Valentin Glushko
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (March 2023) |
Valentin Glushko | |
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Leningrad State University | |
Occupation | Engineer |
Engineering career | |
Discipline | Engineering (Computer) |
Institutions | Soviet space program |
Significant design | Almaz |
Signature | |
Part of a series of articles on the |
Soviet space program |
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Valentin Petrovich Glushko (Russian: Валенти́н Петро́вич Глушко́; Ukrainian: Валентин Петрович Глушко, romanized: Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko; born 2 September 1908 – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer who was program manager of the Soviet space program from 1974 until 1989.
Glushko served as a main designer of rocket engines in the Soviet program during the heights of the Space Race between United States and the Soviet Union, and was the proponent of cybernetics within the space program.
Biography
At the age of fourteen he became interested in
During his time in Odessa, Glushko performed experiments with explosives. These were recovered from unexploded artillery shells that had been left behind by the White Guards during their retreat. From 1924 to 1925 he wrote articles concerning the exploration of the Moon, as well as the use of Tsiolkovsky's proposed engines for
He attended
On 23 March 1938 he became caught up in
At the end of World War II, Glushko was sent to Germany and Eastern Europe to study the German rocket program. As part of this he attended an Operation Backfire launch as Colonel Glushko.[2] In 1946, he became the chief designer of his own bureau, the OKB 456, and remained at this position until 1974. This bureau would play a prominent role in the development of rocket engines within the Soviet Union.
His OKB 456 (later
In 1974, following the six successful American Moon landings, premier
In 1965, after the
Glushko meanwhile was an advocate of Vladimir Chelomei's UR-700 as well as an even more powerful UR-900 with a nuclear-powered upper stage. When Korolev continued protesting about the safety risk posed by hypergolic propellants, Glushko responded with the counterargument that the US was launching the crewed Gemini spacecraft atop a
The UR-700, Glushko said, could enable a direct-ascent trajectory to the Moon, which he considered safer and more reliable than the rendezvous-and-dock approach used by the Apollo program and Korolev's N-1 proposals. He also imagined the UR-700 and 900 in all sorts of applications, from lunar bases to crewed Mars missions to outer planet probes to orbiting battle stations.
When Korolev died in January 1966, his deputy Vasily Mishin took over the OKB-1 design bureau. Mishin succeeded in getting the Kremlin to terminate the UR-700/900 project and the RD-270 engine Glushko planned for the launch vehicle family. His main arguments were the tremendous safety risk posed by a low-altitude launch failure of the UR-700 and the waste of money by developing two HLV families at once.
After the complete failure of the Soviet crewed lunar effort, uncrewed Mars missions, and the deaths of four cosmonauts, Mishin was fired in 1973 and the Kremlin decided to consolidate the entire Soviet space program into one organization headed by Glushko.
One of Glushko's first acts was to suspend the N-1 program, which, however, was not formally terminated until 1976. He then began work on a completely new HLV. During this time, the US was developing the Space Shuttle.
Glushko decided that the new HLV, Energia, would use entirely liquid-fueled engines, with an LH2 core stage taking the place of the Shuttle main engines, and the Shuttle's solid-propellant strap-on boosters with liquid boosters using LOX/RP-1 RD-170 engines.
While the RD-120 engine used for the Energia core stage was developed quickly and with little difficulty, the RD-170 proved harder to work out. Glushko instead decided to use an engine with four combustion chambers fed from a single propellant feed line. The RD-170 powered strap-on boosters designed for Energia became the basis for the Zenit booster family which began flying in 1985. Since the Buran space shuttle was not ready for operations, Energia's maiden flight in May 1987 carried aloft a prototype space station module called Polyus. Ultimately, Buran did fly the following summer, a few months before Glushko's death.
While Energia and Buran fell victim to loss of funding after the collapse of the USSR, the RD-170 engines and its derivatives are still flying today and the experience in LH2 engines made during the Energia project would be used in later upper stages such as Briz.
Glushko's team was part of the Soviet
Glushko died on January 10, 1989. His obituary was signed by multiple Communist Party of the Soviet Union leaders, including Mikhail Gorbachev. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
His most significant engineering failure, as noted by division chief Yuri Demyanko, was his insistence that
Honours and awards
- Hero of Socialist Labour, twice (1956, 1961)
- Order of Lenin, five times (1956, 1958, 1961, 1968, 1978)
- Order of the October Revolution (1971)
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1945)
- Jubilee Medal "For Valiant Labour. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"(1970)
- Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945"(1975)
- Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945"(1985)
- Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945"(1945)
- Medal "Veteran of Labour" (1984)
- Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th Anniversary of Moscow" (1948)
- Lenin Prize (1957)
- USSR State Prize (1967, 1984)
- Gold Medal. Tsiolkovsky Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1958)
- Diploma of them. Paul Tissandier (FAI) (1967)
- Honorary Citizen of Korolyov
- Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh
- Crater Glushko on the Moon is named after him
- An avenue in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is named after Glushko
Bibliography
- V. P. Glushko and G. Langemak, Rockets, Their Construction and Application, 1935.
- Glushko, V. P., Rocket Engines GDL-OKB, Novosti Publishing House, Moscow, 1975.
- V. P. Glushko, Development of Rocketry Space Technology in the USSR, Novosti Press Publishing House, Moscow (1973)
References
- ^ "Last of the Wartime Lavochkins", AIR International, Bromley, Kent, U.K., November 1976, Volume 11, Number 5, pages 245-246.
- ISBN 978-0387218960.
Sources
- Harford, James J. (1997). Korolev: how one man masterminded the Soviet drive to beat America to the moon. New York: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-14853-9.
- "Rockets and people" – at the NASA website.
- "Testing of rocket and space technology - the business of my life" Events and facts - A.I. Ostashev, Korolyov, 2001.[1];
- "Bank of the Universe" - edited by Boltenko A. C., ISBN 978-966-136-169-9
- ISBN 978-5-8135-0510-2.
- Valentin Glushko //Family history
- "S. P. Korolev. Encyclopedia of life and creativity" - edited by C. A. Lopota, ISBN 978-5-906674-04-3
- The official website of the city administration Baikonur - Honorary citizens of Baikonur
- "Space science city Korolev" - Author: Posamentir R. D. M: publisher SP Struchenevsky O. V., ISBN 978-5-905234-12-5
- "I look back and have no regrets. " - Author: Abramov, Anatoly Petrovich: publisher "New format" Barnaul, 2022. ISBN 978-5-00202-034-8
External links
- "Valentin Glushko biography". Encyclopedia Astronautica. Archived from the original on 2006-08-30. Retrieved 2006-07-25.
- Valentin Glushko at Find a Grave