Rocket and Spacecraft Designer. Twice Hero of Socialist Labor, Lenin Prize Laureate, Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Sergei P. Korolev was born in 1907 in Zhitomir. In 1924, he entered the Kiev Polytechnic Institute to the Department of Aviation Technology. In 1926, he moved to Moscow and continued his studies at the Moscow Higher Technical School.

During his studies, he proved himself a talented designer. He built such aircrafts as Koktebel, Red Star, as well as the SK-4. In 1931, together with F.A. Zander, he created a team to study a jet propulsion. A year later, this team became the Government Laboratory dedicated to the development of rocket-propelled vehicles. In 1933, Sergei P. Korolev became the deputy of I.T. Kleimenov at the Jet Research Institute.

During the World War II, Sergei P. Korolev was sent to Omsk to work at the Aircraft Plant No. 166. In 1942, Sergei P. Korolev moved to Kazan to join Valentin P. Glushko team at the plant No. 16, and soon he was appointed deputy chief designer for flight tests.

In 1946, Sergei P. Korolev was appointed chief designer of ballistic missiles. In a short time, he developed several generations of ballistic missiles, which were better than its baseline design. Then he was engaged in the development of a launch vehicle for tactical nuclear warheads. In 1956, the first indigenous missile production with a nuclear warhead was adopted. Further developments in this direction did not stop and S.P. Korolev managed to create several modifications.

 

Shortly afterward, the space exploration program in the USSR began. Sergei P. Korolev created the first manned spacecraft Vostok in the world’s history. On this spacecraft, the first human set off for outer space.

Moreover, Sergei P. Korolev was able to design several unmanned aircrafts.

Sergei P. Korolev gave impetus to the development of the first domestic communications and TV broadcasting satellite Molniya-1. This field of study was further developed by S. Korolev’s student– chief designer M.F. Reshetnev at the Krasnoyarsk branch of Experimental Design Bureau-1, thereby laying the groundwork for the establishment of the country's largest center for the development of various space communication systems, TV broadcasting, navigation and geodesy. Satellites are still launched into space to study the Earth's radiation belts.

Sergei P. Korolev is a Great Russian Engineer; his contribution to the development of space is difficult to overestimate. Due to his scientific achievement, he is well known not only in Russia but also abroad.