#SPACESHIP DESIGNS SERIES#

Korolev had his own plan to beat the US in the ‘Moon Race’. Kennedy, who promised to put a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. The US answer came on 15 May with a direct challenge from President John F.

#SPACESHIP DESIGNS SERIES#

After a series of test flights using dummy astronauts and dogs, Vostok was launched into space by an improved version of the R-7 rocket on 12 April 1961. To achieve this, Korolev decided to modify a spy satellite concept and turn it into a human spacecraft by replacing the imaging payload with an ejection seat. The next big challenge was to place a man into orbit and return him safely to Earth. Korolev and the R-7 rapidly scored yet more firsts: the first probe to the Moon, the first picture of the far side of the Moon and the first probes to Venus and Mars. On board was the dog Laika, the first animal to orbit Earth. On 3 November, just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and before the first (failed) US attempt to launch a satellite, Sputnik 2 was launched. To build on this resounding success, in less than one month Korolev and his team designed a second satellite. Sputnik 1, the first satellite to be placed in orbit, was launched on 4 October 1957 and its ‘beep-beep’ signal shook the world. However, as the development of a science payload took longer than planned, Korolev's team designed a ‘minimum satellite’. On 21 August 1957, the R-7 was successfully launched from a new rocket site near Baikonur in Kazakhstan.įrom Sputnik to Vostok Vostok was launched into space on 12 April 1961ĭubbed ‘Semyorka’, the R-7 was sufficiently powerful to put a satellite into orbit. The R-7 was based on a concept of stacked stages once considered by the Germans.

NII-88 developed various missiles before Korolev decided in 1953 to develop the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile with a 7000 km range. The outcome was the R1 rocket, the forerunner of a family of missiles known in the West under their NATO codename: Scud.

Although still a political prisoner, Korolev was made chief engineer responsible for designing a Soviet equivalent to the V2. Wernher von Braun and the best elements of the German rocket design team had moved to the United States, but a new research centre, called NII-88, was set up in Russia the following year. One year later Korolev was sent to Germany to assess the hardware and the technicians left behind at the end of the war by the US operation ‘Paperclip’. He met the challenge although his proposal had a range of only 75 km, just one quarter that of the V2. In November 1944, Korolev was promoted to the helm of his own team and given just three days to come up with a proposal for a Soviet equivalent to the German V2 missile. At Tupolev’s request, Korolev was finally allowed to join his team. Fortunately for him, the famous aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev was also a political prisoner and head of one of the prison design bureaus known as ‘sharashkas’. In all, Korolev spent more than two years in various jails, including four months in the Gulag. From that day on, the two men were bitterly opposed to each other. To reduce his charges he denounced Korolev, which resulted in his arrest on 7 June and a sentence of ten years forced labour. On 23 March 1938, Valentin Glushko was arrested. These were difficult times in the Soviet Union as the great purges began under Stalin. Together they designed the RP-318, the first Soviet piloted rocket-powered glider. Korolev was in charge of aerospace structures while his colleague, Valentin Glushko, was responsible for propulsion systems.

The group was taken over by the military in 1933 and became known as RNII, the official centre for research and the development of missiles and rocket-powered gliders. In 1931 he founded the Group for Investigation of Reactive Motion (GIRD), which developed the first Soviet liquid-fuelled rockets: the GIRD-9 and 10. After graduating from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, he joined the University of Moscow and his interest shifted to rocket propulsion, at the time still a theoretical subject only. Fascinated by aircraft, he designed his first glider when he was only 17. Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was the son of a teacher of Russian literature, he was born on 12 January 1907 in Zhytomyr, Ukraine.

Spaceship designs