Energia

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The Mir space station in orbit, at an early stage of assembly in the late 1980s. From left to right are the Mir core module (launched in 1986), the Kvant astrophysics module (1987), and a docked Soyuz TM craft.

© Sovfoto/Eastfoto

Energia, Russian aerospace company that is a major producer of spacecraft, launch vehicles, rocket stages, and missiles. It built the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile and the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, and pioneered the development and operation of Soviet space stations including the Salyut series and Mir. Its headquarters are in the Moscow suburb of Korolev (formerly Kaliningrad).

Energia serves as a main contractor for the International Space Station (ISS). It provided the service module Zvezda, the station’s control centre and living quarters during the initial stage of human occupancy. Other primary products include the Block DM upper stage and the Yamal communications satellite system. The company, which employs more than 20,000 people, comprises a main design bureau and subordinate enterprises including an experimental plant in Korolev, the Volga design bureau in Samara, and the Primorsk Scientific-Technological Center. It also maintains a branch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch centre in Kazakhstan.

Energia’s history is closely tied to the career of rocket designer Sergey P. Korolyov, widely recognized as the founder of the Soviet space program and its guiding genius until his death in 1966. The company traces its origin to a May 1946 decree that established the Soviet Union’s missile and space programs. Under the watchful eye of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, the Soviet armaments industry founded NII-88 (Scientific-Research Institute 88) in Kaliningrad to direct all work on long-range missiles. Assigned to lead Department 3, one of several departments within the institute, was Korolyov, who had studied aeronautical engineering under the aircraft designer Andrey N. Tupolev and helped develop the Soviet Union’s first liquid-propellant rockets in the early 1930s.

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Yuri Gagarin (left), the first human to travel into space, and Sergei Korolev, Soviet rocket scientist, 1961.

© Sovfoto—Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Korolyov’s department was initially assigned to build improved versions of the German V-2 missile, but by the early 1950s it began to develop its own ballistic missiles including the R-2 (U.S. Department of Defense code name SS-2) and R-5M (SS-3). In 1950 the department was upgraded to an experimental design bureau (OKB), and in 1956 it formally separated from NII-88 and became the independent OKB-1.

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Vostok 6 spacecraft, in which the first woman cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, orbited Earth for three days. Launched June 16, 1963, the craft comprised a spherical reentry capsule for its occupant and a conical instrument module.

Novosti Press Agency

The most important work of the design bureau in the 1950s was the creation of the R-7 (SS-6), the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missile, which was successfully launched in August 1957. Two months later, on October 4, a modified R-7 placed the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into Earth orbit, inaugurating the space era. Korolyov was the primary force behind the launch, having convinced a reluctant Soviet leadership to fund the effort. Over the next decade his design bureau was responsible for establishing the U.S.S.R.’s commanding early lead in the space race with the United States. Its successes included the launches of the first probes—Luna 2 and 3—to reach the Moon, in 1959; the Vostok spacecraft that carried the first human—Yury A. Gagarin—into space in 1961 and the first woman—Valentina Tereshkova—into space in 1963; the Voskhod spacecraft in which Vladimir M. Komarov, Konstantin P. Feoktistov, and Boris B. Yegorov conducted the first multiperson spaceflight in 1964 and from which Aleksey A. Leonov took the first space walk in 1965; and the first spacecraft—Venera 3—to impact on another planet (Venus), in 1965.

The organization’s most expensive space project in the 1960s was the secret N1-L3 program, designed to compete with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Apollo program to land humans on the Moon. After four consecutive failures of the giant multistage N1 rocket, a counterpart to the American Saturn V, the Soviet government canceled the effort in 1974. The same year, the government created the NPO Energia (Scientific and Production Association Energia) conglomerate, with the former OKB-1 at its centre, to play a leading role in the Soviet piloted space program. In the 1970s and ’80s, Energia was the prime contractor for the development of the Energia-Buran reusable space system, a combination of launch vehicle (Energia) and winged orbiter (Buran) analogous to the U.S. space shuttle. Despite two successful launches—one of the launch vehicle in 1987 and another of the entire system, including an unmanned, fully automated orbiting and landing of the Buran orbiter, in 1988—funding for the program was canceled in the early 1990s due to severe financial problems accompanying the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

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Soyuz T-5 spacecraft (foreground) docked with the Salyut 7 space station, as photographed in orbit from Soyuz T-6. Salyut 7 was launched on April 19, 1982. Soyuz T-5, carrying the station’s primary two-man crew, was launched nearly a month later, on May 13. Soyuz T-6, launched on June 24, carried three additional crew members, including a French guest cosmonaut, to the orbiting station.

Tass/Sovfoto

Energia’s other main work during the 1970s and early ’80s focused on the Soviet Union’s early generation of space stations, a series of seven spacecraft called Salyut. In 1971 it built and launched its first Salyut, the world’s first space station. After recovering from a spate of failures, Energia mounted an unprecedented run of successful missions to the advanced Salyut 6 and 7 stations beginning in the late 1970s. These stations were supplied by improved versions of Soyuz ferry spacecraft and Progress unmanned cargo tankers. A total of 26 crews, including several international ones, visited the two stations, setting consecutive records for endurance in space.

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The Mir space station in orbit, at an early stage of assembly in the late 1980s. From left to right are the Mir core module (launched in 1986), the Kvant astrophysics module (1987), and a docked Soyuz TM craft.

© Sovfoto/Eastfoto

In 1986 Energia launched the core module for the Mir space station, which it subsequently expanded with a series of science and service modules. For 10 years, from 1989 to 1999, the firm kept the station continuously manned, an unequalled achievement. Building on its experience with Mir, Energia signed on in the early 1990s as the main contractor for the Russian portion of the ISS. Its role, however, was gradually reduced, owing partly to stiff competition from another Russian company, Khrunichev, which assumed responsibility for the design and manufacture of a number of ISS modules. In April 1994 Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed an order renaming the firm RKK Energia (Rocket-Space Corporation Energia) and partially privatizing the company.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Energia vigorously pursued international cooperative efforts. Successful ventures included partnerships with Sea Launch and International Launch Services, two multinational satellite launching services to which Energia provided its Block DM upper stage for boosting payloads to geostationary orbit. The company achieved some notoriety in the late 1990s when it sought commercial customers for Mir in order to keep its single most important asset in operation. Continued financial support did not materialize, however, and Energia disposed of Mir in a guided reentry in 2001.

Asif A. Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–1974 (2000), discusses the early history of the Soviet space program and Energia’s role in its development. Rex Hall (ed.), The History of Mir, 1986–2000 (2000), comprises a collection of works on the history of the Mir space station built by Energia. James Harford, Korolev: How One Man Masterminded the Soviet Drive to Beat America to the Moon (1997), is a detailed study of the life and times of Korolyov and the space industry that he shaped.