Sergei Korolev

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev (12 January 1907 [O.S. 30 December 1906] – 14 January 1966) was a Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer who led the development of the Soviet space program during the early years of the Space Race.

Korolev directed development of the R-7 rocket, the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and was a leader in the Soviet space programme which used modified versions of the R-7 for several notable achievements. Under his leadership, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite; Laika, the first animal to orbit Earth; Luna 2, the first human-made object to reach another celestial body; and Belka and Strelka, the first animals to survive orbital spaceflight. He also directed the missions that carried Yuri Gagarin into space aboard Vostok 1, making him the first human in space, and enabled Alexei Leonov's spacewalk during Voskhod 2, the first extravehicular activity by a human.

Originally trained as an aircraft designer, Korolev became a leading figure in Soviet rocketry. In 1938 he was arrested during the Great Purge on charges later shown to be false and spent nearly six years in prison and labour camps, including several months in Kolyma. Prior to his imprisonment, Korolev had been initially condemned to be executed under Joseph Stalin's orders among 74 military specialists and engineers before his sentence was commuted to hard prison labour. After his release, he returned to engineering work and became a central figure in the Soviet ICBM and space programmes. His death in 1966 ended his direct involvement in Soviet efforts to land a crew on the Moon before the United States.

During his lifetime, Korolev was publicly identified only as glavny konstruktor (главный конструктор; lit. 'chief designer'), partly to protect him from possible assassination attempts during the Cold War. Even some cosmonauts who worked with him did not know his name. His identity was publicly disclosed only after his death in 1966, when his role in the Soviet Union's space achievements became widely known.