Langemak, Georgii

Born June 26 (July 8), 1898, in Starobel’sk, now in Voroshilovgrad Oblast; died in 1938 in Moscow. Soviet artillery engineer; designer of rockets with smokeless long-burning powder.

In 1916, Langemak entered the faculty of philology of the University of Petrograd. In the fall of the same year he was drafted into the army and registered in an ensigns’ school, from which he graduated in February 1917. In April 1919 he joined the Red Army as a volunteer and served in the Kronstadt fortress. In 1921, during the Kronstadt rebellion, he was arrested by the rebels and was imprisoned until the rebellion was suppressed. In 1928 he graduated from the F. E. Dzerzhinskii Military Engineering Academy in Leningrad (now the F. E. Dzerzhinskii Artillery Engineering Academy). As a specialist in interior ballistics Langemak was reassigned to the Gas Dynamics Laboratory. In 1934 he became assistant director and chief engineer of the Jet Propulsion Scientific Research Institute. Langemak was one of the main leaders in the development of techniques for building rockets using solid propellant, which served as a prototype for the Katiusha rocket launchers. A crater on the far side of the moon is named after Langemak.