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History of Dnipropetrovsk


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making ballistic missiles. Under the leadership of Yangel�, KBYu produced such powerful rocket engines that the range of these ballistic missiles was practically without limits. During the 1960s, these powerful rocket engines were used as launch vehicles for the first Soviet space ships. During Makarov�s directorship, Yuzhmash designed and manufactured four generations of missile complexes of different types. These included space launch vehicles Kosmos, Interkosmos, Tsyklon -2, Tsyklon-3 and Zenith. Under the leadership of Yangel�s successor, V. Utkin, the KBYu created a unique space-rocket system called Energia-Buran. Yuzhmash engineers manufactured 400 technical devices that were launched in artificial satellites (Sputniks). For the first time in the world space industry, the Dnipropetrovsk missile plant organised the serial production of space Sputniks. By the 1980s, this plant manufactured 67 different types of space ships, 12 space research complexes and 4 defense space rocket systems.

These systems were used not only for purely military purposes by the Ministry of Defense, but also for astronomic research, for global radio and television network and for ecological monitoring. Yuzhmash initiated and sponsored the international space program of socialist countries, called Interkosmos. A majority of the 25 automatic space Sputniks (22) of this program, were designed, manufactured and launched by engineers and workers from Dnipropetrovsk. Yuzhmash and KBYu became an important centre for the Soviet space industry, Soviet military industrial complex and also the main rocket producer for the entire Soviet bloc.

On the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, KBYu had 9 regular and corresponding members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, 33 full professors and 290 scientists holding a Ph.D. They awarded scientific degrees and presided over a prestigious graduate school at KBYu, which attracted talented students of physics from all over the USSR. More
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