Alexander Leonovich Kemurdzhian, Designer of the First Planet Rover

• 04.10.2020, 10:17
•  World,  Armenia,  Diaspora,  No-politics

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Alexander Leonovich Kemurdzhian was an outstanding design engineer, the founder of the Soviet scientific school of space transport engineering, the designer of the first planet rover. He authored more than 200 scientific papers, including five monographs and more than 50 inventions. The mission of  Kemurdzhian’s life was the design of space technology and participation in the design of the world's first automatic self-propelled apparatus for research on the lunar surface. He was the chief designer of the self-propelled chassis of the lunar rover. 

Kemurdzhian was born in Vladikavkaz, in 1921. His father came from an Armenian family from Trabzon. Alexander grew up in Baku.

In 1940, Alexander came to Moscow and entered the Moscow Higher Technical School after Bauman. And in 1942 he volunteered to the front. Kemurdzhian participanted in the battle of Kursk, forcing of the Dnieper, Visla, Desna and Oder. In 1945 he ended up in Pomerania.

In 1951 he graduated with honors from the Moscow Higher Technical School after Bauman and was sent to work in VNII-100. Since September 1951 Alexander Kemurdzhian’s life was  inextricably linked with this organization, where he went from an engineer to chief designer and deputy director of the institute.

From 1959 to 1963 Kemurdjian was engaged in the design of land vehicles on air cushion. Full-scale tests mock-ups of a combat reconnaissance and sentry machine on air cushion were set up called "crawlers". This car could carry a crew of up to 12 paratroopers, overcome swamps, off-road, water boundaries.

In 1963 Kemurdzhian headed operations of the creation of a self-propelled chassis "Lunokhod". In 1963-1973 A.L.Kemurdzhian headed works on the design and creation of the self-propelled automatic chassis of Soviet Moon rovers and Mars rovers. Under his leadership planetary rovers developed as robotic transport vehicles of space appropriation, and his group developed the first-ever planet research vehicles - "Lunokhods", Prop-M Rover (Apparatus of the Cross-Country Capability Estimate), apparatus for the jump movement at the moon of Mars, Phobos were developed. Devices designed under his leadership also yielded data on physicomechanical properties of soil of the Moon and Venus.

After the Chernobyl disaster, Kemurdzhian was tapped by Soviet officials as a special adviser on the development and use of remote-controlled vehicles working in unsafe areas. In May 1986, he was sent to the disaster site to assess the working conditions of transport equipment. Under his leadership a remote-controlled specialized transport robot STR-1 was created, which provided substantial assistance in eliminating the consequences of the accident.

Kemurdzhian is a doctor of technical sciences, a professor, a laureate of the Lenin Prize, was awarded the Orders of Lenin, Courage, Red Star, World War II, Honor, as well as medals of the FK of the USSR and combat medals. In 2006, the Federation of Cosmonautics made a decision to set an award - a medal after Kemurdzhian. 

He was a member of several international scientific societies — the Planetary Society (USA), the European Geophysical Society (Germany), and a correspondent member of the Commission for Study of Outer Space (France).

Kemurdzhian’s name is included in the book "Outstanding People of the 20th Century", published in Great Britain.

Alexander Kemurdzhian died on February 24, 2003. He was interred in St. Petersburg, at the Armenian cemetery.

In 1997 one of the minor planets of the Solar System was named after Alexander  Kemurdzhian by the decision of the International Astronomical Union.