The structure of the space shuttle Buran. Technological layout for testing prelaunch operations


*MULTIPURPOSE SPACE SYSTEM AS A WHOLE*
ISS launch weight, t	2380	2380	2410	2380	2000
Total engine thrust at start, tf	2985	2985	3720	4100	2910
Initial thrust-to-weight ratio	1,25	1,25	1,54	1,27	1,46
Maximum height at the start, m	56,0	56,0		73,58	56,1
Maximum transverse dimension, m	22,0	22,0		16,57	23,8
Time of preparation for the next flight, days				n/a
Multiple use: Orbital ship I stage central block	Up to 100 times with replacement of remote control after 50 flights up to 20 times	up to 100 times up to 20 times 1 (with loss of engines II stage)		N/A up to 20 times 1 (with remote control II stage)	100 times with the replacement of the remote control after 50 p-ts up to 20 times
Costs for one flight (without depreciation of the orbiter), million rubles (Doll.)		15,45	n/a	n/a	$10,5
Start LCI: I stages as part of the launch vehicle 11K77 ("Zenith") Oxygen-hydrogen unit II stages as part of the ISS with a cargo shipping container Autonomous testing of OK in the atmosphere ISS as a whole	1978 1981 1981 1983-85	1978 1981 1981 1983-84		1978 1981 1983	4 sq. 1977 3 sq. 1979
Development cost, billion rubles (Doll.)			n/a	n/a	$5,5
*R a c e t a n o s e l*
Designation	RLA-130	RLA-130	RLA-130	RLA-130V
Components and mass of fuel: I stage (liquid O 2 + kerosene RG-1), t II stage (liquid O 2 + liquid H2), t	4×330	4×330	4×310	6×250	984 (TTU weight)
Booster block sizes: I step, length×diameter, m II step, length×diameter, m	40.75×3.9 n/a × 8.37	40.75×3.9 n/a × 8.37		25.705×3.9 37.45×8.37	45.5×3.7 n/a × 8.50
Engines: Stage I: LRE (KBEM NPO Energia) Thrust: at sea level, tf In a vacuum, ts In vacuum, sec RDTT (I stage at the "Shuttle"): Thrust, at sea level, tf Specific impulse, at sea level, sec In vacuum, sec II stage: LRE developed by KBHA Thrust, in vacuum, tf Specific impulse, at sea level, sec In vacuum, sec	RD-123 4×600 4×670 11D122 3×250	RD-123 4×600 4×670 11D122 3×250	RD-170 4×740 4×806 308,5 336,2 RD-0120 4×190 349,8	RD-123 6×600 6×670 11D122 2×250	2×1200 SSME 3×213
Duration of the active site of excretion, sec	n/a	n/a	n/a		n/a
*Orbital ship*
Orbiter dimensions: Total length, m Maximum hull width, m Wingspan, m Keel height, m Payload compartment dimensions, length×width, m The volume of the pressurized crew cabin, m 3 The volume of the lock chamber, m 3	37,5 22,0 17,4 18.5×4.6 n/a	34,5 22,0 15,8 18.5×4.6 n/a		34,0 n/a n/a × 5.5	37,5 23,8 17,3 18.3×4.55 n/a
Launch weight of the ship (with SAS solid propellant rocket engine), t	155,35	116,5		n/a
Mass of the ship after the separation of the SAS solid propellant rocket engine, t	119,35
The mass of the payload launched by the OK into orbit with a height of 200 km and an inclination: I=50.7°, t I=90.0°, t I \u003d 97.0 °, t				n/a n/a	26,5
Maximum payload mass returned from orbit, t					14,5
Landing weight of the ship, t	89,4	67-72		66,4	84 (with a load of 14.5 tons)
Landing weight of the ship during an emergency landing, t	99,7			n/a	n/a
Dry mass of the orbiter, t				79,4	68,1
Stock of fuel and gases, t	n/a	10,5			12,8
Reserve of characteristic speed, m/s
Thrust of corrective-braking engines, tf	n/a	2x14=28		2x8.5=17.0	n/a
Orientation thrust, tf	40×0.4 16×0.08	in the bow 16×0.4 and 8×0.08 in the tail section 24×0.4 and 8×0.08		ahead 18×0.45 rear 16×0.45	n/a
Time spent in orbit, days	7-30	7-30		n/a	7-30
Lateral maneuver during descent from orbit, km	± 2200	± 2200 (including WFD ± 5100)		± 800…1800	± 2100
Air jet thrust		D-30KP, 2×12 tf	AL-31F, 2×12.5 tf
Possibility of landing an orbital ship on the territory of one's own country with Hcr=200km (~ 16 orbits per day): I = 28.5° I = 50.7° I = 97°	Landing on the launch runway from seven turns, except 6-14 from five turns, except for 2-6,10-15	Landing at any airfields of the civil air fleet of the 1st class From all turns except 8.9 from all turns		Landing on prepared ground special sites Ø 5km From all turns except 8.9 from all turns	Landing at bases Edwards, Canaveral, Vandenberg from nine turns, except 7-13 from ten turns, except 2-4, 9-12
Required runway length and class	4 km, special runway	2.5-3 km, all airfields of the 1st class		Special site Ø 5km	4 km, special runway
Orbiter landing speed, km/h				parachute landing
Engines of the emergency rescue system (SAS), type and thrust, tf Fuel mass, t Weight of equipped engine, t Specific Impulse, Ground/Vacuum	Solid propellant rocket engine, 2×350 2×14 2×18-20 235 / 255 sec	Solid propellant rocket engine, 1×470 n/a 1×24.5 n/a		Solid propellant rocket engine, 1×470 n/a 1×24.5 n/d/d
Crew, pers.
Means for transporting the orbiter and flight testing:	An-124 (project)	An-22 or autonomously	An-22, 3M or standalone	n/a	Boeing 747
As a result, a ship with unique characteristics was created, capable of delivering a cargo weighing 30 tons into orbit and returning 20 tons to Earth. Having the ability to take on board a crew of 10 people, it could perform the entire flight in automatic mode. But we will not dwell on the description of Buran, after all, the whole is dedicated to him, something else is more important for us - even before its flight, the designers were already thinking about developing next-generation reusable ships. But first, let's mention the project of a single-stage aerospace aircraft, worked out at NII-4(then TsNII-50) of the Ministry of Defense by a group led by Oleg Gurko. The initial project of the device was equipped with a power plant, consisting of several combined ramjet liquid rocket engines, using atmospheric air as a working fluid during the stages of atmospheric flight (takeoff and landing). The main difference between ramjet rocket engines and classic ramjet engines (ramjet engines) was that if in a ramjet the oncoming air flow is first compressed due to the kinetic energy of the oncoming flow, and then it is heated when the fuel is burned and performs useful work, flowing through the nozzle, then in a ramjet rocket engine, the air is heated by a jet of a rocket engine placed in the air path of a ramjet engine. In addition to multi-mode (and the ability to work in a vacuum like a conventional rocket engine), a combined rocket engine in the atmospheric section creates additional thrust due to the injection effect. Liquid hydrogen was used as fuel. In 1974, Gurko came up with a new technical idea that can significantly reduce fuel consumption by placing a heat exchanger in the air path that heats the air with heat from an onboard nuclear reactor. Thanks to this technical solution, it became possible, in principle, to exclude fuel consumption during flight in the atmosphere and the corresponding emissions of combustion products into the atmosphere. The final version of