Buran spaceships. The secret of the abandoned hangar

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

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✪ Mysterious death of test pilots | Reusable spaceship"Buran"

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

✪ First and only flight of "Buran"

✪ NPO Molniya. Spaceship Buran. part two - space test.

✪ Orbital Ship “BURAN” 1988

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

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

Drawings and photographs of the shuttle were first received in the USSR through the GRU in early 1975. Two examinations on the military component were immediately carried out: at military research institutes and at the Institute of Applied Mathematics under the leadership of Mstislav Keldysh. Conclusions: “the future reusable ship will be able to carry nuclear weapons and attack the territory of the USSR with them from almost any point 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 performed an aerodynamic maneuver, for example, over the Gulf of Guinea, he can release them across the territory of the USSR,” the USSR leadership pushed to create an answer - “Buran”.

And they say that we will fly there once a week, you know... But there are no targets or cargo, and the fear immediately arises 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 when they flew over the Kremlin on the Shuttle, this was a surge of our military, politicians, and so a decision was made at one time: to develop a technique for intercepting space targets, high ones, with the help of airplanes.

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

In America they stated that the Space Shuttle system was created as part of a program of a civilian organization - NASA. The Space Task Force, led by 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 the project to create reusable shuttles to replace disposable rockets. The Space Shuttle program was closed on July 21, 2011, also due to unprofitability, since the cost of each Space Shuttle flight ranged from 450 to 600 million dollars. Moreover, it sounds paradoxical, but the Space Shuttle program, which was developed as self-sustaining, in the end not only did not pay for itself, but in general in the history of astronautics turned out to be almost a record unprofitable (in fact, the most unprofitable of all) space program.

In the USSR, as in the USA, many space programs had either a military purpose or were based on military technologies. Thus, the Soyuz launch vehicle is the famous royal “seven” - the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and the Proton launch vehicle is the UR-500 ICBM.

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

In April 1973, the military-industrial complex, with the involvement of the leading institutes (TsNIIMash, NIITP, TsAGI, VIAM, 50 TsNII, 30 TsNII), draft decisions of the military-industrial complex on problems related to the creation of a reusable space system. Government Decree No. P137/VII of May 17, 1973, in addition to organizational issues, contained a clause obliging “Minister S. A. Afanasyev and V. P. Glushko to prepare proposals on a plan for further work within four months.”

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

Arriving at Ustinov’s office on Staraya Square, 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 like, what we need for this, why the United States is creating its own shuttle, what it threatens us with. As Valery Pavlovich later recalled, Ustinov was primarily interested in the military capabilities of the ISS, and he presented to D. F. Ustinov his vision of using orbital shuttles as possible carriers of thermonuclear weapons, which could be based on permanent military orbital stations in immediate readiness to deliver a crushing blow to 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 maximum priority among all space programs in the party and state leadership and the military-industrial complex.

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

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

Aerodromes and flight tests

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

“Western alternate airfield” - Simferopol airport in Crimea with a reconstructed runway measuring 3701x60 m ( 45°02′42″ n. w. 33°58′37″ E. d.HGI) ;
O “Eastern alternate airfield” is a Khorol military airfield in the Primorsky Territory with a runway measuring 3700x70 m ( 33°58′37″ E. d.HGI).

44°27′04″ n. w. 132°07′28″ E. d. Complexes were deployed at these three airfields (and in their areas)

radio systems

navigation, landing, trajectory control and air traffic control "Vympel" to ensure the normal landing of the "Buran" (in automatic and manual mode).

On November 10, 1985, at the Gromov Flight Research Institute of the USSR Ministry of Aviation Industry, 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. Stankevichus.

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

First and only flight

Buran made its first and only space flight on November 15, 1988. The spacecraft was launched into low-Earth orbit by the Energia launch vehicle, launched from pad 110 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The flight duration was 205 minutes, the ship made two orbits around the Earth, after which it landed at the Yubileiny airfield in Baikonur. The flight took place without a crew in automatic mode using an on-board computer and on-board software, unlike the American Shuttle, which traditionally performs pre-landing maneuvers and landing using manual control (entry into the atmosphere and braking to the speed of sound in both cases are fully computerized). This fact - the flight of a spacecraft into space and its descent to Earth in automatic mode under the control of an on-board computer - was included in the Guinness Book of Records. Above the water area 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”.

