 212-216, 

243-244

Vetrov, Georgiy S., 167, 186, 189, 296, 299, 

301, 339-340

VIAM (All-Russian Institute of Aviation Materials), 124

Viebach, Fritz, 36, 37

Vietnam War, 217

Viktoriya radio correction system, 183

Villa Frank, 26, 123, 335-336, 412

Vilnitskiy, Lev B., 148, 167, 268, 292, 509-510

Vintsentini, Kseniya (Korolev’s first wife), 26

Vishnyakov, Petya, 147

Vitka, Vladimir A., 45, 123

Vladimir Ilich Factory, 461

Vladimirskiy, Lev A., 253-254

Vladimirskiy, Sergey M., 127, 179-180, 336, 

526-527

V. M. Molotov Moscow Power Engineering 

Institute, see MEI

VNIIEM (All-Union Scientific-Research 

Institute of Electromechanics), 194, 197-198, 

510, 548, 628; see also NII-627

VNIIT (All-Union Scientific-Research Institute 

of Current Sources), 571, 615; see also NIIT

Volga river, 31, 40, 405, 558

Volkotrubenko, Ivan I., 479

Volna project (to develop submarine-launched 

ballistic missile), see R-11FM naval missile

Volodina, L. Ye., 639

Voltsifer, Anatoliy N., 356, 445

von Braun, Wernher, 44, 51, 164, 247, 394, 

447, 464, 543-544

Vorobyev, M. P., 32

Vorobyev, Yuriy I., 628

Voronezh, 437-438, 461

Voronov, Nikolay N., 79, 134-135, 137, 146, 

314, 419

Vorontsov, N. I., 32, 42

Vorontsov, 281

Voropayev, Oleg N., 166, 506

Voroshilov (ship), 582

Voroshilov, Klement Ye., 459

Vorshev, Vladimir V., 334, 351, 363, 560

Voskhod, 86

Voskresenskaya, Yelena V., 148

560-561, 582

Tral-G2 telemetry system, 398

Trapeznikov, Vadim A., 50, 100, 112, 122, 287

Tregub, Yakov I., 35, 36, 38, 128, 134-135, 216

Tretyakov, Vasiliy N., 127, 192, 628

Tritko, Karl I., 75, 76, 81, 84, 88-91, 93, 115, 

120, 156-158, 210

Troshin, 112

Trubachev, Pavel Ye., 123, 503

TsAGI (Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute), 

86, 196, 213, 230, 232, 372, 465, 489

TsAKB (Central Artillery Design Bureau), 477, 

480

Tsander, Fridrikh A., 413, 514, 543

Tsarev, Aleksandr I., 110, 516

Tsetsior, Zinoviy M., 30, 125, 184-185, 193, 

618, 628

TsIAM (Central Institute of Aviation Motor 

Construction), 83, 465

Tsiklon launch vehicle, 634

Tsiolkovskiy, Konstantin E., 169, 382-383, 413, 

496

TsKB-16 design bureau, 248, 260-261

TsKB-34 design bureau, 252

TsKBEM (Central Design Bureau of Experimental Machine Building), 505, 514; see also 

