Vladimir Chelomey - Spacecraft

Spacecraft

In 1959, Chelomey was appointed the Chief Designer of Aviation Equipment.

OKB-52, along with designing ICBMs, started to work on spacecraft, and in 1961 began work on a design for a much more powerful ICBM, the UR-500.

In 1962, Chelomey became an Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Mechanics Department.

Chelomey became Korolyov's internal competitor in the "Moon race". Chelomey proposed that the powerful UR-500 be used to launch a small two-man craft on a lunar flyby, and managed to gain support for his proposal by employing members of Khrushchev's family. He also claimed the UR-500 could be used to launch a military space station.

Following Khrushchev's removal, Chelomey's and Korolyov's projects were combined, but the Soviet Lunar program continued. The first launch of the UR-500 (also known as Proton) took place on March 10, 1967.

Although it was never used to send cosmonauts to the Moon as Chelomey had hoped, Proton has been widely used to launch Soviet satellites, as well as all Soviet/Russian space stations and modules including two of the first three components of the International Space Station (ISS).

The Earth satellites such as Polyot were also designed by Chelomey's OKB. Unlike earlier such craft, even Chelomey's first satellites Polyot-1 (1963) and Polyot-2 (1964) were able to change their orbits themselves. He also headed the development of the Proton satellite. In the 1970s Chelomey's OKB worked on the Almaz orbital stations Salyut 2, Salyut 3, and Salyut 5 which also became the basis for the Salyut, Mir, and Zvezda space stations. To support his Almaz stations, Chelomey designed the TKS, as an alternative to Soyuz. The TKS never flew as planned but derivatives flew as modules on Salyut 7 and Mir.

Chelomey died in Moscow in 1984.