At the landing stage, there was an emergency incident, which, however, only emphasized the success of the creators of the program. At an altitude of about 11 km, Buran, having received information from the ground station about the weather conditions at the landing site, unexpectedly made a sharp maneuver. The ship described a smooth loop with a 180º turn (initially entering the landing strip from the north-west direction, the ship landed, entering from its southern end). As it turned out later, due to the stormy wind on the ground, the ship’s automation decided to further reduce speed and enter the landing trajectory that was most advantageous under the new conditions.

At the moment of the turn, the ship disappeared from the field of view of ground-based surveillance equipment, and communication was interrupted for some time. Panic began at the control center; the responsible persons immediately proposed to use the emergency system for detonating the ship (it was equipped with TNT charges, designed to prevent the crash of a top-secret ship on the territory of another state in case of loss of course). However, Deputy Chief Designer of NPO Molniya for flight testing Stepan Mikoyan, who was responsible for controlling the ship during the descent and landing phase, decided to wait, and the situation was resolved successfully.

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

Although outwardly similar to the American Shuttle, the Buran orbital ship had a fundamental difference - it could land fully automatically using the on-board computer and the Vympel ground-based complex of radio engineering systems for navigation, landing, trajectory control and air traffic control.

Initially, the automatic landing system did not provide for a 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 until the ship stopped after landing. The pilot's participation in control was not provided for. (Later, at our insistence, a backup manual control mode was provided for during the atmospheric flight during the return of the ship.)

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

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

Subsequent events

In 2002, the only Buran that flew into space (product 1.01) was destroyed when the roof of the installation and testing building at Baikonur, in which it was stored along with finished copies of the Energia launch vehicle, collapsed.

Specifications

One of the many specialists in thermal protective coating was musician Sergei Letov.

Differences from the Space Shuttle

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

General designer Glushko considered that by that time there was little material that would confirm and guarantee success, at a time when the Shuttle flights had proven that a Shuttle-like configuration worked successfully, and here there was 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 that of the Shuttle.
...Copying, as indicated in the previous answer, was, of course, completely conscious and justified in the process of those design developments, which were carried out, and during which, as mentioned above, many changes were made to both the configuration and the design. The main political requirement was to ensure that the payload bay dimensions were the same as the Shuttle's payload bay.
...the absence of propulsion engines on the Buran noticeably changed the alignment, the position of the wings, the influx configuration, and a number of other differences.

Causes and consequences of differences between the Energia-Buran and Space Shuttle systems

The initial 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 - three oxygen-hydrogen propulsion engines were located in the tail section of the ship (11D122 developed by KBEM with a thrust of 250 t.s. and a specific impulse of 353 sec on the ground and 455 sec in vacuum) with two protruding engine nacelles for orbital maneuvering engines.

The key issue was the engines, which had to be equal or superior in all major parameters to the characteristics of the onboard engines of the American SSME orbital vehicle and the side solid-fuel boosters.

The engines created at the Voronezh Chemical Automation Design Bureau were compared to their American counterpart:

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

At the same time, a very significant problem was ensuring the reusability of these engines. For example, the Space Shuttle engines, which were originally created as reusable engines, ultimately required such a large volume of very expensive inter-launch routine maintenance, that economically the Shuttle did not completely live up to the expectations of reducing the cost of putting a kilogram of cargo into orbit.

It is known that to launch the same payload into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, according to geographical reasons, you need to have more thrust than from the Cape Canaveral spaceport. To launch the Space Shuttle system, two solid fuel boosters with a thrust of 1280 t.s. are used. each (the most powerful rocket engines in history), with a total thrust at sea level of 2560 t.s., plus the total thrust of the three SSME engines of 570 t.s., which together creates a thrust at liftoff from the launch pad of 3130 t.s. This is enough to launch a payload of up to 110 tons into orbit 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 launch 110 tons of payload into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, all other things being equal, it is necessary to create approximately 15% more thrust when lifting off from the launch pad, that is, about 3600 t.s.

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

At the same time, it turned out that the thrust of the propulsion engines of the orbital ship, if we use a similar configuration of the shuttle with 3 engines, is inferior to the American one (465 hp versus 570 hp), 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 in the design of the orbital ship’s airframe there was no space and weight reserve. The designers had to dramatically reduce the weight of the shuttle.

