Was there a storm in space. Buran spaceship
Almost everyone who lived in the USSR and who is at least a little interested in astronautics has heard of the legendary Buran, a winged spacecraft that was launched into orbit in combination with the Energia launch vehicle. The pride of Soviet space rocketry, the Buran orbiter made its only flight during perestroika and was severely damaged when the roof of the Baikonur hangar collapsed at the beginning of the new millennium. What is the fate of this ship, and why the Energia-Buran reusable space system program was frozen, we will try to figure it out.
History of creation
"Buran" is a winged spacecraft of reusable aircraft configuration. Its development began in 1974-1975 on the basis of the "Integrated Rocket and Space Program", which was the response of the Soviet cosmonautics to the news in 1972 that the United States had begun the implementation of the Space Shuttle program. So the development of such a ship was at that time a strategically important task for deterring a potential enemy and maintaining the positions of a space superpower by the Soviet Union.
The first Buran projects, which appeared in 1975, were almost identical to the American shuttles, not only in appearance, but also in the structural arrangement of the main components and blocks, including main engines. After numerous improvements, the Buran became the way the whole world remembered it after the flight in 1988.
Unlike the American shuttles, it could deliver a greater weight of cargo (up to 30 tons) into orbit, as well as return up to 20 tons to the ground. But the main difference between the Buran and the shuttles, which determined its design, was a different placement and number of engines. On the domestic ship there were no sustainer engines that were transferred to the launch vehicle, but there were engines to bring it into orbit. In addition, they turned out to be somewhat heavier.
The first, only and completely successful flight of Buran took place on November 15, 1988. The Energia-Buran ISS was launched into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:00 am. It was a completely autonomous flight, not controlled from Earth. The flight lasted 206 minutes, during which the ship took off, went into earth orbit, circled the Earth twice, returned safely and landed at the airfield. It was an extremely joyful event for all developers, designers, everyone who somehow participated in the creation of this technical miracle.
It is sad that this particular ship, which made an “independent” triumphal flight, was buried in 2002 under the rubble of the collapsed roof of the hangar.
In the 90s, state funding for space development began to decline sharply, and in 1991 the Energia-Buran ISS was transferred from the defense program to the space program to solve national economic problems, after which, in the following 1992, the Russian Space Agency decided to stop work on the project of the reusable system "Energiya-Buran", and the created reserve was subjected to conservation.
Ship device
The ship's fuselage is conditionally divided into 3 compartments: nose (for the crew), middle (for payload) and tail.
The nose of the hull structurally consists of a bow spinner, a pressurized cockpit and an engine compartment. The interior of the cabin is divided by floors that form decks. Decks together with frames provide the necessary strength to the cabin. In front of the cab, there are portholes on top.
The cabin is divided into three functional parts: the command compartment, where the main crew is located; household compartment - to accommodate an additional crew, spacesuits, berths, a life support system, personal hygiene products, five blocks with control system equipment, elements of a thermal control system, radio engineering and telemetry equipment; an aggregate compartment that ensures the operation of thermoregulation and life support systems.
To place cargo on the Buran, a spacious cargo compartment with a total volume of approximately 350 m3, a length of 18.3 m and a diameter of 4.7 m is provided. For example, the Kvant module or the main unit of the Mir station would fit here, while this The compartment also allows you to serve the placed cargo and monitor the operation of the on-board systems until the very moment of unloading from the Buran.
The total length of the Buran ship is 36.4 m, the fuselage diameter is 5.6 m, the height on the chassis is 16.5 m, the wingspan is 24 m. The chassis has a base of 13 m, a track of 7 m.
The main crew was planned from 2-4 people, but the spacecraft can take on board an additional 6-8 researchers to carry out various work in orbit, that is, Buran can actually be called a ten-seat vehicle.
The duration of the flight is determined by a special program, the maximum time is set to 30 days. In orbit, good maneuverability of the Buran spacecraft is ensured by additional fuel reserves of up to 14 tons, the nominal fuel reserve is 7.5 tons. The integrated propulsion system of the Buran spacecraft is a complex system that includes 48 engines: 2 orbital maneuvering engines to bring the device into orbit with a thrust of 8.8 tons, 38 motion control jet engines with a thrust of 390 kg and 8 more engines for precision movements ( accurate orientation) with a pull of 20 kg. All these engines are fed from single tanks with hydrocarbon fuel "cycline" and liquid oxygen.
Orbital maneuvering engines are located in the tail compartment of the Buran, and control engines are located in the blocks of the nose and tail compartments. Early designs also called for two 8-ton thrust jet engines to enable deep lateral maneuver flight in landing mode. These engines did not make it into later ship designs.
The Buran engines make it possible to perform the following main operations: stabilization of the Energia-Buran complex before its separation from the second stage, separation and removal of the Burana spacecraft from the launch vehicle, bringing it to the initial orbit, formation and correction of the working orbit, orientation and stabilization, interorbital transitions, rendezvous and docking with other spacecraft, deorbit and deceleration, control of the spacecraft's position relative to its center of mass, etc.
At all stages of the flight, the Buran is controlled by the electronic brain of the ship, it also controls the operation of all on-board systems and provides navigation. In the final ascent phase, it controls the entry into the reference orbit. During orbital flight, it provides orbit correction, deorbiting and immersion into the atmosphere to an acceptable height with subsequent return to the working orbit, program turns and orientation, interorbital transitions, hovering, rendezvous and docking with a cooperating object, spinning around any of the three axes. During descent, it controls the ship's deorbit, its descent in the atmosphere, the necessary lateral maneuvers, arrival at the airfield and landing.
