DESIGN BUREAUS

OKB-1

The founding space exploration enterprise in the Soviet Union was Experimental Design Bureau No. l (OKB-1). It had its beginnings in the Scientific Research Institute No.88 (N11-88). A new design section. Department No.3, was set up by the government in May 1946 for the dozens of engineers who had just returned from over a year of investigating the German rocket industry. Sergey Korolev headed the department as Chief Designer. It comprised almost 150 engineers and technicians, and its task, Stalin stated, was to build a Soviet version of the V-2. After succeeding with the R-l. and proceeding to design new rockets of its ow n, the department was restructured into a larger design bureau OKB-1 in the early 1950s and then separated from NII-88 in 1956. OKB-1 built the first Soviet ballistic missile to carry a nuclear warhead, the intermediate range R-5M, and the first submarine-launched ballistic missile, the R-11FM. Korolev’s proposal to build the first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7, was approved by the government in 1954. The first successful test of the missile wra$ carried out in August 1957 and on October 4, 1957 it was used to launch Sputnik. The R-7 has been modified, augmented and upgraded in various forms to become the most prolific and successful space launch vehicle in history.

While building for the military. Korolev’s real passion was for space exploration. OKB-1 would eventually lose the military rocket business to rivals, but it achieved great success in space exploration, along with frustrating failure, before Korolev’s death in 1966. After Sputnik. Korolev and OKB-1 pursued more ambitious goals robotic flights to the Moon and planets, and manned flights into Earth orbit. OK B-1 built the first spacecraft to impact the Moon, Luna 2, the first to photograph the far side of the Moon, Luna 3. and the first interplanetary spacecraft intended for Mars and Venus, but the failure rate was terrific. From 1958 through 1965, only four of 21 robotic flights to the Moon were successful (Luna 1, 2 and 3, and Zond 3); none of eleven attempts at Venus and none of the seven attempts at Mars w ere successful. On the other hand, OKB-1 had a singularly excellent record in manned spaceflight, launching the first man into space in 1961, the first woman into space in 1963. the first multi-person spacecraft in 1964, and the first spacewalker in 1965.

There were other design bureaus critical to the space program in the mid-1960s. Valentin Glushko’s OK B-456 w as the premier developer of rocket engines. Glushko

supplied engines for Korolev’s early rockets as well as other military rocket builders such as Chclomey. Chclomcy’s OKB-52 built the Proton rocket which became the staple heavy launcher for Soviet lunar and planetary spacecraft. In 1964 the Soviet Union made the late decision to compete with the IJS and send cosmonauts to the Moon. Korolev, Glushko and Chelomey each presented plans to the government for building the necessary rockets and spacecraft. After considerable wrangling. OKB-1 won on the basis of its head start in the manned program and long-standing work on the design of a Moon rocket. Chelomey did save his Proton rocket from the military scrapheap for the precursor manned circumlunar flights, but OKB-1 was to provide the final upper stage and the spacecraft.

During the battle for control of the manned lunar program, tvhile still conducting both manned and robotic flight programs, succeeding with one and struggling with the other. Korolev realized that OKB-1 had taken on too much. It was essentially responsible for the entire Soviet space effort including communications satellites, reconnaissance satellites, robotic and manned space exploration programs. OKB-1 had to offload something in order to relieve the pressure on his organization, so in March 1965 Korolev reluctantly transferred the robotic program to NPO – Lavochkin. Keldysh played a significant role in this decision. If any comparison to the US could be made at this point, it would be that the USSR had two NASAs one for manned missions (OKB-1) and another for robotic missions (NPO – Lavochkin). This is not a perfect comparison, however, since neither had full control of its own funding or its suppliers; that came from MOM.

After Korolev died in January 1966. OKB-1 was renamed the Central Design Bureau of Experimental Machine Building (TsKBEM) and his deputy Vasily Mishin took over. But unlike Korolev. Mishin was not a charismatic and politically savvy leader and he immediately ran into trouble. He introduced Korolev’s three-person Soyuz spacecraft into service for the first time in April 1967 with tragic results, killing the test pilot Vladimir Komarov when the parachute failed to deploy properly as he returned to Earth. He then presided over the repeated failure of the N-l rocket, which would have launched the Soviet Union’s challenge to Apollo. In 1974 he was replaced by Glushko, who merged the organization with his OKB-456, and then with Chclomcy’s OKB-52, to form the giant NPO-Encrgiya. This organization went on to produce the Energiya heavy lift rocket, the Buran space shuttle, and the Salyut and Mir space stations. Now known as the S. P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energiya (RRK Energiya) it dominates the Russian manned space flight enterprise, having operated the Mir space station for almost 15 years, supplied the Zvezda habitat module for the International Space Station, and a decade of flights of the Soyuz and Progress spacecraft to service the ISS.