This is how the OK-92 orbital ship project was born, the weight of which was reduced to 92 tons due to the refusal to place the main engines together with a system of cryogenic pipelines, locking them when separating the external tank, etc. As a result of the development of the project, four (instead of three) RD-0120 engines were transferred from the aft fuselage of the orbital ship to bottom part fuel tank. However, unlike the Shuttle, which was unable to perform such active orbital maneuvers, Buran was equipped with 16-ton thrust maneuvering engines, which allowed it to change its orbit within a wide range if necessary.

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

After the release of Resolution No. 132-51, the development of the orbiter airframe, means of air transportation of 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. There was no design experience in the USSR, necessary technology and equipment for the production of such large and powerful solid rocket boosters, which are used in the Space Shuttle system and provide 83% of the thrust at launch. Harsh climates required more complex chemicals to operate over a wider temperature range, and solid rocket boosters created dangerous vibrations, lacked thrust control, and depleted the ozone layer with their exhaust. In addition, engines solid fuel inferior in specific efficiency to liquid ones - and the USSR was required in connection with geographical location Baikonur Cosmodrome for launching a payload equal in terms of technical requirements to the Shuttle, greater efficiency. The designers of NPO Energia decided to use the most powerful liquid rocket engine available - an engine created under the leadership of Glushko, a four-chamber RD-170, which could develop a thrust (after modification and modernization) of 740 t.s. However, instead of two side accelerators of 1280 t.s. use four of 740 each. The total thrust of the side accelerators together with the second stage engines RD-0120 upon lifting off from the launch pad reached 3425 t.s., which is approximately equal to the starting thrust of the Saturn-5 system with the Apollo spacecraft (3500 t.s. .).

The possibility of reusing side accelerators was the ultimate 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 accelerators were reusable, but in those two Energia flights that took place, the task of preserving the side accelerators was not even raised. American boosters are lowered by parachute into the ocean, which ensures a fairly “soft” landing, sparing the engines and booster housings. Unfortunately, under the conditions of launch from the Kazakh steppe, there is no chance of “splashdown” of the boosters, and a parachute landing in the steppe is not soft enough to preserve 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 both the first and second stage blocks using wings, were not carried out due to the closure of the program.

The changes that distinguished the Energia-Buran system from the Space Shuttle system had the following results:

List of products

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

Product 1.01 “Buran”- the ship made a space flight in automatic mode. It was located in the collapsed assembly and testing building at the 112th site of the cosmodrome, completely destroyed along with the Energia launch vehicle mock-up during the collapse of assembly and testing building No. 112 on May 12, 2002. Was the property of Kazakhstan.
Product 1.02 “Storm” - was supposed to make a second flight in automatic mode with docking with the manned station “Mir”. It is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and is the property of Kazakhstan. In April 2007, a mass-sized model of the product, previously lying abandoned in the open air, was installed in the exhibition of the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum (site 2). The 1.02 product itself, together with the OK-MT prototype, is located in the installation and filling case, and there is no free access to it. However, in May-June 2015, blogger Ralph Mirebs managed to take a number of photographs of the collapsing shuttle and mock-up.
Product 2.01 “Baikal” - the degree of readiness of the ship at the time of termination of work was 30-50%. Until 2004, it was in the workshops; 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.
Product 2.02 - was 10-20% ready. Dismantled (partially) on the stocks of the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant.
Product 2.03 - the backlog was destroyed in the workshops of the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant.

List of layouts

BTS-001 OK-ML-1 (product 0.01) was used to test the air transportation of the orbital complex. In 1993, the full-size model was leased to the Space-Earth society (president - cosmonaut German Titov). Until June 2014, it was installed on the Pushkinskaya Embankment of the Moscow River in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after.
Gorky. As of December 2008, a scientific and educational attraction was organized there. On the night of July 5-6, 2014, the model was moved to the territory of VDNKh to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VDNKh.
OK-KS (product 0.03) is a full-size complex stand. Used for testing air transportation, complex testing of software, electrical and radio testing of systems and equipment. Until 2012, it was located 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 now taking place. 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 at TsAGI. As of 2011, all mock-up compartments were destroyed, with the exception of the left wing with the landing gear and standard thermal protection, which were included in the orbital ship mock-up.
OK-TVI (product 0.06) was a model for heat-vacuum tests. Located in NIIKhimMash, Peresvet, Moscow region. OK-MT (product 0.15) was used to practice pre-launch operations (refueling the ship, fitting and docking work, etc.). Currently located at the Baikonur site 112A, ( 33°58′37″ E. d.HGI 45°55′10″ n. w.
8M (product 0.08) - the model is only a model of the cabin with hardware filling. Used to test the reliability of ejection seats. After completing the work, he was located on the territory of the 29th Clinical Hospital in Moscow, then was transported to the Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow. Currently located on the territory of the 83rd clinical hospital of the FMBA (since 2011 - Federal Scientific and Clinical Center for Specialized Types medical care and medical technologies FMBA).

