Kiev Radio Factory: The First Serially Produced Onboard Computer

Vasilenko: The fact that the production association Kiev Radio Factory had been involved in the design and production of digital computer technology since the 1950s to a large extent predetermined its future development and attracted the attention of many chief designers of military technology. Our factory was organized in 1953 on the basis on a railroad repair shop. In the mid-1950s there formed a group of young specialists who were passionate computer enthusiasts. At that time our factory was launching the production of a radar system for locating mortars by calculating the point of origin of their shell trajectories. The central component of this system was an analog calculation-solving device weighing over a ton, which was transported on a tank. It was planned to switch to digital processing of trajectory measurement data in the future. The factory needed specialists for this task, and it acquired engineering college graduates from Kiev and other cities, including the Taganrog Radiotechnical Institute, which since 1956 had trained engineers specializing in mathematical calculation-solving devices and instruments. In 1957 the first group of students received practical training at the factory, and the following year, after defending their senior theses, they were offered positions at the factory. I was a member of this group. It was at that time when the idea of constructing a small digital computer was formed.

Vasilenko: Topchii had a special gift: he was able to recognize the main problem in any complex issue, to formulate this problem, and to organize collective efforts to solve it. Time and again we found that he was right. The spectrum of his interests ranged from concrete technical solutions for a specific product to strategic questions concerning our organization, such as housing construction for workers, the development of agricultural production, and other equally important issues. Being short-spoken, he briefly formulated the problem and proposed a solution. In some respects he reminded me of Sergei Korolev. Sergei Aleksandrovich Afanas'ev, the Minister of General Machinery Construction of the USSR, used to say: "Topchii is staunch and thorough."

In the 1970s the turn toward new basic elements - integrated circuits - began. Dmitrii Gavrilovich arranged with Kiev University (he was then a member of the Academic Council at the University) to set up a special laboratory for basic elements at our organization. Hiring for this laboratory was done only by recommendation from the University. In a short period of time he helped the laboratory to obtain modern testing equipment, and the laboratory soon engaged in extensive research and joint testing with basic elements producers. The laboratory developed and introduced a set of methods of non-destructive quality control, and received recognition at the Ministry of Electronic Industry. As a result, we obtained a powerful tool for improving the quality and reliability of basic elements; we obtained the possibility to exert influence on elements suppliers, and this had an immediate effect on the reliability of rocket complexes. Today this laboratory became an independent organization, and it continues its work to supply highly reliable basic elements for the space industry of Ukraine.

The production association Kiev Radio Factory included a design bureau - a powerful group of engineers capable of solving the most difficult scientific and production problems. The bureau helped many organizations - the developers of complex systems - to carry out the design and manufacturing of new rocket and space technologies successfully and on time. For a long time - from 1967 to 1988 - the bureau was headed by Anatolii Ivanovich Gudimenko, a talented engineer, a holder of the candidate degree in engineering, and a laureate of the Lenin Award.

In the Soviet years the rocket-space industry of Ukraine specialized in the construction of combat strategic missile complexes of all types, whether based in silos, on rail, or at sea. The production association Kiev Radio Factory was assigned the development and batch production of control systems for many of these complexes, from the well-known "first product" (the R-12 rocket) to the most advanced strategic rocket R-36M2 (in foreign classification the SS-18; in the West it was nicknamed "the Satan"). Control systems were usually developed at the research-and-production association Khartron, and delivered to the Southern Machinery Construction Plant. The creative cooperation between these organizations and the Yuzhnoe Design Bureau resulted in the creation of a powerful technological complex, which successfully carried out all assignments. For a long time these organizations were headed by outstanding leaders - Mikhail Kuz'mich Yangel, Vladimir Fedorovich Utkin, Aleksandr Maksimovich Makarov, and Vladimir Grigor'evich Sergeev. All four were twice awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor, and laureates of the Lenin Award and the State Award of the Soviet Union and Ukraine. They had huge responsibility for the assigned projects and also for their workers - almost a 100,000 collective - and a huge army of suppliers from various branches of industry.