the device, which received the designation MG-19 (Myasishchev-Gurko, M-19, "gurkolet"), was made according to the scheme of the carrier body, which ensures the high weight perfection of the device, and was equipped with a combined propulsion system consisting of a nuclear reactor and a combined direct-flow hydrogen LRE. In the first half of the 1970s, the MG-19 was considered as a serious competitor to the ISS Energia-Buran, however, due to the lower degree of elaboration and the greater degree of technical risks during implementation, as well as due to the lack of a foreign analogue, the MG-19 project was not further developed. got. Nevertheless, this project has not yet been declassified, and information about it to this day is extremely scarce. "Post-Buranovsky" projects. Multipurpose aerospace system (MAKS) In 1981-82. NPO "Molniya" proposed a project of the aerospace system "49" as part of the An-124 "Ruslan" carrier aircraft, which served as the first stage - an air cosmodrome, and the second stage as part of a two-stage rocket booster and a manned orbital aircraft, made according to scheme "bearing body". In 1982, a new project appeared - "Bizan" and its unmanned analogue "Bizan-T", which differs from "49" in a single-stage rocket booster. The start of operation of the largest and most lifting aircraft in the world, the An-225 Mriya, allowed Molniya to develop a project Multipurpose aerospace system (MAKS), where the role of the first stage is performed by the Mriya subsonic carrier aircraft, and the second stage is formed by an orbital aircraft "sitting astride" on a dropped fuel tank. The "highlight" of the project is the use of two marching three-component rocket engines RD-701 on an orbital plane and differentially deflected wing consoles, as in orbital plane"Spiral". NPO Energia, using the backlog of the ISS Energia-Buran, also proposed a number of partially or fully reusable rocket and space systems with a vertical launch using the Zenit-2, Energia-M launch vehicles and a reusable winged upper stage of a vertical launch on the basis of "Buran". Of greatest interest is the project of a fully reusable launch vehicle GK-175 ("Energy-2") based on the Energia launch vehicle with salvageable winged units of both stages. Also, NPO Energia was working on a promising project of a single-stage aerospace aircraft (VKS). Certainly, domestic aviation firms could not be left behind and proposed their concepts of reusable space transport systems within the framework of the research topic "Eagle" under the auspices of Rosaviakosmos to create RAKS - Russian aerospace aircraft. The single-stage "Tupolevskaya" development received the Tu-2000 index, the two-stage "Mikoyanovskaya" - MiG AKS. But in the history of our cosmonautics, there were also wingless reusable descent vehicles with low aerodynamic quality, which were used as part of disposable spacecraft and orbital stations. The OKB-52 of Vladimir Chelomey achieved the greatest success in creating such manned vehicles. Refusing to participate in the development of "Buran", Chelomey began to develop his own winged ship LKS (Light Space Plane) of "small" dimensions with a launch weight of up to 20 tons for his carrier "Proton" on his own initiative. But the LKS program did not receive support, and OKB-52 continued to develop a three-seat reusable reentry vehicle (VA) for use as part of the 11F72 transport supply ship (TKS) and the Almaz military orbital station (11F71). The VA had a launch weight of 7.3 tons, a maximum length of 10.3 m and a diameter of 2.79 m. "inhabited" volume VA - 3.5 m 3 . The maximum mass of the payload to be returned during the launch of the TCS with a crew is up to 50 kg, without a crew - 500 kg. The time of autonomous flight of the VA in orbit is 3 hours; the maximum time spent by the crew in the VA is 31 hours. Equipped with an inseparable frontal heat shield and launched into orbit for the second time on March 30, 1978 under the designation "Cosmos-997" (first flight - December 15, 1976 under the name "Cosmos-881"), it was the Chelomeya 009A / P2 VA that became the world's first reusable spacecraft. However, at the insistence of D.F.Ustinov, the Almaz program was closed, leaving an extensive backlog, which is still used today in the manufacture of modules for the Russian segment of the ISS. Since the beginning of 1985, a similar project - the reusable spacecraft Zarya (14F70) - was also developed at NPO Energia for the Zenit-2 rocket. The device consisted of a reusable spacecraft, shaped like an enlarged descent vehicle of the Soyuz spacecraft, and a one-time hinged compartment dropped before leaving orbit. The ship "Zarya" had a diameter of 4.1 m, a length of 5 m, a maximum mass of about 15 tons when launched into a reference orbit with a height of up to 190 km and an inclination of 51.6 0, including the mass of delivered and returned cargo, respectively, 2.5 tons and 1.5-2 tons with a crew of two cosmonauts; 3 tons and 2-2.5 tons when flying without a crew, or a crew of up to eight cosmonauts. The returned ship could be operated for 30-50 flights. Reusability was achieved through the use of "Buranovsky" heat-shielding materials and a new scheme for vertical landing on Earth using reusable rocket engines to dampen vertical and horizontal landing speeds and a honeycomb shock absorber of the ship's hull to prevent damage to it. Distinctive A feature of the Zarya was the placement of landing engines (24 LREs with a thrust of 1.5 tf each, operating on hydrogen peroxide-kerosene components, and 16 single-component LREs with a thrust of 62 kgf each for descent control) inside the ship's robust hull. The Dawn project was brought to the stage of completion of the production of working documentation, but in January 1989 it was closed due to lack of funding. The logic of the development of manned cosmonautics and the economic realities of Russia set the task of developing a new manned spacecraft - a capacious, inexpensive and efficient vehicle for near space. This was the project of the Clipper spacecraft, which absorbed the experience of designing reusable spacecraft. Let's hope that Russia has enough intelligence (and most importantly, funds!) to implement a new project and "" V. Lebedev; - article " How the project "Energy-Buran" was born", author - V. Glad k ii; - article "Reusable ship with vertical landing" by I. Afanasyev; - photo report of the BTS-02 GLI analogue aircraft at the MAKS-99 air show; - "flying analogues of OK" Buran "and a story about the leasing of BTS-02 and a report about sending When creating this page, materials were used from the article by S. Alexandrov "Top" in the journal "Technique of Youth", N2 / 1999 pp. 17-19, 24-25

