On October 25, 1911, one hundred and nine years ago, Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel, a prominent Soviet designer in the field of rocketry, was born.
Mikhail Kuzmich made a significant contribution to the organization of research in aerodynamics, ballistics, material knowledge science and many other areas, which are needed in rocketry. However, he was best known as an outstanding developer of missile technology, in particular, the world-famous SS-18 missile («Satana»).
The beginning of Mikhail Kuzmich’s great journey was the R-12 rocket. In 1958, for the creation of combat missile systems, Yangel was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. Three years later, for the first human flight into space, Mikhail Kuzmich received the second Star of the Hero. The creation of combat missile systems and systems was also awarded the Lenin and State Prizes.
Yangel headed the Pivdenne Design Bureau for seventeen years. Together with Leonid Smirnov, the director of the plant № 586 (now – YUZHMASH), Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel laid the foundation for joint activities of the design bureau and the plant, which later became a guarantee of outstanding achievements in the missile industry.
In 1960, on the eve of his 49th birthday, Mikhail Kuzmich miraculously stayed alive in a crash during the preparation for the first launch of an R-16 rocket – he accidentally left to smoke a cigarette. In the same year, Yangel was awarded the degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences; two years later he was elected an academician of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, and later a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
Many years have passed, people still work at the Pivdenne Design Bureau, and people at YUZHMASH who knew Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel personally worked with him. The name of Yangel was included in the name of his native DB, the street in the Dnipro was named by him.
The figure of Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel occupies a worthy place in the history of world rocketry, and the memory about him will forever remain in the workshops of YUZHMASH and in the hearts of rocket builders of Dnipro.
