Andrei A. Novokhatny

Andrei Novokhatny was born in 1925 in Vasilievka village in Dnipropetrovsk oblast. He participated in the Great Patriotic War, and was awarded with the following medals: “For merit in battle”, “For victory against Germany”, “For taking Berlin”. Six years after the war, Novokhatny graduated from Lviv Polytechnic Institute with a major in “control and measuring equipment and oil industry automation”.

In 1952, he began his career as an engineer at the Novy Grozny oil processing plant, and later became head of the control-measuring and automatic equipment production facility there. In 1958, Novokhatny moved to the Lisichansk branch of the Institute of Automatic Equipment of the State Planning Committee of the Ukrainian SSR, and a year later became its director. Thanks to his energetic efforts and administrative talents, the branch developed quickly and successfully performed all the given tasks. In 1964, the branch was reformed as the Scientific Research Institute of Control Computers (Russian: NII UVM), and in 1972 became Scientific Production Association “Impulse”, the biggest in the country. The SPA incorporated a number of major scientific organizations and production enterprises. In 1974, Novokhatny successfully defended his Candidate’s Dissertation based on his work and research at “Impulse”.

As the general director of the association, he supervised not just the management and production work, but also participated in several research and development projects, e.g. the creation of a three-level facilities system for on-line control of complex production processes SOU-1, computing system M-6000, automated control system, ticket booking and sale system for “Aeroflot” airlines “Sirena” (1968-1973), automated refereeing control system “Olimpiada-80” (1976-1980), a system for ground and air testing of space objects “TEMP” (1973-1979), etc. He was also involved in the implementation of the devices developed by “Impulse” and the cosmonaut preparation center and the space flight control center (1979-1985).

Thus the modest regional branch, whose original objective was computer automation of the Lisichansk chemical plant, grew into a powerful Scientific Production Association, one of the primary industrial system engineering centers in the USSR. By 1985, “Impulse” and its branches employed around 12,000 scientists and workers. The number of systems using hardware developed by “Impulse” in manufacturing and energy generation plants passed the 10,000 mark. Novokhatny’s contribution was part of the reason for this amazing success. We should add that during these years, the Institute and the test-production plant received new buildings; new production facilities as well as a hospital were built at the Severodonetsk instrument-making plant; a new educational computer center was established; tens of new houses, residence halls, kindergartens, and rest and recreation facilities were created.

A.A. Novokhatny headed the regional administration of the Science and Technology Society of instrument-building named after S.I. Vavilov for over 20 years, and currently remains its honorary member. He is also an honorary citizen of Severodonetsk.

In 1987, Andrei Aleksandrovich Novokhatny stepped down from the office of general director of “Impulse”. However, he remains active as the chairman of the board of the JSC “Interpuls” in Severodonetsk.