A video published on the YouTube channel Exploring the Unbeaten Path is gaining popularity on the Internet. Its authors, residents of the Netherlands, managed to get into the hangar on the territory of the Baikonur cosmodrome, which houses the Soviet Buran space shuttle.

The fifteen-minute video shows adventurers sneaking into an abandoned hangar and studying a spacecraft that is slowly collapsing. “Our most insane and dangerous adventure,” the creators themselves described the video.

"These hangars belong to no one"

The penetration of the Dutch to the "Buran" is by no means the first such case. In 2015, pictures of this hangar and the apparatus in it were posted on the Web by a user Ralph Mirebs. And in May 2017, a whole group from Russia, Ukraine and Great Britain entered the hangar, which was detained by the cosmodrome security officers.

“It turns out that these hangars do not belong to anyone. They are located, as it were, on the territory of the cosmodrome, but there is nothing secret or important there, the FSB has no interest in these hangars, ”one of the participants in the May penetration, a roofer, wrote on his social network page. Vitaly Raskalov. At the same time, according to him, the active launch sites of the cosmodrome are carefully guarded.

The abandoned hangars at Baikonur are a memory of one of the most ambitious space programs in the USSR.

"Energy - Buran"

The construction of the Soviet reusable spacecraft began back in the seventies, in response to a similar American Space Shuttle program. The ship was supposed to perform tasks both in the peaceful exploration of space and in the framework of military programs.

As part of the project, the most powerful Soviet launch vehicle, called Energiya, was created. The carrier, capable of putting into orbit up to 100, and in the future 200 tons of payload, could lift into space not only a reusable ship, but also heavy space stations. In the future, it was planned to use Energia to prepare an expedition to the moon.

The first launch of the Energia launch vehicle took place in 1987. On November 15, 1988, Energia launched the Buran reusable spacecraft into orbit.

"Buran" in many respects superior to American counterparts. His first flight was fully automatic, including landing.

2 trillion down the drain?

The Energia-Buran program was the largest and most expensive in the history of Russian cosmonautics. At the rate of 2016, its cost is approximately 2 trillion rubles. For the Buran landings, a reinforced runway was specially equipped at the Yubileyny airfield in Baikonur. In addition, two more main reserve landing sites for Buran were seriously reconstructed and fully equipped with the necessary infrastructure - Bagerovo military airfields in the Crimea and Vostochny in Primorye - as well as runways were built or reinforced in 14 more alternate landing sites, including outside the territory THE USSR. An-225 "Mriya" was created especially for transportation from alternate airfields. A special detachment of cosmonauts was trained, who were to pilot the Buran.

According to the plan of the developers, Buran was to carry out another 1-2 flights in automatic mode, after which its operation in a manned version would begin.

However Mikhail Gorbachev considered the project too expensive, and in 1990 ordered the suspension of work on the program. In 1993, after the collapse of the USSR, the Energy-Buran program was completely closed.

"Buran" died, "Storm" and "Baikal" remained

It should be clarified: the ship that adventure lovers penetrate is not Buran.

The real "Buran", flying into space, was completely destroyed on May 12, 2002 during the collapse of the roof of the assembly and test building of the cosmodrome. Under the rubble, 8 workers were killed repairing the roof. The remains of the Buran were cut into pieces by the workers of the cosmodrome and subsequently sold as scrap metal.

The ship, standing in the assembly and refueling building (or on site 112 A), which the bloggers removed, is the so-called “product 1.02”, that is, the second flight copy of the Soviet reusable ship. The “product” also had a proper name: “Storm”.

The fate of the "Storm" is no less sad. The ship was about 95 percent complete and was scheduled to take off in 1992. But the closure of the program put an end to these plans.

The ship has changed ownership several times, and the current owner of the Tempest is unknown. The hangar where it is located is periodically raided by non-ferrous metal hunters.

"Product 2.01" (ship "Baikal") by the time the program was closed, it was about 50 percent ready. Until 2004, the ship was in the workshops of the Tushino Machine-Building Plant, then changed its “registration” several times, in 2011 reaching Zhukovsky near Moscow, where it was supposed to become an exhibit of the air show after reconstruction.

Two more copies, laid down at the plant in Tushino, were dismantled there after the program was closed.

What is at VDNKh?

In addition, within the framework of the Buran program, several mock-ups were created for dynamic, electrical, airfield and other tests. Many people still take these models for real ships.

BTS-002 OK-GLI or "product 0.02", which was used for atmospheric testing and testing in real conditions of the most critical flight sections, after long wanderings around the world in 2008, was purchased by the owner of a private Technical Museum for 10 million euros Herman Lair and is on display in the German city of Speyer.

BTS-001 OK-ML-1 or "product 0.01" after the closure of the program for many years was an attraction in Moscow's Gorky Park. In 2014, he changed his residence permit and was transferred to VDNKh, where he is now.

One of the mock-ups, OK-MT, is the "neighbor" of the "Storm" in the hangar, which bloggers love to penetrate.

Model of the spacecraft "Buran" on the territory of VDNKh. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexey Kudenko

Is there a future for the great past

In 2016, it became known that Roscosmos decided to create a department for reusable launch vehicles at one of the enterprises. Veterans of the Energy-Buran project were brought together to the team of the department. This time, the tasks before the developers are not so ambitious: we are talking about creating a flight model of the returnable first stage of the launch vehicle, which should provide a significant reduction in the cost of domestic space programs.

As for large-scale projects like the Energy-Buran program, they are a matter of the future.

