When it comes to an outstanding designer rocket and space technology V.N. Chelomey, some pay tribute to his achievements, while others note an amazing ingenuity and a penchant for intrigue. However, the question remains: could he have achieved great achievements if he had not shown cunning and assertiveness?
In the list of one hundred great Ukrainians, according to the TV channel "Inter", the name of the general designer Sergei Korolyov appears, but there is no name of his colleague and competitor Vladimir Chelomey. Maybe Chelomey is less famous than Korolev? This is true, but, most likely, the point here is something else.
G. Kisunko, one of the creators of the Soviet missile defense system, recalled how he met with Korolev in the summer of 1961: “He put the question to me directly:
Grigory Vasilyevich, how long will we tolerate this bandit Chelomey?
- What can we do?
- Let's write a letter together to the Central Committee of the CPSU.
- It will still get to Khrushchev.
Sergei Pavlovich spoke firmly and resolutely, and I realized how much the “universal chelomeization” of the rocket and space industry, carried out with the approval of Khrushchev, had baked him. The bet was made on taking Chelomey's hands on the virgin lands plowed and sown by Korolev and Yangel.
How true are these accusations?
On the Usefulness of the Theory of Oscillations
Vladimir Nikolaevich Chelomei was born on June 30, 1914 in the city of Sedlec (now Siedlce), located near Warsaw, into a family of teachers. When he was three months old, the First World War, and his parents considered it best to move to Poltava, where Vladimir's mother, Evgenia Fominichna Klochko, was from. In 1926, the family moved to Kyiv, where Vladimir entered the automotive technical school, and after graduating from the aviation department of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. A year later, the faculty was transformed into Kyiv aviation institute. It is impossible to say that Vladimir dreamed of the sky since childhood - he was more attracted to science, primarily mechanics. The young man was especially interested in the theory of oscillations.
In the summer of 1935, during an internship at the Zaporozhye Engine Plant, a young student demonstrated outstanding knowledge and abilities. The plant could not put into mass production the Mistral-major piston aircraft engine, the license for the production of which was purchased in France. One of the sections of the crankshaft was constantly breaking down. French engineers attributed the breakdowns to the poor quality of the metal. We tried to increase the thickness of the crankshaft, but nothing came of it. Vladimir Chelomey, having carried out the necessary calculations, suggested, on the contrary, to reduce its thickness in order to bring the system out of the resonant zone. This solved the problem.
In 1937, a year earlier than his classmates, Vladimir Chelomei received an engineering degree and was invited to work at the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Two years later, he defended his Ph.D. thesis on the topic: "Dynamic stability of elements of aircraft structures." In 1940, Chelomei was included in the top 50 young scientists - Stalin's scholarship holders and was admitted to doctoral studies at the USSR Academy of Sciences. In the spring of 1941, the young scientist successfully defended his doctoral dissertation, but the war confused all his plans. The documents sent from Kyiv to the Higher Attestation Commission were lost, and the war found Chelomei himself in Moscow, from where he could no longer return home. I had to look for a job. On July 1, 1941, Chelomey was admitted to the Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM) as a researcher.
In the book of L. Vladimirov “Soviet space bluff” it is written: “Another person was awarded for Korolev's jet boosters. Chelomey was the leading designer of accelerators, so to speak, in the wild, while Korolev was a designer in prison. A specialist was needed to connect the prisoner engineers with the outside world. According to the instructions of the Queen, Chelomey went to various enterprises, ordered certain units. Perhaps that is how it was. In any case, this explains why Chelomey did not leave for Kuibyshev along with other CIAM employees and take up jet engines. However, he met Korolev Chelomei only after the war. “We met in Germany in 1945,” Chelomey recalled. - I was engaged in V-1, and he was engaged in V-2. Korolev made an extremely pleasant impression on me. He was a gentle, calm and very intelligent person. Korolev had relatively modest knowledge and technical erudition, but he was an unusually enthusiastic person who devoted himself entirely to his work.
Awaiting arrest
As far as we know, in the famous Tupolev Sharaga, which was located in the Moscow special prison TsKB-29, the well-known rocket scientist Boris Stechkin worked on the creation of a pulsating air-jet booster for aircraft. In 1943, he was released from prison and abandoned this topic, and Chelomey, apparently, had to complete it. In 1947, at the air parade in Tushino, nine La-11 fighters with unimaginably noisy boosters swept over the audience.
But Chelomey, as far as one can judge, was awarded the Order of Lenin not for accelerators at all. In June 1944, it became known that the Wehrmacht was using V-1 rockets against England. Soon Churchill sent a sample of the V-1 to Stalin for review. He decided to establish the production of these projectiles in the USSR. Since the V-1 used a pulse jet engine, the task was entrusted to Chelomey. Vladimir Nikolevich became director and chief designer of Aviation Plant No. 51, retaining the position of head of the CIAM jet engine department. A month later, all design documentation was prepared and the V-1 rocket was put into production.
But the design of the rocket was extremely unreliable - the Germans had about two thousand V-1s destroyed at the start and in flight. In addition, the deviation of the missile from the target reached 10 - 15 km. Therefore, Chelomey began to develop more advanced designs - 16X air-launched missiles and 10X ground-based missiles. However, failure awaited him here. During the tests, during which the missiles regularly deviated from the course, he cursed: “The idiocy of the situation is that I cannot order subcontractors to work differently, because they belong to other departments! There are two possible solutions: either to subordinate them to me operationally during the development of our projectile, or to transfer to our plant the workshops in which these blockheads mold their junk! And so what happens: they ruin my developments, and my beloved ministerial authorities finish me off for their bungling!
In February 1953, a decree of the Council of Ministers was issued, which stopped all work on the creation of unguided cruise missiles with pulsed air-jet engines, recognizing them as unpromising. This was preceded by a letter to the Central Committee, accusing Chelomey of squandering the people's money. Soon, the Design Bureau of Plant No. 51 was disbanded, and the enterprise itself was transferred to the jurisdiction of another chief designer, A. Mikoyan. As a result, Chelomei and his staff were left with nothing. Moreover, the designer every minute expected that he would be arrested, since the memories of the famous "aviation case" were alive in his memory.
Only in June 1954 did the Minaviaprom issue an order to create a special design group under the leadership of Chelomey. But it was already a different person. The main rule that the most intelligent Vladimir Nikolayevich deduced from what happened sounded rather rude, but it is clear: “If you don’t eat it, they will eat you.”
In the second half of 1954, his group began designing a missile with a drop-wing wing under the designation P-5. The first stage of flight tests of the rocket took place in Balaklava. Soon she was adopted. In 1956, Chelomey began developing the first P-6 remote-controlled anti-ship cruise missile, which flew at an altitude of about 100 m above the water, making it invisible to radar. In 1959, the Chelomeev OKB-52 (later NPO Mashinostroyeniye) began to create the Amethyst rocket, which became the world's first submarine-launched rocket. It was followed by other developments of Chelomey - "Malachite", "Basalt", "Granite", "Yakhont", which are still in service.