Crew

In 1984, at the Leningrad Institute named after. 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 the Buran.
Main crew:

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

Backup crew:

Levchenko, Anatoly Semenovich - commander.
Shchukin, Alexander Vladimirovich - 2nd pilot.

In philately

In culture
- In 1991, the Soviet fantasy 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
- Collect Buran - PC game Byte, 1989
see also
- BOR-5 - overall weight model of the Buran orbital ship
Notes
1. Paul Marks. Cosmonaut: Soviet space shuttle was safer than NASA's(English) (7 July 2011). Archived from the original on August 22, 2011.

Almost everyone who lived in the USSR and who is even slightly interested in astronautics has heard about the legendary Buran, a winged spacecraft launched into orbit in conjunction 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 a hangar at Baikonur collapsed at the beginning of the new millennium. What is the fate of this ship, and why the program of the reusable space system "Energia-Buran" was frozen, we will try to figure it out.

History of creation

"Buran" is a winged space orbital ship of reusable aircraft configuration. Its development began in 1974-1975 on the basis of the Integrated Rocket and Space Program, which was the Soviet cosmonautics response to the news in 1972 that the United States had launched the Space Shuttle program. So the development of such a ship was at that time a strategically important task to deter a potential enemy and maintain the Soviet Union’s position as a space superpower.

The first Buran projects, which appeared in 1975, were almost identical to the American shuttles, not only in terms of appearance, but also by the structural arrangement of the main components and blocks, including propulsion engines. After numerous modifications, Buran became the way the whole world remembered it after its flight in 1988.

Unlike the American shuttles, it could deliver a larger weight of cargo into orbit (up to 30 tons), and also return up to 20 tons to the ground. But the main difference between the Buran and the shuttles, which determined its design, was the different placement and number of engines. The domestic ship did not have propulsion engines, which were transferred to the launch vehicle, but there were engines for further launching it into orbit. In addition, they turned out to be somewhat heavier.

The first, only and completely successful flight of the Buran took place on November 15, 1988. The ISS Energia-Buran was launched into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6.00 am. It was a completely autonomous flight, not controlled from the ground. The flight lasted 206 minutes, during which the ship took off, entered Earth's orbit, flew around the Earth twice, returned safely and landed at the airfield. This was an extremely joyful event for all developers, designers, and everyone who in any way participated in the creation of this technical miracle.

It is sad that this particular ship, which made an “independent” triumphant flight, was buried in 2002 under the rubble of a collapsed hangar roof.

In the 90s, government funding for space development began to decline sharply, and in 1991 the ISS Energia-Buran was transferred from a defense program to a space program to solve national economic problems, after which in 1992 the Russian Space Agency decided to stop work on the project of the reusable system "Energia-Buran", and the created reserve was subject to conservation.

Ship structure

The ship's fuselage is conventionally divided into 3 compartments: bow (for the crew), middle (for payload) and tail.

The bow of the hull structurally consists of a bow cooker, a pressurized cabin and an engine compartment. Inner space The cabins are divided by floors that form decks. Decks together with frames provide the necessary strength to the cabin. In the front part of the cabin there are windows on top.

The cockpit is divided into three functional parts: the command compartment, where the main crew is located; living compartment - to accommodate additional crew, spacesuits, sleeping places, life support systems, personal hygiene products, five blocks with control system equipment, elements of the thermal control system, radio engineering and telemetry equipment; an aggregate compartment that ensures the operation of thermoregulation and life support systems.

To accommodate 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, and this The compartment also allows you to service placed cargo and monitor the operation of 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 to consist of 2-4 people, but the spacecraft can take on board an additional 6-8 researchers to conduct research in orbit various works, that is, “Buran” can actually be called a ten-seater device.

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 thanks to additional fuel reserves of up to 14 tons, the nominal fuel reserve is 7.5 tons. The integrated propulsion system of the Buran vehicle is complex system, including 48 engines: 2 orbital maneuvering engines for further launching the vehicle into orbit with a thrust of 8.8 tons, 38 motion control jet engines with a thrust of 390 kg and another 8 engines for precision movements (precise orientation) with a thrust of 20 kg. All these engines are powered from single tanks by hydrocarbon fuel “cycline” and liquid oxygen.

