MOSCOW, February 18 (AVN) -- Moscow parts with Academician Vladimir Utkin, one of the most acknowledged designers of spaceships and rockets, at the Troyekurovskoye cemetery at 14.00 Moscow time (1100 GMT) on Friday.
The funeral ceremony took place at the Russian Armed Forces centre of culture.
Vladimir Utkin, laureate of the Lenin's prize (the main state reward of the Soviet Union time) who was conferred a title of the Hero of Social Labour two times, was born in 1923. Starting from 1971, he was the chief of the Yuzhnoye design bureau in Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine).
He participated and led the design works for a great number of strategic missiles from R-36 to the modern RS-20 and R-22s with multiple warheads.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma who worked as Utkin's deputy in Dnepropetrovsk in 1982-1986 participated in the funeral ceremony.