As OKB-52 developed new cruise missiles, Chelomey increased production capacity. In doing so, he pursued two goals. First, he strove not to depend on subcontractors. Secondly, he was afraid that the order for anti-ship cruise missiles could be taken away from him, and therefore he planned to master the production of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
"It's not calculable"
There was nothing reprehensible in the fact that Chelomey decided to press Korolev and Yangel out. In the end, he stole the order for cruise missiles for submarines from under the nose of the famous aircraft designer Beriev, who headed OKB-49. Beriev even complained to the Central Committee, but nothing helped, since it was obvious that Chelomey defeated him in a fair fight. But Chelomey's attack on the positions of Korolev and Yangel was not entirely fair. It is clear that the development and production of ICBMs from scratch would take several years. Chelomey desperately needed specialists and a basic rocket, on the basis of which he could create new modifications. He acquired specialists by swallowing OKB-23, which was headed by Myasishchev. As for the rocket, Yangel was ordered to hand over to Chelomey all the design documentation for the new rocket, which later received the UR-100 index. Mikhail Kuzmich tried to get away, saying that, for security reasons, he was not entitled to take out documents of special importance from the enterprise, but Khrushchev cut him off abruptly: “Comrade Yangel, these are the secrets of the Soviet state, not your private shop. Send them immediately to comrade Chelomey."
The fact that Khrushchev was very disposed towards Chelomey is usually explained by the fact that his son Sergei worked in OKB-52, but he could just as well work anywhere. No, the head of the government singled out Chelomey not at all for this reason. Here is what Sergey Khrushchev wrote about Chelomey: “Many things were mixed up in this man: good and bad, high and low. If you want to call Korolyov an integrator of ideas: he collected them, nurtured them, made their way into life, followed their maturation with paternal attention, then Chelomei is a generator of ideas. He pulled them out of himself, like a conjurer's handkerchiefs from a bottomless hat. Apparently, with this, Chelomey bribed Khrushchev Sr., who himself loved to fantasize with passion.
It seems that Chelomey, painting future successes and achievements in front of Khrushchev, was cunning. Academician Fedosov recalled: “In the aviation industry, Chelomey was known as a leader who offered extravagant, stunning projects that seemed absolutely fantastic at that time. But as a professor at Moscow Higher Technical School, he was a classic professor: very demanding, strict, not allowing any liberties. In a strange way, seemingly completely mutually exclusive qualities coexisted in him: on the one hand, adventurism in technology, on the other, absolute honesty and rigor in approaches to everything related to science.
Chelomey's adventurism was pretense, for the needs of the leaders. In fact, he, being a serious scientist, calculated every little thing. One of his employees recalled: “An emergency happened during the testing of a prototype cruise missile. The chief was furious. Then he cooled down a little and asked: “Why is there no calculation?” I stupidly impudently replied: "This is not amenable to calculation." Chelomei, without hesitation, hesitations, blots, wrote the calculation algorithm on the board in such detail that all that remained was to substitute the numbers and accurately calculate. I wanted to sink into the ground."
It must be admitted that the unceremoniousness with which Chelomei acted was dictated by the interests of the cause, and not at all by ambition. Already in July 1965, the Proton launch vehicle (UR-500) was launched, which amazed everyone with its capabilities. It took Chelomey only five years to make the Proton and teach it to fly. Today, such terms look fantastic.
Much of what Chelomey planned, he failed to do due to the fact that in the 70s all his initiatives were blocked by D. Ustinov. At that time, as Valery Romanov, a member of the Chelomeev group of cosmonauts, said, “Vladimir Nikolaevich fully felt how defenseless a powerful design idea can sometimes be in the face of the whim of an elderly member of the Politburo, in front of the arrogance of a marshal, in front of the envy of a sworn brother.”
However, Chelomey did not go to bow. On the contrary, at general meetings of the USSR Academy of Sciences he could often be seen sitting next to the disgraced academician A. Sakharov and vividly discussing the problems of disarmament.
Vladimir Nikolayevich died of a heart attack in the hospital, where he ended up with a broken leg. On the morning of December 8, 1984, he called his wife and said: “I came up with this! I came up with this! .. "They were last words great designer.
MIKHAIL VOLODIN
First Crimean N 465, MARCH 8 / MARCH 14, 2013
Vladimir Nikolayevich was born on June 30, 1914 in the small town of Sedlec, which is currently in Poland, and in 1914 was part of Russian Empire. In his memoirs of 1952, Vladimir Nikolayevich himself writes that until 1917 his parents were teachers at a public school. After the revolution, her mother taught Russian language and literature, later biology, and her father worked as an engineer. After the 1917 revolution, the Chelomeev family moved to Poltava. Life in Poltava is one of the key moments in the life of young V.N. Chelomey, because at that moment his worldview, education, primarily cultural and spiritual, was formed in a certain way, which had a great influence on his entire future life. The fact is that in Poltava the family settled in a house that was built by the sister of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, Anna Vasilievna Gogol, at the end of the 19th century. After October revolution the granddaughter of A.S. lived in this house. Pushkin, Maria Alexandrovna Bykova, who, in turn, was the wife of N.V. Gogol, N.V. Bykov. As a result, the daughter of Maria Bykova, Sofia Danilevskaya, came here to live. It was she who, together with her parents, became the kind and sensitive spiritual and cultural mentor of Volodya Chelomey. She was able to instill in him a love for literature, music, painting, reading to him the works of Russian classics, instilled in him a love for the classical, correct Russian language ....
In July 1941, Chelomey was appointed head of the jet propulsion department at TsIAM (Central Institute of Aviation Motor Building) named after. P.I. Baranov. At TsIAM, Chelomey began work on the PuVRD, or pulsating jet engines. This interesting fact, since information has repeatedly appeared in the press that Chelomey copied the German V-1 rockets, as Sergei Pavlovich Korolev copied the V-2. This is only partly true. The fact is that the first test run of the engine took place in the second half of 1942, while the first V-1s fell into the hands of our army only at the very end of the war, during the liberation of the city of Blizna in Poland, and later during the capture of the main plant in Peenemünde . Until 1944, in the USSR, the topic of rocket-propelled projectiles with PuVRD was very skeptical and they paid attention to them only when, in 1944, Germany launched the first strikes on London. Stalin turned to the people's commissar of defense with the question of who we are dealing with this issue, and then they remembered Chelomey. Back in 1943, Chelomey tested the first VCh-1 PUVRD.
Pulsating jet engine D-10 designed by V.N. Chelomeya under the wings of the aircraft La-7
After Stalin's death in 1953, V.N. Chelomey was able not only to return to his favorite design activity, but also to create his own design bureau OKB-52, which soon after its creation found its own new place in Reutov near Moscow, where it is located today ....
