The Georgian-born secret father of the Soviet mobile ICBM force
When Gorbachev and Reagan signed the INF Treaty on 8 December 1987 scrapping his 728 RSD-10 Pioneer (SS-20) missiles, Nadiradze had died on 3 September and never knew of it. His Topol (SS-25) remained in service long after the Soviet collapse, retiring only in 2023.
A rocket designer born in Gori, Georgia, who worked at Moscow defence research institutes from 1938 until his death. He joined the party in 1944 and lived as a Soviet citizen. On Sergei Korolev's recommendation he moved to NII-1 in 1958 to head its Special Design Bureau, and led that institute, renamed MITT in 1965, as director and chief designer until 1987 (sources give both 1961 and 1965 as the start). He designed the RT-21 Temp-2S (SS-16), RSD-10 Pioneer (SS-20) and RT-2PM Topol (SS-25), giving the Strategic Rocket Forces a road-mobile solid-fuel capability. Twice Hero of Socialist Labour (1976, 1982), laureate of the Lenin Prize (1966) and the USSR State Prize (1987), full Academician in 1981. He registered over 220 inventions and 100 papers, died of a heart attack on 3 September 1987 and is buried at Novodevichy Cemetery.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1936–41TsAGI: aircraft landing gear research, Tu-2 bomber development
- 1941–45Anti-tank shell development; transition to rocket design
- 1945–53OKB Chief Designer: first Soviet meteorological rocket MR-1; 'Chaika' guided bomb
- 1958–61NII-1 Chief Designer: solid-fuel tactical missile Temp-S
- 1961–87MITT director & chief designer (one source dates the start to 1965): Temp-2S (SS-16), Pioneer (SS-20) deployed, Topol (SS-25) developed
- 1976–82Twice Hero of Socialist Labour (1976, 1982); Pioneer-UTTH fielded; full Academician (1981)
- 1977–87Topol (SS-25) design; USSR State Prize (1987); died of a heart attack
The Mobile Missile Legacy: From the SS-20 to Topol
The two missile systems Nadiradze designed in the 1970s met very different fates. The RSD-10 Pioneer (NATO: SS-20 'Saber') was a two-stage solid-propellant intermediate-range ballistic missile that entered service in 1976, with a range of 5,000 km and the ability to carry MIRV warheads. According to CSIS, the USSR had deployed 441 of them by 1987, a development that helped drive NATO's 1979 decision to station Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles in Western Europe. When Gorbachev and Reagan signed the INF Treaty in December 1987, the treaty eliminated intermediate- and shorter-range missiles in the 500-5,500 km band. TASS states that the USSR was required to destroy 728 Pioneer missiles, while CSIS records that by 1991 all SS-20s had been eliminated: 509 launchers and 654 missiles, with 72 destroyed by test launches and the rest by detonation.
The RT-2PM Topol (SS-25), developed in parallel, escaped these limits because it was an ICBM rather than an intermediate-range weapon. English Wikipedia states that its development was approved on 19 July 1977 and carried out by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT) under Nadiradze; it was a three-stage, solid-fuel, single-warhead road-mobile ICBM with a range of about 11,000 km, with the first regiment on alert in July 1985. After Nadiradze's death the work was continued by Boris N. Lapygin.
The design lineage continued, but its attribution needs care. English Wikipedia describes the RT-2PM2 Topol-M as developed from the RT-2PM Topol and designed and produced by MITT (principal designer Yuri Solomonov), and the RS-24 Yars as essentially the same missile as the Topol-M with a MIRV payload bus, first tested on 29 May 2007 and in operational service since 2010. The assessment that Topol-M and Yars are directly based on Nadiradze's work is an attributed evaluation in English Wikipedia, presented here as such rather than as settled fact.
Sources differ on the later career of the Topol. English Wikipedia gives its service history as 1985-2023 and states that in December 2023 the last Topol regiment was taken off combat duty, with the mobile group re-equipped with RS-24 Yars. This page therefore avoids claiming that the Topol remains the backbone of Russia's deterrent today, and states only that it was in long service as a mainstay from the mid-1980s. Nadiradze registered over 220 inventions, and the MITT he led remains a center of Russian solid-fuel missile technology.