Oh how dry. This is for the fans. I hope to tell, shorter, but more interesting)
So, the Baikonur Cosmodrome November 15, 1988. At the start of the universal transport space rocket system "Energia-Buran". 12 years of preparation and another 17 days of cancellation due to malfunctions.
On the day of the launch, preparations for the launch proceeded surprisingly smoothly (the cyclogram of the pre-launch preparation passes without remarks), but the main concern was the weather - a cyclone was heading to Baikonur. Rain, squally wind with gusts up to 19 m/s, low cloudiness, icing of the launch vehicle and the ship began - in some places the ice thickness reached 1...1.7 mm.
30 minutes before the launch, the commander of the combat crew for the launch of Energia-Buran, V.E. Gudilin is handed a storm warning against signature: "Fog at visibility 600-1000 m. Strengthening of the south-west wind 9-12 m / s, gusts at times up to 20 m / s." But after a short meeting, having changed the direction of Buran's landing (20º against the wind), the management decides: "Let it go!"
The last minutes of the pre-launch countdown are running... At the launch complex, illuminated by blinding white spotlights, a rocket stands under a low cloudy ceiling, on which a huge spot of reflected light glows dimly. Gusts of the strongest wind bring snow groats mixed with steppe sand onto the rocket ... Many at that moment thought that Buran did not bear its name by chance.
At 05:50, after a ten-minute warm-up of the engines, an optical-television surveillance aircraft (SOTN) MiG-25 - board 22 takes off from the runway of the Yubileyny airfield. The aircraft is piloted by Magomed Tolboev, cameraman Sergei Zhadovsky is in the second cockpit. The task of the SOTN crew is to conduct a TV report with a portable TV camera and observe the launch of the Buran above the cloud layers. In addition, tracking is carried out from the ground (see picture).
1 minute 16 seconds before the launch, the entire Energia-Buran complex switches to autonomous power supply. Now everything is ready to start.
"Buran" started its only triumphal flight exactly according to the cyclogram...
The picture of the launch was bright and transient. The light from the searchlights at the launch complex disappeared into a puff of exhaust gases, from which, illuminating this huge seething man-made cloud with a fiery red light, a rocket slowly rose like a comet with a sparkling core and a tail directed towards the earth! It was a shame this spectacle was short! A few seconds later, only a fading spot of light in the cover of low clouds testified to the violent force that carried the Buran through the clouds. A powerful low roaring sound was added to the howling of the wind, and it seemed as if it was coming from everywhere, that it was coming from low lead clouds.
A detailed description of the flight: trajectory, technical moments during each maneuver, changes in position in space relative to the Earth, are described in detail here ---> http://www.buran.ru/htm/flight.htm
The most interesting thing happened when Buran began to land (see picture 3).
So far, the flight has been strictly following the calculated descent trajectory - on the control displays of the MCC, its mark has shifted to the runway of the landing complex almost in the middle of the allowable return corridor. The "Buran" was approaching the airfield somewhat to the right of the runway axis, and everything went to the point that it would "dissipate" the rest of the energy on the nearest "cylinder". So thought the experts and test pilots who were on duty at the joint command and control tower. In accordance with the landing cyclogram, the onboard and ground facilities of the radio beacon system are switched on. However, when reaching a key point from a height of 20 km, "Buran" "laid" a maneuver that shocked everyone in the OKDP. Instead of the expected approach to land from the southeast with a left bank, the ship vigorously turned to the left, onto the northern heading cylinder, and began to approach the runway from the northeast with a list of 45º to the right wing.
At an altitude of 15300 m, the Buran's speed became subsonic, then, when performing its "own" maneuver, the Buran passed at an altitude of 11 km above the strip at the zenith of the radio landing aids, which was the worst case in terms of ground antenna patterns. In fact, at this moment the ship generally "fell" out of the field of view of the antennas. The confusion of the ground operators was so great that they stopped pointing the escort aircraft at the Buran!
Post-flight analysis showed that the probability of choosing such a trajectory was less than 3%, however, under the current conditions, this was the most correct decision of the ship's on-board computers!
At the moment of an unexpected change of course, the fate of Buran literally "hung in the balance", and by no means for technical reasons. When the ship laid a left roll, the first conscious reaction of the flight leaders was unequivocal: "Failure of the control system! The ship needs to be blown up!" Indeed, in the event of a fatal failure, TNT charges of the facility's emergency detonation system were placed on board the Buran, and it seemed that the moment for their use had come. The situation was saved by Stepan Mikoyan, Deputy Chief Designer of NPO Molniya for flight tests, who was responsible for controlling the ship in the descent and landing section. He suggested we wait a bit and see what happens next. And "Buran" in the meantime confidently turned around for the landing approach. Despite the colossal stress on the OKDP, after the 10 km mark, Buran flew along the "familiar road" repeatedly beaten for it by the Tu-154LL flying laboratory and the analogue aircraft of the BTS-002 OK-GLI orbital ship.
At an altitude of about 8 km, the MiG-25 of Magomed Tolboev approached the ship. The intrigue was that the on-board computer system guided the ship along "its own" trajectory to reach the control point, and the MiG-25 SOTN aimed at the ship according to commands issued from the ground based on the expected trajectory. Therefore, SOTN was brought not to the real, but to the calculated interception point, and as a result, SOTN and Buran met on a collision course! In order not to miss the "Buran", M. Tolboev was forced to "dump" the plane into a left spin (there was no time left to perform a normal turn), and after performing a half loop, take the car out of the spin and catch up with the ship in afterburner. The overload during this maneuver almost broke the TV camera in the hands of Sergei Zhadovsky, but, fortunately, after the alignment of the HUNDRED, it started working again. When approaching the ship, it now required a sharp deceleration, which was accompanied by intense shaking. And taking into account the fact that M. Tolboev did not dare to approach the "wayward" ship closer than 200 meters and the flight operator had to shoot at the maximum magnification of the camera, the television picture turned out to be very blurry and trembling. It was clear that the ship looked albeit burnt, but without noticeable damage.

Until now, the spacecraft has been descending on its own, without any correction from the Earth, along the trajectory calculated by the onboard digital computer system. At an altitude of 6200 m, Buran was "picked up" by the ground equipment of the Vympel-N all-weather radio automatic landing system, which provided the ship with the necessary navigation information for its unmistakable automatic alignment to the runway axis, descent along the optimal trajectory, landing and run to a complete stop .
The radio equipment of the Vympel automatic landing system, figuratively speaking, formed a three-dimensional information space around the landing complex, at each point of which the ship's computers accurately "knew" in real time three main navigation parameters: azimuth relative to the runway axis, elevation angle and range with an error no more than 65 meters. Based on these data, the onboard digital computer system began to continuously update the autonomously calculated landing approach trajectory using special algorithms.

At an altitude of 4 km, the ship enters a steep landing glide path. From this moment on, the airfield cameras begin to transmit the image to the MCC. There are low clouds on the screens... Everyone is waiting tensely... And now, despite the tedious waiting, "Buran" unexpectedly for everyone falls out of low clouds and rushes towards the ground. The speed of its decline (40 meters per second!) Is such that even today it is eerie to look at it ... an air cushion underneath. The vertical rate of descent begins to drop sharply (10 seconds before touchdown, it was already 8 m/s), then for a moment the ship hovered over the very surface of the concrete, and... touchdown!

Photo of the monitor of the Vympel system, taken immediately after the landing of the Buran and capturing the last trajectory piloting:
A (azimuth) 67 degrees; D (range to the center of the runway) 1765 m; H (height) 24 m; PS (landing speed) 92 m/s (330 km/h); PU (track angle) 246 degrees; VS (vertical speed) - 0 m/s
The operation of the Vympel system ended with a brilliant success: at 0942, just a second ahead of the estimated time, the Buran gracefully touched the runway at a speed of 263 km / h and after 42 seconds, having run 1620 meters, froze in its center with a deviation from the center line of only +5 m! It is interesting that the last trajectory posting received from the Vympel system passed two seconds earlier (at 0940.4) and recorded a vertical rate of descent of 1 m/s.
Despite the head-to-side gusty storm wind and 10-point cloud cover with a height of 550 m (which significantly exceeds the maximum allowable standards for a manned landing of an American shuttle), touchdown conditions for the first ever automatic landing of an orbital aircraft were excellent.
What started next! In the bunker, in the control room, applause and stormy delight from the landing of the orbital ship completed with such chic in automatic mode exploded immediately as soon as the nose landing gear touched the ground ... On the runway, everyone rushed to the Buran, hugged, kissed, many could not hold back tears. Everywhere where specialists and people simply involved in this flight observed the Buran landing - a fountain of emotions.
The enormous tension with which the preparations for the first flight were carried out, reinforced, moreover, by the previous cancellation of the launch, found its way out. Undisguised joy and pride, delight and confusion, relief and great fatigue - everything could be seen on the faces at that moment. It so happened that space is considered a technological showcase of the world. And this landing allowed people on the runway near the cooling "Buran" or at the TV screens in the MCC to again feel an unusually acute sense of national pride and joy. Joy for your country, the powerful intellectual potential of our people. Great, complex and difficult work done!
It was not just revenge for the lost lunar race, for the seven-year delay in the launch of the reusable spacecraft - it was our real triumph!

reusable transport space system (MTKK), created within the program Energy - Buran . One of the two orbital vehicles of the MTKK implemented in the world, "Buran" was a response to a similar American project "Space Shuttle". Buran made its first and only space flight on November 15, 1988.

