Yuri Alexandrovich Mozzhorin

Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, Lieutenant-General Yuri A. Mozzhorin was one of the organizers and leaders of the work in the field of Soviet rocket and space science, from July 1961 to November 1990 - Director of the head science center of the domestic space industry - Central Scientific Research Institute (TSNIIMash), Hero of Socialist Labor, laureate of Lenin and State Prizes, Prizes of the Government of the Russian Federation, participant in the Great Patriotic War.

Yuri Alexandrovich was born on December 28, 1920 in the village of Orekhovo near Moscow in the family of a railway employee. Having graduated from high school with distinction, in 1938 he entered the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), dreaming of specialization in aerodynamics. In 1940 he moved to the Moscow Aviation and Technology Institute, where the best students were selected from the MAI and a number of other universities.

During the Great Patriotic War, he volunteered for a rifle regiment at the height of the fighting near Vyazma, where in August 1941 he was seriously wounded. After the treatment, Yuri Alexandrovich returned to the army. First Mozzhorina sent to the school of communication armored troops, but soon, making sure that he was almost ready aviation engineer, transferred to the Air Force Engineering Academy named after NE Zhukovsky in the laboratory of the latest technology. Here he passes additional courses for training specialists in experimental aerodynamics and in 1945 he received a diploma with honors from a military mechanical engineer.

After the war, on the basis of one of the Guards mortar regiments, the first in the Soviet Army special-purpose missile brigade (BON) was created, which was to master the exploitation first of trophy, and later of domestic, guided long-range ballistic missiles. The 25-year-old senior lieutenant Mozzhorin became an assistant in the technical part of the commander of the BON.

In 1955 Mozzhorin was transferred to the head scientific research institute of missile forces - NII-4 - deputy chief. At the Institute, the resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the creation of the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) were entrusted with the lead role in the development of new radio engineering systems for trajectory measurements and design of a polygon [test range] measuring complex (PIK).

During the period from 1955 to 1956, under the guidance of Yu.A. Mozzhorin, a preliminary design of the PIK was developed, then a technical design, and in August 1956 construction work was started at the measuring points along the ICBM test track. At the end of this and the beginning of the next year, all the equipment envisaged by the project was manufactured and delivered to the Baikonur Cosmodrome under construction by the country's industry. In the first quarter of 1957, the first stage of the PIC, including seven measuring points, was put into operation and fully provided flight tests for the first ICBM.

Simultaneously, large-scale work was started in the country to create the first spacecraft (SC), which led to new and much broader tasks of the ground measuring complex. The management of the design of the first space command-measuring complex (CEC) was entrusted to YA Mozhororin. Yu. Mozzhorin was awarded the honorary title of laureate of the Lenin Prize for the work on the creation of the CIC to ensure the flight of the first artificial Earth satellite.

The apogee of this period of Mozzhorin's work was his participation in the development of the CEC to ensure the testing of the first manned spacecraft "Vostok", largely comprised in the automation of all processes of obtaining and processing information. In an exceptionally short time in NII-4, an automated control point for the flight of spacecraft is created - the prototype of the modern Flight Control Center (MCC). Then, in 1961, for participation in the provision of the first space flight of man, YA Mozzhorin was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, he was awarded the military rank of Major-General-Engineer.

On the recommendation of SP Korolyov and GA Tyulin, on July 31, 1961, Mozzhorin was appointed director-scientific director of the Scientific Research Institute-88 of the USSR State Committee for Defense Technology, the head organization of the rocket and space industry. Under the guidance of Yu.A. Mozzhorin, NII-88 has grown into the Central Scientific Research Institute of Machine Building, which has gained worldwide fame, and which performs in our state the main scientific, managerial and scientific research functions in the field of creating and using rocket and space technology.

The first successes of practical cosmonautics showed the richest possibilities of using missile technology not only in defense, but also in peaceful scientific research and economic purposes. Therefore, the rapid development of rocket and space technology began. Apart from Korolev, other design and engineering teams began to be involved in space development. The study of the prospects of space exploration for scientific and economic purposes took an important place in the work of NII-88. And it soon became clear that a separate coordination and computing center was required for the management of spacecraft for scientific and economic purposes.

The rapid creation of the NII-88 CEC and its successful work, and then the creation of a spacecraft control center on its base, is the most well-known, but by no means the only achievement of the institute staff, led by YA Mozhororin. No less significant for the development of rocket and space technology (RKT) is its contribution to the formation of a unique experimental base of the industry, which today, as a national asset, not only the institution, but the whole of the state can be proud.

Perhaps the most important thing Yuri Alexandrovich achieved at the institute is the organic unity of the joint work of the theoretical and experimental subdivisions of the Central Scientific Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the creation of an integrated scientific school of project-system research that provides the development of plans for the development of the RCC for scientific and applied purposes.

Mozhororin constantly acted as the main expert in the evaluation of all programs and projects offered in the industry. He was an indispensable participant, and in many cases also chairman of the main state, interdepartmental commissions and councils.

After leaving the post of director, Yu.A. Mozzhorin as the chief research officer of the Institute paid great attention to the study of the history of TsNIIMash and the rocket and space industry. He actively collaborated in the commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences to develop the scientific legacy of pioneers of space exploration, led the section of the history of the RKT of the Korolev scientific readings.

In 1990, Y. Mozzhorin was awarded the title of "Honorary Citizen of Kaliningrad" (now Korolev) - the city where the practical foundations of space activities of mankind were laid, with which the creative life of Yuri Alexandrovich has been inseparably connected for 37 years.

Yuri Alexandrovich Mozhororin died on May 15, 1998.

On July 10, 2003, a ceremonial opening of the memorial plaque in honor of Yury Alexandrovich Mozzhozhin, the largest figure in the rocket and space industry of the country, who headed the institute from 1961 to 1990, was held on the territory of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Oil and Gas. In the name of YA Mozhororin, one of the squares of the city of Korolev, on which a monument was erected, was named (2008).