Anatoliy Daron

Anatoliy Davidovich Daron (1926 to 2020) was a Russian rocket engineer and scientist who created engines for the rockets that carried the first satellite and the first Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, into space. He was born in Odesa, Ukraine, to a Jewish family, and at the age of twelve his family fled to Kislovodsk to escape the advance of the Romanian Army during the Second World War. He graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute in 1948, specializing in liquid propellants for rockets, and became the lead engineer for liquid propellant rocket engines at Experimental Design Bureau No. 456. He made a significant contribution to the first experimental chambers KS-50 and ED-140 and was a leading designer of the RD-107 and RD-108 engines for the R-7 rocket family, which gave the Soviet Union its intercontinental ballistic missile capability, as well as the RD-270 for the UR-700 launch vehicle. His engines also powered Vostok, Voskhod and Soyuz. In 1998 he was permitted to travel to the United States for heart surgery and stayed there for the rest of his life.