Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (14 January 1966) was a Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer who led the development of the Soviet space program during the early years of the Space Race.
Korolev directed development of the R-7 rocket, the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and was a leader in the Soviet space programme which used modified versions of the R-7 for several notable achievements. Under his leadership, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite; Laika, the first animal to orbit Earth; Luna 2, the first human-made object to reach another celestial body; and Belka and Strelka, the first animals to survive orbital spaceflight. He also directed the missions that carried Yuri Gagarin into space aboard Vostok 1, making him the first human in space, and enabled Alexei Leonov's spacewalk during Voskhod 2, the first extravehicular activity by a human.
Originally trained as an aircraft designer, Korolev became a leading figure in Soviet rocketry. In 1938 he was arrested during the Great Purge on charges later shown to be false and spent nearly six years in prison and labour camps, including several months in Kolyma. Prior to his imprisonment, Korolev had been initially condemned to be executed under Joseph Stalin's orders among 74 military specialists and engineers before his sentence was commuted to hard prison labour. After his release, he returned to engineering work and became a central figure in the Soviet ICBM and space programmes. His death in 1966 ended his direct involvement in Soviet efforts to land a crew on the Moon before the United States.
During his lifetime, Korolev was publicly identified only as glavny konstruktor (; ), partly to protect him from possible assassination attempts during the Cold War.Scott and Leonov, p. 53. Harford, p. 135. Even some cosmonauts who worked with him did not know his name. His identity was publicly disclosed only after his death in 1966, when his role in the Soviet Union's space achievements became widely known.
Early life
Korolev was born in the city of Zhytomyr, the capital of the Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine). His father, Pavel Yakovlevich Korolev, was born in Mogilev to a Russian soldier and a Belarusian mother.
His mother, Maria Nikolaevna Koroleva (Moskalenko/Bulanina), was a daughter of a wealthy merchant from the city of Nizhyn, with Zaporozhian Cossack, Greek and Polish heritage.
His father moved to Zhytomyr to be a teacher of the Russian language. Three years after Sergei's birth the couple separated due to financial difficulties. Although Pavel later wrote to Maria requesting a meeting with his son, Sergei was told by his mother that his father had allegedly died. Sergei never saw his father after the family break-up, and Pavel died in 1929 before his son learned the truth.
Korolev grew up in Nizhyn, under the care of his maternal grandparents, Nikolay Yakovlevich Moskalenko, who was a trader of the Second Guild, and Maria Matveevna Moskalenko (née Fursa), a daughter of a local cossack. Korolev's mother also had a sister Anna and two brothers Yuri and Vasily. Maria Koroleva was frequently away attending Women's higher education courses in Kiev, so Sergei was often by himself and grew up a lonely child with few friends. In 1914 World War I commenced with social unrest in the Kiev area. No one had time for the seven year old Korolev during this period and he was noted as being stubborn, persistent, and argumentative. Korolev began reading at an early age from his grandfather's newspapers, and his pre-school teacher noted he had an excellent memory with abilities in mathematics, reading and writing. His mother divorced Pavel in 1915 and in 1916 married Grigory Mikhailovich Balanin, an electrical engineer who had been educated in Germany but who had to attend the Kiev Polytechnic University because German engineering diplomas were not recognized in Russia. Grigory was an excellent step-father, positively influencing Korolev's manners and study habits. After getting a job with the regional railway, Grigory moved the family to Odessa in 1917, where they endured hardships with many other families through the tumultuous years following the Russian Revolution and the internecine struggles that continued until the Bolsheviks assumed unchallenged power in 1920. Local schools were closed and young Korolev had to continue his studies at home, where he suffered from a bout of typhus during the severe food shortages of 1919.
Education
Korolev received vocational training in carpentry and academics at the Odessa Building Trades School (Stroyprofshkola No. 1). Enjoyment of a 1913 air show inspired interest in aeronautical engineering. He made an independent study of flight theory, and worked at the local glider club. A detachment of military seaplanes had been stationed in Odessa, and Korolev took a keen interest in their operations.
In 1923 he joined the Society of Aviation and Aerial Navigation of Ukraine and the Crimea (OAVUK). He had his first flying lesson after joining the Odessa hydroplane squadron and had many opportunities to fly as a passenger. In 1924 he designed an OAVUK construction project glider called the K-5 when he was 17 years old. He briefly trained in gymnastics until his academic work suffered. Korolev hoped to attend the Zhukovsky Academy in Moscow, but he did not meet the academy's standards. He attended the Kiev Polytechnic Institute's aviation branch in 1924 while living with his uncle Yuri, and earned money for his courses by doing odd jobs. His curriculum included engineering, physics and mathematics classes. He met and became attracted to a classmate, Xenia Vincentini, who would later become his first wife. In 1925 he was accepted into a limited class on glider construction, and suffered two broken ribs flying the training glider they built. He continued courses at Kiev until he was accepted into the Bauman Moscow State Technical University (MVTU, BMSTU) in July 1926, having the famous aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev as his mentor, who was a professor there.
