Korolev's successor who delivered Soyuz and Salyut, and bore the N-1 lunar failure
14 January 1966: Korolev died on the operating table. The Kremlin phoned Mishin—by nightfall he carried the Soviet space programme.
Born in a peat-cutting settlement outside Moscow, he started as a fitter's apprentice at TsAGI. In 1945 he met Korolev while studying the V-2 in Germany, and served as his first deputy for two decades. After Korolev's death in 1966 he became Chief Designer of OKB-1 (TsKBEM), delivering the Soyuz spacecraft, the Salyut orbital station, and the N-1 lunar rocket. All four N-1 launches failed, and a 1974 letter from senior colleagues to the Central Committee ended both his tenure and the Soviet moonshot. He spent the next three decades as a professor at the Moscow Aviation Institute, writing the textbooks that trained generations of rocket engineers.
Career Timeline
- 1932–35Fitter's apprentice at TsAGI; evening prep courses, entered MAI
- 1941–45Bolkhovitinov aviation KB: armament for the BI-1 rocket fighter
- 1945–46Germany mission: V-2 study group; lifelong partnership with Korolev begins
- 1946–66First Deputy Chief Designer of OKB-1: R-1 through R-7, Sputnik, Vostok
- 1956Hero of Socialist Labor for R-5 missile development
- 1966–74Chief Designer of OKB-1/TsKBEM: Soyuz, Salyut, N-1 lunar rocket
- 1974Removed after N-1 failures and an internal letter; lunar program cancelled
- 1974–2001Professor and department head at MAI; author of standard rocketry textbooks
Related historical events
- 1941–1945The Great Patriotic WarDesigned armament for the BI-1 rocket fighter and other aircraft
- 1957–1965The Soviet Space ProgramFirst Deputy Chief DesignerAs First Deputy Chief Designer of OKB-1 he was Korolev's closest technical collaborator and was deeply involved in every major early project: R-7, Sputnik, Vostok. He received the Hero of Socialist Labor in 1956 for the R-5 missile.
The N-1 Moon Rocket and Its Four Failed Launches
The greatest challenge Mishin inherited from Korolev was the N-1, the super-heavy rocket meant to carry cosmonauts to the Moon. Clustering 30 engines in its first stage, the N-1 was starved of funds and rushed by political deadlines from the start. Unlike the United States, which gave NASA a unified budget and a clear chain of command under the Saturn V program, the Soviet effort operated without a national space agency, with rival design bureaus competing for resources.
The first launch (3 February 1969) ended after one minute when internal plumbing caught fire. The second (3 July 1969) collapsed back onto the pad in a catastrophic explosion. The third (22 June 1971) saw all 30 first-stage engines ignite together for the first time. But an unexpected roll tore the vehicle apart. The fourth (23 November 1972) flew farther than any predecessor, only to explode moments before first-stage separation when a single engine caught fire.
Mishin designed the KORD automatic engine-control system to compensate for individual engine failures, but the decision to forgo ground test stands, dictated by cost and schedule, proved fatal. After four failures and Mishin's dismissal in 1974, the N-1 program was cancelled and the Soviet crewed lunar dream died with it. "We did everything we could," Mishin wrote later, "but it was not enough."