Corporation Energia's General Designer Viktor Legostayev dies
MOSCOW. Jan 8 (Interfax-AVN) - The general designer at Rocket and Space Corporation Energia (Korolyov, Moscow region) and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Viktor Legostayev has died in Moscow aged 83 after a long illness, an RSC spokesperson told Interfax on Thursday.
"Viktor Pavlovich died today after a long illness. His funerals will be held on January 13," the spokesperson said.
In August 2014 Legostayev was appointed the General Designer of Corporation Energia Prior to that he worked as First Deputy General Designer at RSC Energia and Chairman of the Corporation's scientific-technical board.
Legostayev was born in Moscow on June 6, 1931. He graduated from the Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School in 1955. In 1987, he was awarded doctorate in technical sciences, became a professor in 1991, a "merited scientist of Russia" in 1996 and has been active member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2003.
Between 1955 and 1960, he worked for the Research Institute N1 (currently the M.V.Keldysh Research Center), focusing on the problem of flight stability of cruise missile with a resilient structure. During that period, Legostayev, who was part of a team led by B.V. Raushenbakh, began studying the theory of spacecraft control. He participated in the design of Russia's first system of active spacecraft orientation - an orientation system for the Luna-3 interplanetary station and an orientation system for the Vostok manned spacecraft.
In 1960, Legostayev was transferred to the Design Bureau-1 (currently, the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia) where he held various posts, from a sector head to a complex chief, until 1989. He was directly involved in preparing and launching the Vostok spacecraft with man on board. He made a creative contribution to the design and construction of an orientation and control system for many spacecraft, including Mars and Venera (Venus) automatic interplanetary systems, Zenit (Zenith) and Molniya automatic ships, Vostok, Voskhod, Soyuz manned spacecraft, Salyut and Mir orbital stations and others.
He resolved most difficult scientific technical problems previously unseen in global practice, while creating spacecraft control and navigation systems, among which: the drafting of scientific foundations of the theory of designing spacecraft control systems, building structures and analysis of the dynamic of spacecraft-orientation automatic systems and manned spacecraft manual control systems; analysis and synthesis of automatic and manual systems for space rendezvous control; the study of the dynamic and formation of the laws of controlling space systems with gyroforce stabilization systems (gyrodynes); the analysis of the stability of movement of large resilient structures in the gravitational field as applied to multi-modular orbital complexes, and so on.
He supervised, and was directly involved in, the creation of what is now considered priority systems in global practice, including: the system of automatic control over space rendezvous for artificial earth satellites and spacecraft with Salyut and Mir orbital stations, the control system for the Soyuz-19 manned spacecraft for the U.S.-Soviet Soyuz-Apollo project, a complex, multirole adaptable and practically non-flow control system for the ever increasing orbital manned complex Mir, which provided reliable control over its orientation for 15 years.
During his stints as Vice President and First Deputy General Designer between 1989 and 2014 Legostayev supervised international space projects (the International Space Station, the Sea Launch sea-based space launch system), the creation of telecommunications satellites and remote earth probe satellites, and organization of scientific studies on board manned spacecraft.
Legostayev was a member of the International Academy of Astronautics, International Informatization Academy, the Russian Tsiolkovsky Academy of Cosmonautics, the Russian Academy of Navigation Sciences, authored and co-authored over 250 research papers and inventions, taught for many years at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, where he led the Department for Spacecraft Control Systems. Legostayev was the recipient of the Lenin Award (1966), state awards of the USSR (1989) and the Russian Federation (1999), the Russian government awards (2001) and was awarded with the Lenin Order (1976) and the Red Banner Labor Order (1961). He also received the B.N. Petrov award from the Russian Academy of Sciences.