The basis of the automatic ship control system is a high-speed computing complex, represented by four interchangeable computers. The complex is capable of instantly solving all tasks within the framework of its functions and, first of all, linking the current ballistic parameters of the ship with the flight program. The Buran's automatic control system is so perfect that during future flights the ship's crew in this system is considered only as a link that duplicates the automation. This was the fundamental difference between the Soviet shuttle and the American shuttles - our Buran could perform the entire flight in automatic unmanned mode, go into space, safely return to earth and land at the airfield, which was clearly demonstrated by its only flight in 1988. The landing of the American shuttles was carried out entirely on manual control with idle engines.
Our car was much more maneuverable, more complex, smarter than its American predecessors and could automatically perform a wider range of functions.
In addition, Buran developed an emergency crew rescue system in case of emergency. At low altitudes, a catapult for the first two pilots was intended for this; in the event of an emergency at a sufficient height, the ship could disconnect from the launch vehicle and make an emergency landing.
For the first time in rocket science, a diagnostic system was used on a spacecraft, covering all spacecraft systems, connecting backup sets of equipment or switching to a backup mode in case of possible malfunctions.
The device is designed for 100 flights in both autonomous and manned modes.
The present
The winged spacecraft "Buran" did not find peaceful use, since the program itself was defense and could not be integrated into the peaceful economy, especially after the collapse of the USSR. Nevertheless, it was a big technological breakthrough, dozens of new technologies and new materials were worked out at Buran, and it is a pity that these achievements were not applied and developed further.
Where are the famous Buranas in the past, on which the best minds, thousands of workers worked, and on which so much effort was spent and so many hopes were placed?
In total, there were five copies of the Buran winged ship, including unfinished and started vehicles.
1.01 "Buran" - carried out the only unmanned space flight. It was stored at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the assembly and test building. At the time of destruction during the collapse of the roof in May 2002, it was the property of Kazakhstan.
1.02 - the ship was intended for the second flight in autopilot mode and docking with the Mir space station. It is also owned by Kazakhstan and installed in the museum of the Baikonur Cosmodrome as an exhibit.
2.01 - the readiness of the ship was 30 - 50%. He was at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant until 2004, then spent 7 years on the pier of the Khimki reservoir. And, finally, in 2011 it was transported for restoration to the Zhukovsky airfield.
2.02 - 10-20% readiness. Partially dismantled on the stocks of the Tushino plant.
2.03 - the backlog was completely destroyed.
Possible perspectives
The Energia-Buran project was closed, among other things, due to the unnecessary delivery of large cargoes into orbit, as well as their return. Being built more for defense than for peaceful purposes, in the era of "star wars", the domestic space shuttle "Buran" was far ahead of its time.
Who knows, maybe his time will come. When space exploration becomes more active, when it will be necessary to frequently deliver cargo and passengers to orbit and vice versa.
And when the designers finalize that part of the program that concerns the preservation and relatively safe return to earth of the stages of the launch vehicle, i.e., they make the system for launching into orbit more convenient, which will significantly reduce the cost and make reusable not only the use of a cruise ship, but also the system " Energy-Buran" in general.
"Buran" was intended for:
One of the purposes of the Buran spacecraft was "the precise adjustment of the parameters of the orbit of artificial satellites of the Earth." First of all, the satellites of the orbital constellation, which provides the transmission of GPS coordinates, should have undergone “fine adjustment”.
The first and only space flight "Buran" made on November 15, 1988 in automatic mode and without a crew on board. Despite the fact that Buran was designed for 100 flights into space: 2, it was not launched again. The ship was controlled using the Biser-4 on-board computer. A number of technical solutions obtained during the creation of Buran were used in Russian and foreign rocket and space technology.
Story
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.
- "Western alternate airfield" - Simferopol airport in the Crimea with a reconstructed runway with dimensions of 3701 × 60 m ( 45°02′42″ s. sh. 33°58′37″ E d. HGIOL) ;
- "Eastern alternate airfield" - the military airfield Khorol in Primorsky Krai with a runway measuring 3700 × 70 m ( 44°27′04″ s. sh. 132°07′28″ E d. HGIOL).
At these three airfields (and in their areas), complexes of radio-technical systems for navigation, landing, trajectory control and air traffic control "Vympel" were deployed to ensure the regular landing of "Buran" (in automatic and manual mode).
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).
The full-size analogue of Buran, which had the designation BTS-002 (GLI), was made for flight tests in the Earth's atmosphere. It had four turbojet engines in its tail section, which allowed it to take off from a conventional airfield. In -1988, it was used in (later named after the Hero of the Soviet Union M. M. Gromov) 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, a full-size analogue of the Buran made the first atmospheric flight at the LII MAP of the USSR (machine 002 GLI - horizontal flight tests). The car was piloted by LII test pilots Igor Petrovich Volk and R. A. Stankevicius.
Earlier, by order of the MAP of the USSR 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., Stankyavichyus R.A. and Shchukin A.V. (first set) .
| External video files | |
|---|---|
| Flight tests of BTS-002. | |
Flight
| External images | |
|---|---|
| Detailed flight plan "Buran" November 15, 1988 | |
The space flight of Buran took place on November 15, 1988. The Energia launch vehicle, launched from pad 110 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, launched the spacecraft into near-Earth orbit. The flight lasted 205 minutes, during which time the ship made two orbits around the Earth, after which it landed at the Yubileiny airfield of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The flight took place in automatic mode using the on-board computer and on-board software. Over the Pacific Ocean "Buran" was accompanied by 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 takeoff and landing, the Buran was accompanied by a Mig-25 fighter piloted by pilot Magomed Tolboev, with videographer Sergei Zhadovsky on board.
