Peter Grushin

Who was Peter Grushin?

Peter Dmitrievich Grushin was a Soviet rocket scientist and, from 1966, an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Grushin graduated from Moscow Aviation Institute, where he participated in the development of the MAI Stal plane. Later, he became a chief designer of KB MAI, where he developed the light bomber BB-MAI and some other designs.

His later designed the heavy long-range fighter IDS, later renamed Gr-1 after Grushin. The plane made its first flights in 1940-1941 at Kharkov Aviation Plant 135, but after the war began it was destroyed in an air raid.

He worked as the Chief engineer on Plant 21 and later as vice chief designer to Lavochkin at his Lavochkin design bureau.

He was the chief developer of a number of air defence systems at KB Fakel located in Khimki. This design bureau now bears his name.

For the design of the V-750 missile, the interceptor component of the S-75 Dvina air defense system, Grushin was awarded the Hero of Socialist Labour in 1958. This missile downed U-2 spy-plane of Francis Powers on May 1, 1960 near Sverdlovsk.