Leonid Stepanovich Dushkin (Леонид Степанович Душкин) (August 15, 1910 in the Spirove settlement of the

Tver Tver ( rus, Тверь, p=tvʲerʲ) is a city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is northwest of Moscow. Population: Tver was formerly the capital of a powerful medieval state and a model provincial town in the Russian ...

region – April 4, 1990), was a major pioneer of Soviet rocket engine technology. He graduated from

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

with a degree in mathematics and mechanics. In October 1932, he joined

Fridrikh Tsander Georg Arthur Constantin Friedrich Zander (also Tsander, russian: Фридрих Артурович Цандер, tr. ; lv, Frīdrihs Canders, – 28 March 1933), was a Baltic German pioneer of rocketry and spaceflight in the Russian Empire an ...

's brigade of

GIRD The Moscow-based Group for the Study of Reactive Motion (also 'Group for the Investigation of Reactive Engines and Reactive Flight' and 'Jet Propulsion Study Group') (russian: Группа изучения реактивного движения, ...

, the Moscow rocket research group. He assisted in the creation of their first rocket engine OR-2, and after Tsander's death, he oversaw the creation of engine "10" which powered the first Soviet liquid-fuel rocket, GIRD-X. Dushkin became part of the

Reactive Scientific Research Institute Reactive Scientific Research Institute (commonly known by the joint initialism RNII; russian: Реактивный научно-исследовательский институт, Reaktivnyy nauchno-issledovatel’skiy institut) was one of the ...

(RNII) when GIRD and the

Gas Dynamics Laboratory Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL) (russian: Газодинамическая лаборатория) was the first Soviet research and development laboratory to focus on rocket technology. Its activities were initially devoted to the development ...

(GDL) merged in 1933. Dushkin's engines were among the first to be regeneratively cooled, and he also experimented with uncooled engines of high-temperature ceramic. The 12K engines were both types, and powered the Aviavnito rocket. After the arrest of

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 ...

, Dushkin took over the development of rocket engines for the rocket-enhanced fighter plane RP-318. He became the leader of the department of liquid propellant rocket engines the NII-3 beginning in January 1938. Starting with Glushko's engines (ORM-65 and RD-1), he began a series of important engineering transformations, moving the fuel injectors to a head at one end of a cylindrical chamber, typical of modern design. The RDA-150, RDA-300 used nitric acid as an oxidizer, RDK-150 used liquid oxygen. The 1100 kgf thrust engine, D-1-A-1100 was developed for the rocket-powered interceptor BI-1. It was also regeneratively cooled, using the kerosine to cool the chamber, and the nitric acid to cool the nozzle. Starting with that engine,

Aleksei Mihailovich Isaev Aleksei Mikhailovich Isaev (also Isayev; Russian: Алексе́й Миха́йлович Иса́ев; October 24, 1908, in Saint Petersburg – June 10, 1971, in Moscow) was a Russian rocket engineer. Aleksei Isaev began work under Leonid Du ...

began the evolution of his engines, which continued the evolution of engines toward the space-rocket engines of the 1950s.

References

{{Authority Control 1910 births 1990 deaths Rocket scientists Tver State University alumni Soviet scientists Soviet engineers