Mitrofan Nedelin

Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin (; – 24 October 1960) was a Soviet military commander who served as Chief Marshal of the Artillery in the Soviet Armed Forces. He oversaw the development of the Soviet ballistic missile program and was appointed as the first Commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces from 1959 until his death.

A long-time member of the Red Army, Nedelin was a veteran of numerous wars and was honored as a Hero of the Soviet Union for his service during the Second World War. On 8 May 1959, Nedelin was promoted to Chief Marshal of the Artillery, and became an important program manager in the development of ICBMs and the Space Race. On 24 October 1960, Nedelin was killed in an explosion at Baikonur Cosmodrome during the eponymous Nedelin catastrophe.

Early life Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin was born on 9 November 1902, in Borisoglebsk, Voronezh Governorate, Russian Empire.

Military career Nedelin joined the Red Army in 1920, aged 18, and fought as a volunteer in the Russian Civil War until its conclusion in 1923. The following year he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and was conscripted back into the Red Army, becoming an artillery commander. From 1937 to 1939, Nedelin fought in the Spanish Civil War as a foreign volunteer for the Republican Government, and the same year was appointed to command 13th Artillery Regiment in the Soviet Red Army. In 1940 he was appointed to command the artillery of 160th Rifle Division after returning from Spain, and participated in the Winter War until 1940. Nedelin's death was officially listed as having occurred in a plane crash until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s uncovered the incident.

Nedelin was buried in a tomb in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis at Red Square in Moscow. On 20 December 1999, Russian president Boris Yeltsin posthumously awarded the Order of Courage to Nedelin and the personnel involved in the catastrophe.

Honors and awards Soviet Union and Russia Order of Courage (1999, posthumously) Hero of the Soviet Union (28 April 1945) Five Orders of Lenin (13 September 1944, 28 April 1945, 20 April 1956, 21 December 1957) Four Orders of the Red Banner (22 February 1939, 13 December 1942, 3 November 1944, 15 November 1950) Order of Suvorov 1st class (19 March 1944) Order of Kutuzov 1st class (26 October 1943) Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky 1st class (18 November 1944) Order of the Patriotic War 1st class (3 November 1944) Order of the Badge of Honour (16 August 1936) Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus" (1944) Medal "For the Capture of Budapest" (1945) Medal "For the Capture of Vienna" (1945) Medal "For the Liberation of Belgrade" (1945) Jubilee Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" (1938) Jubilee Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy" (1948) Jubilee Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1958)

Foreign Order of Military Merit (Bulgaria) Medal of Sino-Soviet Friendship (China) Order of Hungarian Freedom (Hungary) Order of the Partisan Star, 1st class (Yugoslavia)

In other media Marshall Nedellin appears as a character in the 2005 BBC docudrama TV series, Space Race. He is played by English actor Tim Woodward. Nedelin Disaster // RussianSpaceWeb.com