On 12 April, the Rector of Voronezh State University, Dmitry Endovitsky, and the Director of AO KBKHA, Sergey Kovalev, took part in the opening of a joint exhibition in the main building of the university dedicated to Cosmonautics Day and the 60th anniversary of the flight of Yury Gagarin, the first cosmonaut in the world. The main exhibit was the RD0109 engine which was created by KBKHA and Voronezh Mechanical Plant and worked reliably as the third stage of the “Vostok” rocket on 12 April 1961. There is also a photo exhibition in VSU showing the atmosphere which the space pioneers worked in.
“We are very lucky to have one of the most well-known centres for rocket engine manufacturing in the world in our city which is a collaboration between the teams of KBKHA and Voronezh Mechanical Plant. Today our students have a chance to explore the history of cosmonautics and enter into the spirit of those great achievements,” said VSU Rector Dmitry Endovitsky.
“When people talk about the part of Voronezh in Gagarin’s flight, they usually mention the names of the chief engineer of KBKHA, Semyon Kosberg, and the director of Voronezh Mechanical Plant, Ivan Abramov. But today I would like to talk about someone else. The lead engineer who Kosberg put to work on Gagarin’s engine here in Voronezh was Vasily Koshelnikov. A man from a peasant family, he received a university degree. After graduation, he came to our enterprise and, being just 28 years old, took the lead role in the construction of the engine that helped the mankind to start the era of pilot-controlled space exploration. The engine was built incredibly fast, in less than a year. At that time, history was made by young men, university graduates just like you. And it proves again that you, today’s students, are also capable of such achievements and even more,” noted Director of AO KBKHA, Sergey Kovalev.
Professor Vladimir Kostin from the Department of Mathematical Modelling of VSU shared his memories on the participation in the construction of the engine for Yuri Gagarin. The Dean of the Faculty of Physics, Oleg Ovchinnikov, and the Head of the Department of Science, Innovation, and Information Policy, Dmitry Zhukalin, told students about wide possibilities of practical application of the knowledge they get at university in such high-technology fields as nuclear and aerospace industries.
