| Nedelin | ||
Personal: Male. Born in Russia. Died in the Nedelin catastrophe. Nedelin Chronology Summer 1959 - Khrushchev tours Yuzhnoye facility and directs creation of Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN). Khrushchev tours Yangel’s missile factory at Dnepropetrovsk. At this time Yangel was developing the R-16, equipped with an autonomous inertial navigation unit -- while Korolev was still using radio guidance. Leonid Smirnov was manager of the factory (he would later be made Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, reporting to Ustinov). The delegation included Rudnev, Kalmykov, Serbin, Nedelin and Podgorny. Yangel told the leaders to think of the R-16 as an R-12 stacked atop an R-14. In this way he was able to quickly develop an ICBM on the basis of existing rockets. He expected to have an R-16 test article ready for tests with the first ICBM silo by September 1959. Khrushchev was overjoyed and discussed his plans to create an entirely new branch of the service - the RVSN, Strategic Rocket Forces. The Soviet Union had no real equivalent to the US Strategic Air Command and the VVS Air Forces would not handle ballistic missiles correctly. He asked Nedelin to draw up a plan to create the new branch. There was no objection form the leadership or military chiefs. None of the military services wished to handle the missiles. 17 December 1959 - Soviet Strategic Missile Force created.. In accordance with instructions issued by Khrushchev the previous summer, the RVSN rocket forces were established as a separate branch of the armed services. Council of Soviet Ministers (SM) Decree 1384-615 / TsK Decree 254 'On the Establishment of the Post of Commander-in-Chief of Missile Forces in the Armed Forces of the USSR--creation of the Strategic Missile Forces' are issued. 24 October 1960 - Test mission. First attempted launch of R-16 ICBM results in explosion on pad, killing over 100 military, engineers, and technicians, including Strategic Rocket Forces Marshal Nedelin. The first R-16 prototype was fuelled and on the pad, awaiting launch. An electrical problem developed, leading to a hold. Marshal Nedelin, commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, ordered the engineers and technicians to fix the problem without the long delay of defuelling and refurbishing the missile. He personally had a deck chair brought out to the pad so he could watch the work first-hand. At 18:45 local time a spurious radio signal ordered the second stage of the rocket to fire while workers swarmed around the missile in its gantry. The missile exploded, killing a good part of the Soviet Union's rocket engineering and management talent. Among the dead were Nedelin, Konoptev, Grishin, Nosov, Kontsevsky, and Lev Berlin. 74 people were killed immediately, and 48 died in the ensuing weeks from burns or contact with the toxic and corrosive propellants. The total included 38 civilian engineers and 84 officers and enlisted rocket technicians. Yangel, the rocket's designer, was spared only because he had slipped into a bunker for a cigarette when the explosion occurred. Bibliography and Further Reading
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