The Buran's tail compartment houses the orbital maneuvering engines, and the control engines are located in the blocks of the nose and tail compartments. Early designs also included two 8-ton thrust air-breathing engines to enable deep lateral maneuvering in landing mode. These engines were not included in later ship designs.

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 Buran spacecraft from the launch vehicle, its final insertion into the initial orbit, formation and correction of the working orbit, orientation and stabilization, inter-orbital transitions, rendezvous and docking with other spacecraft, deorbiting and braking, controlling the position of the vehicle relative to its center of mass, etc.

At all stages of the flight, the Buran is controlled by the ship’s electronic brain; it also controls the operation of all bot systems and provides navigation. In the final insertion section, it controls the exit to the reference orbit. During orbital flight, it provides orbit correction, deorbiting and immersion into the atmosphere at permissible height followed by return to the working orbit, programmed turns and orientation, inter-orbital transitions, hovering, rendezvous and docking with a collaborating object, rotation around any of the three axes. During descent, it controls the ship's deorbit, its descent into the atmosphere, necessary lateral maneuvers, arrival at the airfield and landing.

The basis automatic system ship control - a high-speed computing complex, represented by four interchangeable computers. The complex is capable of instantly solving all problems within the framework of its functions and, first of all, linking the current ballistic parameters of the ship with the flight program. System automatic control"Burana" 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 complete the entire flight in automatic unmanned mode, travel into space, return safely to the ground 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 by manual control with the engines not running.

Our machine 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 situations. At low altitudes, a catapult was intended for this purpose for the first two pilots; if an emergency occurred at a sufficient altitude, the ship could be disconnected 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 systems of the spacecraft, 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 developed at Buran, and it is a pity that these achievements were not applied and developed further.

Where are now the famous Burans of the past, on which the best minds, thousands of workers worked, and on which so much effort was spent and so much hope was placed?

In total, there were five copies of the winged ship "Buran", including unfinished and started devices.

1.01 "Buran" - carried out the only unmanned space flight. It was stored at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the installation and testing building. At the time of destruction during a roof collapse in May 2002, it was the property of Kazakhstan.

1.02 – the ship was intended for a second flight in autopilot mode and docking with the Mir space station. It is also owned by Kazakhstan and installed in the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum as an exhibit.

2.01 – the ship’s readiness was 30 - 50%. He was at the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant until 2004, then spent 7 years at 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 Tushinsky plant.

2.03 - the reserve was completely destroyed.

Possible prospects

The Energia-Buran project was closed, among other reasons, because it was unnecessary to deliver large loads into orbit, as well as their return. Built for defensive rather than 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 cargo and passengers will need to be frequently delivered to orbit and, conversely, to the ground.

And when the designers finalize that part of the program that concerns the preservation and relatively safe return to earth of the launch vehicle stages, that is, they make the orbital launch system more convenient, which will significantly reduce the cost and make reusable not only the use of the cruise ship, but also the system “ Energia-Buran" as a whole. Launch pad site 110, Baikonur; landing: Yubileiny airfield, Baikonur Typical Configuration Launch weight 105 t (without launch vehicle) Dimensions Length 36.4 m (without launch vehicle) Width 24 m (wingspan) Height 16.5 m (with chassis) Diameter 5.6 m (fuselage) Useful volume 350 m 3 Buran on Wikimedia Commons

"Buran" was intended for:

One of the purposes of the Buran spacecraft was designated “precise adjustment of the orbital parameters of artificial Earth satellites.” First of all, the satellites of the orbital constellation, which ensures the transmission of GPS coordinates, had to undergo “fine adjustment”.

The first and only space flight of Buran took place 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 vehicles has been carried out at the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant since 1980; by 1984, the first full-scale copy was ready. From the plant, the ships were delivered by water transport (on a barge under a tent) 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 Crimea with a reconstructed runway measuring 3701x60 m ( 45°02′42″ n. w. 33°58′37″ E. d. 33°58′37″ E. d.HGIL) ;
“Eastern alternate airfield” - Khorol military airfield in the Primorsky Territory with a runway measuring 3700x70 m ( 44°27′04″ n. w. 132°07′28″ E. d. 33°58′37″ E. d.HGIL).