Encyclopedic YouTube

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✪ The mysterious death of test pilots | Reusable spacecraft "Buran"

✪ "Oblivion of Buran. Secrets of forgotten victories" (2009)

✪ The first and only flight of "Buran"

✪ NPO Lightning. Spaceship Buran. part two - testing by space.

✪ Orbital Ship "BURAN" 1988

Subtitles

Story

The shuttle launched 29.5 tons into near-Earth orbit and could lower a load of up to 14.5 tons from orbit. This is very serious, and we began to study what purposes it is being created for? After all, everything was very unusual: the weight put into orbit with the help of disposable carriers in America did not even reach 150 tons / year, but here it was conceived 12 times more; nothing descended from orbit, but here it was supposed to return 820 tons / year ... It was not just a program to create some kind of space system under the motto of reducing transportation costs (ours, our study institute showed that no reduction would actually be observed), it had a clear military purpose.

Director of the Central Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering Yu. A. Mozzhorin

Drawings and photographs of the shuttle were first received in the USSR through the GRU in early 1975. Immediately, two examinations were carried out for the military component: at military research institutes and at the Institute of Applied Mathematics under the direction of Mstislav Keldysh. Conclusions: “the future reusable ship will be able to carry nuclear munitions and attack the territory of the USSR with them from almost anywhere in near-Earth space” and “The American shuttle with a carrying capacity of 30 tons, if loaded with nuclear warheads, is capable of flying outside the radio visibility zone of the domestic missile attack warning system. Having made an aerodynamic maneuver, for example, over the Gulf of Guinea, he can release them across the territory of the USSR "- they pushed the leadership of the USSR to create an answer -" Buran ".

And they say that we will fly there once a week, you know ... But there are no goals and cargoes, and immediately there is a fear that they are creating a ship for some future tasks that we do not know about. Possible military use? Undoubtedly.

And so they demonstrated this by flying over the Kremlin on the Shuttle, so it was a surge of our military, politicians, and so a decision was made at one time: working out a technique for intercepting space targets, high, with the help of aircraft.

By December 1, 1988, there had been at least one classified Shuttle launch with military missions (NASA flight code STS-27). In 2008, it became known that during the flight on the instructions of the NRO and the CIA, the all-weather reconnaissance satellite Lacrosse 1 was launched into orbit. (English) Russian, who took pictures in the radio range using radar.

In America, they said that the Space Shuttle system was created as part of a program of a civilian organization - NASA. In 1969-1970, the Space Task Force, led by Vice President S. Agnew, developed several options for promising programs for the peaceful exploration of outer space after the end of the lunar program. In 1972, Congress, based on economic analysis, supported a project to create reusable shuttles to replace disposable rockets. The Space Shuttle program was closed on July 21, 2011, including due to unprofitability, since the cost of each Space Shuttle flight ranged from 450 to 600 million dollars. Moreover, it sounds paradoxical, but the Space Shuttle program, which was developed as self-sustaining, in the end not only did not pay for itself, but in general in the history of astronautics turned out to be almost a record-breaking unprofitable (in fact, the most unprofitable of all) space program.

In the USSR, as in the United States, many space programs were either military or based on military technology. So, the Soyuz launch vehicle is the famous royal "seven" - the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and the Proton launch vehicle is the UR-500 ICBM.

According to the procedures established in the USSR for making decisions on rocket and space technology and on the space programs themselves, the initiators of development could be either the top party leadership (“Lunar program”) or the Ministry of Defense.

In April 1973, in the military-industrial complex, with the involvement of leading institutions (TsNIIMash, NIITP, TsAGI, VIAM, 50 Central Research Institute, 30 Central Research Institute), a draft Decision of the military-industrial complex on the problems of associated with the creation of a reusable space system. In government Decree No. P137 / VII of May 17, 1973, in addition to organizational issues, there was a clause obliging "Minister S. A. Afanasyev and V. P. Glushko to prepare proposals on a plan for further work within four months."

Reusable space systems had both strong supporters and authoritative opponents in the USSR. Wanting to finally decide on the ISS, GUKOS decided to choose an authoritative arbiter in the dispute between the military and industry, instructing the head institute of the Ministry of Defense for military space (TsNII 50) to carry out research work (R&D) to justify the need for the ISS to solve the problems of the country's defense capability. But even this did not bring clarity, since General Melnikov, who led this institute, having decided to play it safe, issued two “reports”: one in favor of the creation of the ISS, the other against. In the end, both of these reports, overgrown with numerous authoritative "Agreed" and "Approve", met in the most inappropriate place - on the table of D. F. Ustinov. Annoyed by the results of the "arbitration", Ustinov called Glushko and asked to bring him up to date, providing detailed information on the options for the ISS, but Glushko unexpectedly sent an employee to a meeting with the Secretary of the Central Committee, a candidate member of the Politburo, instead of himself - the General Designer - his employee, and . about. Head of Department 162 Valery Burdakov.

Arriving at Ustinov's office on Staraya Ploshchad, Burdakov began answering questions from the Secretary of the Central Committee. Ustinov was interested in all the details: why the ISS is needed, what it could be, what we need for this, why the US is building its own shuttle, what threatens us. As Valery Pavlovich later recalled, Ustinov was primarily interested in the military capabilities of the ISS, and he presented to D.F. anywhere on the planet.

The prospects for the ISS, presented by Burdakov, so deeply excited and interested D. F. Ustinov that he quickly prepared a decision that was discussed in the Politburo, approved and signed by L. I. Brezhnev, and the topic of a reusable space system received the highest priority among all space programs in the party-state leadership and the military-industrial complex.

In 1976, the specially created NPO Molniya became the lead developer of the ship. The new association was headed by, already in the 1960s, working on the project of the reusable aerospace system Spiral.

The production of orbital ships has been carried out at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant since 1980; by 1984, the first full-scale copy was ready. From the factory, the ships were delivered by water transport (on a barge under an awning) to the city of Zhukovsky, and from there (from the Ramenskoye airfield) - by air (on a special VM-T transport aircraft) - to the Yubileiny airfield of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Aerodromes and flight tests

For the landings of the Buran spaceplane, the Yubileiny airfield was specially built at Baikonur with a reinforced runway measuring 4500x84 m (the main landing airfield is the "Orbital Ship Landing Complex"). In addition, two alternate airfields were prepared for Buran:

"Western alternate airfield" - airport Simferopol in the Crimea with a reconstructed runway with dimensions of 3701x60 m ( 45°02′42″ s. sh. 33°58′37″ E d. HGIO) ;
"Eastern alternate airfield" - the military airfield Khorol in Primorsky Krai with a runway measuring 3700x70 m ( 44°27′04″ s. sh. 132°07′28″ E d. HGIO).

At these three airfields (and in their areas), Vympel complexes of radio-technical systems for navigation, landing, trajectory control and air traffic control were deployed to ensure the regular landing of the Buran (in automatic and manual mode).

According to some reports, in order to ensure readiness for an emergency landing of Buran (in manual mode), runways were built or reinforced at fourteen more airfields, including those outside the territory of the USSR (in Cuba, in Libya).

