Korolev's right hand who led the R-7 through design, mass production, and every successive variant
The 24-year-old lieutenant who lost his left arm in the fighting north of Vyborg in July 1944 was, thirteen years later, the lead designer of the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7.
Appointed by Korolev as lead designer of the R-7, he directed the design of the 'Semyorka' and was then dispatched to Kuibyshev (Samara) to organize serial production of the R-7 family at the aviation plant there. In 1974 he founded the Central Specialized Design Bureau (TsSKB), spun off from OKB-1, as its first head and general designer, developing the Vostok, Molniya, and Soyuz launchers alongside reconnaissance and scientific satellite families. Across design, mass production, and successive variants of the R-7, his life's work built the spine of space transport from Sputnik to the Soyuz rockets of today.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1946–1951Engineer-constructor, NII-88 → OKB-1
- 1951–1958Lead designer, OKB-1: R-5 and R-7 ICBM
- 1958–1961Deputy chief designer, OKB-1; led R-7 serial production at Plant No. 1, Kuibyshev
- 1961–1966Deputy chief designer, OKB-1; head & chief designer, Branch No. 3
- 1966–1974First deputy chief designer, TsKBEM; head & chief designer, Kuibyshev branch
- 1974–1983Founding head & chief designer, TsSKB
- 1983–1996Head & general designer, TsSKB
- 1996–2003General director & general designer, TsSKB-Progress
Related historical events
1965–1968: The 'Zvezda' Military Manned Spacecraft at Kuibyshev
In 1965 Kozlov's Kuibyshev Branch No. 3 began design work on the 7K-VI (11F73) "Zvezda," a manned spacecraft for military research. From 1963 Kozlov's bureau had handled the military variants of the Soyuz complex, designing the Soyuz-R reconnaissance orbital station 11F71 and its servicing transport 11F72; the 1964 competition for a manned orbital station went instead to Chelomei's Almaz, and the work was handed over. Zvezda was the bureau's second attempt, built on that experience.
The American Manned Orbiting Laboratory program and Gemini 4's military experiments in June 1965 alarmed the Soviet military. A directive signed by VPK chairman Smirnov in early August 1965 and a Central Committee and Council of Ministers resolution on August 24 opened a broad program of military research in orbit; on July 7, 1966, an order of the Minister of General Machine Building made Branch No. 3 the lead developer of the 7K-VI. Kozlov refused to copy the Soyuz 7K-OK, ordering a complete revision of the project after two consecutive launch failures in November and December 1966 exposed the base ship's defects. The new vehicle was to weigh 6.7 tonnes, fly autonomously for a month, and carry two cosmonauts.
The design filled out with unconventional choices. The descent capsule and orbital section traded places, putting the crew on top; a hatch was cut through the heat shield in the capsule's floor. Instead of solar panels the ship carried two plutonium-fueled radioisotope thermoelectric generators, and an NR-23 aircraft cannon by Nudelman and Richter was mounted on the capsule to defend against enemy inspector satellites. On the ground, engineers built a dynamic test stand with a full-scale mock-up on an air-cushion platform to test firing and recoil in space conditions. The Ministry of Defence issued tactical-technical requirements in March 1967; a July 21, 1967 party-government resolution set the first flight for 1968; and at a government meeting on August 31, 1967, Kozlov reported that the first unmanned technological ship would be ready in the second half of 1968.
The program was broken by a conflict of line with Vasily Mishin, who had inherited OKB-1 after Korolev's death in January 1966. Kozlov, who became Mishin's first deputy in 1966 while keeping the Kuibyshev branch, was the man building a ship that Mishin's own 7K-OK had not delivered. In October 1967, according to Kamnin's diary, Mishin asked Afanasyev and Smirnov to close the 7K-VI and build eight to ten additional Soyuz ships in 1968 instead. In November Mishin and Kozlov signed the basic provisions for a Soyuz-VI complex, and on January 9, 1968 Kozlov signed enterprise order No. 51 halting work on the 11F73 Zvezda and switching to the 11F730 Soyuz-VI orbital block.
Cancellation was not immediate. On January 27, 1968, General Kamanin and cosmonauts Gagarin, Titov, Popovich and others met First Deputy Defence Minister Yakubovsky to protest that Mishin was obstructing a government decision. A scientific-technical council met at the General Staff on February 17, 1968, but the program did not return. Kozlov lost interest in Soyuz-VI and turned to modernizing the Zenit photo-reconnaissance satellites and creating the new Yantar-2K, whose first spacecraft, Kosmos-697, reached orbit on December 13, 1974. The experience gained on the 7K-VI was carried into the branch's later satellites, and on July 30, 1974, Branch No. 3 gained independent status as the Central Specialized Design Bureau.