Russian Space Chief Dies

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30960, 17 January 1966, Page 12

Russian Space Chief Dies

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter —Copyright) MOSCOW, January 16. Professor Sergei Korolyov, believed to be the man behind Russia’s space programme, has died, aged 59.

An official announcement identified him only as a distinguished space research scientist and rocket designer. An obituary issued by “Tass,” the official news agency, called him the “distinguished constructor” of the first Sputnik launched in 1957.

He also designed the space ship for Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. The scope of the tribute offered to his memory—an obituary signed by the top Kremlin figures, a lying in state, and burial in the Kremlin wall —indicates that he was the shadowy “chief constructor” so often mentioned after Soviet space flights but never named. Professor Korolyov, a member of the Presidium of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, died on Friday, apparently during an operation for a malignant tumour. The Government obituary, signed by the Communist Party chief, Mr Brezhnev, the Prime Minister, Mr Kosygin, and President Nikolai Podgorny, said: “The piloted spaceships in which man for the first time travelled into outer space and stepped out into outer space were designed under Korolyov’s direction.”

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