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 the side of its southern end). As it turned out later, due to the storm wind on the ground, the ship's automation decided to additionally reduce the 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.
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 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.
After the disaster of the Columbia spacecraft, and in particular with the closure of the Space Shuttle program, the Western media have repeatedly expressed the opinion that the US space agency NASA is interested in reviving the Energia-Buran complex and intends to place an appropriate order for Russia in the near future. time. Meanwhile, according to the Interfax agency, director G. G. Raikunov said that Russia could return after 2018 to this program and the creation of launch vehicles capable of launching up to 24 tons of cargo into orbit; testing will begin in 2015. In the future, it is planned to create rockets that will deliver cargo weighing more than 100 tons into orbit. In the distant future, there are plans to develop a new manned spacecraft and reusable launch vehicles. Also, at school 830 at the Tushino machine-building plant, the Burana Museum was opened, in which excursions are conducted with veterans. http://sch830sz.mskobr.ru/muzey-burana.
Specifications
The technical characteristics of the Buran ship have the following meanings:
A sealed all-welded cabin for the crew is inserted into the nose compartment of the Buran, for carrying out work in orbit (up to 10 people) and most of the equipment, to ensure flight as part of the rocket and space complex, autonomous flight in orbit, descent and landing. The cabin volume is over 70 m 3 .
| External images | |
|---|---|
| Space Shuttle drawing (52 Mb) | |
One of the numerous specialists in heat-shielding coating was the musician Sergei Letov.
Comparative analysis of the Buran and Space Shuttle systems
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.
"Shuttle" lands with idle engines. It does not have the ability to land several times, so there are several landing sites in the United States.
The Energia-Buran complex consisted of the first stage, which consisted of four side blocks with RD-170 oxygen-kerosene engines (in the future, their return and reusable use was envisaged), the second stage with four RD-0120 oxygen-hydrogen engines, which is the basis of the complex and docked to it the returning spacecraft "Buran". At launch, both stages were launched. After resetting the first stage (4 side blocks), the second continued to work until reaching a speed slightly less than orbital. The final conclusion was carried out by the engines of the Buran itself, this excluded contamination of the orbits by fragments of spent rocket stages.
This scheme is universal, since it made it possible to launch into orbit not only the Buran MTKK, but also other payloads weighing up to 100 tons. The Buran entered the atmosphere and began to slow down (the entry angle was about 30°, the entry angle gradually decreased). Initially, for controlled flight in the atmosphere, the Buran had to be equipped with two turbojet engines installed in the aerodynamic shadow zone at the base of the keel. However, by the time of the first (and only) launch, this system was not ready for flight, therefore, after entering the atmosphere, the ship was controlled only by control surfaces without using engine thrust. Before landing, the Buran carried out a speed-damping corrective maneuver (flying in a descending figure-of-eight), after which it proceeded to land. In this single flight, the Buran had only one attempt to land. During landing, the speed was 300 km / h, during entry into the atmosphere it reached 25 speeds of sound (almost 30 thousand km / h).
Unlike the Shuttles, the Buran had an emergency crew rescue system. At low altitudes, a catapult operated for the first two pilots; at a sufficient height, in the event of an emergency, Buran could separate from the launch vehicle and make an emergency landing.
The chief designers of the Buran never denied that the Buran was partially copied from the American Space Shuttle. In particular, General Designer Lozino-Lozinsky spoke on the issue of copying as follows:
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 system differences
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 t.s. and a specific impulse of 353 seconds on the ground and 455 seconds in a vacuum) with two protruding engine nacelles for orbital maneuvering engines.
The key issue turned out to be the engines, which had to be equal in all basic parameters to or exceed the characteristics of the onboard engines of the American SSME orbiter and side solid rocket boosters.
The engines created in the Voronezh Chemical Automation Design Bureau 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, which was originally created as reusable engines, eventually required such a large amount of very expensive routine maintenance between launches 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 launch 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, 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 of 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 tons, which is approximately equal to the starting thrust of the Saturn-5 system with the Apollo spacecraft (3500 tons from .).
The possibility of reusing side boosters was the ultimatum requirement of the customer - the Central Committee of the CPSU 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:
Military-political system
According to foreign experts, Buran was a response to a similar American Space Shuttle project and was conceived as a military system, which, however, was a response to, as it was then believed, the planned use of American shuttles for military purposes.
The program has its own background:
The shuttle launched 29.5 tons into near-Earth orbit and could de-orbit a load of up to 14.5 tons. The weight put into orbit using 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
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 of the CPSU, 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.
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.
The United States stated that the Space Shuttle system was created as part of a program of a civilian organization - NASA. The Task Force under the leadership of Vice President S. Agnew in 1969-1970 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.
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 test building at the 112th site of the cosmodrome, completely destroyed along with the Energia launch vehicle model during the collapse of the assembly and test building No. 112 on May 12, 2002.
- Product 1.02 "Storm" - was supposed to make the second flight in automatic mode with docking with the manned station "Mir". Located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. 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 shops, in October 2004 it was transported to the pier 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
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.