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

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

A full-size analogue of the Buran, designated BTS-002(GLI), was manufactured for flight tests in the Earth's atmosphere. In its tail section there were four turbojet engines, which allowed it to take off from a conventional airfield. In -1988 it was used in (later given the name of Hero Soviet Union M. M. Gromov) to test the control system and automatic landing system, as well as to train test pilots before space flights.

On November 10, 1985, the first atmospheric flight of a full-size analogue of the Buran (machine 002 GLI - horizontal flight tests) was made at the LII MAP of the USSR. The car was piloted by LII test pilots Igor Petrovich Volk and R. A. Stankevichyus.

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

External video files
	Flight tests of BTS-002.

Flight

External images
	Detailed flight plan of Buran on November 15, 1988

The Buran space flight took place on November 15, 1988. The Energia launch vehicle launched from pad 110 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome launched the ship into low-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 automatically using an 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 takeoff and landing, the Buran was accompanied by a MiG-25 fighter piloted by pilot Magomed Tolboev, with videographer Sergei Zhadovsky on board.

...the control system of the Buran ship was supposed to automatically perform all actions until the ship stopped after landing. The pilot's participation in control was not provided for. (Later, at our insistence, a backup manual control mode was provided for during the atmospheric flight during the return of the ship.)

A significant part of the technical information about the flight is inaccessible to modern researchers, since it was recorded on magnetic tapes for BESM-6 computers, no working copies of which have survived. It is possible to partially recreate the course of the historical flight using the preserved paper rolls of printouts on the ATsPU-128 with samples from on-board and ground telemetry data.

Subsequent events

In 2002, the only Buran that flew into space (product 1.01) was destroyed when the roof of the assembly and testing building at Baikonur, in which it was stored along with finished copies of the Energia launch vehicle, collapsed.

After the disaster of the space shuttle Columbia, and especially with the closure of the Space Shuttle program, the Western media repeatedly expressed the opinion that the American space agency NASA is interested in reviving the Energia-Buran complex and intends to make a corresponding order to 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 cargo up to 24 tons into orbit; its 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. For 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 is open, where they conduct excursions 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, 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 is inserted into the nose compartment of the Buran. The cabin volume is over 70 m 3 .

External images
	Drawing of the Space Shuttle (52 MB)

One of the many specialists in thermal protective coating was musician Sergei Letov.

Comparative analysis of the Buran and Space Shuttle systems

While outwardly similar to the American Shuttle, the Buran orbital ship had a fundamental difference - it could land fully automatically using the on-board computer and the Vympel ground-based complex of radio engineering systems for navigation, landing, trajectory control and air traffic control.

The Shuttle lands with its engines inoperative. It does not have the ability to make multiple landing approaches, so there are several landing sites throughout the United States.

The Energia-Buran complex consisted of a first stage, which consisted of four side blocks with RD-170 oxygen-kerosene engines (in the future, their return and reusable use was envisaged), a second stage with four RD-0120 oxygen-hydrogen engines, which was the basis of the complex, and the return spacecraft "Buran" docked to it. At launch, both stages were fired. After the release of the first stage (4 side blocks), the second continued to operate until it reached a speed slightly less than orbital. The final launch was carried out by the engines of the Buran itself, this eliminated the contamination of orbits with debris from spent rocket stages.

This scheme is universal, since it made it possible to launch into orbit not only the Buran spacecraft, but also other payloads weighing up to 100 tons. "Buran" entered the atmosphere and began to reduce speed (the entry angle was approximately 30°, the entry angle gradually decreased). Initially, for controlled flight in the atmosphere, the Buran was supposed 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, so after entering the atmosphere the ship was controlled only by the control surfaces without using engine thrust. Before landing, the Buran carried out a speed-damping corrective maneuver (flying in a descending figure eight), after which it landed. 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 Shuttle, the Buran was equipped with an emergency crew rescue system. At low altitudes, a catapult operated for the first two pilots; at a sufficient altitude, in the event of an emergency, the Buran could be separated from the launch vehicle and make an emergency landing.

The chief designers of Buran never denied that Buran was partially copied from the American Space Shuttle. In particular, General Designer Lozino-Lozinsky spoke on the question of copying as follows:

General designer Glushko considered that by that time there was little material that would confirm and guarantee success, at a time when the Shuttle flights had proven that a Shuttle-like configuration worked successfully, and here there was 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 that of the Shuttle.
...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 payload bay dimensions were the same as the Shuttle's payload bay.
...the absence of propulsion engines on the Buran noticeably changed the alignment, the position of the wings, the influx configuration, and a number of other differences.

