Soviet military scientist who designed the world's first operational anti-ballistic missile defense system
A few hours before his death, he told his wife: "I need to call the guys. I solved the problem — the one they gave me."
Soviet radiophysicist and pioneer of missile defense. After contributing to the S-25 Berkut and S-75 surface-to-air missile systems, he became Chief Designer of System A in 1956, the world's first operational anti-ballistic missile defense, and on March 4, 1961, achieved history's first successful intercept of a ballistic missile in flight. As General Designer of the A-35 and A-35M systems defending Moscow, he established the Soviet Union's strategic defensive edge, earning the Lenin Prize and the title Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1975, however, he was removed from his post amid conflicts with the leadership of the Ministry of Radio Industry, never seeing his system's final modernization through; in retirement he wrote his memoir Secret Zone, testifying to a body of work that history had nearly buried.
Career Timeline
- 1942337th Separate Radio Battalion, Moscow PVO Army — assistant platoon leader, platoon leader, company engineer
- 1944–1950Budyonny Military Communications Academy — radar theory instructor, deputy department head
- 1950KB-1 — head of SHF sector, deputy technical head of tests for S-25 Berkut guidance radar
- 1953SKB-30 / KB-1 — head of special design bureau, began ABM work
- 1956Chief Designer of System A — world's first experimental ABM system
- 1958General Designer of the A-35 ABM system
- 1961OKB-30 (later OKB Vympel) — founding director and General Designer
- 1970TsNPO Vympel — deputy general director for science
- 1975TsNIIRES — first deputy director for science (removed from ABM work)
- 1979–198745th Central Research Institute, Ministry of Defense — scientific consultant
- 1987USSR Academy of Sciences, Department of Theoretical Problems — laboratory head