Academician V. M. Chelomey, the designer of aircraft, rocketry and spacecraft, and Ukraine

Irene Pistolenko

Abstract— This article is devoted to the Ukrainian period of life of V.M. Chelomey. Volodymyr Chelomey was a designer and director of the aircraft developments, rockets and spacecraft. His works were dedicated to the problems of design and dynamics of machinery, vibration theory and dynamic stability of elastic systems. Childhood, youth age and the beginning of Chelomey’s creative activity were intimately related with Poltava, Ukraine. But until recently, Ukrainian pages of Chelomey’s biography had been out of the range of investigation of historians of science and engineering. Poltava became a native town for V. Chelomey. He began his scientific work in Kiev and Zaporizhzhya. V. Chelomey and his family were on friendly terms with O. Pushkin’s and M. Gogol’s offspring. Chelomey’s study at the KPI and KAI and collaboration with the eminent Ukrainian scientists and engineers served as a basis for his subsequent successful activity.

Key words: Volodimir Chelomey, scientist, designer, aircraft, rocketry, spacecraft, Ukraine, Poltava