Kurchatov's closest assistant who ran the F-1 reactor, then denounced his mentor and was sidelined
"These graphite samples relate to neutrons as hungry wolves to lambs": reporting the first graphite quality measurements to Kurchatov
Igor Panasyuk was Kurchatov's most trusted pupil, the experimental physicist who ran the general management of Europe's first reactor F-1 and assisted Kurchatov at the control panel when it went critical on 25 December 1946. Joining Laboratory No. 2 in 1943 as deputy head of the reactor sector, he oversaw everything from graphite and uranium quality testing to core assembly, then repeated the role beside Kurchatov for the startup of the first industrial reactor 'A' in 1948. In 1954 he abruptly broke with his mentor and was sidelined to peripheral research; the cause, it is said, was a denunciation of Kurchatov to the Party.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1937–1941Graduated Leningrad Polytechnic Institute, diploma under Kurchatov
- 1939–1943Red Army service, X-ray technician in field hospitals during the Soviet-Finnish and Great Patriotic Wars
- 1943–1947Deputy head of Sector No. 1 (reactors), Laboratory No. 2; F-1 construction and startup
- 1947–1950Head of Sector No. 1, Laboratory No. 2; scientific director of industrial reactor 'A'
- 1950–1954Head of the F-1 reactor facility; contributed to tritium production reactor AI-1
- 1954–1972Senior researcher at the Institute of Atomic Energy, peripheral research roles
Related historical events
Starting and operating Reactor A
In 1947 Panasyuk was sent to the Mayak complex as scientific director of the construction of Reactor A, the first industrial reactor. Contamination in the graphite core could impair performance, so his physics group used neutron probes to monitor the purity of the graphite stack throughout assembly. After more than 1,000 technological channels had been installed, they surveyed the core again and concluded that its physical-quality index was high. These checks preceded loading and startup. (The Biblioatom account places his assignment in the 1947 construction phase; a separate career chronology likewise identifies him as scientific director of Reactor A from 1947.)
At 19:00 on 7 June 1948, Kurchatov directed startup from the control panel while Panasyuk watched and reported the instrument readings. The chain reaction was stopped at 00:30 on 8 June, after the reactor reached 10 kilowatts. During the first high-power startup on 10 June, output reached 1,000 kilowatts at 20:00, and the control and monitoring systems operated properly. Reactor A subsequently produced plutonium used in the Soviet Union’s first atomic bomb in 1949.