- 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 the Pushkinskaya embankment of the Moskva River in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure 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 test station of RSC Energia, the city of Korolev. He was moved to the territory adjacent to the center building, where he underwent conservation. Currently located in the educational center "Sirius" in Sochi.
- 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. HGIOL) in building 80, together with product 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).
- BOR-4 - a mock-up tested as part of the Buran program, which was a miniature version of the apparatus developed according to the Spiral program, which was closed by that time. He flew into space six times from Kapustiny Yar. The thermal protection needed by Buran was worked out, maneuvers after deorbiting: 23.
- BOR-5 - a model tested within the framework of the Buran program, which was an eight-fold reduced copy of the future Buran spacecraft. The thermal protection needed by Buran was worked out, maneuvers after deorbiting: 23.
Progenitor of the snowstorm
Buran was developed under the influence of the experience of overseas colleagues who created the legendary "space shuttles". The Space Shuttle reusable vehicles were designed as part of NASA's Space Transportation System program, and the first shuttle made its first launch on April 12, 1981, on the anniversary of Gagarin's flight. It is this date that can be considered the starting point in the history of reusable spacecraft.
The main disadvantage of the shuttle was its price. The cost of one launch cost US taxpayers $450 million. For comparison, the price of launching a one-time Soyuz is $35-40 million. So why did the Americans take the path of creating just such spacecraft? And why was the Soviet leadership so interested in the American experience? It's all about the arms race.
The Space Shuttle is the brainchild of the Cold War, more precisely, the ambitious Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, whose task was to create a system to counter Soviet intercontinental missiles. The colossal scope of the SDI project has led to it being dubbed "Star Wars".
The development of the shuttle did not go unnoticed in the USSR. In the minds of the Soviet military, the ship appeared as something like a superweapon capable of delivering a nuclear strike from the depths of space. In fact, the reusable ship was created only to deliver elements of the missile defense system into orbit. The idea to use the shuttle as an orbital rocket carrier really sounded, but the Americans abandoned it even before the first flight of the ship.
Many in the USSR also feared that the shuttles could be used to hijack Soviet spacecraft. The fears were not unfounded: the shuttle had an impressive manipulator on board, and the cargo compartment easily accommodated even large space satellites. However, the abduction of Soviet ships did not seem to be part of the Americans' plans. And how could such a demarche be explained in the international arena?
However, in the Land of Soviets they began to think about an alternative to the overseas invention. The domestic ship was supposed to serve both military and peaceful purposes. It could be used to carry out scientific work, deliver cargo into orbit and return them to Earth. But the main purpose of "Buran" was the performance of military tasks. He was seen as the main element of the space combat system, designed both to counter possible aggression from the United States, and to deliver counterattacks.
In the 1980s, the Skif and Kaskad combat orbital vehicles were developed. They were largely unified. Their launch into orbit was considered as one of the main tasks of the Energia-Buran program. The combat systems were supposed to destroy ballistic missiles and US military spacecraft with laser or missile weapons. For the destruction of targets on Earth, it was supposed to use the orbital warheads of the R-36orb rocket, which would be placed on board the Buran. The warhead had a thermonuclear charge with a capacity of 5Mt. In total, Buran could take on board up to fifteen such blocks. But there were even more ambitious projects. For example, the option of building a space station was considered, the warheads of which would be the modules of the Buran spacecraft. Each such module carried striking elements in the cargo compartment, and in case of war they were supposed to fall on the head of the enemy. The elements were gliding carriers of nuclear weapons, located on the so-called revolver installations inside the cargo hold. The Buran module could accommodate up to four revolver mounts, each of which carried up to five submunitions. At the time of the first launch of the ship, all of these combat elements were under development.
With all these plans, by the time the ship's first flight, there was no clear understanding of its combat missions. There was no unity among the specialists involved in the project. Among the leaders of the country were both supporters and ardent opponents of the creation of Buran. But the lead developer of Buran, Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky, has always supported the concept of reusable vehicles. The position of Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov, who saw the shuttles as a threat to the USSR and demanded a worthy response to the American program, played a role in the emergence of Buran.
It was the fear of the "new space weapon" that forced the Soviet leadership to follow the path of overseas competitors. At first, the ship was even conceived not so much as an alternative, but as an exact copy of the shuttle. The USSR intelligence obtained drawings of the American ship back in the mid-1970s, and now the designers had to build their own. But the difficulties that arose forced the developers to look for unique solutions.
So, one of the main problems was the engines. The USSR did not have a power plant equal in performance to the American SSME. Soviet engines turned out to be larger, heavier and had less thrust. But the geographical conditions of the Baikonur cosmodrome required, on the contrary, more thrust, in comparison with the conditions of Cape Canaveral. The fact is that the closer the launch pad is to the equator, the greater the payload can be put into orbit by the same type of launch vehicle. The advantage of the American cosmodrome over Baikonur was estimated at about 15%. All this led to the fact that the design of the Soviet ship had to be changed in the direction of reducing the mass.
In total, 1200 enterprises of the country worked on the creation of Buran, and during its development 230 unique
technologies.
The first flight
The ship received its name "Buran" literally before the first - and, as it turned out, the last - launch, which took place on November 15, 1988. Buran was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and 205 minutes later, having circled the planet twice, it landed there. Only two people in the world could see the takeoff of a Soviet ship with their own eyes - the pilot of the MiG-25 fighter and the flight operator of the cosmodrome: "Buran" flew without a crew, and from the moment of takeoff to touching the ground it was controlled by an onboard computer.
