Pioneers
Yuri Kondratyuk
Also Known As Oleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei (birth name)
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
Soviet engineer and self-taught rocketry theorist, born Oleksandr Shargei in Poltava in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), who adopted the identity of a deceased man, Yuri Kondratyuk, around 1921 to evade Soviet authorities as a former Tsarist officer. Working independently of Western rocketry circles, he proposed a modular spacecraft design in which a propulsion section stays in orbit while a smaller lander travels to the surface and back, a strategy later called lunar orbit rendezvous and adopted by NASA's Apollo program engineers, including John Houbolt, to reach the Moon. The exact circumstances of his death during the Second World War remain unresolved: some accounts place it in October 1941, while evidence collected in the 1990s points to January or February 1942 near a village in the Kaluga region, and his remains were never definitively recovered.
Facts
NationalitySoviet (Ukrainian-born) 1 Defining ContributionIndependently proposed the lunar orbit rendezvous concept later adopted for the Apollo program's Moon landings. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
His lunar orbit rendezvous concept, published decades earlier, was the mission mode NASA engineers ultimately adopted for the Apollo Moon landings.
John Houbolt, Pioneers Houbolt championed the lunar orbit rendezvous concept within NASA in the early 1960s, the same mission mode Kondratyuk had proposed independently decades earlier.
Sources
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationYuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - lunar orbit rendezvousQuote, Yuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - lunar orbit rendezvous
a modular spacecraft to reach the Moon, leaving the propulsion section of the vehicle on orbit while a smaller lander journeyed to the surface and back (the strategy eventually adopted by the engineers of the Apollo program).
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationYuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - birth dateQuote, Yuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - birth date
Born June 21, 1897
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationYuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - defining contributionQuote, Yuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - defining contribution
the strategy eventually adopted by the engineers of the Apollo program
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationYuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - nationalityQuote, Yuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - nationality
Soviet engineer and mathematician, born in Poltava in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine)
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationYuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - birth nameQuote, Yuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - birth name
his stepmother obtained the documents of a certain Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk
1. Wikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Apollo Program, Yuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - Apollo adoptionQuote, Associated With: Apollo Program, Yuri Kondratyuk (Wikipedia) - Apollo adoption
the strategy eventually adopted by the engineers of the Apollo program
Open Questions (1 open question)
How and when did Yuri Kondratyuk actually die during the Second World War?
Historical accounts disagree. His unit fought the Nazis in October 1941, and 3 October 1941 is sometimes given as his date of death, but evidence collected in the 1990s suggests he instead disappeared in January or February 1942 while repairing a communications cable near the village of Zasetsky in the Kaluga region. His remains were never definitively recovered or identified, so no single account has been confirmed.
What would resolve this Documentary or forensic confirmation of his unit's exact movements and casualties across late 1941 and early 1942, or recovery and identification of his remains.
Military history and archival researchWikipedia (space and spaceflight articles)
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.