102 Facts About Sergei Korolev

Sergei Korolev is regarded by many as the father of practical astronautics.

Sergei Korolev was involved in the development of the R-7 Rocket, Sputnik 1, launching Laika, Sputnik 3, the first human-made object to make contact with another celestial body, Belka and Strelka, the first human being, Yuri Gagarin, into space, Voskhod 1, and the first person, Alexei Leonov, to conduct a spacewalk.

Sergei Korolev later directed the Soviet space program and was made a Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences, overseeing the early successes of the Sputnik and Vostok projects including the first human Earth orbit mission by Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961.

Sergei Korolev was born in the city of Zhytomyr, the capital of Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire.

Sergei Korolev's father, Pavel Yakovlevich Korolev, was born in Mogilev to a Russian soldier and a Belarusian mother.

Sergei Korolev's mother, Maria Nikolaevna Koroleva, was a daughter of a wealthy merchant from the city of Nizhyn, with Ukrainian, Greek and Polish heritage.

Sergei Korolev's father moved to Zhytomyr to be a teacher of the Russian language.

Sergei Korolev never saw his father after the family break-up, and Pavel died in 1929 before his son learned the truth.

Sergei 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, a daughter of a local cossack.

Sergei Korolev's mother had a sister Anna and two brothers Yuri and Vasily.

Sergei Korolev began reading at an early age, and his abilities in mathematics and other subjects made him a favorite student of his teachers, but caused jealousy from his peers.

Sergei Korolev later stated in an interview, the torment of classmates bullying and teasing him as a small child encouraged his focus on academic work.

Sergei Korolev's 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 Kyiv Polytechnic University because German engineering diplomas were not recognized in Russia.

Local schools were closed and young Sergei Korolev had to continue his studies at home.

Sergei Korolev received vocational training in carpentry and in various academics at the Odessa Building Trades School.

Sergei Korolev began designing a glider as a diversion while studying for his graduation exams at the vocational school.

Sergei Korolev made an independent study of flight theory, and worked in the local glider club.

Sergei Korolev had his first flying lesson after joining the Odessa hydroplane squadron and had many opportunities to fly as a passenger.

Sergei Korolev briefly trained in gymnastics until his academic work suffered from this distraction.

Sergei Korolev hoped to attend the Zhukovsky Academy in Moscow, but his qualifications did not meet the academy's standards.

Sergei Korolev attended the Kiev Polytechnic Institute's aviation branch in 1924 while living with his uncle Yuri, and earning money to pay for his courses by performing odd jobs.

Sergei Korolev's curriculum was technically oriented, and included various engineering, physics and mathematics classes.

Sergei Korolev met and became attracted to a classmate, Xenia Vincentini, who would later become his first wife.

Sergei Korolev continued courses at Kiev until he was accepted into the Bauman Moscow State Technical University in July 1926, having the famous aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev as his mentor, who was a professor at his University.

Sergei Korolev studied specialized aviation topics until 1929, while living with his family in the typically crowded conditions of Moscow.

Sergei Korolev enjoyed opportunities to fly gliders and powered aircraft during this part of his education.

Sergei Korolev designed a glider in 1928, and flew it in a competition the next year.

Sergei Korolev obtained a diploma by producing a practical aircraft design by the end of the year.

Sergei Korolev did not stand out in this group, but while so employed he worked independently to design a glider capable of performing aerobatics.

Sergei 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.

Sergei Korolev had first proposed marriage to her in 1924, but she then declined so she might continue her higher education.

In May 1932 Sergei Korolev was appointed chief of the group; and military interest encouraged funding of group projects.

Sergei Korolev supervised development of cruise missiles and a crewed rocket-powered glider.

Sergei 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.

Sergei Korolev was tortured in the Lubyanka prison to extract a confession.

Glushko and Sergei Korolev had reportedly been denounced by Andrei Kostikov who became the head of RNII after its leadership was arrested.

