Group for the Study of Reactive Motion

The Moscow-based Group for the Study of Reactive Motion was a Soviet research bureau founded in 1931 to study various aspects of rocketry (Russian: Группа изучения реактивного движения, Gruppa izucheniya reaktivnogo dvizheniya, abbreviated ГИРД, GIRD). In 1933 it was incorporated into the Reaction-Engine Scientific Research Institute (Реактивный научно-исследовательский институт, Reaktivnyy nauchno-issledovatel’skiy institut, РНИИ, RNII).

GIRD was created on September 15, 1931. There were a number of amateur groups and solitary researchers in existence, but GIRD was the world's first large professional rocketry program. The group was organized as four brigades and ten projects to study rocket engines and also winged and wingless missiles. Sergey Korolev, the future leader of the Soviet space program, was the over-all director of GIRD, as well as a brigade leader and the chairman of its technical council.

Friedrich Zander ("Tsander" in Russian transliteration) headed the GIRD's 1st Brigade, which comprised Tsander's research team, transferred from the Institute of Aircraft Engine Construction (IAM). Tsander had begun to consider rocket-powered interplanetary flight as early as 1907 and was one of the founding members of the Society for the Study of Interplanetary Communication in 1924

Tsander had begun work on the OR-1 experimental engine in 1929 while still at the IAM; this subsequently became GIRD Project 01. It ran on compressed air and gasoline and Tsander used it to investigate high-energy fuels including powdered metals mixed with gasoline. The chamber was cooled regeneratively by air entering at the nozzle end and also by water circulating through a coil.

Project 02, the OR-2 engine, was designed for Korolev's RP-1 rocket-powered glider. It burned oxygen and gasoline, and its nozzle was made from heat-resistant graphite. The engine was later modified to burn alcohol, which generated less heat than gasoline, and its thrust was increased. After cooling the engine walls, the compressed oxygen entered the top end of the chamber in a swirling pattern. Fuel was injected through an atomizer at the center, to create efficient mixing and combustion.

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