Arkady Alexandrovich Kosmodemiansky
Born in the village of Starilovo in the Vladimir Region to a rural teacher's family, he studied at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University. In 1934, he received his PhD degree and began working in the Department of Theoretical Mechanics at Moscow State University. In 1939, he defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and at the age of 30, he became a professor at Moscow State University. During the Great Patriotic War, he developed the theory of rocket propulsion; his work was recognised with Government and State Prizes, and he received two Orders of Lenin. A. A. Kosmodemyansky is the author of pioneering works on the mechanics of variable-mass bodies. He was the first in Russia to develop and teach the course "Mechanics of Variable-Mass Bodies".
He formulated the fundamental theorems of rocket dynamics and derived the equations of motion in generalised coordinates and in canonical form. He was also an expert on nearly all major rocketry projects. During his many years of teaching and research, he published over 100 scientific papers and textbooks, including books on theoretical mechanics and the history of mechanics, as well as biographies of K. E. Tsiolkovsky, N. E. Zhukovsky, and other eminent scientists.
Many of his books have been reprinted multiple times and translated into foreign languages (English, German, French, and Bulgarian).