Rocket 10X created based on the FAU-1 with engines V.N. Chelomeya.
The uniqueness of Vladimir Nikolayevich as a designer lies in the fact that he and his OKB-52, in fact, were the only ones who successfully combined work in three directions at once - cruise missiles, intercontinental missiles and launch vehicles, satellites and satellite systems.
For the first time in the world, just 4 years after Gagarin's flight, Chelomey created a maneuvering satellite of the Polet type, on the basis of which the IS satellite destruction system was later created, which was not deployed, but, nevertheless, was put into service in 1993, after the death of Vladimir Nikolaevich. On his initiative, the US-K early warning system for missile launches was created, and the system of television global intelligence (TGR) was developed. All Soviet manned orbital stations, and later international ISS, are based on the Almaz manned reconnaissance station developed at OKB-52, which was eventually launched under the name Salyut. Until the end of the 80s, the USSR Navy was armed with a unique system of global surveillance and target designation for Granit cruise missiles - MKRTS Legend. Work was also carried out on the reusable ships "TKS", "MP-1", "M-12", "R-1" and "R-2" "LKS". The ideas that were laid back in the 60s by Chelomey are reflected in the latest American unmanned spacecraft X-37.
Under the leadership of V.N. Chelomey developed the UR-500 heavy-class launch vehicle, better known to the general public under the name Proton, which still, despite the fact that it was created in the 60s, has been one of the most popular launch vehicles for more than 40 years worldwide. During lunar program USSR, OKB-52 developed the UR-700 rocket, which would surpass the American Saturn-5 in its characteristics. V.N. Chelomey invented a unique method of amplifying missiles using toxic liquid fuel, as a result of which such missiles can be stored in launch canisters (TLCs) filled for decades, ready for launch. Created by V.N. Chelomey ICBM UR-100 became the most massive Soviet ballistic missile of the Strategic Missile Forces, which ensured nuclear parity with the United States in the 70s. Some of its modifications are still on alert....
Launch of ICBM UR-100N UTTH
Quite often in print and documentaries there is talk that Chelomey achieved such success due to the fact that his son N.S. worked in the design bureau. Khrushchev, Sergei Nikitich Khrushchev. There is an opinion that “Chelomei immediately took to his design bureau young specialist S.N. Khrushchev. This is a very one-sided point of view. V.N. Chelomei did absolutely nothing to find such a "successful" employee. In fact, S.N. Khrushchev was betrothed to Chelomeya by Lev Ivanovich Tkachev, the famous developer of gyroscopes used in guidance, orientation and stabilization systems for aircraft. Chelomey offered him a job, and he brought S.N. Khrushchev to Chelomey. Let's not say that Vladimir Nikolayevich did not understand what the presence of such an employee in the design bureau could promise, and in the prevailing tough conditions of competition between design bureaus dealing with similar problems, he took the opportunity. Although, according to the memoirs of the daughter of V.N. Chelomeya Evgenia Talyzina, Vladimir Nikolaevich repeatedly complained at home that he did not know what the hiring of the party leader's son brought more - benefits or troubles ....
In whatever light V.N. Chelomey is his ill-wishers or envious people, it is customary to judge a person by his deeds and deeds. And in the field of anti-ship cruise missiles V.N. Chelomei made several inventions that determined the main ways of development of this area not only in our country, but throughout the world. And not only in the field of cruise missiles! He owns the invention of the TPK - a transport launch container for missiles. He owns the invention of a missile wing that folds out in flight, thanks to which the KR could be placed in compact enough containers to be placed on submarines. He applied and worked out for the KR a start from under the water. Now launch canisters and a folding wing are used almost everywhere where missiles are used.
Naturally, such successes could not but arouse, if not envy, then at least opposition from direct competitors. Direct competitors V.N. Chelomeya were certainly OKB-1 S.P. Korolev and OKB-586 M.K. Yangel ....
There were no such irreconcilable conflicts between Chelomey and Yangel, Chelomey and Korolev, as, for example, between Korolev and Yangel or Korolev and Glushko, the designer of rocket engines. There was competition, criticism, advocacy, lobbying, sometimes tough, of their interests, but there was no open hostility or hatred, disrespect. Irreconcilable enmity arose where the conflict affected personal relationships. Glushko and Korolev, being initially friends, quarreled over opposing views regarding rocket fuel. Korolev perceived both the refusal to work on the N-1 lunar rocket and the creation of Glushko engines for the Chelomey and Yangel rockets as a betrayal. Yangel and Korolev also quarreled on personal grounds. As well as Ustinov hated Chelomey, and Chelomey, apparently, had no less "warm" feelings for Ustinov, since both of them hurt the personal ambitions of each. This is a paradoxical situation, when initially people most likely did not feel negative towards each other, both were smart, educated people, but due to the confluence of many facts, they became irreconcilable enemies ....
Thanks to the tough lobbying of their interests by Korolev, the Chelomey Design Bureau was actually forced out of the "lunar program". Chelomey proposed the UR-700 missile, which would have surpassed the American Saturn-5 in terms of design characteristics and, most importantly, it could be created on the basis of already tested blocks and parts of the UR-500 and UR-200 missiles, while the Royal H-1 was created from scratch. In this case, Korolev made a mistake, and this rocket was practically doomed to failure from the outset. Chelomei, foreseeing this due to his deeper academic knowledge, expressed his opinion on the topic of the "dead end" of the N-1 project, but they actually did not want to hear it. Korolev, and after his death in 1966, Mishin ensured that the Chelomey Design Bureau lost work on a spacecraft for a manned flight around the moon. And here is the opinion of Alexander Shekhoyan, deputy chief engineer for testing at the Central Design Bureau of Mashinostroeniya (now NPO Mashinostroeniya): “If Khrushchev had not been removed in 1964 and 700 hundred square meters had not been cut down, we would have been the first on the moon.”
The failure of the USSR's manned lunar program only intensified the bad relationship between Ustinov and Chelomey. Ustinov was supported by Korolev, but Korolev and Mishin were unable to realize their plans. And Ustinov perfectly understood that he also made a mistake, and that it was Chelomey who was right ....
Vladimir Nikolayevich experienced the loss of the lunar program to a much lesser extent than, for example, the story with Almazy, in which D.F. Ustinov, one might say, "recouped" for his failure in the lunar program through the hands of other people. Chelomei was well aware that the “lunar rally” between the USSR and the USA was exclusively the business of politicians, the competition between capitalism and socialism. It was clear that this program would not receive any development either in our country or in the United States. Mankind was not ready for large-scale exploration of other planets. But long-lived manned stations in orbit seemed to be a much more practical and feasible project that could bring real benefits to both the military and civilian industries. In the same way, Chelomey did not support the idea of creating in the USSR only the Buran reusable ship, which was created based on the ideas “we should have the same, but bigger and better.” The Space Shuttle program also, as we see today, did not find long-term use, while orbital stations arose earlier and continue to exist today. Large reusable ships were ahead of their time, there were no clear plans for these ships. But smaller ships such as "TKS", "LKS" or "EPOS" could work more efficiently and cheaply for both civilian and military space. And the fact that Vladimir Nikolayevich was then again, for the umpteenth time, is right, says the fact that the development of the United States new program reusable spacecraft X-37 and Space-X "Dragon".
