He graduated from Moscow State University (1936), since 1946 he worked for the Institute of Earth Physics (Институт Физики Земли АН СССР). He created an original theory for determining the figure of the Earth and its gravity field based on measurements done on the topographic surface, built the first Soviet gravimeter, developed a theory of the nutation of Earth. He won the Stalin Prize (1946 and 1951) and the Lenin Prize (1961). His legacy includes the Molodensky transformations, which are commonly used to transform between geodetic datums.