The long-hidden manager of crewed spaceflight
On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin slept soundly before humanity's first spaceflight. Kerimov, monitoring the cosmonaut's sleep via bed sensors, spent a far more anxious night than the man about to ride the rocket.
His career began in World War II inspecting Katyusha rockets and gathering intelligence on the German V-2. He served on the State Commissions for Sputnik 1 and the Vostok programme, then chaired the State Commission for crewed flights from 1966 to 1991, twenty-five years in which he gave the final launch approval for every Soviet crewed mission. He was the administrative gatekeeper of Soviet crewed spaceflight's golden age, from Salyut and Soyuz-Apollo to Mir, yet his identity was kept strictly secret until perestroika.
Career Timeline
- 1966–1991State Commission chair for crewed spaceflight
Related historical events
The Final Authority for Every Crewed Launch
Kerimov gave the final "go" (dobro) for every Soviet crewed space launch for 25 years, from 1967 to 1991, as chairman of the State Commission. On launch day, cosmonauts stood before him at the cosmodrome to report their readiness for flight, and after returning to Earth they reported their mission results directly to him. This ritual was the core procedure of Soviet crewed spaceflight.
Yet for decades this immensely powerful figure was completely hidden from the public. In television broadcasts, Kerimov was shown only from behind, and his name was never mentioned in the press. His dual status as the "secret commander" of the Soviet space program was broken only in the summer of 1987, when, amid perestroika, Pravda and Sovetskaya Rossiya reported his real name for the first time.
The missions for which he gave the "go" until his retirement at age 74 in 1991 included the Salyut series of space stations, the Soyuz-Apollo joint flight (1975), and the construction of the Mir space station.