During the collapse of the USSR, after the removal of many secrecy stamps in the press, quite a lot of criticism of "everything that was before" appeared on the wave of time. Including in relation to the military-industrial complex, although “everything that was before” is the reason for our “today” and criticizing others, we criticize ourselves one way or another. At one time, Karel Capek said: "Criticism is when a critic tells the author what is wrong, and how the critic would have done if he could."
The most powerful critics of the rocket and space industry in the post-Soviet period were G.V. Kisunko, V.N. Bugaisky, L.L. Selyakov. Criticizing in general, each his own, all three subject V.N. Chelomeya. Indeed, these people have never had a respectful attitude towards V.N. Chelomey before, and if they want to criticize, there is always a reason. The question is always how to present this or that fact, such as, for example, the appearance of Sergei Khrushchev in OKB-52 or the disbandment of Myasishchev Design Bureau and the transfer of its facilities as a branch to OKB-52 Chelomey. It all depends on how the author looks at this or that fact.
But there are other facts as well. For example, the fact that for the entire time of testing products V.N. Chelomey never had a disaster. There were unsuccessful launches, there were breakdowns, failures, but people never died. The fact is that the UR-100 missiles are still in service with the strategic nuclear forces, that all our submarines, which are armed with cruise missiles to fight aircraft carriers, are armed with missiles that V.N. Chelomey or his followers. It was he who first proposed the idea of multiple warheads, but only the United States was the first to implement it. Almost all large surface ships of the Russian Navy and coastal anti-ship systems are armed with its missiles. The fact is that the Proton launch vehicle remains one of the most powerful and sought-after rockets in the world, and the International Space Station (ISS) contains the Zvezda module, which was created on the basis of the Almaz station designed by the Chelomey Design Bureau.
An interesting, paradoxical fact is that on March 20, 1986, two years after the death of Vladimir Nikolaevich Chelomey, in the State Register scientific discoveries The USSR recorded a new discovery under the number 314 with the name "The phenomenon of an abnormally high increase in thrust in a gas ejection process with a pulsating active jet." Authors I.O. Kudrin and A.V. Kvasnikov are members of the team of authors V.N. Chelomeya, who, a few years before the opening, actually foresaw that sooner or later it would take place. And now it is very gratifying to realize that the team created by Vladimir Nikolaevich Chelomey, and after his death, continued to work without slowing down. Under the leadership of the closest colleague V.N. Chelomey, Herbert Alexandrovich Efremov, who was the General Designer of NPO Mashinostroeniya from 1989 to 2007, the enterprise overcame the most difficult crisis after the collapse of the USSR. Now, under the leadership of Alexander Georgievich Leonov, who has been working with V.N. Chelomey and continues to worthily carry its traditions, the team of NPO Mashinostroeniya remains one of the most advanced and powerful enterprises in the rocket industry in Russia and the world.
“.... We in the USA constantly paid
Particular attention to the work of design
Bureau V.N. Chelomey because of his non-standard
and effective solutions….
William Perry. US Secretary of Defense 1994-1997
In conclusion, I would like to express my deep gratitude to the employees of NPO Mashinostroeniya:
Assistant General Director Degtyarev Anton Olegovich
Head of Department Dementieva Natalya Evgenievna
Head of Department Popov Mikhail Igorevich
for organizing, conducting interviews and providing extensive and interesting materials.
| tombstone | ||
| Bust in Baikonur | ||
| Memorial plaque in Kyiv (on the house where he lived) | ||
| Memorial plaque in Kyiv (on the facade of NAU) | ||
| Memorial plaque in Poltava | ||
| Artistic stamped envelope | ||
| Bronze bust in Moscow | ||
| Monument in Kyiv |
Chelomey Vladimir Nikolaevich - General Designer of OKB-52 State Committee Council of Ministers of the USSR for aviation technology (the city of Reutov, Moscow region).
Born on June 30, 1914 in the town of Sedlec, Privislensky region (now the territory of Poland), 70 kilometers from Warsaw, in a family of teachers. Soon the family moved to the city of Poltava (Ukraine), away from the combat area in the outbreak of the First World War.
In 1926, the family moved to Kyiv, where V.N.Chelomei continued his studies at a seven-year labor school. In 1929, after graduating from school, he entered the Kiev Automobile College; in 1932, after graduating from a technical school, he entered the aviation department of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (in 1933, the Kiev Aviation Institute was created on the basis of this faculty).
Having become a student, V.N. Chelomey continued to intensively engage in self-education: he listened to lectures on mathematics, physics and mechanics at the University of Kiev and the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He was especially interested in mechanics and in particular the theory of vibrations. Thanks to his brilliant abilities and great diligence, he received an excellent fundamental education.
In his student years, V.N. Chelomey was actively engaged in scientific work. During his studies in the works of KAI he published more than 20 scientific articles. In 1936, his work “Vector Calculus” was published in a lithographic way, which became the main one for students. study guide. A distinctive feature of many of his works was that the results of research were immediately embodied in practice.
During his internship at the Zaporozhye Engine Plant, he "... did a lot of computational and research work on the torsional vibrations of aircraft engines" and "... showed a particularly high theoretical and engineering background" (reference Zaporozhye plant). This and other works of Chelomey made it possible to find out the causes of aircraft engine failures. Even then, he had the idea of a pulsating air-jet engine, and, having received permission, he conducted experiments on the equipment of the plant in the interests of its development and creation.
At the plant, he gave a long 70-hour course of lectures on the theory of oscillations to the plant engineers. According to Academician L.I. Sedov, many of the theoretical results presented in these lectures were new for that time and were subsequently included in textbooks and special reference books.
In 1937, V.N. Chelomey graduated with honors from the Kiev Aviation Institute a year earlier. The diploma work on the topic "Oscillations in aircraft engines" was brilliantly defended and recognized by the Academic Council as outstanding, at the level of a PhD thesis.
After graduating from the institute, he worked at the Institute of Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and studied at graduate school. In 1939 he defended his Ph.D. thesis on the topic "Dynamic stability of elements of aircraft structures."
The scientific interests of VNChelomey focused on the study of the dynamic stability of elastic systems. In the course of these studies, he obtained important theoretical results that found application in practice - the method he proposed for determining the longitudinal, transverse and torsional vibrations of elastic systems. This method makes it possible to create a universal computer program and is widely used today.
