September 27, 1938
The Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR convicted Sergei Korolev under Article 58.
He was sentenced to 10 years in a labor camp and five years of disqualification. He was lucky, one might say—two days earlier, the name of the aircraft designer who launched the first artificial satellite into space and the first cosmonaut had appeared on the execution list.
On June 28, 1938, the NKVD of the USSR arrested Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, a former engineer at the said institute, for belonging to a Trotskyist, sabotage organization operating at Scientific Research Institute No. 3 and brought him to criminal responsibility (from the indictment for case No. 19908).
In Research Institute No. 3, or Reactive InstituteKorolev worked there since 1933, heading the rocket aircraft department. In 1936, he brought the "217" anti-aircraft cruise missile and the long-range "212" to testing. In 1938, he developed designs for long-range liquid-propellant cruise and ballistic missiles, the "301" air-launched missile for firing at air and ground targets, and solid-fuel anti-aircraft missiles.
Korolev was accused of "undermining state industry." He was allegedly criminally delaying the delivery of new equipment to the Red Army. He was sent to Kolyma to work "general labor" at a gold mine. There, he nearly died of scurvy. He was saved by Usachev, the former director of the Moscow Aircraft Plant and also a prisoner, who helped him get a job in the medical unit.
They'll slam him without an obituary (Korolev's favorite phrase)
Mother with the support of the pilot deputies Gromova и Grizodubova She secured a retrial. In 1940, Korolev was tried again. He was sentenced to eight years. He was sent to the NKVD special prison, TsKB-29. At first, he assisted the inventor at the Tupolev sharaga. ThereminThen under the leadership of the prisoner Tupolev worked on the creation of the Pe-2 and Tu-2 bombers.
In 1942, Korolev was transferred to another prison design bureau, Kazan aircraft plantIn 1943 he became the chief designer of the rocket launcher group.
In 1944 Queen He was released early. His conviction was expunged. But he was only rehabilitated in 1957, "due to lack of evidence of a crime."