A full-size analog of Buran, designated BTS-002(GLI), was made for flight tests in the Earth's atmosphere. In its tail section were four turbojet engines that allowed it to take off from a conventional airfield. In -1988, it was used in (the city of Zhukovsky, Moscow Region) to work out the control system and the automatic landing system, as well as to train test pilots before space flights.

On November 10, 1985, at the Gromov Flight Research Institute of the USSR Ministry of Aviation Industry, a full-size analog of the Buran made the first atmospheric flight (machine 002 GLI - horizontal flight tests). The car was piloted by LII test pilots Igor Petrovich Volk and R. A. Stankyavichus.

Earlier, by order of the USSR Ministry of Aviation Industry dated June 23, 1981 No. 263, the Industry Detachment of Test Cosmonauts of the USSR Ministry of Aviation Industry was created, consisting of: Volk I.P., Levchenko A.S., Stankyavichus R.A. and Shchukin A.V. (first set) .

First and only flight

Buran made its first and only space flight on November 15, 1988. The spacecraft was launched into near-Earth orbit by the Energia launch vehicle, which was launched from pad 110 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The flight duration was 205 minutes, the ship made two orbits around the Earth, after which it landed at the Yubileiny airfield in Baikonur. The flight took place without a crew in automatic mode using an on-board computer and on-board software, unlike the American Shuttle, which traditionally performs pre-landing maneuvers and landing on manual control (entry into the atmosphere and braking to the speed of sound in both cases are fully computerized). This fact - the flight of a spacecraft into space and its descent to Earth in automatic mode under the control of an on-board computer - was included in the Guinness Book of Records. Over the Pacific Ocean "Buran" accompanied the ship of the measuring complex of the Navy of the USSR "Marshal Nedelin" and the research vessel of the USSR Academy of Sciences "Cosmonaut Georgy Dobrovolsky".

During the landing phase, there was an emergency, which, however, only underlined the success of the creators of the program. At an altitude of about 11 km, the Buran, which received information from the ground station about the weather conditions at the landing site, unexpectedly made a sharp maneuver for everyone. The ship described a smooth loop with a 180º turn (initially entering the runway from the northwest direction, the ship landed, entering from its southern end). As it turned out later, due to the storm wind on the ground, the ship's automation decided to additionally reduce speed and go along the most favorable landing trajectory under the new conditions.

At the time of the turn, the ship disappeared from the field of view of ground surveillance equipment, communication was interrupted for a while. Panic began in the MCC, the responsible persons immediately suggested using the emergency system to blow up the ship (TNT charges were installed on it, which were provided to prevent the top-secret ship from crashing on the territory of another state in case of loss of course). However, Stepan Mikoyan, Deputy Chief Designer of NPO Molniya for flight tests, who was in charge of controlling the ship in the descent and landing section, decided to wait, and the situation was resolved successfully.

During the work on the Buran project, several mock-ups were made for dynamic, electrical, airfield and other tests. After the closure of the program, these products remained on the balance sheet of various research institutes and industrial associations. It is known, for example, that the rocket and space corporation Energia and NPO Molniya have prototypes.

With an outward resemblance to the American Shuttle, the Buran orbiter had a fundamental difference - it could land in a fully automatic mode using an on-board computer and the Vympel ground-based complex of radio engineering systems for navigation, landing, trajectory control and air traffic control.

Initially, the automatic landing system did not provide for the transition to manual control mode. However, test pilots and cosmonauts demanded that the designers include a manual mode in the landing control system:

... the control system of the Buran ship was supposed to automatically perform all actions up to the ship stopping after landing. The participation of the pilot in the management was not provided. (Later, at our insistence, they nevertheless provided for a backup manual control mode in the atmospheric leg of the flight during the return of the spacecraft.)

A number of technical solutions obtained during the creation of Buran are still used in Russian and foreign rocket and space technology.

A significant part of the technical information about the course of the flight is not available to a modern researcher, since it was recorded on magnetic tapes for BESM-6 computers, no serviceable copies of which have been preserved. It is possible to partially recreate the course of the historical flight using the preserved paper rolls of printouts on the ATsPU-128 with selections from on-board and ground telemetry data.

Subsequent events

In 2002, the only Buran flying into space (product 1.01) was destroyed during the collapse of the roof of the assembly and test building at Baikonur, in which it was stored along with finished copies of the Energia launch vehicle.

Specifications

One of the numerous specialists in heat-shielding coating was the musician Sergey Letov.

Differences from the Space Shuttle

Despite the general external similarity of the projects, there are significant differences.

The general designer Glushko considered that by that time there were few materials that would confirm and guarantee success, at a time when the flights of the Shuttle proved that a configuration similar to the Shuttle worked successfully, and there is less risk when choosing a configuration. Therefore, despite the larger useful volume of the Spiral configuration, it was decided to carry out the Buran in a configuration similar to the Shuttle configuration.
... Copying, as indicated in the previous answer, was, of course, completely conscious and justified in the process of those design developments that were carried out, and during which, as already indicated above, many changes were made to both the configuration and the design. The main political requirement was to ensure that the dimensions of the payload compartment were the same as the payload compartment of the Shuttle.
... the absence of sustainer engines on the Buran noticeably changed the centering, the position of the wings, the configuration of the influx, well, and a number of other differences.

Causes and effects of differences between the Energiya-Buran and Space Shuttle systems

The original version of the OS-120, which appeared in 1975 in volume 1B "Technical Proposals" of the "Integrated Rocket and Space Program", was an almost complete copy of the American space shuttle - in the tail section of the ship there were three sustainer oxygen-hydrogen engines (11D122 developed by KBEM with a thrust along 250 tons s and specific impulse 353 sec on the ground and 455 sec in vacuum) with two protruding engine nacelles for orbital maneuvering engines.

The key issue turned out to be the engines, which were supposed to be equal in all main parameters or exceed the characteristics of the onboard engines of the American SSME orbital spacecraft and side solid-propellant boosters.

The engines, created in the Voronezh Design Bureau for Chemical Automation, turned out to be compared with the American counterpart:

heavier (3450 vs. 3117 kg),
slightly larger in size (diameter and height: 2420 and 4550 versus 1630 and 4240 mm),
with a slightly lower thrust (at sea level: 156 versus 181 t. s.), although in terms of specific impulse, which characterizes the efficiency of the engine, it was somewhat superior.

At the same time, ensuring the reusable use of these engines was a very significant problem. For example, the Space Shuttle engines, which were originally created as reusable engines, eventually required such a large amount of very expensive inter-launch maintenance work that the Shuttle did not fully justify the hopes for reducing the cost of putting a kilogram of cargo into orbit economically.

It is known that in order to put the same payload into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, for geographical reasons, you need to have more thrust than from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome. To launch the Space Shuttle system, two solid-propellant boosters with a thrust of 1280 tons each are used. each (the most powerful rocket engines in history), with a total thrust at sea level of 2560 t.s., plus a total thrust of three SSME 570 t.s. This is enough to launch a payload of up to 110 tons from the Canaveral Cosmodrome, including the shuttle itself (78 tons), up to 8 astronauts (up to 2 tons) and up to 29.5 tons of cargo in the cargo compartment. Accordingly, to put into orbit 110 tons of payload from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, all other things being equal, it is required to create thrust when separated from the launch pad by about 15% more, that is, about 3600 t.s.