Causes and consequences of system differences

The key issue was the engines, which had to be in all major parameters equal to or superior to the characteristics of the onboard engines of the American SSME orbiter and the side solid rocket boosters.

The engines created at the Voronezh Chemical Automatics Design Bureau were compared to their American counterpart:

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

At the same time, a very significant problem was ensuring the reusability of these engines. For example, the Space Shuttle engines, which were originally created as reusable engines, ultimately required such a large amount of very expensive inter-launch maintenance work that economically the Shuttle did not completely live up to the expectations of reducing the cost of putting a kilogram of cargo into orbit.

It is known that to launch the same payload into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, for geographical reasons, it is necessary to have greater thrust than from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome. To launch the Space Shuttle system, two solid fuel boosters with a thrust of 1280 t.s. are used. each (the most powerful rocket engines in history), with a total thrust at sea level of 2560 t.s., plus the total thrust of the three SSME engines of 570 t.s., which together creates a thrust at liftoff from the launch pad of 3130 t.s. This is enough to launch a payload of up to 110 tons into orbit 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 launch 110 tons of payload into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, all other things being equal, it is necessary to create approximately 15% more thrust when lifting off from the launch pad, that is, about 3600 t.s.

This is how the OK-92 orbital ship project was born, the weight of which was reduced to 92 tons due to the refusal to place the main engines together with a system of cryogenic pipelines, locking 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-ton thrust maneuvering engines, which allowed it to change its orbit within a wide range if necessary.

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

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

The changes that distinguished the Energia-Buran system from the Space Shuttle system had the following results:

Military-political system

According to foreign experts, “Buran” was a response to a similar American project “Space Shuttle” and was conceived as a military system, which, however, was a response to what was then believed to be the planned use of American shuttles for military purposes.

The program has its own background:

The shuttle launched 29.5 tons into low-Earth orbit and could release up to 14.5 tons of cargo from orbit. The weight launched into orbit using disposable carriers in America did not even reach 150 tons/year, but here it was planned to be 12 times more; nothing was descended from orbit, and here it was supposed to return 820 tons/year... This was not just a program to create some kind of space system under the motto of reducing transportation costs (our studies at our 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 problems regarding the country's defense capability. But this did not bring clarity, since General Melnikov, who led this institute, decided to play it safe, and issued two “reports”: one in favor of the creation of the ISS, the other against it. In the end, both of these reports, overgrown with numerous authoritative “Agreed” and “I approve,” met in the most inappropriate place - on D. F. Ustinov’s desk. Irritated by the results of the “arbitration,” Ustinov called Glushko and asked to bring him up to date by providing detailed information on the options for the ISS, but Glushko unexpectedly sent his employee to a meeting with the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, a candidate member of the Politburo, instead of himself, the General Designer, and . O. Head of Department 162 Valery Burdakov.

And they say that we will fly there once a week, you know... But there are no targets or cargo, and the fear immediately arises 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 when they flew over the Kremlin on the Shuttle, this was a surge of our military, politicians, and so a decision was made at one time: to develop a technique for intercepting space targets, high ones, with the help of airplanes.

The United States stated that the Space Shuttle system was created as part of a program of a civilian organization - NASA. The Space Task Force, led by 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 the project to create reusable shuttles to replace disposable rockets.

List of products

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

Product 1.01 “Buran”- the ship made a space flight in automatic mode. It was located in the collapsed assembly and testing building at the 112th site of the cosmodrome, and was completely destroyed along with the Energia launch vehicle mock-up during the collapse of assembly and testing building No. 112 on May 12, 2002.
Product 1.02 “Storm” - was supposed to make a second flight in automatic mode with docking with the manned station “Mir”. Located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. In April 2007, a large-scale model of the product, previously lying abandoned in the open air, was installed in the exhibition of the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum (site 2). The 1.02 product itself, together with the OK-MT prototype, is located in the installation and filling case, and there is no free access to it. However, in May-June 2015, blogger Ralph Mirebs managed to take a number of photographs of the collapsing shuttle and mock-up.
Product 2.01 “Baikal” - the degree of readiness of the ship at the time of termination of work was 30-50%. Until 2004 it was in the workshops, 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.
Product 2.02 - was 10-20% ready. Dismantled (partially) on the stocks of the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant.
Product 2.03 - the backlog was destroyed in the workshops of the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant.

