Friedrich Arturovich Zander was a Russian and Soviet scientist and inventor born in Riga in 1887. His father was a doctor by profession but was fond of many other sciences and instilled this interest in his son. In the graduating class of a local school, which the young man finished with honors, Friedrich read Tsiolkovsky’s work “Exploration of Cosmic Spaces with Jet Devices” and since then “fell in love” with space ideas.
His attention was drawn to the issues of spacecraft design, the choice of motive power, methods of purifying the atmosphere inside spaceships, etc. In 1909, he first suggested that it would be advisable to use elements of the structure of an interplanetary ship as fuel.
In the year of the Great October Revolution, Zander began active research on the problems of rocket and space science and technology. A few years later, he presented a report on the project of an interplanetary airplane ship at the Moscow Conference of Inventors.
Then he published a paper entitled “Flights to Other Planets” in the journal “Technology and Life”, in which he outlined his main idea — combining a rocket with an airplane to take off from Earth and subsequent burning the aircraft in flight as fuel in the chamber of the rocket engine to increase the flight range. In the same year, Zander developed the idea of using gravity or the atmosphere of the Moon and other cosmic bodies to increase the speed of flight.
Since the 1920s, Zander, along with investigating the problems of interplanetary travel, was developing the theory and calculations of rocket engines. He proposed a layout and a design of an internal combustion engine that required no atmospheric air; made a number of theoretical calculations of the efficiency of jet engines of various arrangements. Zander studied the astrodynamics of spacecraft; considered the issues of their movement in the gravitational field of the Sun; was engaged in determining the trajectories and duration of flights.
By 1932, Zander had built and tested the first jet engine. A year later, the launch of GIRD-X, the first Soviet liquid-fuel rocket based on his design, was to take place. However, the inventor did not live to see it fly; he fell ill and died of typhus in Kislovodsk a few months before the scheduled event.
A memorial room at the Riga Polytechnic Institute, the Museum of the History of Cosmonautics in Kislovodsk, a street in Moscow, and a crater on the Moon are named after Friedrich Arturovich Zander.
His attention was drawn to the issues of spacecraft design, the choice of motive power, methods of purifying the atmosphere inside spaceships, etc. In 1909, he first suggested that it would be advisable to use elements of the structure of an interplanetary ship as fuel.
In the year of the Great October Revolution, Zander began active research on the problems of rocket and space science and technology. A few years later, he presented a report on the project of an interplanetary airplane ship at the Moscow Conference of Inventors.
Then he published a paper entitled “Flights to Other Planets” in the journal “Technology and Life”, in which he outlined his main idea — combining a rocket with an airplane to take off from Earth and subsequent burning the aircraft in flight as fuel in the chamber of the rocket engine to increase the flight range. In the same year, Zander developed the idea of using gravity or the atmosphere of the Moon and other cosmic bodies to increase the speed of flight.
Since the 1920s, Zander, along with investigating the problems of interplanetary travel, was developing the theory and calculations of rocket engines. He proposed a layout and a design of an internal combustion engine that required no atmospheric air; made a number of theoretical calculations of the efficiency of jet engines of various arrangements. Zander studied the astrodynamics of spacecraft; considered the issues of their movement in the gravitational field of the Sun; was engaged in determining the trajectories and duration of flights.
By 1932, Zander had built and tested the first jet engine. A year later, the launch of GIRD-X, the first Soviet liquid-fuel rocket based on his design, was to take place. However, the inventor did not live to see it fly; he fell ill and died of typhus in Kislovodsk a few months before the scheduled event.
A memorial room at the Riga Polytechnic Institute, the Museum of the History of Cosmonautics in Kislovodsk, a street in Moscow, and a crater on the Moon are named after Friedrich Arturovich Zander.