The Soviet orbital ship OS-120 (OS means "orbital aircraft") was supposed to have a weight of 120 tons (to add to the weight of the American shuttle two turbojet engines for flying in the atmosphere and an ejection system for two pilots in an emergency). A simple calculation shows that to put into orbit a payload of 120 tons, more than 4000 tons of thrust on the launch pad is required.

At the same time, it turned out that the thrust of the propulsion engines of the orbital ship, if a similar configuration of the shuttle with 3 engines is used, is inferior to the American one (465 t.p. vs. 570 t.p.), which is completely insufficient for the second stage and the final launch of the shuttle into orbit. Instead of three engines, it was necessary to install 4 RD-0120 engines, but there was no space and weight in the design of the airframe of the orbital ship. The designers had to drastically reduce the weight of the shuttle.

Thus, the OK-92 orbital ship project was born, the weight of which was reduced to 92 tons due to the refusal to place sustainer engines together with a system of cryogenic pipelines, to lock them when separating the external tank, etc. As a result of the development of the project, four (instead of three) RD-0120 engines were moved from the rear fuselage of the orbiter to the lower part of the fuel tank. However, unlike the Shuttle, which was unable to perform such active orbital maneuvers, Buran was equipped with 16 tons of thrust maneuvering engines, which allowed it to change its orbit over a wide range if necessary.

On January 9, 1976, the general designer of NPO Energia, Valentin Glushko, approved the "Technical Information" containing a comparative analysis of the new version of the OK-92 ship.

After the release of Decree No. 132-51, the development of the orbiter airframe, the means of air transportation of the ISS elements and the automatic landing system was entrusted to the specially organized NPO Molniya, headed by Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky.

The changes also affected the side accelerators. The USSR did not have design experience, the necessary technology and equipment for the production of such large and powerful solid-propellant boosters, which are used in the Space Shuttle system and provide 83% of thrust at the start. A harsher climate required more complex chemicals to operate over a wider temperature range, solid-fuel boosters created dangerous vibrations, did not allow thrust control, and destroyed the ozone layer of the atmosphere with their exhaust. In addition, solid-fuel engines are inferior in specific efficiency to liquid ones - and the USSR, due to the geographical location of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, required greater efficiency to output a payload equal in terms of the Shuttle's TK. The designers of NPO Energia decided to use the most powerful rocket engine available - the four-chamber RD-170 engine, created under the leadership of Glushko, which could develop thrust (after refinement and modernization) of 740 t. However, instead of two side accelerators, 1280 t. use four 740 each. The total thrust of the side boosters, together with the engines of the second stage RD-0120, when separated from the launch pad, reached 3425 t.s., which is approximately equal to the starting thrust of the Saturn-5 system with the Apollo spacecraft (3500 t.s. .).

The possibility of reusing side boosters was an ultimatum requirement of the customer - the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Ministry of Defense represented by D. F. Ustinov. It was officially believed that the side boosters were reusable, but in those two Energia flights that took place, the task of preserving the side boosters was not even set. American boosters are parachuted into the ocean, which provides a fairly "soft" landing, sparing the engines and booster hulls. Unfortunately, under the conditions of a launch from the Kazakh steppe, there is no chance for a “splashdown” of the boosters, and a parachute landing in the steppe is not soft enough to save the engines and rocket bodies. Gliding or parachute landing with powder engines, although designed, was not implemented in the first two test flights, and further developments in this direction, including the rescue of blocks of both the first and second stages with the help of wings, were not carried out due to the closure of the program.

The changes that made the Energy-Buran system different from the Space Shuttle system had the following results:

Product list

By the time the program was closed (early 1990s), five flight copies of the Buran spacecraft had been built or were under construction:

Product 1.01 "Buran"- the ship made a space flight in automatic mode. It was located in the collapsed assembly and testing building at the 112th site of the cosmodrome, completely destroyed along with the model launch vehicle Energia during the collapse of the assembly and testing building No. 112 on May 12, 2002. Was the property of Kazakhstan.
Product 1.02 "Storm" - was supposed to make a second flight in automatic mode with docking with the manned station "Mir". It is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and is the property of Kazakhstan. In April 2007, a mass-dimensional model of the product, previously abandoned in the open air, was installed in the exposition of the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum (site 2). Product 1.02 itself, together with the OK-MT model, is located in the assembly and filling building, and there is no free access to it. However, in May-June 2015, blogger Ralph Mirebs managed to take a number of photos of the collapsing shuttle and mock-up.
Product 2.01 "Baikal" - the degree of readiness of the ship at the time of the cessation of work was 30-50%. Until 2004, it was in the workshops, in October 2004 it was transported to the berth of the Khimki reservoir for temporary storage. On June 22-23, 2011, it was transported by river transport to the airfield in Zhukovsky, for restoration and subsequent display at the MAKS air show.
Item 2.02 - was 10-20% ready. Dismantled (partially) on the stocks of the Tushino Machine-Building Plant.
Product 2.03 - the backlog was destroyed in the shops of the Tushino Machine-Building Plant.

List of layouts

BTS-001 OK-ML-1 (product 0.01) was used to test the air transportation of the orbital complex. In 1993, a full-size model was leased to the Cosmos-Earth society (president - cosmonaut German Titov). Until June 2014, it was installed on Pushkinskaya embankment of the Moskva River in the Central park culture and rest named after. Gorky. As of December 2008, a scientific and educational attraction was organized in it. On the night of July 5-6, 2014, the layout was moved to the territory of VDNH for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of VDNKh.
OK-KS (product 0.03) is a full-size complex stand. It was used for testing air transportation, complex testing of software, electrical and radio testing of systems and equipment. Until 2012, he was in the building of the control and testing station of RSC Energia, the city of Korolev. It was moved to the territory adjacent to the center building, where conservation is currently underway. After conservation, it will be installed on a specially prepared site on the territory of RSC Energia.
OK-ML1 (product 0.04) was used for dimensional and weight fitting tests. Located in the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum.
OK-TVA (product 0.05) was used for heat-vibration-strength tests. Located in TsAGI. As of 2011, all mock-up compartments have been destroyed, with the exception of the left wing with the landing gear and standard thermal protection, which were included in the orbiter mock-up.
OK-TVI (product 0.06) was a model for thermal vacuum tests. It is located in NIIKhimMash, Peresvet, Moscow Region.
OK-MT (product 0.15) was used to practice pre-launch operations (ship refueling, fitting and docking work, etc.). Currently located at the site of Baikonur 112A, ( 45°55′10″ s. sh. 63°18′36″ E d. HGIO) in building 80, together with item 1.02 "Storm". It is the property of Kazakhstan.
8M (product 0.08) - the layout is only a cabin model with hardware stuffing. Used to test the reliability of ejection seats. After completion of work, he was on the territory of the 29th Clinical Hospital in Moscow, then he was transported to the Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow. Currently located on the territory of the 83rd Clinical Hospital of the FMBA (since 2011 - the Federal Scientific and Clinical Center for Specialized Types of Medical Care and Medical Technologies of the FMBA).