The flight of the ship was a unique event. For the first time in spaceflight, a reusable vehicle was able to independently return to Earth. At the same time, the deviation of the ship from the center line was only three meters. According to eyewitnesses, some dignitaries did not believe in the success of the mission, believing that the ship would crash on landing. Indeed, when the device entered the atmosphere, its speed was 30 thousand km / h, so the Buran had to maneuver to slow down - but in the end the flight went off with a bang.
Soviet specialists had something to be proud of. And although the Americans had much more experience in this area, their shuttles could not land on their own. However, pilots and cosmonauts are far from always ready to entrust their lives to the autopilot, and subsequently, the possibility of a manual landing was added to the Buran software.
Peculiarities
Buran was built according to the tailless aerodynamic design and had a delta wing. Like his overseas gatherings, he was quite large: 36.4 m in length, wingspan - 24 m, launch weight - 105 tons. The spacious all-welded cabin could accommodate up to ten people.
One of the most important elements of the Buran design was thermal protection. In some places of the apparatus during takeoff and landing, the temperature could reach 1430 ° C. Carbon-carbon composites, quartz fiber and felt materials were used to protect the ship and crew. The total weight of heat-shielding materials exceeded 7 tons.
A large cargo compartment made it possible to take on board large cargoes, for example, space satellites. To launch such vehicles into space, Buran could use a huge manipulator, similar to the one on board the shuttle. The total carrying capacity of the Buran was 30 tons.
Two stages participated in the launch of the ship. At the initial stage of the flight, four rockets with RD-170 liquid-propellant engines, the most powerful liquid-propellant engines ever created, were undocked from Buran. The thrust of the RD-170 was 806.2 tf, and its operating time was 150 s. Each such engine had four nozzles. The second stage of the ship - four liquid oxygen-hydrogen engines RD-0120, installed on the central fuel tank. The operating time of these engines reached 500 s. After the fuel was exhausted, the ship undocked from the huge tank and continued its flight on its own. The shuttle itself can be considered the third stage of the space complex. In general, the Energia launch vehicle was one of the most powerful in the world, and had a very great potential.
Perhaps the main requirement for the Energia-Buran program was maximum reusability. And indeed: the only disposable part of this complex was to be a giant fuel tank. However, unlike the engines of the American shuttles, which gently splashed down in the ocean, the Soviet boosters landed in the steppe near Baikonur, so it was rather problematic to use them again.
Another feature of the Buran was that its main engines were not part of the apparatus itself, but were located on the launch vehicle - or rather, on the fuel tank. In other words, all four RD-0120 engines burned up in the atmosphere, while the shuttle engines returned with it. In the future, Soviet designers wanted to make the RD-0120 reusable, and this would significantly reduce the cost of the Energia-Buran program. In addition, the ship was supposed to receive two built-in jet engines for maneuvers and landing, but by its first flight the device was not equipped with them and was actually a “bare” glider. Like its American counterpart, Buran could only land once - in the event of an error, there was no second chance.
A big plus was that the Soviet concept made it possible to put into orbit not only a ship, but also additional cargo weighing up to 100 tons. The domestic shuttle had some advantages over shuttles. For example, he could take on board up to ten people (against seven crew members at the shuttle) and was able to spend more time in orbit - about 30 days, while the longest shuttle flight was only 17.
Unlike the shuttle, it had a Buran and a crew rescue system. At low altitude, the pilots could eject, and if an unforeseen situation happened above, the ship would separate from the launch vehicle and land in the manner of an airplane.
What is the result?
The fate of Buran was not easy from birth, and the collapse of the USSR only exacerbated the difficulties. By the early 1990s, 16.4 billion Soviet rubles (about $24 billion) had been spent on the Energia-Buran program, despite the fact that its further prospects turned out to be very vague. Therefore, in 1993, the Russian leadership decided to abandon the project. By that time, two spaceships had been built, one more was in production, and the fourth and fifth were just being laid down.
In 2002, Buran, which made the first and only space flight, died when the roof of one of the buildings of the Baikonur Cosmodrome collapsed. The second ship remained in the museum of the cosmodrome and is the property of Kazakhstan. A half-painted third sample could be seen at the exhibition of the MAKS-2011 air show. The fourth and fifth apparatus were no longer completed.
“Speaking about the American shuttle and our Buran, you must, first of all, understand that these programs were military, both of them,” says Pavel Bulat, a specialist in the aerospace field, candidate of physical sciences. - The Buran scheme was more progressive. Separately, the rocket, separately - the payload. There was no need to talk about some kind of economic efficiency, but in technical terms, the Buran-Energy complex was much better. There is nothing forced in the fact that Soviet engineers refused to place engines on a ship. We designed a separate rocket with a side-mounted payload. The rocket had specific characteristics, unsurpassed either before or after. She could be saved. Why put an engine on a ship under such conditions? ... This is just an increase in cost and a decrease in weight return. Yes, and organizationally: the rocket was made by RSC Energia, the glider was made by NPO Molniya. On the contrary, for the United States it was a forced decision, only not a technical one, but a political one. Boosters made with a solid rocket motor to boot manufacturers. "Buran", although it was made on the direct orders of Ustinov, "like a shuttle", but was verified from a technical point of view. It actually turned out much better. The program was closed - it's a pity, but, objectively, there was no payload for either the rocket or the aircraft. They prepared for the first launch for a year. Therefore, they would go bankrupt on such launches. To make it clear, the cost of one launch was approximately equal to the cost of a Slava-class missile cruiser.
