The tallest and most silent of the Great Six, the father of Soviet gyroscopic guidance, from Sputnik to Buran
"In a small circle friends called him 'Vitya-kroshka' — he was the tallest of all the Chief Designers. And probably the most silent. I don't recall him ever giving anyone an interview." — Yaroslav Golovanov
A gyroscope engineer from Leningrad Industrial Institute, he won a Stalin Prize during WWII for stabilizing naval artillery fire. In 1946 he joined Korolev's 'Great Six' Council of Chief Designers and founded Soviet inertial navigation for rocketry. From the R-7 (Sputnik, Gagarin) through the R-16, R-36, and UR-100 ICBMs to the Salyut and Mir space stations and the Energia-Buran system, no Soviet launch left the pad without his gyroscopes. The institute he led from 1956, NII-944, now bears his name (НИИ ПМ) and remains the backbone of Russian space navigation. The tallest of the Chief Designers and the most silent, colleagues called him 'Vitya-kroshka' ('Little Vitya').
Career Timeline
- 1938–40Research engineer at Plant No. 212 (Elektropribor), Leningrad; ship gyrocompasses
- 1940–43Head of gyroscope department at NII-10, Moscow; Stalin Prize for naval artillery stabilization
- 1943–46Chief designer at MNI-1 Special Design Bureau; tank gun stabilizer
- 1946–56Chief Designer at NII-10; joined the 'Great Six' — guidance systems for R-1, R-2, R-5
- 1956Chief Engineer and Chief Designer at NII-944 (now NII PM) — R-7 guidance; Hero of Socialist Labor (1st)
- 1957/1961Sputnik and Vostok/Gagarin launches; Lenin Prize; Hero of Socialist Labor (2nd)
- 1960s–80sGuidance for R-16, R-36, UR-100 ICBMs; Luna, Venera, Mars probes; Salyut, Mir, Energia-Buran
- 1968Full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (corr. member 1958, Artillery Academy 1949)