Gulko, Akim Dmitrievich

He was born on September 20, 1904 in the village of Krivoye Ozero in the Nikolaev province (now an urban-type village in the Krivoozersky district of the Nikolaev region of Ukraine) in a large peasant family. In the same village he graduated from a four-year zemstvo school. In 1925 he moved to Dnepropetrovsk and entered the metallurgical plant, where he worked in the filling yard of the blast furnace shop.

In 1926 he was called up for service in the Navy, where, after graduating from the electromine school, he served as a torpedoist on the battleship “October Revolution”. After discharge to the reserve, he studied at the Leningrad Mechanical College, which he graduated in 1933. After graduation, he worked at the Engine Engine Leningrad Plant, as deputy chief of the assembly site.

In 1934 he was sent to the city of Gorky, where he worked as a design engineer with artillery and rocket designer V.G. Grabin, with whom he moved to the Podlipki village near Moscow in 1937 to plant No. 88 of the USSR People’s Arms Commissariat, where he took the most active participation in the creation of field, airborne guns, as well as a number of semi-automatic and automatic anti-aircraft guns. From 1941 to 1942 he worked at the Perm Artillery Plant No. 172.

In 1942 he returned to Podlipki to plant number 88, where he continued to work as a design engineer. From 1944 to 1946 he was Deputy Chief Designer of the Special Design Bureau of this plant. According to the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1017-419 of May 13, 1946 "On the deployment of missile weapons operations in the country," NII-88 was created on the basis of the plant, headed by L. R. Gonor, the organizer of the work on creating missile and artillery weapons. The experimental design bureau NII-88 was headed by the outstanding creator of space rocket technology S.P. Korolev. A.D. Gulko, before the death of his mentor in 1966, worked as the head of the group, and then - as the head of the sector of dry buildings, farms and mechanisms of OKB-1. The design of a modern rocket consists of the so-called wet units, which contain rocket fuel, and dry objects. The latter included tail compartments, stabilizers with air rudders, missile body, instrument compartments, engine frames, transition trusses, power links for missiles with longitudinal and transverse division of steps, quick-disconnect lock joints for separable parts, mechanisms for opening antenna devices, resettable head fairings . A. D. Gulko is a direct participant in the development of design documentation for the first domestic long-range ballistic missiles and strategic ballistic missiles, including the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile, its subsequent modifications for space launches, including documentation for the third-stage missile units.

He participated in the development of technical documentation for the N-1 launch vehicle, working design documentation for space booster blocks D and DM for the complex N-1-L-3, for space booster blocks C, P and Cp intended for use in modifications of the spacecraft N -one. He particularly succeeded in calculating springs, of which there were many in rocket designs. To help designers, they compiled tables for selecting springs, replacing complex calculations. He took part in the development of design documentation for the reusable space transport system “Energy-Buran”.

By a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 17, 1961, for the great successes achieved in the development of the rocket industry, science and technology, the successful implementation of the world's first flight of Soviet man into outer space on the Vostok satellite ship, Gulko Akim Dmitrievich was awarded the title Hero of Socialist Labor with the presentation of the Order of Lenin and the Golden Hammer and Sickle Medal to him.

After the death of S.P. Korolyov, OKB-1 was headed by his former deputy V.P. Mishin, who transformed OKB-1 into the Central Design Bureau of Experimental Mechanical Engineering. From that time until 1974, A.D. Gulko was deputy head of the TsKBEM department. On May 22, 1974, OKB-1 was headed by V.P. Glushko, the creator of rocket engines. On his initiative, OKB-1 and KB Glushko were merged and the new “education” became known as the Energy Research and Production Association. A.D. Gulko continued to the end of his life working at this enterprise for a drawing kulman, gifted to him by S.P. Korolev as a design engineer.

He lived in Moscow . He died on November 6, 1991. He was buried in Moscow at the Nikolo-Arkhangelsk cemetery.

He was awarded two Orders of Lenin , the Order of the Red Star , the Order of the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor ; medals “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945” and “For Valiant Labor. In commemoration of the centenary of the birth of V. I. Lenin. "

• Gulko, Akim Dmitrievich (Russian) . Site " Heroes of the country ".