Vladimir Chelomey

Vladimir Nikolayevich Chelomey or Chelomei (, , Volodymyr Mykolayovych Chelomey; 30 June 1914 – 8 December 1984) in Siedlce, Lublin Governorate, Russian Empire (now Poland). At the age of three months, his family fled to Poltava, Ukraine, when the Eastern Front of World War I came close to Siedlce.

When Chelomey was 12 years old, the family moved again to Kyiv.

In 1932, Chelomey was admitted to the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute (later the basis of Kyiv Aviation Institute), where he showed himself as a student with outstanding talent. In 1936, his first book Vector Analysis was published. Studying at the institute, Chelomey also attended lectures on mathematical analysis, theory of differential equations, mathematical physics, theory of elasticity and mechanics in the Kyiv University. He also attended lectures by Tullio Levi-Civita in the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences. Namely in this time Chelomey became interested in mechanics and in the theory of oscillations and remained interested the rest of his life. In 1937, Chelomey graduated from the institute with honours. After that he worked there as a lecturer, defending a dissertation for the Candidate of Science (in 1939). He also claimed the UR-500 could be used to launch a military space station.

An argument between Sergey Korolev and rocket engine designer Valentin Glushko over personal issues and whether the N1 should be fueled with RP-1 / LOX or Hypergolic propellant resulted in Glushko and Korolev refusing to work with each other, causing Glushko to instead offer his RD-253 rocket engine to Chelomey, who adopted it for his UR-500. The first launch of the UR-500 (also known as Proton) took place in early 1965.

Although it was never used to send cosmonauts to the Moon as Chelomey had hoped, Proton became the staple heavy lift launch vehicle of the Soviet/Russian fleet and would be used over the years for planetary probes, space stations, geosynchronous satellites, and more. He also headed the development of the Proton satellite. In the 1970s Chelomey's OKB proposed non-realised Proton-based 20-ton LKS (Kosmolyot) spaceplane and worked on the Almaz military orbital stations (flown as Salyut 2, Salyut 3 and Salyut 5) which also became the basis for the Salyut, Mir and Zvezda civil space stations. To support his Almaz stations, Chelomey designed the TKS, as a large alternative to Soyuz. The TKS never flew crewed as planned but derivatives flew as modules on Salyut 7 and Mir. In the 1980s Chelomey's OKB proposed non-realised 15-ton Uragan spaceplane based on Zenit-2 launcher. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery. Vladimir Chelomey Memorial Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, Moscow.

Awards

Two times Hero of Socialist Labor (1959, 1963) USSR State Prize (1967, 1974, 1982) Lenin Prize (1959) Four Orders of Lenin Order of the October Revolution