March 13, 2021 at 10:00 am Sergei Korolev (or Korolyov) was a Russian rocket scientist regarded as the father of the USSR’s early human spaceflight ambitions, and an architect of the successes enjoyed by the Soviet Union in the Space Race against NASA and the USA. Advertisement He was instrumental in the launch of the Sputnik satellite – the first artificial satellite launched from Earth into space – and in the flight that made Yuri Gagarin the first human being in space. Korolev had a chequered career by any standards. He was both persecuted and highly prized by his own government but, despite his achievements, couldn’t enjoy wider acclaim in his lifetime due to the USSR’s secretive nature.