Of course, Buran adopted many features of its American progenitor. But structurally, the shuttle and Buran were very different. Both ships had both undeniable advantages and objective disadvantages. Despite the progressive concept of Buran, disposable ships were, are and will remain much cheaper ships for the foreseeable future. Therefore, the closure of the Buran project, as well as the rejection of shuttles, seems to be the right decision.
The history of the creation of the shuttle and the Buran makes us once again think about how deceptive, at first glance, promising technologies can be. Of course, new reusable vehicles will sooner or later see the light, but what kind of ships these will be is another question.
There is another side of the issue. During the creation of Buran, the space industry gained invaluable experience that could be applied in the future to create other reusable spacecraft. The very fact of the successful development of Buran speaks of the highest technological level of the USSR.
12788
205 minutes of flight of the Buran spacecraft became a deafening sensation. And most importantly - landing. For the first time in the world, a Soviet shuttle landed in automatic mode. The American shuttles never learned this: they landed only in manual mode.
Why was the triumphant start the only one? What has the country lost? And is there any hope that the Russian shuttle will still fly to the stars? On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Buran flight, the RG correspondent talks with one of its creators, in the past - the head of the NPO Energia department, and now - Professor of the Moscow Aviation Institute, Doctor of Technical Sciences Valery Burdakov.
Valery Pavlovich, they say that the Buran spacecraft has become the most complex machine ever created by mankind.
Valery Burdakov: Undoubtedly. Before him, the American Space Shuttle was the leader.
Is it true that "Buran" could fly up to a satellite in space, capture it with a manipulator and send it to its "womb"?
Valery Burdakov: Yes, like the American Space Shuttle. But Buran's capabilities were much wider: both in terms of the mass of cargo delivered to Earth (20-30 tons instead of 14.5), and in terms of their center of gravity ranges. We could de-orbit the Mir station and turn it into a museum piece!
Are the Americans afraid?
Valery Burdakov: Vakhtang Vachnadze, who at one time headed NPO Energia, said: under the SDI program, the United States wanted to send 460 military vehicles into space, at the first stage - about 30. Having learned about the successful flight of Buran, they abandoned this idea.
"Buran" became our answer to the Americans. Why were they convinced we couldn't build anything like a shuttle?
Valery Burdakov: Yes, the Americans seriously made such statements. The fact is that in the mid-1970s, our lagging behind the United States was estimated at 15 years. We did not have enough experience in working with large masses of liquid hydrogen, we did not have reusable liquid rocket engines, winged spacecraft. Not to mention the absence of such an analogue as the X-15 in the United States, as well as the Boeing-747 class aircraft.
And yet Buran turned out to be literally crammed with, as they say today, innovations?
The flight of the Buran spacecraft became a world sensation in 1988. Photo: Igor Kurashov / RG.
Valery Burdakov: Quite right. Unmanned landing, lack of toxic fuel, horizontal flight tests, air transport of rocket tanks on the back of a specially built aircraft ... Everything was super.
Many people remember a stunning photo: the spacecraft "saddled" the Mriya plane. Was the winged giant born precisely under the "Buran"?
Valery Burdakov: And not only Mriya. After all, the huge tanks of the Energia rocket, 8 meters in diameter, had to be delivered to Baikonur. How? We considered several options, and even this one: to dig a canal from the Volga to Baikonur! But they all cost 10 billion rubles, or 17 billion dollars. What to do? There is no such money. There is no time for such construction - more than 10 years.
Our department has prepared a report: transportation should be by air, i.e. airplanes. What started here! .. I was accused of fantasy. But Myasishchev's 3M-T plane (later named after him VM-T), the Ruslan plane, and the Mriya plane, for which we together with the representative of the Air Force made technical specifications, took off.
And why were there so many opponents of Buran even among the designers? Feoktistov said bluntly: reusability is just another bluff, and Academician Mishin even called Buran nothing more than Buryan.
Valery Burdakov: They were undeservedly offended by being removed from the reusable topics.
Who was the first to think about the project of the orbital ship of the aircraft scheme and aircraft landing capabilities on the runway?
Valery Burdakov: Queens! Here is what I heard from Sergei Pavlovich himself. In 1929, he is 23 years old and already a famous soaring glider pilot. Korolev hatched the idea: to lift the glider 6 km, and then, with a pressurized cabin, into the stratosphere. He decided to go to Kaluga to Tsiolkovsky in order to sign a letter on the expediency of such a high-altitude flight.
Tsiolkovsky signed?
Valery Burdakov: No. He criticized the idea. He said that without a liquid-propellant rocket engine, a glider at high altitude would be uncontrollable and, having accelerated during a fall, would break. He gave me the book "Space Rocket Trains" and advised me to think about the use of rocket engines for flights not into the stratosphere, but even higher, into "ethereal space".
I wonder how Korolev reacted?
Valery Burdakov: He did not hide his annoyance. He even refused an autograph! Even though I read the book. Korolev's friend, aircraft designer Oleg Antonov, told me how, at the glider rallies in Koktebel after 1929, many whispered: was Seryoga not shaken in his mind? Like, he flies on a tailless glider and says that it is best suited for installing a rocket engine on it. He knocked out the pilot Anokhin on purpose to break the glider in the air during the "flutter test" ...
Did Korolev himself design some kind of heavy-duty glider?
