[2] Korolev was discovered by Russian astronomer Lyudmila Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj on 8 October 1969.

[1] This minor planet was named in honor of Sergei Korolev (1907–1966), a designer, integrator, organizer and strategic planner.

[3] According to the surveys carried out by NASA's space-based Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Korolev measures 6.79 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has a high albedo of 0.319,[4] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the largest member and namesake of its orbital family – and calculates a diameter of 7.47 kilometers with an absolute magnitude of 12.8.

[3] In March 2008, three rotational lightcurves of Korolev were obtained from photometric observation made by astronomers James W. Brinsfield, Petr Pravec and René Roy, giving a well-defined rotation period of 4.65–4.66 hours with a brightness variation 0.75 and 0.76 magnitude, respectively (U=3/2/3).

[5][7][a] Another concurring lightcurve was published in March 2016, using sparse-in-time photometry data from the Lowell Photometric Database (U=n.a.).