Yevgeni korolev biography for kids

Mechta is the Russian word meaning "dream", and this is the name Korolev called his moon ships. Officially, the Soviet Union called them Lunas. The first three lunar probes launched in all failed in part because of political pressure forcing the launches to be rushed with an inadequate budget to test and develop the hardware properly before they were ready to fly.

Korolev thought political infighting in Moscow was responsible for the lack of sufficient funding for the program, although the US space program at this early phase also had a scarcely enviable launch record. Once, when pressured to beat the US to a working lunar probe, Korolev allegedly exclaimed: "Do you think that only American rockets explode!?

Yevgeni korolev biography for kids

Nevertheless, this probe became the first to reach escape velocity and the first to go near the Moon, as well as becoming the first man-made object to enter the Sun's orbit. A subsequent attempt Luna E-1A No. This was followed just one month later by an even greater success with Luna 3. It was launched only two years after Sputnik 1, and on 7 October was the first spacecraft to photograph the far side of the Moon, which was something the people of earth had never seen beforehand.

The Luna missions were intended to make a successful soft landing on the Moon, but Korolev was unable to see a success. It was not until after Korolev's death that the Soviet Union successfully achieved a soft landing on the Moon with the Luna 9. Towards the latter part of Korolev's life, he had been working on projects for reaching the planets Mars and Venus , and even had spacecraft ready to reach both.

The United States was also working towards reaching these planets, so it was a race to see who would be successful. Korolev's two initial Mars probes suffered from engine failures, and the five probes the Soviet Union launched in hopes of reaching Venus all failed between and , Korolev himself supervised the launches of all probes.

On 1 November , the Soviet Union successfully launched the Mars 1 and although communications failed, was the very first to complete a flyby of Mars. Later, the Soviet Union launched Venera 3 , which was the very first impact of Venus. It was not until after Korolev's death that the Soviet Union impacted Mars. Korolev's group was also working on ambitious programs for missions to Mars and Venus, putting a man in orbit, launching communication, spy and weather satellites, and making a soft-landing on the Moon.

A radio communication center needed to be built in the Crimea , near Simferopol and near Evpatoria to control the spacecraft. Many of these projects were not realized in his lifetime, and none of the planetary probes performed a completely successful mission until after his death. Although he was having ideas since , Korolev's planning for the piloted mission began in with design studies for the future Vostok spacecraft.

It was to hold a single passenger in a space suit , and be fully automated. The space suit, unlike the United States' pure oxygen system, was 80 percent nitrogen and only 20 percent oxygen. The capsule had an escape mechanism for problems prior to launch, and a soft-landing and ejection system during the recovery. The spacecraft was spherical, just like the Sputnik design, and Korolev explained his reasoning for this by saying "the spherical shape would be more stable dynamically".

Beginning with work on the Vostok, Konstantin Feoktistov was recruited directly by Korolev to be the principal designer for crewed spaceflight vehicles. On 15 May an uncrewed prototype performed 64 orbits of the Earth, but the reentry maneuver failed. On 28 July , two dogs by the names of Chaika and Lishichka were launched into space, but the mission was unsuccessful when an explosion killed the dogs.

However, on 19 August, the Soviet Union became the first to successfully recover living creatures back to Earth. The dogs, Belka and Strelka were successfully launched into space on a Vostok spacecraft and they completed eighteen orbits. Following this, the Soviet Union sent a total of six dogs into space, two in pairs, and two paired with a dummy.

Unfortunately, not all the missions were successful. After gaining approval from the government, a modified version of Korolev's R-7 was used to launch Yuri Alexeevich Gagarin into orbit on 12 April , which was before the United States was able to put Alan Shepard into space. Korolev served as capsule coordinator, and was able to speak to Gagarin who was inside the capsule.

The first human in space and Earth orbit returned to Earth via a parachute after ejecting at an altitude of 7 kilometres 23, ft. Gagarin was followed by additional Vostok flights, culminating with 81 orbits completed by Vostok 5 and the launch of Valentina Tereshkova as the first woman cosmonaut in space aboard Vostok 6. Korolev proposed communications satellites and the Vostok craft was a spinoff from the Zenit spy satellite useful for photographic reconnaissance and the mission Vostok 1 had its defense importance acknowledged by the military.