Valery Burdakov: Yes, Red Star. Pilot Stepanchenok for the first time in the world made several "dead loops" on this glider. And the glider didn't break! Curious fact. When the first five cosmonauts entered the Zhukovsky Academy, they were offered diploma topics on the Vostok spacecraft. But Korolev categorically objected: "Only an orbital ship of an aircraft scheme! This is our future! Let them understand what's what using the example of a small space ship with wings."
And what kind of incident happened then with German Titov?
Valery Burdakov: He naively thought that he really understood everything, and asked the Queen to accept him. “We,” he says, “fly on bad ships. Large overloads, when descending, it shakes like on a cobblestone pavement. We need a ship of an aircraft scheme, and we have already designed it!” Korolev smiled: "Have you already received an engineering degree?" "Not yet," Herman replied. "That's when you get it, then come - we'll talk on an equal footing."
When did you start doing Buran?
Valery Burdakov: Back in 1962, with the support of Sergei Pavlovich, I received my first copyright certificate for a reusable space carrier. When the hype around the American shuttle arose, the question of whether or not we should do the same with us has not yet been resolved. However, the so-called "service N 16" in NPO "Energia" under the leadership of Igor Sadovsky was formed in 1974. There were two design departments in it - mine for aircraft affairs and Efrem Dubinsky - for the carrier.
Assembling the model of the Buran ship for the MAKS-2011 air show in Zhukovsky. Photo: RIA Novosti www.ria.ru
We were engaged in translations, scientific analysis, editing and publication of "primers" on the shuttle. And they themselves, without much fuss, developed their own version of the ship and the carrier for it.
But after all, Glushko, who, after the removal of Mishin, headed Energia, also did not support reusable topics?
Valery Burdakov: He kept repeating everywhere that he would not engage in the shuttle. Therefore, when Glushko was once summoned to the Central Committee to see Ustinov, he did not go himself. Sent me. There was a flurry of questions: why do we need a reusable space system, what it can be, and so on. After this visit, I signed with Glushko the Technical Information - the main provisions on the topic "Buran". Ustinov prepared a decision as soon as possible, which was approved by Brezhnev. But it took dozens more meetings with swearing and accusations of incompetence until a consensus was reached.
And what was the position of your main aviation subcontractor - the chief designer of NPO Molniya Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky?
Valery Burdakov: Unlike Aviation Minister Dementiev, Lozino-Lozinsky was always on our side, even though at first he offered his own options. The man was wise. Here, for example, is how he put an end to talk about the impossibility of an unmanned landing. He told the managers that he would not contact them anymore, but would ask them to make an automatic landing system ... pioneers from the Tushino airfield, since he had repeatedly observed the accuracy with which their radio-controlled models land. And the incident was settled to the displeasure of his superiors.
The astronauts were also unhappy. They thought that Dementiev's position would prevail. They wrote a letter to the Central Committee: they do not need an automatic landing, they want to control the Buran themselves.
They say that Buran got its name just before the start?
Valery Burdakov: Yes. Glushko suggested calling the ship "Energy", Lozino-Lozinsky - "Lightning". There was a consensus - "Baikal". And "Buran" was suggested by General Kerimov. The inscription was barely scraped off before the start and a new one was applied.
The accuracy of the Buran landing struck everyone on the spot...
Valery Burdakov: When the ship had already appeared from behind the clouds, one of the chiefs, as if delirious, repeated: "It will crash right now, it will crash right now!" True, he used a different word. Everyone gasped when the Buran began to turn across the runway. But in fact, this maneuver was incorporated into the program. But that chief of this nuance, apparently, did not know or forgot. The ship was right on the runway. Lateral deviation from the center line - only 3 meters! This is the highest precision. 205 minutes of Buran's flight, like all flights of aircraft with oversized cargo, passed without a single comment to the designers.
What did you feel after such a triumph?
Valery Burdakov: This is beyond words. But ahead of us was waiting for another "sensation": a successful innovative project was closed. 15 billion rubles - were spent in vain.
Will the scientific and technical backlog of Buran ever be used?
Valery Burdakov:"Buran", like the shuttle, was unprofitable to use because of the expensive and clumsy launch system. But unique technical solutions can be developed in Buran-M. The new, modified with the latest achievements, the ship can become a very fast, reliable and convenient means for intercontinental aerospace transportation of goods, just passengers and tourists. But for this it is necessary to create a reusable single-stage all-azimuth environmentally friendly carrier MOVEN. It will replace the Soyuz rocket. Moreover, it will not need such a cumbersome launch, so it will be able to launch from the Vostochny cosmodrome.
Backlogs on "Buran" have not disappeared. Automatic aircraft landing gave life to fifth-generation fighters and numerous drones. It's just that we, as it was with the artificial satellite of the Earth, were the first.
You worked for Korolev in the 3rd department, which determines the prospects for the development of astronautics. What are the prospects for the current cosmonautics?
Valery Burdakov: The era of nuclear and solar energy is coming to replace hydrocarbon energy, which is unthinkable without the widespread use of a wide variety of space facilities. To create space solar power plants that supply energy to terrestrial consumers, carriers for a payload of 250 tons will be required. They will be created on the basis of MOVEN. And if we talk about cosmonautics as a whole, then it will provide for all the needs of mankind, and not just information, as it is now.
By the way
In total, five flight copies of the Buran spacecraft were built.
Ship 1.01 "Buran" - made the only flight. It was stored in the assembly and test building at Baikonur. In May 2002, it was destroyed in a roof collapse.