In 1940, 50 Stalin scholarships were established for especially outstanding young scientists working on doctoral dissertations. V.N. Chelomei was included in their number. The deadline for completing and defending the dissertation was set for June 1, 1941. The dissertation was defended on time, but because of the war, the work was not approved by the Higher Attestation Commission, and Chelomey in subsequent years refined it in the course of current scientific research. A new defense took place 10 years later, in 1951 at the N.E. Bauman Moscow State Technical University. In 1952 he was awarded the title of professor.
In the summer of 1941, V.N. Chelomey was appointed head of the jet engine group of the Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM) named after Baranov, where in 1942 he created the first pulsating jet engine in the USSR, which was installed on a number of aircraft.
The order of the People's Commissariat of the aviation industry dated September 19, 1944 on the appointment of V.N. Chelomey as the Chief Designer and Director of the Experimental Aviation Plant No. 51 marked the beginning of the creation of a new organization, with its own topics, its own tasks, principles and methods of work, which its chief designer instilled in the team.
By the beginning of 1945, the 10X projectile was created in the design bureau by scientists. In 1948, its tests ended, but it was not accepted into service due to unsatisfactory performance characteristics. V.N. Chelomey for some time moved away from practical design work, was engaged in science and teaching, but did not leave the subject of cruise missiles (as the projectiles began to be called).
The command of the Navy became interested in the developments of V.N. Chelomey, and in June 1954, in Tushino, near Moscow, at the engine plant No. 500, a special design group was created to design a second-generation cruise missile. This rocket implemented the new ideas of the scientist: firstly, the rocket was placed in a transport and launch container, closed with a sealed lid; secondly, the wings of the rocket in the container were in the folded position and opened after launch; thirdly, a powder accelerator was used to take the rocket out of the container. The implementation of these ideas made it possible to get ahead of the United States in the issue of arming submarines.
In 1955, V.N. Chelomey was given a mechanical plant in the city of Reutov near Moscow, where OKB-52 of the Ministry of Aviation Industry was created. Chelomey managed to create a close-knit and efficient creative team at the enterprise, which was important achievement leading to further success. Behind a short time under his leadership, the design bureau grew and turned into a powerful research and development organization.
The period from 1956 to 1965 can be characterized as a stage in the recognition of the place of V.N. Chelomey and his design bureau among the leading enterprises in the defense industries. The revival of the design bureau in Reutov made it possible to launch work on the creation of a fundamentally new type of cruise missile with a wing that opens in flight, as well as win the competition in a tough competition with the established aviation design bureaus of Mikoyan, Ilyushin and Beriev and open the way for rearmament Navy countries with missile weapons systems.
Already on March 12, 1957, the first launch of the P-5 cruise missile took place, and on June 19, 1959 it was put into service. On the basis of the P-5 during 1958-1959, more than 10 variants of modifications were developed, of which the P-5D complex, with a radio navigation station of higher accuracy and improved on-board equipment, was most widely used.
By a government decree in 1956, OKB-52 was entrusted with the development for the Navy of the first two missile systems for over-the-horizon destruction of P-6 and P-35 targets. After a full program of flight tests, the P-6 complex was put into service on June 24, 1964 and became one of the main weapons of the submarine fleet. The P-35 anti-ship missile system was adopted by the Navy for ships, self-propelled and stationary ground launchers.
Over the following years, the OKB-52 team created several types of sea and land-based cruise missiles, in which new, sometimes unexpected technical and design solutions were used. These include the world's first submarine-launched anti-ship cruise missile (adopted into service in 1968), the P-120 Malakhit unified anti-ship system, whose missiles are capable of launching both from submerged and surface submarines. ships (1972), the first sea-based cruise missile with a high supersonic (up to 2 M) flight speed P-500 "Basalt" (1977).
In 1983, the P-700 Granit anti-ship cruise missile was put into service. Complex "Granit" had a number of qualitatively new properties. For the first time, a long-range missile with an autonomous control system was created. The on-board control system was built on the basis of a powerful three-processor computer using several information channels, which made it possible to successfully understand a complex jamming environment and highlight the true targets against the background of any interference. The rocket embodied the rich experience of NGOs in creating electronic systems artificial intelligence, which allows you to act against a single ship on the principle of "one missile - one ship" or "flock" against a warrant of ships. The missile control system performed the functions of distributing and classifying targets by importance, choosing attack tactics and a plan for its implementation. The ability to maneuver missiles made it possible to implement a rational battle formation in a salvo with the most effective trajectory shape. This ensured the successful overcoming of the fire resistance of a strong ship grouping.
None of the previous cruise missiles created at NPO Mashinostroeniya concentrated and successfully implemented so many new complex tasks as in the Granit rocket. The missiles of the new third-generation universal missile system "Granit" had both underwater and surface launch, a firing range of 550 kilometers, a conventional or nuclear warhead, several flexible adaptive trajectories (depending on the operational and tactical situation in the sea and airspace of the operation area) , the flight speed is 2.5 times the speed of sound.
In 1958, V.N. Chelomey was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 26, 1959 ("closed") for merits in the creation of the P-5 cruise missile Chelomey Vladimir Nikolaevich He was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.
In 1959, V.N. Chelomey was appointed General Designer of OKB-52. By this time, a large cooperation of research and industrial enterprises, the largest of which was the Moscow Machine-Building Plant named after M.V. Khrunichev.
As a result of hard work, three directions of the enterprise's activity took shape: the creation of cruise missile systems for the Navy, which opened up the possibility of an asymmetrical response to strike formations of the West; creation of systems of controlled space vehicles, manned ships and stations; creation of ballistic missiles and launch vehicles.
In all areas of development of the enterprise - winged, ballistic, space - there was an extraordinary approach to solving problems, to the domestic way of developing technology, which made it possible, with limited resources, not only to keep up with the world level, but in most cases in the same type of systems to surpass the most advanced countries West.
Since the end of the 1950s, OKB-52 began search work on space topics. In 1959, OKB-52 began to develop universal missiles designed to deliver anti-space defense systems, global maritime reconnaissance, and also to deliver nuclear warheads to enemy territory. Under the leadership of V.N. Chelomey, a number of projects of unified missiles were developed: UR-100, UR-200, UR-500, UR-700, from light to super heavy classes. UR-100 and UR-500 were put into service, mastered in mass production.
In 1962, V.N. Chelomey was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
By the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 28, 1963, he was awarded the second gold medal "Sickle and Hammer".
VN Chelomey is credited with creating the main strike force of the Strategic Missile Forces, the famous "weave" - the intercontinental missile UR-100, which ensured strategic parity with the United States. More than a thousand UR-100s were installed in mine structures on the territory of the USSR. Moreover, the “weave” could easily be upgraded, and there were many such modifications: UR-100K, UR-100U, UR-100NU and others. Chelomey initially prioritized not only the high reliability of the missile system and the accuracy of the warhead hitting the target, but also the low cost of manufacture and ease of operation.
