19 Facts About Alexander Kemurdzhian

Aleksandr Leonovich Kemurdzhian was a Soviet mechanical engineer who worked at the VNIITransmash institute for most of the second half of the 20th century.

Alexander Kemurdzhian was born to Armenian parents on 4 October 1921 in Vladikavkaz, today the capital of North Ossetia.

Alexander Kemurdzhian was raised in Baku, which he considered his hometown.

Alexander Kemurdzhian rose to the rank of senior lieutenant by the time he was demobilized in 1946.

In total, Alexander Kemurdzhian authored 200 scientific publications and patented 50 inventions.

Alexander Kemurdzhian defended his kandidat nauk thesis, on the continuously variable transmissions for artillery tractors, in 1957.

Between 1963 and 1973, Alexander Kemurdzhian headed the team assigned to develop the self-propelled chassis for the Lunokhod programme.

Alexander Kemurdzhian's team designed both Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.

Alexander Kemurdzhian was personally interested in spaceflight and "remote-controlled space probes," which was known to Sergei Korolev.

Alexander Kemurdzhian provided the main report on the possibility of creating the lunar rover.

Alexander Kemurdzhian is credited with being the chief designer of the self-propelled chassis of Lunokhod-1.

In May 1986 Alexander Kemurdzhian led a team of researchers to develop the robot STR-1 in response to the Chernobyl disaster.

Alexander Kemurdzhian transitioned from institute's deputy director to chief scientific officer in 1991, and retired in 1998.

Alexander Kemurdzhian died in Saint Peteresburg on 24 or 25 February, 2003.

Alexander Kemurdzhian was buried at the Smolensky Armenian cemetery in St Petersburg.

Alexander Kemurdzhian was married to a Latvian architect and had a son, Vladimir, who headed a lab at VNIITransmash as of the late 1990s.

Alexander Kemurdzhian was a member of The Planetary Society, a corresponding member of the Committee on Space Research, the European Geosciences Union, and other learned societies.

Documents, photos, and other archival materials on Alexander Kemurdzhian are kept at the Russian State Archive of Scientific-Technical Documentation.

In October 2021 the 100th anniversary of Alexander Kemurdzhian's birth was commemorated in Armenia with a conference and a postage stamp.