Korolev planned to move forward with Soyuz craft able to dock with other craft in orbit and exchange crews. He was directed by Khrushchev to cheaply produce more 'firsts' for the piloted program, including a multi-crewed flight. Korolev was reported to have resisted the idea as the Vostok was a one-man spacecraft and the three-man Soyuz was several years away from being able to fly.

Khrushchev was not interested in technical excuses and let it be known that if Korolev could not do it, he would give the work to his rival, Vladimir Chelomey. But Russian Space Web describes this demand by Khrushchev as a legend and Challenge to Apollo says that the evidence that Khrushchev would have ordered these missions does not survive scrutiny.

Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov describes the authority Korolev commanded at this time. The Voskhod was designed as an incremental improvement on the Vostok to meet Khruschev's goal. As a single capsule would be ineffective for proper travel to the Moon, the vehicle needed to be able to hold more people. Khrushchev ordered Korolev to launch three people on the Voskhod capsule quickly, as the United States had already completed a two-man mission with Gemini.

Korolev accepted, on the condition that more backing would be given to his N-1 rocket program. One of the difficulties in the design of the Voskhod was the need to land it via parachute. The three-person crew could not bail out and land by parachute, since the altitude would not be survivable. So the craft would need much larger parachutes in order to land safely.

Early tests with the craft resulted in some failures until use of stronger fabric improved parachute reliability. The resulting Voskhod was a stripped-down vehicle from which any excess weight had been removed; although a backup retrofire engine was added, since the more powerful Voskhod rocket used to launch the craft would send it to a higher orbit than the Vostok, eliminating the possibility of a natural decay of the orbit and reentry in case of primary retrorocket failure.

After one uncrewed test flight, this spacecraft carried a crew of three cosmonauts, Komarov, Yegorov and Feoktistov, into space on 12 October and completed sixteen orbits. This craft was designed to perform a soft landing, eliminating a need for the ejection system; but the crew was sent into orbit without space suits or a launch abort system.

With the Americans planning a space walk with their Gemini program , the Soviets decided to trump them again by performing a space walk on the second Voskhod launch. After rapidly adding an airlock, the Voskhod 2 was launched on 18 March , and Alexei Leonov performed the world's first space walk. The flight very nearly ended in disaster, as Leonov was just barely able to re-enter through the airlock, and plans for further Voskhod missions were shelved.

In the meantime the change of Soviet leadership with the fall of Khrushchev meant that Korolev was back in favor and given charge of beating the US to landing a man on the Moon. For the Moon race, Korolev's staff started to design the immense N1 rocket in , using the NK liquid fuel rocket engine. He also was working on the design for the Soyuz spacecraft that was intended to carry crews to LEO and to the Moon.

As well, Korolev was designing the Luna series of vehicles that would soft-land on the Moon and make robotic missions to Mars and Venus. Unexpectedly, he died in January , before he could see his various plans brought to fruition. Another reason the Soviet crewed lunar program didn't succeed was the rivalry between Korolev and Vladimir Chelomey.

Their animosity was due to the intolerable persona of both men, and their desire for leadership at any cost. The two never said a harsh word about each other either in public or in private, but toppled each other's projects in any way possible. Instead of dividing competencies and responsibilities and cooperating in order to pursue the same goal, the two struggled for leadership in the space program.

According to Khrushchev, who worked for Chelomey and knew both men well, they both would have preferred the Americans to land on the Moon first rather than their rival. On 3 December , Korolev suffered his first heart attack. During his convalescence, it was also discovered that he was suffering from a kidney disorder, a condition brought on by his detention in the Soviet prison camps.

He was warned by the doctors that if he continued to work as intensely as he had, he would not live long. Korolev became convinced that Khrushchev was only interested in the space program for its propaganda value and feared that he would cancel it entirely if the Soviets started losing their leadership to the United States, so he continued to push himself.

By , Korolev's health problems were beginning to accumulate and he was suffering from numerous ailments. He had a bout of intestinal bleeding that led to him being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. In doctors diagnosed him with cardiac arrhythmia. In February he spent ten days in the hospital after a heart problem. Shortly after he was suffering from inflammation of his gallbladder.

The mounting pressure of his workload was also taking a heavy toll, and he was suffering from a lot of fatigue. Korolev was also experiencing hearing loss, possibly from repeated exposure to loud rocket-engine tests. The actual circumstances of Korolev's death remain somewhat uncertain. In December , he was supposedly diagnosed with a bleeding polyp in his large intestine.