Sergei Korolev was sent to prison, where he wrote many appeals to the authorities, including Stalin himself.

Sergei 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, Sergei Korolev's sentence was reduced to eight years.

The Central Design Bureau 29 of the NKVD, served as Tupolev's engineering facility, and Sergei Korolev was brought here to work.

Sergei Korolev was moved in 1942 to the sharashka of Kazan OKB-16 under Glushko.

Sergei Korolev rarely talked about his experience in the Gulag, and lived under constant fear of being executed for the military secrets he possessed.

Sergei Korolev was deeply affected by his time in the camp, becoming reserved and cautious as a result.

Sergei Korolev later learned that Glushko was one of his accusers, and this was likely the cause of the lifelong animosity between the two men.

Sergei Korolev continued working with the bureau for another year, serving as deputy designer under Glushko and studying various rocket designs.

Sergei Korolev was commissioned into the Red Army with the rank of colonel in 1945; his first military decoration was the Badge of Honor, awarded in 1945 for his work on the development of rocket motors for military aircraft.

On 8 September 1945, Sergei Korolev was brought to Germany along with many other experts to recover the technology of the German V-2 rocket.

Sergei Korolev returned from Germany in February 1947 and took up his duties as chief designer and Head of Department No 3 of NII-88, initially tasked with reproduction of the V-2.

However Sergei Korolev was overruled and was ordered to assemble what V-2s they had for flight testing, then create the R-1 using Soviet infrastructure and materials.

Sergei Korolev continued to lobby for the design and construction of the R-2, including meeting with Stalin in April 1947, but faced competition from a proposal from the Germans, called the G-1.

Whilst the German proposal was initially supported by Soviet management, Sergei Korolev opposed utilising German specialists for personal reasons and basically ignored their suggestions and advice.

Glushko couldn't obtain the required thrust from the R-3 engines, so the project was canceled in 1952; and Sergei Korolev joined the Soviet Communist Party that year to request money from the government for future projects including the R-5, with a more modest 1,200 kilometres range.

On 19 April 1957 Sergei Korolev was declared fully "rehabilitated", as the government acknowledged that his sentence was unjust.

Sergei Korolev was keenly aware of the orbital possibilities of the rockets being designed as ICBMs, ideas that were shared by Tikhonravov then working at NII-4.

On 26 May 1954, six days after being tasked to lead the R-7 ballistic missile program, Sergei Korolev submitted a proposal to use the R-7 to launch a satellite into space, naming a technical report from Tikhonravov and mentioning similar work being carried out by Americans.

Sergei Korolev feared that the United States would launch a satellite before he could.

Sergei Korolev sent a revised plan calling for a simpler payload of approximately 100 kilograms.

Sputnik 1 was designed and constructed in less than a month by the Tikhonravov group, with Sergei Korolev personally managing the assembly at a hectic pace.

Sergei Korolev came up with the notion to modify the R-7 missile in order to carry a package to the Moon.

However, it was not until 1958 that this idea was approved, after Sergei Korolev wrote a letter explaining that his current technology would make it possible to get to the Moon.

Mechta is the Russian word meaning "dream", and this is the name Sergei Korolev called his moon ships.

Sergei Korolev thought political infighting in Moscow was responsible for the lack of sufficient funding for the program, although the US space program at this early phase had a scarcely enviable launch record.

The Luna missions were intended to make a successful soft landing on the Moon, but Sergei Korolev was unable to see a success.

Sergei Korolev's group was working on ambitious programs for missions to Mars and Venus, putting a man in orbit, launching communication, spy and weather satellites, and making a soft-landing on the Moon.

The spacecraft was spherical, just like the Sputnik design, and Sergei Korolev explained his reasoning for this by saying "the spherical shape would be more stable dynamically".

Sergei Korolev served as capsule coordinator, and was able to speak to Gagarin who was inside the capsule.

