Yuzhnoye State Design Office

Nikita Khrushchev's famous phrase after visiting the Yangelov Design Bureau in Dnepropetrovsk: "We make rockets like sausages, on the machine."

Korolev handed over projects to other enterprises for serial production, many of which subsequently headed independent directions in rocket and space technology. Russian scientists, including Korolev, who was born and raised in Ukraine, were against rocket projccts going beyond the boundaries of the Moscow region, but Lavrenty Beria insisted, and Yuzhmash, built as an automobile plant, was redeveloped. In 1951, for example, the serial production of the R-1 rocket, and later P-2 and P-5, was transferred to the Dnepropetrovsk plant, which contributed to the creation there of a powerful production base successfully used by the main designers MK Yangel and B F. Utkin, Twice Heroes of Socialist Labor, academicians. The missile systems developed by them, including the famous "Satan", became a formidable weapon.

Yuzhnoye State Design Office was founded in 1954 based on a design department of Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant. The first missile developed by Yuzhnoye was the R-12 (SS-4), the most mass-produced medium-range missile in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces. As often happened in the USSR, at the beginning of the 1950s, ballistic missiles R-1, R-2 and R-5M were manufactured at the Dnipropetrovsk Automobile and Tractor Plant. In 1954 year, OKB-586 was separated from the plant, Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel became the director and general designer. The first development of the OKB - medium-range missile R-12 - was successful. Until the mid-1970s, the number of R-12s deployed by the Strategic Missile Forces amounted to almost 80% of all Soviet BRSDs.

Four missile complex generations in all were created, with liquid-propellant and solid-propellant strategic missiles of different kinds of deployment: from the first medium-range missile to orbital and intercontinental missiles with multiple reentry vehicles and penetration aids. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, development of strategic missile systems was terminated.

The missile complex development significantly increased the scientific and technical potential of Yuzhnoye and cooperating companies, which offered scope for pursuing peaceful space exploration. Yuzhnoye developed and put into service space launch systems such as Kosmos, Cyclone-2, and Cyclone-3, with launch vehicles converted from in-house designed missiles. These launch vehicles were widely used in the Soviet and first international space programs.

To the creation of solid-fuel rockets, Yangel approached cautiously, weighing every step. One of the new ballistic missiles was combined: the first stage worked on solid fuel, the second - on liquid. The solution was not the best, but in general the new missile had a number of valuable innovations and pioneer solutions. It was the first mobile missile system RT-20P. The main designer of the self-propelled launcher on the caterpillar track was the creator of the famous heavy tanks KV and IS , many self-propelled artillery mounts Josef Kotin. The novelty of the rolling complex was the transport and launch container, directly from which the missile started.

At the same time, the so-called "mortar launch" was used: the intercontinental rocket flew out of the container like a cork from a bottle of champagne, and its engines were launched already in flight. This complex anticipated the appearance of other mobile complexes, in particular railway. Despite the fact that the new rocket was proudly displayed on Red Square during the military parades, the series did not go into series.

The last work of M. Yangel was the strategic complexes SS-17 and SS-18 . At the very beginning of the development, a real hurricane broke out - this project had a lot of opponents. Among the many scientists and chief designers, the first opponent, as always, was the General Designer Academician V. Chelomei : "I'll take off my hat if the rocket flies." (The rocket flew, but Chelomei forgot about his promise.) Chelomey was not alone. Even Yangelya's longtime associate , Chief Designer of mine launchers E. Rudyak, and he argued the inconsistency of the project: "Throwing an apple, like an apple, with a weight of more than two hundred tons is the purest absurdity." Yangel translated this "absurdity" into reality. True, he had to part with individual skeptics, including the beautiful designer E. Rudyak. "I did not know that Yangel was capable of doing miracles," Yevgeny Georgievich later frankly confessed, "I never assumed that this person who had suffered three hearat attacks possessed such strength and courage when he defends the new technique."

Yangel came to a simple and, in fact, a brilliant idea: to develop its combat missile systems in such a way that they could be used as space vehicles. Space rockets Cosmos-1 , Interkosmos , Cyclone-2 , and Cyclone-3 were created on the basis of combat rockets. In parallel with them, space vehicles of the widest profile were created, the unification became a distinctive feature of the Dnieper satellites. Commissioned in 1985, the Yuzhnoye’s environmentally friendly Zenit launch vehicle with a fully automated unmanned launch played an important role in the development of the Soviet rocket technology. This rocket became one of the best launch vehicles in the world. A cluster of four Zenit first stages was used as a boost stage of the Energia-Buran space transportation system.

To support Earth and space exploration, Yuzhnoye developed more than sixty types of spacecraft and automatic orbital stations to perform space research, Earth remote sensing, and defense functions. A lot of research was made possible thanks to Yuzhnoye-designed standard satellite buses, which allowed using a set of support systems, satellite structure, and onboard equipment control circuit irrespective of a scientific mission at hand.

Development of new missiles called forth the development of respective propulsion in- house. In the late 1950s, a propulsion design bureau was formed within Yuzhnoye to develop liquid-propellant engines. Starting from the 1970s, Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash, which then included Pavlograd mechanical plant, successfully began producing solid-propellant rocket motors. To date, they developed about 50 types of mature rocket motors.

In 1991, when Ukraine gained independence, the country created its own aerospace industry with the National Space Agency at the head. The primary objectives of the industry include implementation of national space programs and big space projects in close cooperation with the international space community.

In the period of transition from the leading Soviet rocket-production organization to a company of the independent Ukraine, Yuzhnoye developed and manufactured a number of products for different sectors of the economy: production prototypes of passenger transport (buses and trolley-buses), conforming to world standards, wind-electric installations of different capacity, etc.

However, the main area of Yuzhnoye’s business is space technology. Yuzhnoye is the main actor in the national space programs. On Yuzhnoye’s credit side is the development and launch of Sich series remote sensing satellites.

The company was successful in entering the world’s launch services market. For example, the upgraded Zenit launch vehicle became the rocket segment of international programs Sea Launch, where it is operated from the equatorial launch site in the Pacific, and Land Launch, where it lifts off from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

By upgrading decommissioned missiles, Yuzhnoye and its partners from International Space Company Kostmotras developed a conversion light-weight three-stage Dnepr launch vehicle used for peaceful purposes to launch spacecraft operated by various countries.

Within the framework of cooperation with Egypt, Yuzhnoye designed and orbited the EgyptSat-1 satellite and trained Egyptian personnel, to whom they transferred control over the satellite.

In 2000s, Yuzhnoye started developing components for other than in-house designed launch vehicles. E.g., a Yuzhnoye-developed and Yuzhmash-produced liquid-propellant rocket engine is used in the fourth stage of the European VEGA launch vehicle operated from Kourou Space Center. Yuzhnoye developed and Yuzhmash produces the Stage 1 Core Structure for the Antares launch vehicle made by Orbital Sciences Corporation of the United States.