His combat intercontinental missiles were the cheapest and most competitive in the USSR and, perhaps, in the world. From this, their reliability has not become worse. He, unlike other chief designers, using inertial control systems, managed to achieve amazing accuracy in hitting the head of the target, which is the end result of rocket firing. UR-100U, for example, with a flight range of 10,000 km, provided a circular probable deviation of the warhead from the target of 900 m.
The UR-100 missile came from the factory fully equipped and installed in a sealed transport and launch container filled with inert gas - for the first time in the domestic rocket industry, the missile was isolated from the external environment during duty. Technical condition control, pre-launch preparation and launch were fully automated. Launch control of a dozen missiles and other operations were carried out from one command post. The missile could be on duty for up to 10 years or more. Mine launchers for his missiles also did not require sophisticated protection. The first launch took place in April 1966, and in the fall of 1966, the UR-100 complexes began to be placed on combat duty.
In the shortest possible time, OKB-52, with the participation of broad cooperation between industry enterprises, created Poljot fighter satellites, radar and electronic reconnaissance satellites, the latter with a nuclear power plant, heavy scientific laboratories"Proton" for registration of high-energy particles, etc. The satellites "Polyot-1" (01/01/1963) and "Polyot-2" (04/12/1964) were the world's first maneuvering spacecraft.
The development of a heavy universal two-stage ICBM UR-500 ("Proton") was started in OKB-52 in accordance with the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 409-183 of April 24, 1962. Assessing the prospects for the use of the UR-500, V.N. Chelomey proposed creating a family of target loads for it, capable of solving problems of a scientific, national economic and military nature. The rocket was conceived as a means of delivering the most powerful warhead with a nuclear charge. The first launch of the Proton rocket took place on July 16, 1965. The heavy scientific satellite, after which the carrier was named, was also designed in branch No. 1 of OKB-52.
The three-stage launch vehicle UR-500K ("Proton-K") was developed according to the Decree of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 655-268 of August 3, 1964 as part of the lunar program. On March 10, 1967, rocket tests began. They confirmed the declared tactical and technical characteristics, significantly exceeding those of all missiles that existed at that time in the USSR and abroad. In the course of flight design tests, the three-stage Proton launched the 11F91 (L1) spacecraft into lunar orbit, which carried out an unmanned flight around the moon. On November 16, 1968, the UR-500K launch vehicle launched the Proton-4 automatic research station weighing 17 tons into orbit.
During the operation of the Proton launch vehicle in all its modifications, more than 300 launches were performed, a number of communication and television satellites, satellites of the Kosmos series, interplanetary stations Luna, Venera, Mars, Vega were launched into space ”, “Phobos”, spacecraft global navigation system Glonass, the main blocks of the Salyut and Mir orbital stations and modules for the International Space Station. Proton is the country's only mass-produced rocket capable of launching vehicles into geostationary orbit. And now Proton remains one of the most powerful, advanced and reliable carriers in the world.
In 1964, V.N. Chelomey proposed the concept of an orbital manned station (OPS) for solving various, primarily defense, tasks. He saw in the OPS the most powerful means of operational space reconnaissance. It was proposed to create an observation post with comfortable living conditions for a replaceable crew of two or three people, the life of the station is 1-2 years, the withdrawal by the carrier UR-500K.
In 1965, OKB-52 was transformed into the Central Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering of the Ministry of General Mechanical Engineering (TsKBM), in 1983, the Research and Production Association of Mechanical Engineering (NPO) was formed on its basis. Up to their last days this organization was headed by V.N.Chelomey.
Work on the Almaz orbital complex, which included the base unit, the return vehicle and the heavy transport supply ship (TKS), began in October 1965, the first version of the draft design was ready in 1966. To deliver information to Earth, an information descent capsule weighing 360 kg and containing 120 kg of photographic film (length 2 km) was developed. From the interior to the airlock compartment, the capsule was transferred by a manipulator. For the space technology of those years, these were innovations.
On April 3, 1973, the Almaz station (OPS-1) was launched under the name Salyut-2. However, the program of this flight was not carried out, because after two weeks of the station's flight in orbit, depressurization occurred, and communication with the station was lost. In 1974, OPS-2 Salyut-3 was launched into orbit, on which the crew of Pavel Popovich and Yuri Artyukhin were on duty. In 1976, OPS-3 Salyut-5 was launched, on which cosmonauts Boris Volynov and Vitaly Zholobov worked for 49 days, and then, in 1977, Viktor Gorbatko and Yuri Glazkov. According to V.N. Chelomey, the set of tasks in this flight was the most difficult, and the level of work of the last crew became a reference for those who were preparing for flights in the future.
An unmanned transport supply ship was launched four times between 1977 and 1985 under the name Cosmos. The first TCS (Kosmos-929) repeatedly maneuvered in orbit, so the Americans assumed that the Russians were testing an interorbital tug. The functional cargo block TKS-2 ("Cosmos-1267") docked with the Salyut-6 station, flew in its composition for more than a year, with the help of the block's engines, the station's orbit rose three times. TKS-3 (Kosmos-1443) docked with Salyut-7. On the TKS-4 ("Cosmos-1686"), instead of standard instruments, there were instruments for performing military-technical experiments. The spacecraft docked with Salyut-7 and was used for orbit correction.
All flights were successful, the ship showed high reliability and efficiency. In addition, its ability to dock with any vehicle with minor design changes was shown, which made it possible to use it as a lifeguard. Despite this, the TCS program was closed.
Since 1979, a difficult stage began in the life of the general designer and his enterprise. V.N. Chelomey was subjected to continuous pressure, restriction of his activities by the leadership of the defense industries, headed by D.F. Ustinov. After the prohibition of work on the manned program, the TsKBM team reoriented to work on the Almaz complex in an unmanned version. Due to the abandonment of the life support system of the cosmonauts, it was possible to place on board a powerful set of equipment for remote sensing of the Earth, including a unique side-scan radar with high resolution. However, the automatic station, prepared for launch in 1981, lay at the cosmodrome until 1985. The launch took place in November 1986, but was an emergency. A successful launch took place in June 1987 ("Cosmos-1870"). In March 1991, Almaz-1 was launched, a whole series of military experiments was carried out on it.
V.N. Chelomey devoted more than 30 years of his life to astronautics creative life. He is one of the glorious galaxy of chief designers of rocket and space technology. Perhaps he was the only designer of military intercontinental ballistic missiles in the world who brilliantly developed cruise missiles, spacecraft and long-term orbital stations. His ideas were often ahead of their time, at first seemed unrealizable and caused rejection by many leaders of the rocket and space industry and decision makers. Nevertheless, a thorough study of the scientific substantiation of new proposals, a well-thought-out experimental base, as a rule, paved the way for new ideas.
Brilliant organizational skills helped V.N. Chelomei to create a reliable creative team capable of solving not only the most complex scientific and technical problems, but also overcoming organizational difficulties caused by external factors. In difficult times, the team was helped to survive and not lose its creative potential by a variety of topics.
