Sergei Korolev - Early Career

Early Career

Having graduated, Korolev began work at an aircraft design bureau designated OPO-4, or 4th Experimental Section. It was headed up by a Frenchman named Paul Aimé Richard(fr) who emigrated to USSR in the 1920s and included a number of the Soviet Union's best designers. He did not stand out in this group, but while so employed he also worked privately on a pair of personal design projects. One of these was a glider design that was capable of performing aerobatics. By 1930 he became a lead engineer on the Tupolev TB-3 heavy bomber.

In 1930, Korolev finally earned his pilot's license. The next year, on 6 August, he was wed to Xenia Vincentini, a woman he had been courting since 1924. He had proposed marriage to her back then, but she declined as she wanted a higher education. It was during 1930 that Korolev became interested in the possibilities of liquid-fueled rocket engines. As his interest was primarily in aircraft, he saw the potential for use of these engines to propel airplanes. In 1931, together with Friedrich Zander, a space travel enthusiast, he 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.

During the following years, GIRD developed three different propulsion systems, each more successful than the last. In 1932, the military became interested in the efforts of this group, and began providing some funding. In 1933, the group accomplished their first launch of a liquid-fueled rocket, which was called GIRD-X (not GIRD-09 as often cited; hybrid GIRD-09 used solid gasoline and liquid oxygen). This was just seventeen years after colonel Ivan Platonovich Grave's first launch in 1916 (patent in 1924). In 1934, Korolev published the work "Rocket Flight in Stratosphere".

With growing military interest in this new technology, it was decided by the government in 1933 to merge GIRD with the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) in Leningrad. The merger created the Jet Propulsion Research Institute (RNII), headed up by the military engineer Ivan Kleimenov and containing a number of enthusiastic proponents of space travel, including Valentin Glushko. Korolev became the Deputy Chief of the institute. He led the development of cruise missiles and a manned rocket-powered glider.

On 10 April 1935, Korolev's wife gave birth to their daughter, Natasha. In 1936 they were able to move out of his parents' home and into their own apartment. Both Korolev and his wife had careers, and Sergey always spent long hours at his design office. By now he was chief engineer at RNII. The RNII team continued their development work on rocketry, with particular focus on the area of stability and control. They developed automated gyroscope stabilization systems that allowed stable flight along a programmed trajectory. Korolev was a charismatic leader who served primarily as an engineering project manager. He was a demanding, hard-working man, with a disciplinary style of management. Korolev personally monitored all key stages of the programs and paid meticulous attention to detail.