Ivensen, Pavel Albertovich

Russian engineer. Participated in the early development of Proton and Salyut. Chelomei design bureau engineer.

Born in Moscow, by age 17 in 1925 he was involved in the construction of his first glider design. His talent was recognized early, and by 1932 he was working on fighter design in the Bartini design bureau. Bartini became caught up in Stalin's purges and Ivensen was arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to the labor camps on 10 July 1935. In 1938, the camps were searched for surviving engineering talent, and Ivensen ended up in Tupolev's sharashka (aviation engineering concentration camp), where he worked on design of the Tu-2 bomber. He was released from prison on 9 May 1940, but with many restrictions. He was moved about, from Kuibyshev, to Kopeysk in Chelyabinsk, working on improving carburetor and fuel pump designs for the T-34 tank, and then in mining equipment factories.

Ivensen was finally rehabilitated in 1956, and was put in charge of the new rocketry group in the Myasishchev design bureau. Myasishchev's bureau was closed in 1961 and Ivensen's group became the Salyut Bureau / Khrunichev facility within the Chelomei design bureau. Chelomei made him chief designer for the UR-500 Proton space launcher, and then Deputy Chief Designer for the Salyut Design Bureau. He was then involved in the development of the Almaz and Salyut space stations before his retirement in 1976. Thereafter he worked on an innovative monorail design he had originally conceived with Bartini.