Crew

In 1984, at the LII im. M. M. Gromov, crews were formed to test the Buran analogue - BTS-02, which were carried out until 1988. The same crews were planned for the 1st manned flight of Buran.
Main crew:

Wolf, Igor Petrovich - commander.
Stankevičius, Rimantas Antanas - 2nd pilot.

Backup crew:

Levchenko, Anatoly Semyonovich - commander.
Schukin, Alexander Vladimirovich - 2nd pilot.

In philately

In culture
- In 1991, the Soviet science fiction comedy “Abdullajan, or Dedicated to Steven Spielberg”, directed by Zulfikar Musakov, was released about the adventure of an alien in an Uzbek village. At the beginning of the film, the launch and joint flight of the American shuttle and the Soviet Buran are shown.
- Buran - MSX game, 1990
- Assemble Buran - PC Byte game, 1989
see also
- BOR-5 - weight model of the Buran orbiter
Notes
1. Paul Marks. Cosmonaut: Soviet space shuttle was safer than NASA"s(English) (7 July 2011). Archived from the original on August 22, 2011.

Reusable orbital ship (according to the terminology of Minaviaprom - orbital aircraft) "Buran"

(product 11F35)

"B Uranus"- a Soviet winged reusable orbital ship. Designed to solve a number of defense tasks, launching various space objects into orbit around the Earth and servicing them; delivering modules and personnel for assembling large structures and interplanetary complexes in orbit; returning to Earth faulty or outdated satellites, development of equipment and technologies for space production and delivery of products to Earth, and other cargo and passenger transportation along the Earth-space-Earth route.

Internal layout , construction . In the bow of the "Buran" there is a sealed plug-in cabin with a volume of 73 cubic meters for the crew (2 - 4 people) and passengers (up to 6 people), compartmentson-board equipment and a bow block of control engines.

The middle part is occupied by the cargo compartmentwith doors opening upwards, in which manipulators are placed for loading and unloading and installation and assembly work and variousoperations for servicing space objects. Under the cargo compartment there are units of power supply and temperature control systems. Propulsion units, fuel tanks, hydraulic system units are installed in the tail section (see fig.). The design of "Buran" used aluminum alloys, titanium, steel and other materials. To resist aerodynamic heating during de-orbit, the outer surface of the spacecraft has a heat-shielding coating that is designed for reusable use.

A flexible thermal protection is installed on the upper surface, which is less subject to heating, and other surfaces are covered with heat-protective tiles made on the basis of quartz fibers and withstanding temperatures up to 1300ºС. In especially heat-stressed areas (in the toes of the fuselage and wing, where the temperature reaches 1500º - 1600ºС), a carbon-carbon composite material is used. The stage of the most intense heating of the SC is accompanied by the formation of an air plasma layer around it, however, the SC design does not warm up to more than 160°C by the end of the flight. Each of the 38600 tiles has a specific installation location, due to the theoretical contours of the OK case. To reduce thermal loads, large values of the bluntness radii of the wing and fuselage toes were also chosen. Estimated design resource - 100 orbital flights.

The internal layout of the Buran on the poster of NPO Energia (now the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation). Explanation of the designation of the ship: all orbital ships had the code 11F35. The final plans were to build five flying ships, in two series. Being the first, "Buran" had an aviation designation (at NPO Molniya and the Tushino Machine-Building Plant) 1.01 (the first series - the first ship). NPO Energia had a different designation system, according to which Buran was identified as 1K - the first ship. Since in each flight the ship had to perform different tasks, the flight number was added to the ship's index - 1К1 - the first ship, the first flight.

Propulsion system and onboard equipment. The joint propulsion system (JPU) ensures the additional insertion of the spacecraft into the reference orbit, the performance of interorbital transfers (corrections), precise maneuvering near the orbital complexes being serviced, the orientation and stabilization of the spacecraft, and its deceleration for deorbiting. The ODE consists of two orbital maneuvering engines (in the figure on the right), operating on hydrocarbon fuel and liquid oxygen, and 46 gas-dynamic control engines, grouped into three blocks (one nose block and two tail blocks). More than 50 onboard systems, including radio engineering, TV and telemetry systems, life support systems, thermal control, navigation, power supply and others, are combined on the basis of a computer into a single onboard complex, which ensures the duration of the Buran's stay in orbit up to 30 days.

The heat released by the onboard equipment is supplied to the radiation heat exchangers installed on the inside of the cargo compartment doors with the help of a coolant and radiated into the surrounding space (the doors are open during flight in orbit).

Geometrical and weight characteristics. The length of the Buran is 35.4 m, the height is 16.5 m (with the landing gear extended), the wingspan is about 24 m, the wing area is 250 square meters, the fuselage width is 5.6 m, the height is 6.2 m; the diameter of the cargo compartment is 4.6 m, its length is 18 m. The launch weight of the OK is up to 105 tons, the weight of the cargo delivered into orbit is up to 30 tons, the mass returned from orbit is up to 15 tons. The maximum fuel capacity is up to 14 tons.

The large overall dimensions of the Buran make it difficult to use ground means of transportation, so it (as well as the launch vehicle units) is delivered to the cosmodrome by air by the VM-T aircraft of the Experimental Machine-Building Plant named after V.I. V.M. Myasishchev (at the same time, the keel is removed from the Buran and the mass is brought to 50 tons) or by the An-225 multi-purpose transport aircraft in a fully assembled form.

The ships of the second series were the crowning achievement of the engineering art of our aircraft industry, the pinnacle of domestic manned cosmonautics. These ships were to become truly all-weather and round-the-clock manned orbital aircraft with improved flight performance and significantly increased capabilities due to many design changes and improvements. In particular, they increased the number of shunting engines due to the new -You can learn much more about winged spaceships from our book (see the cover on the left) "Space Wings", (M .: Lenta Wanderings, 2009. - 496s.: Il.) Today - this is the most complete Russian-language encyclopedic narrative of dozens of domestic and foreign projects. Here's what it says in the book's synopsis:
" The book is devoted to the stage of emergence and development of cruise rocket and space systems, which were born at the "junction of three elements" - aviation, rocket technology and astronautics, and absorbed not only the design features of these types of equipment, but also the whole heap of technical and military technologies accompanying them. political problems.
The history of the creation of aerospace vehicles of the world is described in detail - from the first aircraft with rocket engines of the times of World War II to the start of the implementation of the Space Shuttle (USA) and Energia-Buran (USSR) programs.
The book, designed for a wide range of readers interested in the history of aviation and astronautics, design features and unexpected twists in the fate of the first projects of aerospace systems, contains about 700 illustrations on 496 pages, most of which are published for the first time.
Assistance in the preparation of the publication was provided by such enterprises of the Russian aerospace complex as NPO Molniya, NPO Mashinostroeniya, Federal State Unitary Enterprise RAC MiG, LII named after M.M. Gromov, TsAGI, as well as the Museum of the Marine Space Fleet. The introductory article was written by General V.E. Gudilin, a legendary figure in our cosmonautics.
You can get a more complete picture of the book, its price and purchase options on a separate page. There you can also get acquainted with its content, design, introductory article by Vladimir Gudilin, authors' preface and imprint editions.

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