He entered the hospital on 5 January for somewhat routine surgery, but died nine days later. It was stated by the government that he had what turned out to be a large, cancerous tumor in his abdomen, but Valentin Glushko later reported that he actually died due to a poorly performed operation for hemorrhoids. Another version states that the operation was going well and no one was predicting any complications.

Suddenly, during the operation, Korolev started to bleed. Doctors tried to provide intubation to allow him to breathe freely, but his jaws, injured during his time in a Gulag, had not healed properly and impeded the installation of the breathing tube. Korolev died without regaining consciousness. According to Harford, Korolev's family confirmed the cancer story.

His weak heart contributed to his death during surgery. Luke Saville. Ricardo Acioly. Related Posts Kon. Kon Arimura. Ethan Field. Agostino Vallini. Adam El Mihdawy. Kate Finster. Stijn Wuytens. Danny Tate. Mike Andersen. Jess Hall. Cory Danziger. Fernando Bandeirinha. Pavel Patera. Christopher Fox, Baron Fox. Mustafa Mohammad. Scott Bowden. He started off the year with a defeat in a German futures event, although only after beating fellow hopeful Andrey Golubev on the way.

He later claimed a second futures win in France, in which he beat home favorite Mathieu Montcourt in the final. He later won another futures event in Austria and an F1 event in France. His success in these contests convinced him to start playing more challenger events, including a victory in the Aachen challenger event, in which he beat Igor Kunitsyn and Dominik Meffert on his way to the title.

He then won another challenger contest, but lost to Sluiter in the final of the Aachen event. Korolev then played his first masters series event in Indian Wells , in which he was eliminated by Novak Djokovic in straight sets. He later described this as a learning curve, after wins over Simon Greul and close friend Dmitry Tursunov. Korolev then once again claimed the Aachen challenger title by defeating Andreas Beck in the final to win the tournament for the third time.

He then played in Saint Petersburg , but went out in straight sets against the British number 1, Andrew Murray. He served for the match twice and was broken each time. He eventually prevailed in a second set tiebreak but needed 11 match points to win. He said that if he had lost that second set, he would have lost the match. After losing in the first round at both Munich and Roland Garros, Korolev reached his third quarter-final of the year, in which he lost to the Russian number one, Nikolay Davydenko.

After undergoing another hernia surgery , Korolev made a comeback on the Challenger Circuit in the fall. He lost to Roger Federer in the second round 2—6, 3—6, 1—6. This placed him back into the ATP Tour's top players, at number After early losses in Masters events in Indian Wells and Miami, including a loss in the Sunrise, Florida Challenger, Korolev moved on to Houston , his first clay tournament of the year.

That result brought him to the No. At Roland Garros, Korolev had to pull out of a match with Gimeno Traver due to an ankle problem which had also forced him out of the doubles the week prior to the event. In Eastbourne , he bowed out to Garcia Lopez despite his previous winning record against the Spaniard. Korolev then faced good friend and fellow country man Igor Andreev at Wimbledon and lost in four sets.

He has since taken part in occasional challenger events, although he admits his motivation has been hindered by the move to the lower ranks of world tennis, [ citation needed ] possibly contributing to losses against Pere Riba and Roberto Bautista-Agut. He reached three straight ATP level quarterfinals. In the first, the Open de Moselle he lost to Philipp Kohlschreiber 6—1, 6—3.

As the sixth seed he lost in the first round of the St. Petersburg Open to qualifier and eventual champion Sergiy Stakhovsky. He then fell in the first rounds of U. He then won against Eduardo Schwank 6—1, 7—6, 4—6, 6—2 but retired in the second round of Wimbledon against Lleyton Hewitt down 2 sets to love and 0—3. He then fell in the qualifying draw of MercedesCup and first round of International German Open.

He then made his best performance of the year by reaching the quarterfinals of the Pilot Pen Tennis without dropping a set but lost to Thiemo de Bakker in straight sets. At the US Open he retired against Kei Nishikori in the first round due to an elbow injury which sidelined him for the rest of the year and caused him to fall outside the top In , due to his low ranking he started playing in the qualifying rounds and the challenger tour, but fell short, not being able to score back-to-back wins, until the Status Athens Open , where he reached the quarterfinals before falling to Dmitry Tursunov 7—5, 7—5.

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