Aleksei Mikhailovich Isaev (also Isayev; Russian: Алексе́й Миха́йлович Иса́ев; October 24, 1908, in Saint Petersburg – June 10, 1971, in Moscow) was a Russian

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entir ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...

. Aleksei Isaev began work under

Leonid Dushkin Leonid Stepanovich Dushkin (Леонид Степанович Душкин) (August 15, 1910 in the Spirove settlement of the Tver region – April 4, 1990), was a major pioneer of Soviet rocket engine technology. He graduated from Moscow ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, on an experimental rocket-powered interceptor plane, the BI-1. In 1944 he formed his own design bureau to engineer liquid-propellant

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

s. After abandoning the heavy, complex and undercooled

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

engine designs, Russia's principal engine designer

Valentin Glushko Valentin Petrovich Glushko (russian: Валенти́н Петро́вич Глушко́; uk, Валентин Петрович Глушко, Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko; born 2 September 1908 – 10 January 1989) was a Soviet engineer and the m ...

turned to Isaev's innovations: thin-walled

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pink ...

combustion chambers backed by

steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistan ...

support, anti-oscillation baffle to prevent chugging, and the flat injector plate with mixing-swirling injectors. The latter was an enormous simplification of the "plumbing nightmare" of the V-2 engine, because it avoided the need for separate fuel lines to each sprayer.

Staged combustion Staged combustion is a method used to reduce the emission of nitrogen oxides ( NOx) during combustion. There are two methods for staged combustion: air staged supply and fuel staged supply. Applications of staged combustion include boilers and ro ...

(Замкнутая схема) was first proposed by Alexey Isaev in 1949. Although his inventions influenced the design of Glushko's large engines, Isaev was better known for building efficient small rockets. He designed engines for the Soviet anti-missile and anti-aircraft rockets, and in 1951, his engine powered the R-11 Zemlya short-range missile, later named the

Scud A Scud missile is one of a series of tactical ballistic missiles developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It was exported widely to both Second and Third World countries. The term comes from the NATO reporting name attached to the m ...

. He designed a series of course-correction engines for Soviet planetary probes, including the

KDU-414 The KDU-414 (''Russian Корректирующая Двигательная Установка'', Corrective Propulsion Unit), is a pressure-fed liquid rocket Propulsion Unit developed and produced by the Isayev Design Bureau (today known as ...

used in

Venera 1 ''Venera 1'' (russian: Венера-1 meaning ''Venus 1''), also known as Venera-1VA No.2 and occasionally in the West as ''Sputnik 8'' was the first spacecraft to fly past Venus, as part of the Soviet Union's Venera programme. Launched in Febr ...

, Mars 1 up to Venera 8, the

KTDU-425 The KTDU-425 was a former Soviet liquid fuelled engine designed Aleksei Isaev of the Isayev Design Bureau. It was mainly used on the 4MV bus, which employed it as its main propulsion system. The first version which was the KTDU-425 (11D425), wh ...

used in later planetary probes, KTDU-5 used in the Soviet lunar landers

Luna 4 ''Luna 4'', or E-6 No.4 (Ye-6 series), sometimes known in the West as Sputnik 26, was a Soviet spacecraft launched as part of the Luna program to attempt the first soft landing on the Moon. Following a successful launch, the spacecraft failed t ...

Luna 13 Luna 13 (E-6M series) was an unmanned space mission of the Luna program. Overview The Luna 13 spacecraft was launched toward the Moon from an Earth-orbiting platform and accomplished a soft landing on 24 December 1966, in the region of Oceanus P ...

. Isaev was a corresponding member of the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

. A.M. Isayev Chemical Engineering Design Bureau is named after him. The crater Isaev on the

far side ''The Far Side'' is a single-panel comic created by Gary Larson and syndicated by Chronicle Features and then Universal Press Syndicate, which ran from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1995 (when Larson retired as a cartoonist). Its surrealist ...

of the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

is named after him.

References

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External links

Site dedicated to articles about Isaev (in Russian)International Space Hall of Fame entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Isaev, Aleksei Mihailovich 1908 births 1971 deaths Soviet engineers Soviet inventors Rocket scientists