Georgy Prokofiev

Georgy (Yegor) Alekseyevich Prokofiev (born August 17, 1902, in Teleshovo, Vyazma District – died April 23, 1939, in Moscow) was a Soviet Air Forces balloonist who coordinated a military stratospheric balloon program in 1931–1939. On September 30, 1933, USSR-1 under Prokofiev's command set an unofficial world altitude record of .

Background

Born in a peasant family in the former Smolensk Governorate, Yegor Prokofiev received a basic education during World War I and worked in the Vyazma railroad yards starting at the age of fifteen. He joined the Bolshevik party in 1920 and in the same year was mobilized into the Red Army for the Polish–Soviet War. After 1921 he held unimportant bureaucratic jobs in Komsomol offices in Smolensk and Moscow until joining the Red Army again, as the political commissar of a balloon unit based in Kuntsevo, then a suburb of Moscow.

The next attempt to launch USSR-1 was scheduled on September 30, 1933. Prokofiev, Konstantin Godunov and co-pilot Ernst Birnbaum lifted off at 8:40 Moscow Time and established radio contact with ground five minutes later. According to Prokofiev's flight log, at 9:17 USSR-1 passed 16,800 meter mark, beating Piccard's record; between 9:19 and 9:26 the aircraft, fully expanded, levelled in a static equilibrium at 17,500 meters. as well as scientific data released shortly after the flight. The crew members, three designers and plant manager responsible for building USSR-1 were awarded the Order of Lenin, then the highest award for military or civil achievement.

In May 1934 Prokofiev received a go-ahead to proceed with a new gigantic (300,000 cubic meters) Launching a balloon of this size from Russian plains turned out to be a futile race against weather, as even a slight wind prevented safe deployment of the gigantic gas bag. American balloonists solved the wind challenge by launching from deep canyons (Stratobowl) or mining pits (Crosby, Minnesota) while Soviet Air Forces relied on the single airfield in Moscow suburbs. To alleviate the problem, Prokofiev designed the double launch sequence. Prior to launch, the balloon was pulled down to the gondola with temporary ropes wound around permanent suspension cables, halving the balloon's height. These ropes were designed to untangle and release the full length of suspension cables shortly after launch. The first test of Prokofiev's invention on a small 900 cubic meters balloon ended in the death of test pilot. Journalist Lazar Brontman who spoke to Prokofiev in the hospital on April 4, 1939, recalled that Prokofiev was planning a sequence of new record flights on or after May 10, 1939, depending on weather conditions. However, on April 23 Prokofiev fatally shot himself. He was buried with military honors at Novodevichy Cemetery.

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