Closely engaged in the development and creation of samples of rocket and space technology, V.N. Chelomey did not leave scientific work. His main works are devoted to the theory of oscillations, the dynamic stability of elastic systems, the design and dynamics of machines, and the theory of servomechanisms. Significant results have been obtained in the development of applied mathematics methods.
One of his most important theoretical studies concerns the problems of stability of elastic dynamical systems. For the first time in this field of mechanics, he compiled an infinite system of linear differential equations with periodic coefficients and developed a method for the approximate solution of this problem. Were suggested practical advice to determine the areas of instability of complex systems. Later, Academician Chelomey expanded the class of systems under consideration, in a number of cases he obtained analytical solutions. Most of his theoretical works ended with the derivation of calculation formulas that are convenient to use in practice. The contribution of V.N. Chelomey to solving the problems of dynamic stability of elastic systems is recognized as fundamental in world science.
Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR 9-11 convocations.
Awarded 5 orders of Lenin (09/16/1945, 06/26/1959, 06/29/1964, 06/28/1974, 06/29/1984), the Order of the October Revolution (04/26/1971), medals.
Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1959) and three State Prizes (1967, 1974, 1982).
In 1964 he was awarded the N.E. Zhukovsky Gold Medal for best job in aviation theory, in 1977 - the A.M. Lyapunov Gold Medal - the highest award of the USSR Academy of Sciences for outstanding work in the field of mathematics and mechanics.
Active Member International Academy astronautics (1974).
Streets and squares in the city of Moscow and the city of Reutov (Moscow region), as well as a small planet, are named after him solar system, registered in the international catalog under the number 8608 and called "Chelomey".
Busts of Academician V.N. Chelomey were installed in Moscow near Bauman Moscow State Technical University and in Baikonur, memorial plaques- in Kyiv on the house where he lived and on the building of the Kyiv Institute of Engineers civil aviation(now the National Aviation University), in Poltava - on the building of school No. 10, where he studied. A memorial office of the Hero was created on the territory of NPO Mashinostroeniya. The memorial hall of V.N. Chelomey was opened in the Poltava Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics. A medal named after V.N.Chelomey was established, which is awarded to scientists and technicians for outstanding work in the field of rocket and space technology. In 2000, the Union of Scientists and Engineers named after academician V.N. Chelomey was created.
June 30, 1914 - December 08, 1984
Soviet scientist in the field of mechanics and control processes, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR
Biography
Vladimir Nikolaevich Chelomei was born on June 30, 1914 in a family of teachers of the public school in the provincial town of Siedlce, Privislinsky region.
In 1937 he graduated from the Kiev Aviation Institute, where he remained to work as a teacher.
In 1941, he began working at the Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM) in Moscow.
Since 1944, he headed the United Design Bureau 52, which became today's NPO Mashinostroeniya (Reutov, Moscow Region).
In 1952 he became a professor at Moscow State Technical University. Bauman, in 1962 - Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Since 1974 - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Achievements
Academician Chelomey participated in the creation of a number of engines and a number of other important objects of rocket, space and aviation technology. Under his leadership, launch vehicles were developed (Proton is still actively used), artificial satellites The Proton and Polet lands, the Almaz series orbital stations, the TKS manned spacecraft, etc.
V. N. Chelomei was one of the key creators of the Soviet "nuclear shield".
The main works on the design and dynamics of machines, the theory of oscillations, the dynamic stability of elastic systems, the theory of servomechanisms.
Awards
Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1959, 1963).
Laureate of the Lenin Prize (1959) and three State Prizes (1967, 1974, 1982).
Memory
In Moscow, on the Lefortovskaya embankment, a monument to Chelomey was erected. A street in Moscow, a square and a street in Reutov are named in his honor. Asteroid 8608, discovered by the Crimean Observatory, bears the name of Chelomey. The medal named after V.N. Chelomey was established.
In 2003, a postage stamp of Ukraine dedicated to Chelomey was issued.
Aeroflot A-320 aircraft (tail number VQ-BCN) named after Chelomey
In June of this year, General Designer Vladimir Nikolaevich Chelomey would have turned 104 years old. Little is said about him today. Someone considers him a "gray cardinal" Soviet cosmonautics, someone is the "executioner of domestic aviation." But even judging only by the projects that Chelomei implemented, he can certainly be put on a par with such major figures in the history of rocket science and space exploration as S. Korolev, M. Yangel, V. Glushko.
It was thanks to the Chelomey Design Bureau that three major national defense programs of the USSR were completed. The first includes equipping the Russian Navy, especially the submarine one, with anti-ship missiles. The rocketization of the Soviet fleet cost 25 times cheaper than the construction of aircraft carriers similar to the American ones.
Igor Stavtsev/Collage/Ridus
The second program made it possible to achieve by 1974 parity with the United States in intercontinental ballistic missiles with the help of the Chelomeev complexes UR-100 and UR-100N.
Thanks to the third program Soviet Union overcame its backlog from the United States in the information field with the help of space facilities based on military orbital stations of the Almaz type, which were also developed at the Chelomey Design Bureau.
How it all began
Projectiles 10X, 14X, 16X
As a designer, Vladimir Chelomei began his career with the design and construction of a "pulsating air-jet engine" (PUVRD). Its creation was preceded by a great theoretical work. From 1936 to 1940, Chelomey published 24 scientific work, 20 of which were devoted to PuVRD. And already in 1939, he received a copyright certificate for the design of this engine.
German engineers created a similar engine in 1942 and began to install them on their unmanned V-1 winged projectiles, with which they bombed London.
Similar winged vehicles of Chelomey under the index 10X entered service Soviet army at the beginning of 1945. The quick commissioning of the Chelomeev "X" was the direct borrowing of German technologies in their developments.
Such an option and borrowing other people's secrets at that time was not something out of the ordinary. It is well known that all the first Soviet jet aircraft flew on German and British jet engines.
But having become the chief designer, Chelomey subsequently managed to develop more powerful projectile aircraft, or, as they later became known, 14X and 16X cruise missiles.
In the grip of competition
V. N. Chelomey and M. V. Keldysh
In 1953, the Chelomey Design Bureau was suddenly closed. Probably, the fact that A. Mikoyan's design bureau, which became famous during the war and after it, in addition to designing fighters, also developed cruise missiles, probably played a role. Therefore, Chelomey, as an inconvenient and dangerous competitor, was decided under a plausible pretext to remove him from work. His employees, the most experienced and gifted, were transferred to the Mikoyan Design Bureau, and the designer himself was sent to teach at the Moscow State Technical University. Bauman.
Chelomey himself used this method of eliminating competitors more than once. So, for example, back in 1944, he achieved the allocation to him and re-profiling for the development of his own projectiles of the design bureau of the "king of fighters" N. Polikarpov, who died of cancer. Of course, Chelomei did not imagine that he himself would soon turn out to be a "unpromising designer" and lose everything he had.
