Sergei Korolev

Sergei Korolev

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (Russian: Серге́й Па́влович Королёв, Ukrainian: Сергі́й Па́влович Корольо́в, Serhiy Pavlovych Korolov, also transliterated as Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov; born 12 January 1907 in Zhytomyr, Russian Empire (now Ukraine); died 14 January 1966 in Moscow, USSR) was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s. He is considered by many as the father of practical astronautics.

Although Korolev was trained as an aircraft designer, his greatest strengths proved to be in design integration, organization and strategic planning. Arrested for alleged mismanagement of funds (he spent the money on unsuccessful experiments with rocket devices), he was imprisoned in 1938 for almost six years, including some months in a Kolyma labour camp. Following his release, he became a recognized rocket designer and a key figure in the development of the Soviet ICBM program. He was then appointed to lead the Soviet space program, made Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences, overseeing the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects. By the time he died unexpectedly in 1966, his plans to compete with the United States to be the first nation to land a man on the Moon had begun to be implemented.

Before his death he was often referred to only as "Chief Designer", because his name and his pivotal role in the Soviet space program had been held to be a state secret by the Politburo. Only many years later was he publicly acknowledged as the lead man behind Soviet success in space.