OKB-1

TsKB Geofizika design bureau, 223, 263, 547, 

569-570

TsKBM (Central Design Bureau of Machine 

Building), 514

TsNII-58, 505-506, 511, 515, 557; and merger 

with OKB-1, 477-489, 491-492, 495, 497, 

600

TsNII-108 (Central Scientific-Research Institute 

No. 108), 4

TsNII-173 (Central Scientific-Research Institute 

No. 173), 533-534

TsNIIAV (Central Scientific-Research Institute 

for Artillery Armaments), 477

TsNIIChermet (Central Scientific-Research 

Institute Ferrous Metals), 124

TsNIIMash (former NII-88), 75, 77, 111, 129, 

143, 159, 236, 257, 349, 462, 517; see also 

NII-88

TsNII Svyazi (Central Scientific-Research Institute of Communications), 110

TsSKB (Central Specialized Design Bureau), 

406, 420, 517, 635

Tsu Ch’ung Chi, 537

Tsybin, Pavel V., 87-88, 89, 118, 131, 139-140, 

146, 157, 203-204, 487, 497

Tsyganov, Fedor A., 337

Tu-4 aircraft, 198, 203, 216, 274

Tu-104 aircraft, 526-528, 531, 558

TU 4000 specifications, 120

Tukhachevskiy, Mikhail N., 85, 457, 459, 464

Tula, 159

Tupolev, Andrey N., 101, 103, 170, 213

Turayevo, 83

Turkey, 192

Turkov, Roman A., 164, 404, 477-478, 482-

483, 498, 512, 542, 546, 564, 568, 571

Tushino, 406

Tvardovskiy, Aleksandr T., 361-362

Tveretskiy, Aleksandr F., 33, 128, 425

Tyazhelyy sputnik (Venera probe), 585-586

Typhoon missile, 85

Tyulin, Georgiy A., 34, 125, 128, 190, 424-425, 

471, 621, 626, 628-629

Tyulkin, Mikhail M., 523

Tyuratam (Tyura-Tam), 9, 346, 407, 421, 432, 

558, 573, 576, 578, 582, 586, 598, 602, 633, 

637; and selection of launch site for R-7, 

306-312; and construction of launch range, 

313-336

U

U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, 217, 540

Udarov, Grigoriy R., 299, 336

Ufa Instrument Building Factory, 500

Ukraine, 499

Umanskiy, Naum L., 51, 85

Umpfenbach, Joachim, 44, 60

United States, 100

Uralmash, 77

Uralsk, 319, 455, 558

Us, Yuriy F., 300-301

U.S. Army Air Force, 174

U.S. intelligence, 46, 70

Usedom (island), 43

USSR Academy of Sciences, see Academy of 

Sciences

USSR Cosmonautics (book), 384-386

USSR Council of Ministers, see Council of 

Ministers

USSR Supreme Court, 460

Ussuriysk, 346, 549, 582

Ustinov, Dmitriy F., 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15-17, 

29, 32, 37, 40-42, 75, 76, 78, 79-82, 84, 86, 

88-92, 94, 96, 119, 135, 137, 142, 145, 146, 

150-151, 157-161, 170, 173, 178-179, 184, 
Rockets and People: Creating a Rocket Industry