The first calculating devices were developed under the conditions of very high pace of work and strict technical requirements. Transistor-magnetic cells were used as the basic elements of these calculating devices, which carried out calculations for a number of units - the apparatus for automatic launching of a rocket along the given trajectory, the devices of regulation of apparent speed, and the programming and temporal control device - which controlled the engines and ensured the delivery of the rocket to the destination point. In
all these systems the stabilization of the rocket was carried out by a special device - an automatic analog stabilization device. Only with the transition to onboard computers all control algorithms were implemented in the digital format.

Vasilenko: In 10-12 years after the development of the first calculating devices in rocket industry they were succeeded by onboard computers based on integrated circuits. The first serially produced onboard computer on integrated circuits for the 15A14 rocket complex was released by Kiev Radio Factory in 1973. It was the time when this country mastered new basic elements, integrated circuits. The development of integrated circuits in the USSR Ministry of Electronic Industry was extremely difficult and troublesome. The capacity of factories in Voronezh and Zaporozhye was insufficient; the reliability of circuits initially was low; there were tons of other problems, such as the problem with static electricity.

The development of this computer, designed by Khartron, and the organization of its serial production (up to one hundred units per year) required unprecedented efforts from all participants. The name of the first machine - 15L579 (the "customer index") - stuck in memory forever.

To be fair, one must note that the development and production of the 15L579 onboard computer and the control system (designed at Khartron) for the 15A30 rocket (designed at the Moscow Central Design Bureau of Machinery Construction; chief designer Vladimir Chelomei) was simultaneously carried out at the Khar'kov production association Monolith, where Oleg Nikolaevich Baklanov worked for a long time, first as chief engineer and later as general director. The latent competition between the two firms, Kiev Radio Factory and Monolith, cooperation in production and mutual support facilitated the successful development of this new technology.

The development and production of onboard computers for rocket and space systems in Ukraine was also carried out by the Khar'kov firms Kommunar and Elektroapparatura, based on designs of the Moscow institute led by Nikolai Alekseevich Pilyugin. In 1973, I participated in a meeting at the Central Party Committee where the problem of quality and reliability of integrated circuits was discussed. At that meeting, Pilyugin formulated the practical tasks for bringing the reliability of basic elements to a high level. His institute played a leading role in this regard, and we listened to him and learned from his highly respectable organization.

Vasilenko: Pilyugin's institute developed a number of control systems for rocket and space complexes using onboard computers, including those for the Zenith space rocket complex (this complex was designed and developed at the Yuzhnoe Design Bureau and at the Southern Machinery Construction Plant). The control system for the Zenith carrier rocket is currently manufactured by the Kommunar production association. This rocket plays a central role in the international commercial project called Sea Launch, in which Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and Norway participate.

Vasilenko: Sometimes one can hear the opinion that in the past it was easy and simple to do our work. This is not true: there was indeed the opportunity to work, but problems and difficulties were enormous, even though people knew and wrote little about this because of the secrecy of this information.

Those were years of the intense work, years of research, victories and failures, years of implementation of daring technical projects. For example, the creation of a missile complex with the 15A18M missile ("the Satan") was carried out in a very short time. Its control system was a modernized version of the control system from a previous missile, but it required the design of totally new devices, including an onboard digital computer.

The chronology of the 15A18M missile development is as follows:

• March 1986: the beginning of flight tests;
• March 1988: the end of these tests
• August 1988: the missile complex is accepted as a combat weapon. 

It is not widely known that in early 1987 substantial changes in the design of the control system became necessary in order to use basic elements of higher quality. At that time, missiles were already undergoing test flights.

In spring and summer a series of meetings was organized with the participation of ministers, the leadership of the Strategic Missile Forces, and the directors of design and production organizations involved in this project. These meetings resulted in the decision to launch the development and production of a new control system in the shortest period of time simultaneously at two firms: the experimental production plant of the research-and-production association Khartron and the production association Kiev Radio Factory. To coordinate these activities a special operational technical group was set up. This group was unusual in one respect: for that period, the heads of t