Korolev studied specialized aviation topics until 1929, while living with his family in the typically crowded conditions of Moscow. Korolev enjoyed opportunities to fly gliders and powered aircraft during this part of his education. He designed a glider in 1928, and flew it in a competition the next year. The Communist Party accelerated the education of engineers in 1929 to meet the country's urgent need for their skills. Korolev obtained a diploma by producing a practical aircraft design by the end of the year.
Early career
After graduation, Korolev worked with some of the best Soviet designers at the 4th Experimental Section aircraft design bureau OPO-4 headed by who emigrated to the USSR from France in the 1920s. He did not stand out in this group, but while so employed he also worked independently to design a glider capable of performing aerobatics. In 1930 he became interested in the possibilities of liquid-fueled rocket engines to propel airplanes, while working at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (TsAGI) as a lead engineer on the Tupolev TB-3 heavy bomber. Korolev earned his pilot's license in 1930 and explored the operational limits of the aircraft he piloted, wondering what was beyond his plane's altitude limit and how he could get there. Many believe this was the start of his interest in space.
Korolev married Xenia Vincentini on 6 August 1931. He had first proposed marriage to her in 1924, but she then declined so she might continue her higher education. In 1931, Korolev and space travel enthusiast Friedrich Zander participated in the creation of the Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (GIRD), one of the earliest state-sponsored centers for rocket development in the USSR. While there, he met Mikhail Tikhonravov, a glider pilot and aerospace engineer who would later work under Korolev's Sputnik group. In May 1932 Korolev was appointed chief of the group; and military interest encouraged funding of group projects. On August 18, 1933, GIRD launched the first hybrid propellant rocket, the GIRD-09, and on November 25, 1933, the Soviet's first liquid-fueled rocket GIRD-X.
Growing military interest in this new technology caused GIRD to be merged with the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) at Leningrad in 1933 to create the Reactive Scientific Research Institute (RNII), which brought together the best of the Soviet rocket talent, including Korolev, Georgy Langemak, and former GDL engine designer Valentin Glushko. Korolev was appointed deputy head under Ivan Kleymyonov, however in 1934, following a disagreement over the direction of RNII, Korolev was demoted to section chief of winged missiles and was replaced by Georgy Langemak. Korolev supervised development of cruise missiles and a crewed rocket-powered glider. "Rocket Flight in Stratosphere" was published by Korolev in 1934. On 10 April 1935, Korolev's wife gave birth to their daughter, Natalya; and they moved out of Sergei's parents' home and into their own apartment in 1936. Both Korolev and his wife had careers, and Sergei always spent long hours at his design office.
Imprisonment
Joseph Stalin's Great Purge severely damaged RNII, with Director Kleymyonov and Chief Engineer Langemak arrested in November 1937, tortured, made to sign false confessions and executed in January 1938. Glushko was arrested in March 1938 and with many other leading engineers was imprisoned in the Gulag. Korolev was arrested by the NKVD on 27 June 1938 after being accused of a variety of charges, including false charges extracted from Kleymyonov, Langemak and Glushko. He was tortured in the Lubyanka prison to extract a confession. Glushko and Korolev had reportedly been denounced by Andrei Kostikov who became the head of RNII after its leadership was arrested.
Korolev was sent to prison, where he wrote many appeals to the authorities, including Stalin himself. Following the fall of NKVD head Nikolai Yezhov, the new chief Lavrenti Beria chose to retry Korolev on reduced charges in 1939; but by that time Korolev was on his way from prison to a Gulag forced labour camp in Kolyma in the far east of Siberia, where he spent several months in a gold mine before word reached him of his retrial. Work camp conditions of inadequate food, shelter, and clothing killed thousands of prisoners each month. Korolev sustained injuries, including possibly a heart attack and lost most of his teeth from scurvy before being returned to Moscow in late 1939. When he reached Moscow, Korolev's sentence was reduced to eight years. However, due to the intervention by his old mentor, Andrei Tupolev, he was relocated to a prison for scientists and engineers in September 1940. These were labor camps where scientists and engineers worked on projects assigned by the Communist party leadership. The Central Design Bureau 29 (CKB-29, ЦКБ-29) of the NKVD, served as Tupolev's engineering facility, and Korolev was brought here to work. During World War II, this sharashka designed both the Tupolev Tu-2 bomber and the Petlyakov Pe-2 dive bomber. The group was moved several times during the war, the first time to avoid capture by advancing German forces. Korolev was moved in 1942 to the sharashka of Kazan OKB-16 under Glushko. Korolev and Glushko designed the RD-1 KhZ"Last of the Wartime Lavochkins", AIR International, Bromley, Kent, U.K., November 1976, Volume 11, Number 5, pages 245–246. auxiliary rocket motor tested in an unsuccessful fast-climb Lavochkin La-7R. Korolev was isolated from his family until 27 June 1944 when healong with Tupolev, Glushko and otherswas finally discharged by special government decree, although the charges against him were not dropped until 1957.