NPP Zvezda
Encyclopedia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n manufacturer of life-support systems for high-altitude flight and human spaceflight
Human spaceflight
Human spaceflight is spaceflight with humans on the spacecraft. When a spacecraft is manned, it can be piloted directly, as opposed to machine or robotic space probes and remotely-controlled satellites....
. Its products include space suit
Space suit
A space suit is a garment worn to keep an astronaut alive in the harsh environment of outer space. Space suits are often worn inside spacecraft as a safety precaution in case of loss of cabin pressure, and are necessary for extra-vehicular activity , work done outside spacecraft...
s, ejector seat
Ejector seat
In aircraft, an ejection seat is a system designed to rescue the pilot or other crew of an aircraft in an emergency. In most designs, the seat is propelled out of the aircraft by an explosive charge or rocket motor, carrying the pilot with it. The concept of an eject-able escape capsule has also...
s, aircraft escape slides, lifejackets and fire extinguishers. It is based in Tomilino
Tomilino
Tomilino is an urban locality in Lyuberetsky District of Moscow Oblast, Russia. Population: In terms of population, Tomilino is the largest urban-type settlement in Lyuberetsky District....
, near Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
The organization was founded in 1952 to develop aviation pressure suits and in-flight refuelling systems for the USSR's space research programme. In the 1960s it began to design space suits, including the one worn by Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Gagarin
Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut. He was the first human to journey into outer space, when his Vostok spacecraft completed an orbit of the Earth on April 12, 1961....
. In 1965, a Berkut spacesuit
Berkut spacesuit
The Berkut is a space suit model developed to be used for extravehicular activity for the Voskhod 2 mission aboard a Voskhod spacecraft on the first spacewalk. It was developed by NPP Zvezda in 1964-1965. It was a modified SK-1 suit...
was worn during the first spacewalk. The Orlan-M
Orlan space suits
thumb|right|270px|Cosmonaut [[Maksim Surayev]] next to two Orlan-MK modelsAn Orlan space suit |sea eagle]]) is a series of semi-rigid one-piece space suit models designed and built by NPP Zvezda. They have been used for spacewalks in the Russian space program, the successor to the Soviet space...
space suit was used by cosmonauts in the Mir
Mir
Mir was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, at first by the Soviet Union and then by Russia. Assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996, Mir was the first modular space station and had a greater mass than that of any previous spacecraft, holding the record for the...
space station. Zvezda became a joint-stock company in 1994.
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...
. The K-36 ejector seat was studied at length by the US Navy and Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
; IBP Aircraft opened up a factory in the US to manufacture it for the F-22 Raptor
F-22 Raptor
The Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor is a single-seat, twin-engine fifth-generation supermaneuverable fighter aircraft that uses stealth technology. It was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter, but has additional capabilities that include ground attack, electronic warfare, and signals...
and the Joint Strike Fighter. The US Government, however, selected the Martin-Baker
Martin-Baker
Martin-Baker Aircraft Co. Ltd. is a manufacturer of ejection seats and safety related equipment for aviation. The company origins were as an aircraft manufacturer before becoming a pioneer in the field of ejection seats...
seat from the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
for their new fighter jet. For improved pilot survivability, the Russian Kamov Ka-50
Kamov Ka-50
The Kamov Ka-50 "Black Shark" is a single-seat Russian attack helicopter with the distinctive coaxial rotor system of the Kamov design bureau. It was designed in the 1980s and adopted for service in the Russian army in 1995...
"Black Shark" helicopter is fitted with a NPP Zvezda K-37-800 ejection seat, which is a rare feature for a helicopter. Before the rocket in the ejection seat kicks in, rotor blades are blown away by explosive charges in the rotor disc and the canopy is similarly jettisoned.
Guy Illich Severin
Guy Illich Severin
Guy Ilyich Severin was an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, full member of the International Academy of Astronautics, who contributed a significant number of publications about life rescue systems and space-suits...
was the General Director and General Designer of the company since 1964 up to 2008. Sergey S. Pozdnyakov has been Temporary General Director since 2008.