He is a man who changed the world. Masterminding man's first trip into space, his fame and legacy was cemented in the final decade of his life. Korolev was fascinated by the idea of space exploration and led the design of the first man-made satellite “Sputnik”, created in 1957. Two months later he presided over the launch of the first living creature into orbit when Laika the dog stepped aboard Sputnik-2. Arguably his finest achievement was the design of rocket that launched Yury Gagarin, the first man in space, in 1967 and brought him home safely.

“It was amazing. No present-day designers would ever take the risk of sending a man in that rocket with little over 50/50 odds. Sergey Korolev could make everybody work – about a thousand people around him – through his intellectual skill. They worked like one body, giving everything until the end of their mission,” says Yuri Biryukov, a historian of Russian space programme.

However, Sergey Korolev's road to becoming a hero of Russia and paragon of science was full of hardship. After an early career designing rockets, he became a victim of Stalin's great purge in 1938 and spent six years in disgrace and imprisonment.

“He wrote a letter to Stalin and it started with the words: ‘Soviet sky must be ruled by Soviet airplanes’. He didn't mention those common niceties like ‘our beloved leader’ or ‘our chief’. And he didn't ask to be released. What he was worried about was that the Soviet Union had fallen behind drastically in rocket technologies. We were thrown back in time because almost all of our rocket engineers were under arrest,” remembers Natasha Koroleva, the daughter of Sergey Korolev.

While Khrushchev and Gagarin took credit for the space programme, Korolev received no recognition. His identity was a state secret, but with every step towards a manned mission to Mars, the work of the man who laid down the foundations is being justly credited.

Sergey Korolev achieved more in ten short years of research than others have since managed in an entire career. He took the impossible dream of launching a man into space and turned it into a reality, setting in place a whole new voyage of discovery for mankind. In life he was uncredited, in death he will forever be remembered as a pioneer of modern science.