Origins of Yuzhnoye Design Office go back to as early as 1951 when pursuant to the Decree of the USSR Government a large automobile factory being built in Ukrainian city of Dniepropetrovsk was converted into a missile production plant. In 1946, as the Soviet Union admitted that liquid-propellant rocket design efforts undertaken by Germany were very promising, development of first Soviet missiles was assigned to a newly established design bureau headed by now world-famous Chief Designer Sergey Korolev.
After successful development and testing of R-1 (SS-1), R-2 (SS-2) and R-5M (SS-3) missiles, the Dniepropetrovsk missile plant was entrusted with serial production of these designs, while aerospace engineers from Moscow and many young specialists were swelling the ranks of the plant's employees.
However, the enthusiasts from the design bureau at the plant never rested content with the role they had been given. On their own initiative, the young designers developed and submitted a missile design to the military authority. Their missile had great combat advantages over those produced by the plant.
These advantages were high-boiling-point propellants enabling long-term stay of a fully loaded missile, a completely independent ECM-immune control system and a strategic range.
The design was declared well-grounded, and in 1954 an independent design bureau was established at the plant to implement this program. The bureau was headed by a talented manager and distinguished scientist Mikhail Yangel.
For more than forty years since, Yuzhnoye Design Office, one of the most efficient aerospace design bureaus in the country, and Yuzhmash, a giant aerospace manufacturer, have determined the international level of many trends and achievements in space science and technology.
Development of the new missile was a triumph, and R-12 (SS-4) became the most mass-produced and principal medium-range missile in recently created Strategic Missile Troops.
Inspired by the first success, the design bureau and the plant in the shortest time created R-14 (SS-5) missile with maximum range for a medium class missile and the first Soviet intercontinental missile R-16 (SS-7) using high-boiling-point propellants.
These missiles were silo-launched, which reduced vulnerability of the launch site and had a containment effect on potential aggressors.
Yuzhnoye success was so impressive thanks to concerted efforts and well-organized work with Yuzhmash team headed by L.Smirnov, and then A.Makarov, as well as with the team that designed main launch subsystems and headed by Chief Designers V.Glushko, N.Pilyugin, V.Kuznetsov, B.Konoplev, V.Barmin, V.Arefiev, E.Rudyak.
Further designs consolidated the position of Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash as leading Soviet launch system engineering companies. The milestones of their success are:

- development of a ballistic version of the SS-9 missile with the most powerful payload unit in the world and the first missile in the Soviet Union with separating payload unit and orbital weapon unit (in its global version) providing unlimited range at any azimuth and hitting a target in every spot on the globe;
- development of SS-17 and SS-18 missiles with separating payload units providing individual aiming of each warhead to its specific target, with powder gases ejected from the launch canister before the motor ignition, the canister being inside a super-protected silo;
- sealing of SS-9, SS-17 and SS-18 missiles ensuring stand-by of a missile fully loaded with liquid propellants throughout the entire operating life, i.e. up to 15 years;
- contemporary penetration aids, and SS-18 stability against damaging effects of high-altitude and ground nuclear attacks, and, consequently inevitability of a counterstrike.

These launch systems secured strategic nuclear-missile parity during the Cold War, leading the world community to restriction, and then reduction of strategic nuclear arms.
Starting in the 1970s, Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash, with Pavlograd Mechanical Plant, achieved much success in creation of solid-rocket motors and missiles. Their efforts resulted in designing of first stage motors for the first mobile intercontinental ballistic missile SSX-26 and a sea-based SSN-20 missile; in manufacture of the most powerful solid motor in the Soviet Union (thrust of 300 tons) and creation of a highly efficient solid three-stage silo-based SS-24 missile, and the first railroad-based missile system in the world.
It is as early as the late 1950s that Yuzhnoye started to design civil launch vehicles using the ballistic missiles as the first stages. E.g., the SL-7 Kosmos was based on the SS-4 missile. This launch vehicle initiated an extensive program of space researches of the same name. The Kosmos was in operation until 1977 and deployed 150 satellites of various applications. The SS-5 missile was the basis for the SL-8 Interkosmos launch vehicle that successfully operated during 400 missions and currently launches satellites from the Kapustin Yar and Plesetsk sites.
The SS-9 missile became a mother of two modifications of Cyclone launch vehicle: Cyclone-2 (SL-10/11), the analogue of the global version of this missile operated from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and Cyclone-3 (SL-14), a three-stage launch vehicle operated from the Plesetsk test site. Among their advantages, the Cyclone launch vehicles have a fully automated, relatively short pre-launch procedure and high reliability.
During recent years, Yuzhnoye Design Office and Yuzhmash have created Zenit, an unrivalled launch system in terms of both design and highly automated launch capability. The Zenit system is environmentally friendly, featuring prime performance and further development and upgrading potential.
The Zenit's first stage flies on the most powerful engine in the world (thrust of 740 tons). These stages were used as strap-on boosters for the Energia heavy-lift launch vehicle.
Dniepropetrovsk is famous not only for its missiles and launch vehicles. Yuzhmash was the first in the USSR to start serial production of satellites, which was a result of extreme unification of servicing systems' designs, utilization of a single case design, common layout of an onboard instrumentation control system, and a single power supply system.
Initially, this approach was implemented on a series of small unified satellites for the Kosmos rocket. By the late 1970s, automated universal orbital stations were designed featuring Earth- and Sun-oriented versions, their active life reaching several years.
Yuzhnoye designers have created 67 types of spacecraft and 12 space systems, more than 400 spacecraft were launched in cooperation with Yuzhmash for purposes of astrophysical research, oceanographic studies and remote sensing, national defense programs.
Dniepropetrovsk designers initiated and implemented the international space program Interkosmos. Out of 25 Interkosmos satellites, 22 were designed by Yuzhnoye.
Especially productive cooperation was established with France (Arcada project, Oreol satellite) and India (satellites Ariabhata and Bhaskara). Yuzhnoye maintains long-term relations with German and Czech scientists working on integration of their payloads in Ukrainian satellites.
An original satellite (dubbed Space arrow) with an aerogyroscopic attitude control system marked the beginning of fruitful work undertaken by Yuzhnoye to study natural phenomena. The satellite was designed for optical sensing of the atmosphere and determination of its structure and condition for improvement of weather forecasting methods. Then, a meteorological satellite Meteor was designed together with Moscow Institute VNIIEM. The first production models of the Meteor were built at Yuzhmash laying the foundation of the Soviet space meteorological system.
Under the Yuzhnoye initiative, a new promising trend was developed in the USSR resulting in innovative remote sensing and oceanographic research systems. The world community remembers how valuable information from Okean-type satellites on icing conditions in the Arctic and Antarctic was and how perfect it contributed to the vessels' release from the ice captivity. Spacecraft of this type are frequently used nowadays, and their functions will be expanded for purposes of the earth's natural resources exploration from space.