668

Index

669

Zagrevskiy, Oleg V., 503

Zakharov, Aleksandr, 585

Zapolskiy, A. A., 253

Zavenyagin, Avraamiy P., 7

Zaychenkov, Boris B., 500-501

Zeiss (German) factory, 30, 193

Zeldovich, Yakov B., 78, 277, 440

Zelenograd, 535

Zenit reconnaissance satellite program, 546

Zhdanov, Andrey A., 390

Zhernova, Nina I., 186, 331, 356, 364

Zhigarev, Pavel F., 32

Zhukov, Georgiy K., 79, 137, 175

Zhukov, Nikolay, 127

Zhukov, Yakov S., 177

Zhukovskiy Air Force Academy, 62, 85-86, 104, 

113, 405

ZIS-3 gun, 479, 480

Zlatoust, 258

Zolotyye vorota (Golden Gate), 373

Zond (interplanetary spacecraft), 565

Zubanov, Lev K., 197

Zubovich, Ivan G., 10, 117, 144, 149, 151, 

161, 179

Zuyev, 340

Zuyev, Vladimir S., 462

Zuyevskiy, Viktor A., 277, 281, 423

Zverev, Ivan I., 512

Voskresenskiy, Leonid A., 31, 36, 38, 58, 75, 88, 

121, 130-131, 135, 142-148, 143, 157, 165, 

245, 252, 259, 270-272, 278, 284, 301, 307, 

313, 318-319, 321-322, 326-329, 373, 375, 

376, 389, 393, 402, 408, 412, 417, 440, 442, 

452-453, 457, 465-466, 469, 525, 542-543, 

560-562, 566, 573, 578-579, 591, 597-598, 

635; and first V-2 launches, 34-42; and first 

R-7 launches, 335, 338, 344-345, 347-348, 

350-352, 355, 359-360, 372

Vostok launch vehicle, 244, 420, 567; see also 

8K72 launch vehicle

Vostok spacecraft/program, 86, 110, 435, 492, 

538, 542, 553, 565, 574, 587-588

Voznesenskiy, Nikolay A., 7, 15, 173-176

Voznyuk, Vasiliy I., 31, 126-127, 216, 313; and 

selection of Baykonur site, 307-308

VNIIEM (All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Electromechanics), 30, 598; see also 

NII-627

VPK (Military-Industrial Commission), 23, 

110, 173, 317-318, 323, 380-381, 409-410, 

477, 499, 516, 546-547, 555, 557, 564, 594, 

603, 622, 629, 635-636; and formation of, 

175-176, 492-493

W

warheads (nuclear), see nuclear warheads

Washington, D.C., 394

Wasserfall missile, 11, 13, 65, 72, 84-85, 114-

115, 158, 200, 209-210

West Germany (Federal Republic of Germany), 

47, 69, 71, 72, 394

White Sea, 253

Wolf, Woldemar, 43, 51, 60, 189

women engineers, 111

Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army (RKKA), see 

Red Army

World War I, 3, 404

World War II, 1, 77, 303, 405, 419, 460-465, 

478, 599, 634

Y

Yablokova, Irina Ye., 561

Yakovlev, Aleksandr S., 228, 404, 463

Yakovlev, Nikolay D., 10, 13, 15, 17, 32, 33, 

41, 56, 75, 76, 82-83, 134, 137, 173-174, 

468, 479

Yalta, 529

Yangel: Lessons and Legacy (book), 607, 618-

619

Yangel, Mikhail K., 320, 365, 375, 404, 423, 

436, 497, 517, 541, 544, 556-557, 564, 566, 

579, 580; joins NII-88, 161-163, 165-166, 

169, 230, 246, 296; and development of 

R-16 ICBM, 408-410, 599-602; and R-16 

disaster, 602-634

Yashin, L. N., 638

Yazdovskiy, Vladimir I., 388

Ye-1 lunar probe (lunar impact mission), 439-

455, 522

Ye-2 (and Ye-2A) lunar probe (farside photo 

mission), 439-440, 519-538, 522, 524, 539

Ye-2F lunar probe (became later Ye-3), 546, 558

Ye-3 lunar probe (original bomb-on-the-Moon 

project), 440, 558

Ye-3 lunar probe (later farside photo mission), 

558-562, 565, 597

Ye-4 lunar probe, 440

Ye-5 lunar probe, 440

Ye-6 lunar probe, 238, 440, 565

Ye-7 lunar probe, 565

Years of Work on the Moscow Air Defense 

System 1950-1955 (book), 199

Yefimenko, Grigoriy Ye,, 598-599

Yegorov, 471

Yeliseyev, Aleksey S. (cosmonaut), 473, 506, 

514-515

Yelizov, 333

Yelizovo, 346

Yelyan, Amo S., 209, 477-478

Yenisey photo-television unit, 520, 523-524, 

537, 558-559

Yeniseysk, 346

Yeremeyev, 127

Yermolayev, Pavel, 294-295, 301

Yerofeyev, Ye. A., 617

Yershov, Pavel A., 567

Yevpatoriya (control center), 530, 533, 538, 

570-571, 575, 587-588, 593; see also NIP-16 

tracking station

Yu. A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center, see 

Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center

Yugoslavia, 192

Yurasov, Igor Ye. (Chertok’s deputy), 166, 371-

375, 408, 504-505, 557-558, 568

Yuzhmash (Southern Machine Building Factory), 152, 245, 406; see also Factory No. 586

Z

Zagorsk, 124, 142, 144, 146, 166, 188, 212, 

223, 292, 318, 322, 337, 347, 350, 613