SERGEI PAVLOVICH KOROLEV, THE FATHER OF PRACTICAL ASTRONAUTICS 

Did you know that Sergei Korolev is regarded as the father of practical astronautics that was involved in the development of the R-7 Rocket, Sputnik 1 (the first artificial satellite launched into space), launching Laika, Sputnik 3, Belka and Strelka, and the first human being (Yuri Gagarin) into space?

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was a lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer during the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. He was born in the city of Zhytomyr, the capital of Volhynian Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Ukraine). He was born to a Russian father and a Belarusian mother, Maria Nikolaevna Koroleva. 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. Sergei was told by his mother that his father had allegedly died. Sergei never saw his father, who died in 1929 after the family break-up, before he learned the truth. 

Korolev grew up in Nezhin, under the care of his maternal grandparents Nikolay Yakovlevich Moskalenko. As a child, Korolev was stubborn, persistent, and argumentative. He 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. 

His mother, in 1916 married Grigory Mikhailovich Balanin, an electrical engineer who had been educated in Germany. 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 continuing internecine struggles until the Bolsheviks assumed unchallenged power in 1920. Local schools were closed and young Korolev had to continue his studies at home. Grigory proved a good influence on his step-son, who suffered from a bout of typhus during the severe food shortages of 1919.

Korolev received vocational training in carpentry and in various academics at the Odessa Building Trades School (Stroyprofshkola No. 1). Enjoyment of a 1913 air show inspired interest in aeronautical engineering. Korolev began designing a glider as a diversion while studying for his graduation exams at the vocational school. He made an independent study of flight theory, and worked in 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 personally designed an OAVUK construction project glider called the K-5. He briefly trained in gymnastics until his academic work suffered from this distraction. He hoped to attend the Zhukovsky Academy in Moscow, but his qualifications 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 earning money to pay for his courses by performing odd jobs. His curriculum was technically oriented, and included various 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 at his University. He 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.

After graduation, Korolev worked with some of the best Soviet designers at the 4th Experimental Section aircraft design bureau OPO-4 headed by Paul Aimé Richard [fr] 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. 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. He 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 Korolev's parents' home and into their own apartment in 1936. Both Korolev and his wife had careers, and he always spent long hours at his design office.

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 later executed. 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 scientist 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 auxiliary rocket motor tested in an unsuccessful fast-climb Lavochkin La-7R. Korolev was isolated from his family until 27 June 1944 when he—along with Tupolev, Glushko and others—was finally discharged by special government decree, although the charges against him were not dropped until 1957.

Korolev rarely talked about his experience in the Gulag. He lived under constant fear of being executed for the military secrets he possessed, and was deeply affected by his time in the camp, becoming reserved and cautious. He later learned Glushko was one of his accusers and this may have been the cause of the lifelong animosity between the two men. The design bureau was handed over from NKVD control to the government's aviation industry commission. Korolev continued working with the bureau for another year, serving as deputy designer under Glushko and studying various rocket designs.

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. Korolev's unexpected death in 1966 interrupted implementation of his plans for a Soviet crewed Moon landing before the United States 1969 mission.

Before his death he was officially identified only as Glavny Konstruktor, or the Chief Designer, to protect him from possible Cold War assassination attempts by the United States. Even some of the cosmonauts who worked with him were unaware of his last name; he only went by Chief Designer. Only following his death in 1966 was his identity revealed and he received the appropriate public recognition as the driving force behind Soviet accomplishments in space exploration during and following the International Geophysical Year. Korolev entered the hospital on 5 January 1966 for somewhat routine surgery, but died nine days later.

Source:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Korolev