Sergei Korolev proposed communications satellites and the Vostok craft was a spinoff from the Zenit spy satellite useful for photographic reconnaissance and the mission Vostok 1 had its defense importance acknowledged by the military.

Sergei Korolev planned to move forward with Soyuz craft able to dock with other craft in orbit and exchange crews.

Sergei Korolev was directed by Khrushchev to cheaply produce more 'firsts' for the piloted program, including a multi-crewed flight.

Sergei Korolev was reported to have resisted the idea as the Vostok was a one-man spacecraft and the three-man Soyuz was several years away from being able to fly.

Sergei Korolev was only ever referred to by the initials of his first two names, SP, or by the mysterious title of "Chief Designer", or simply "Chief".

Sergei Korolev had the reputation of being a man of the highest integrity, but of being extremely demanding.

Sergei Korolev wore the collar of his dark-blue overcoat turned up and the brim of his hat pulled down.

Sergei Korolev glanced down a list of our names and called on us in alphabetical order to introduce ourselves briefly and talk about our flying careers.

Sergei Korolev accepted, on the condition that more backing would be given to his N-1 rocket program.

Sergei Korolev was working on the design for the Soyuz spacecraft that was intended to carry crews to LEO and to the Moon.

Sergei Korolev was not a scientist, not a designer: he was a brilliant manager.

Sergei Korolev's intent was to somehow use the launcher he had [the N1 rocket].

Sergei Korolev's philosophy was, let's not work by stages [as is usual in spacecraft design], but let's assemble everything and then try it.

On 3 December 1960, Sergei Korolev suffered his first heart attack.

Sergei Korolev was warned by the doctors that if he continued to work as intensely as he had, he would not live long.

Sergei Korolev became convinced that Khrushchev was only interested in the space program for its propaganda value and feared that he would cancel it entirely if the Soviets started losing their leadership to the United States, so he continued to push himself.

Sergei Korolev had a bout of intestinal bleeding that led to him being taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

Sergei Korolev was experiencing hearing loss, possibly from repeated exposure to loud rocket-engine tests.

Sergei Korolev entered the hospital on 5 January 1966 for somewhat routine surgery, but died nine days later.

Under a policy initiated by Stalin and continued by his successors, the identity of Sergei Korolev was not revealed until after his death.

Sergei Korolev's obituary was published in the Pravda newspaper on 16 January 1966, showing a photograph of Korolev with all his medals.

Sergei Korolev's ashes were interred with state honors in the Kremlin Wall.

Sergei Korolev is often compared to Wernher von Braun as the leading architect of the Space Race.

Sergei Korolev was rarely known to drink alcoholic beverages, and chose to live a fairly austere lifestyle.

Sergei Korolev's career contributed to instability in his personal life.

Vincentini was heavily occupied with her own career, and about this time Sergei Korolev had an affair with a younger woman named Nina Ivanovna Kotenkova, who was an English interpreter in the Podlipki office.

Vincentini, who still loved Sergei Korolev and was angry over the infidelity, divorced him in 1948.

Sergei Korolev's passion for his work was a characteristic that made him a great leader.

Sergei Korolev was committed to training younger engineers to move into his space and missile projects, even while consumed with his own work.

Sergei Korolev knew that students would be the future of space exploration, which is why he made such an effort to communicate with them.

Sergei Korolev was a Lenin Prize winner in 1971, and was awarded the Order of Lenin three times, the Order of the Badge of Honour and the Medal "For Labour Valour".

Korolyov was established in 1975 in the house where Sergei Korolev lived from 1959 till 1966.

Sergei Korolev was played by Steve Nicolson in the 2005 BBC co-produced docudrama Space Race.

Sergei Korolev was played by Mikhail Filippov in the 2013 Russian film Gagarin: First in Space.

Sergei Korolev was portrayed by Vladimir Ilyin in the 2017 Russian film The Age of Pioneers.

Sergei Korolev then appears in the second season, where he is portrayed by Endre Hules.