The closure of the Chelomeevsky design bureau was also facilitated by the quarrelsome nature of its leader, who for some reason found enemies for himself at a very high level. It was at this time that the patriarch of our aircraft industry, Andrei Tupolev, who called the designer "an obstinate boy and an upstart", and Dmitry Ustinov, who later became Marshal and Minister of Defense of the USSR, began to be unkind to Chelomey.
But besides the difficult character, Chelomey was distinguished by a sharp and flexible mind, which very quickly calculated many options for action for the future and sometimes allowed its owner to bend his back to anyone. Therefore, it is not surprising that already in 1954 Chelomei became the head of a special design group of 20 people, and a year later, the chief designer of cruise missiles launched from submarines.
Since he did not have his own production base, he achieved the closure of the V. Myasishchev Design Bureau, somewhere at that time he was building a new supersonic strategic bomber M-50, which for many years was ahead of similar American missile carriers in terms of technical solutions. After that, evil (and not so) tongues began to talk about Chelomey only as a "killer" of the future Soviet aviation.
Unfortunately, he did not see any other way out in the fierce competition that Chelomei waged with the design bureau of S. Lavochkin, A. Mikoyan and G. Beriev, and probably did not want to see. And the designer won it.
cruise missiles
V. N. Chelomei and A. S. Yakovlev
Already in 1959, the first naval cruise missile P-5 became a powerful weapon of the Soviet Navy. Subsequently, Chelomey created a number of anti-ship missiles that could be launched both from submarines and from the surface of the water. These rockets took up very little space on board the ships because they had folding wings that only opened after the rocket was launched.
This idea seemed so paradoxical at the time that Tupolev called it a "circus" and declared that the rocket would certainly roll over at launch. But he was wrong.
And the idea of \u200b\u200bfolding wings, as Chelomey's daughter claimed, arose from her father quite by accident. Once the designer, thinking about something, looked out the window, on the windowsill of which a sparrow was sitting.
Suddenly, frightened of something, he jumped up, spread his wings in the air and flew confidently. Seeing this, Chelomey decided to use sparrow takeoff for projectile aircraft. Today, this system is used for cruise missiles both here and abroad.
In total, from 1957 to 1982, more than 60 projects of various cruise missile systems were developed at the Chelomey Design Bureau. Some of them could fly low above the ground, avoiding all obstacles at a low altitude, following the terrain, and self-aiming at the target.
Through the thorns to the stars
At the end of the 1950s, a space boom began all over the world. In 1957, the first satellite of the Earth was launched in our country. Chelomey, with his ambitious character, was cramped in the design of cruise missiles. He wanted more and felt that he could do no less in astronautics than, for example, S.P. Korolev. But no one wanted to let him into space. Then Chelomei took advantage of a circumstance that seemed paradoxical at first glance, which helped him break through to the “cosmic pie”.
In 1958, he hired Sergei, the son of the then first secretary of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev, who began to work in the design bureau with cruise missile control systems.
And this step quickly paid off. A year later, Chelomey became the chief designer of space technology, breaking the monopoly of S. Korolev and M. Yangel.
Scientist, engineer, politician
V. N. Chelomey
What allowed Chelomey to stand on a par with these outstanding designers? Of course, not the patronage of N. Khrushchev. The main role was played by the talent of Vladimir Nikolayevich, containing the abilities of a scientist, engineer, analyst and politician.
In addition, Chelomey knew how to work himself and could make others do it. Treating his employees as cogs in a large machine, the engine of which he himself was, the designer sometimes spent the night at his enterprise, and the design bureau staff in peacetime was in the barracks. But, probably, this was the only way Chelomey could withstand the fierce competition that he waged with S. Korolev and M. Yangel.
The winner in this space race was usually won by the one who used the labor of subordinates most intensively and worked out his projects more carefully, and the one who used impure tricks.
Neither Chelomei nor Korolev shied away from them. The first achieved, after the takeover of the Myasishchev bureau, the closure and re-profiling of S. Lavochkin's design bureau, and 30 of the main developers of this design bureau went to work for Chelomey. Korolev "swallowed" V. Grabin's design bureau, which produced guns.
But sometimes this was not enough for successful activity. At that time, as probably now, the fate of even the most unique project depended not on experts and specialists who thoroughly understood the problems, but on people who were usually far from astronautics and aviation, but who supervised them or tried to solve with their help their ambitious plans. Such people in Russia were officials, party leaders up to general secretaries CPSU, members of the Politburo and government leaders.
intercontinental missiles
Chelomei managed to use all the nuances of space policy and in the 60s created the most massive universal intercontinental launch vehicle UR-100, which was in no way inferior in its characteristics to the American Minuteman.
The main feature of the UR-100 was that the aggressive components (fuel and nitric acid) were isolated from each other by special membranes and placed in sealed tanks. Thus, in terms of storage safety, they were in no way inferior to solid-fuel rockets, which we did not have at that time. The UR-100, according to Western experts, has become the best Soviet missile capable, among other things, of carrying an atomic charge.
Orbital stations
Orbital station Salyut
It is difficult to underestimate the merits of Chelomey in the creation of the Salyut orbital stations, designed on the basis of the Almaz military observation stations weighing 20 tons and 24 meters long, which were distinguished by great reliability and relative comfort. They were visited by five space expeditions. Today, similar stations solve peaceful tasks and, flying in an automatic unmanned mode, transmit to Earth images of the surface of the seas and oceans, areas of natural disasters and environmental disasters.
In 1965, the Proton-1 space satellite was launched with the help of a powerful two-stage rocket UR-500, developed at the Chelomey Design Bureau and after a successful launch received the name of the satellite, the weight of which exceeded 12 tons, which for that time was a fantastic achievement. With the help of Protons, automatic stations Venera, Mars, Vega were launched, as well as a huge number of communication satellites and orbital stations Mir, one of which flew for more than eight years in space. Until now, the Proton launch vehicle is the most reliable in the world.
The merit of Chelomey is also the fact that he introduced modern aviation technology into rocket technology. Rockets have become lighter and at the same time stronger. So-called waffle designs appeared. Serial production of missiles was taken up by aircraft factories with a high culture of production.
After the resignation of N. Khrushchev, whom Chelomei turned to in order to resolve some issues, bypassing all instances, it became somewhat more difficult for the designer to work, but not so much as to completely despair. It was after this sad event for Chelomey that he became the laureate of the State Prize three times (!) It was after Khrushchev's resignation that Chelomeev's favorite "brainchild" takes off - the Proton rocket.
What Chelomey really was, no one knows today. But, probably, all the same, he gave the most accurate definition to his former leader Sergei Khrushchev, who said: “Many things are mixed up in this man: good and bad, high and low. But the main thing is that he was born a personality and lived his life as a personality ... "
