Nikolai Ivanovich Tikhomirov (Russian: Николай Иванович Тихомиров; born Nikolai Viktorovich Slyotov; November 1859 – 28 April 1930) was a Russian and Soviet chemical engineer, inventor, founder of the Gas Dynamics Laboratory, specialist in rocket technology and one of the inventors of the Katyusha, which he was awarded the Hero of Socialist Labor (1991, posthumously).

[2] From the mid-1880s, he worked in various fields of industry, first as an assistant to the director of the Association of the Babkin Brothers Kupavinskaya cloth factory in the Bogorodsky Uyezd of Moscow Governorate.

Once, while conducting chemical experiments in the laboratory, he injured his right arm and left leg from an explosion, because of which "he was released from military service forever.

[3] Tikhomirov suggested using the reaction of gases during the combustion of flammable liquids or explosives in combination with an ejected air medium to propel a rocket.

On 11 February 1916, he received a positive conclusion from the expert commission, which was signed by Nikolay Zhukovsky, Chairman of the Inventions Department of the Moscow Military Industrial Committee.

In conclusion, it was noted: "The invention consists in setting in motion water and air torpedoes by sequential ignition of cartridges with slow-burning gunpowder ...

However, on 23 March 1916, based on the opinion of the expert Alexey Schastny, a decision was made: “... to refuse to issue a privilege on the basis of Art.

In May 1919, he turned to Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, manager of the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, about his invention of "a special type of air and water self-propelled mines.

In the spring of 1920, Tikhomirov and his closest assistant, Vladimir Artemyev, set up a small mechanical workshop on Tikhvinskaya Street [ru] in Moscow, where they conducted the first experiments with black powder.

[1] On 3 March 1928, the first launch of a rocket on smokeless powder was carried out at one of the training grounds in the Leningrad region, which had a range of about 1,300 metres.

Equipment for pressing powder cartridges were made, more than 200 experimental nozzles were manufactured and tested in the search for optimal sizes, numerous experiments were carried out on gunpowder in a non-volatile solvent, and much more.