Vladimir Chelomei

Born June 17 (30), 1914, in Sedlets. Soviet scientist in mechanics and control processes. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1962; corresponding member, 1958); twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1959 and 1963). Member of the CPSU since 1941.

After graduating from the Kiev Aviation Institute in 1937, Chelomei taught at the institute. In 1941 he joined the staff of the P. I. Baranov Central Institute of Aircraft Engine Construction. In 1942, independently of efforts in Germany, he developed the USSR’s first pulse-jet engine. The engine was installed in a number of aircraft designed by Chelomei and in various airplanes, including the La-11; aircraft powered by Chelomei’s engine were exhibited at the Tushino air show in 1947. Chelomei became a master aeronautical designer in 1944 and a chief aeronautical designer in 1959. He directed the development of a number of major rockets, spacecraft, and aircraft. In 1952 he became a professor at the N. E. Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School.

Chelomei’s main works deal with the design and dynamics of machines, oscillation theory, the dynamic stability of elastic systems, and the theory of servomechanisms.

Chelomei became a member of the International Academy of Astronautics in 1974. He was a deputy to the ninth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He received the Lenin Prize in 1959 and the State Prize of the USSR in 1967 and 1974. He has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, and various medals, including the N. E. Zhukovskii Gold Medal for the Best Work on the Theory of Aviation (1964) and the A. M. Liapunov Gold Medal of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR for distinguished work in mathematics and mechanics (1977).