Ship 1.02 - was supposed to make a second flight and dock with the Mir orbital station. Now an exhibit of the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum.
Ship 2.01 - was ready for 30 - 50%. He was at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant, then at the pier of the Khimki Reservoir. In 2011, it was transported for restoration to the LII in Zhukovsky.
Ship 2.02 - was ready for 10 - 20%. Dismantled on the stocks of the plant.
Ship 2.03 - the backlog was destroyed and taken to a landfill.
reusable transport space system (MTKK), created within the program Energy - Buran . One of two MTKK orbital spacecraft implemented in the world."Buran" was intended for:
The first and only space flight "Buran" made November 15, 1988. A number of technical solutions obtained during the creation of Buran are still used in Russian and foreign rocket and space technology.
Encyclopedic YouTube
1 / 5
✪ 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 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.
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.
- "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. HGIOL) ;
- "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. HGIOL).
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 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 Minaviaprom, the first atmospheric flight was made by a full-size analogue of the Buran (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) .
Flight
The space flight of Buran took place on November 15, 1988. The Energiya launch vehicle, launched from pad 110 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, launched the spacecraft into near-Earth orbit. The flight lasted 205 minutes, during which time the ship made two orbits around the Earth, after which it landed at the Yubileiny airfield of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The flight took place in automatic mode using the on-board computer and on-board software. Over the Pacific Ocean "Buran" was accompanied by the ship of the measuring complex of the USSR Navy "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 the side of its southern end). As it turned out later, due to the storm wind on the ground, the ship's automation decided to additionally reduce the 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.
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 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.
After the disaster of the Columbia spacecraft, and in particular with the closure of the Space Shuttle program, the Western media have repeatedly expressed the opinion that the US space agency NASA is interested in reviving the Energia-Buran complex and intends to place an appropriate order for Russia in the near future. time. Meanwhile, according to the Interfax news agency, director G.G.Raykunov said that Russia could return after 2018 to this program and the creation of launch vehicles capable of launching a load of up to 24 tons into orbit; testing will begin in 2015. In the future, it is planned to create rockets that will deliver cargo weighing more than 100 tons into orbit. In the distant future, there are plans to develop a new manned spacecraft and reusable launch vehicles.
Specifications
One of the numerous specialists in heat-shielding coating was the musician Sergey Letov.
Comparative analysis of the Buran and Space Shuttle systems
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.
"Shuttle" lands with idle engines. It does not have the ability to land several times, so there are several landing sites in the United States.
"Buran": the name of the complex "Energy - Buran". The complex consisted of the first stage, which was four side blocks with oxygen-kerosene engines RD-170 (in the future, their return and reusable use was envisaged), the second stage with four oxygen-hydrogen engines RD-0120, which is the basis of the complex and docked to it the returning space apparatus "Buran". At launch, both stages were launched. After resetting the first stage (4 side blocks), the second continued to work until reaching a speed slightly less than orbital. The final conclusion was carried out by the engines of the Buran itself, this excluded contamination of the orbits by fragments of spent rocket stages.
This scheme is universal, since it made it possible to launch into orbit not only the Buran MTKK, but also other payloads weighing up to 100 tons. The Buran entered the atmosphere and began to slow down (the entry angle was about 30°, the entry angle gradually decreased). Initially, for controlled flight in the atmosphere, the Buran had to be equipped with two turbojet engines installed in the aerodynamic shadow zone at the base of the keel. However, by the time of the first (and only) launch, this system was not ready for flight, therefore, after entering the atmosphere, the ship was controlled only by control surfaces without using engine thrust. Before landing, the Buran carried out a speed-damping corrective maneuver (flying in a descending figure-of-eight), after which it proceeded to land. In this single flight, the Buran had only one attempt to land. During landing, the speed was 300 km / h, during entry into the atmosphere it reached 25 speeds of sound (almost 30 thousand km / h).
Unlike the Shuttles, the Buran had an emergency crew rescue system. At low altitudes, a catapult operated for the first two pilots; at a sufficient height, in the event of an emergency, Buran could separate from the launch vehicle and make an emergency landing.
The chief designers of the Buran never denied that the Buran was partially copied from the American Space Shuttle. In particular, General Designer Lozino-Lozinsky spoke on the issue of copying as follows:
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 system differences
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 launch 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 of 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 tons, which is approximately equal to the starting thrust of the Saturn-5 system with the Apollo spacecraft (3500 tons from .).
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:
Military-political system
According to foreign experts, Buran was a response to a similar American Space Shuttle project and was conceived as a military system, which, however, was a response to, as it was then believed, the planned use of American shuttles for military purposes.
The program has its own background:
|
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.
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.
The United States stated 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.
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 test building at the 112th site of the cosmodrome, completely destroyed along with the model launch vehicle Energia during the collapse of the assembly and test 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
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.
- 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. HGIOL) 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).
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
- Application Buran
- Speech Gen. const. NPO "Lightning" G. E. Lozino-Lozinsky at the scientific and practical exhibition-conference "Buran" - a breakthrough to super-technologies, 1998
- Landing complex cosmodrome Baikonur
- Alternate airfields for Buran
- Layout in Crimea objects Complex radiotechnical systems navigation, landing, monitoring trajectory and air traffic control Vympel
- Unlike the American Shuttle, which traditionally performs pre-landing maneuvers and landing on manual control (entry into the atmosphere and deceleration 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 onboard computer - entered into
