OKB-1 / Soviet space program (today Roscosmos)
The Soviet and Russian branch of spaceflight: from Sergei Korolev’s design bureau through the first satellite and the first human in space to today’s Roscosmos state corporation.
Contents
living encyclopedia entryThe Soviet space programme had no single civil agency like NASA. The key projects of the early era came from the OKB-1 design bureau led by Sergei Korolev: the R-7 rocket, Sputnik 1, and the Vostok, Voskhod, and Soyuz spacecraft. After the USSR dissolved, coordination passed to the Russian Space Agency (1992), which became today’s Roscosmos state corporation.
In this encyclopedia the node is the shared context for the first milestones of the Space Age, for the Soyuz family that still flies today, and for unfinished projects such as N1 and Buran. Russia remains a partner in the International Space Station, where the Russian segment provides propulsion and part of the life support.
- Sputnik 1 (1957) and Vostok 1 with Gagarin (1961) came from OKB-1 and launched on R-7-derived rockets.
- Soyuz is the longest-serving crewed spacecraft line and still flies to the ISS.
- Roscosmos was founded in 1992 as the Russian Space Agency and has been a state corporation since 2015.