A Soviet rocket designer responsible for developing booster rockets for the lunar programme. In 1945 he created a cruise missile similar to Germany's V-1 weapon of World War II. By 1955 he was developing cruise missiles for submarines. He began working for the Soviet space programme in the 1960s, and his SL-9 rocket, first launched in 1965, evolved into the three-stage Proton rocket, the workhorse for Soviet space launches.