List of layouts

BTS-001 OK-ML-1 (product 0.01) was used to test the air transportation of the orbital complex. In 1993, the full-size model was leased to the Space-Earth Society (president - cosmonaut German Titov). Until June 2014, it was installed on the Pushkinskaya embankment of the Moscow River in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure named after. Gorky. As of December 2008, a scientific and educational attraction was organized there. On the night of July 5-6, 2014, the model was moved to the territory of VDNKh to celebrate the 75th anniversary of VDNKh.
OK-KS (product 0.03) is a full-size complex stand. Used for testing air transportation, complex testing of software, electrical and radio testing of systems and equipment. Until 2012, it was located 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 took place. Currently located in educational center"Sirius" Sochi.
OK-KS (product 0.03) is a full-size complex stand. Used for testing air transportation, complex testing of software, electrical and radio testing of systems and equipment. Until 2012, it was located 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 now taking place. 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 at TsAGI. As of 2011, all mock-up compartments were destroyed, with the exception of the left wing with the landing gear and standard thermal protection, which were included in the orbital ship mock-up.
OK-TVI (product 0.06) was a model for heat-vacuum tests. Located in NIIKhimMash, Peresvet, Moscow region. 45°55′10″ n. w. 63°18′36″ E. d. 33°58′37″ E. d.HGIL) in building 80, together with product 1.02 “Storm”. It is the property of Kazakhstan.
8M (product 0.08) - the model is only a model of the cabin with hardware filling. Used to test the reliability of ejection seats. After completing the work, he was located on the territory of the 29th Clinical Hospital in Moscow, then was transported to the Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow. Currently located on the territory of the 83rd clinical hospital of the FMBA (since 2011 - Federal Scientific and Clinical Center for Specialized Types of Medical Care and Medical Technologies of the FMBA).
BOR-4 is a prototype tested as part of the Buran program, which was a miniature version of the device developed under the Spiral program, which was closed at that time. He flew into space six times from Kapustiny Yar. The thermal protection needed by Buran and maneuvers after deorbiting were practiced:23.
BOR-5 is a prototype tested as part of the Buran program, which was an eight-fold smaller copy of the future Buran spacecraft. The thermal protection needed by Buran and maneuvers after deorbiting were practiced:23.

Work on the Energia-Buran program began in 1976.

86 ministries and departments and 1286 enterprises throughout the USSR (about 2.5 million people in total) took part in the creation of this system.

The lead developer of the ship was the specially created NPO Molniya. Production has been carried out at the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant since 1980; by 1984 the first full-scale copy was ready. From the plant, the ships were delivered by water transport to the city of Zhukovsky, and from there (from the Ramenskoye airfield) by air (on a special VM-T transport aircraft) to the Baikonur cosmodrome.

Buran made its first and only space flight on November 15, 1988. The spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome using the Energia launch vehicle and, after flying around the Earth, landed at the specially equipped Yubileiny airfield at Baikonur. The flight took place without a crew, in fully automatic mode, unlike the shuttle, which can only land using manual control.

In 1990, work on the Energia-Buran program was suspended, and in 1993 the program was finally closed. The only Buran to fly into space (1988) was destroyed in 2002 by the collapsed roof of the hangar of the installation and testing building at Baikonur.

During the work on the Buran project, several prototypes were made for dynamic, electrical, airfield and other tests. After the program was closed, these products remained on the balance sheet of various research institutes and production associations. It is known, for example, that the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia and NPO Molniya have prototypes.

The length of the Buran is 36.4 m, the wingspan is about 24 m, the height of the ship when it is on the chassis is more than 16 m, the launch weight is more than 100 tons. The cargo compartment can accommodate a payload weighing up to 30 tons. In the bow The compartment contains a sealed all-welded cabin for the crew and people to carry out work in orbit (up to 10 people) and most of the equipment to support flight as part of the rocket and space complex, autonomous flight in orbit, descent and landing. The cabin volume is over seventy cubic meters.

It has a delta wing with variable sweep, as well as aerodynamic controls that operate during landing after returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere - a rudder, elevons and an aerodynamic flap.

“Baikal” is the name of the Soviet reusable transport spacecraft created as part of the Energia-Buran program. The launch took place on February 4, 1992. The flight program included a seven-day stay in space and docking with the Mir station. Unfortunately, at the very beginning of the flight, an emergency situation occurred and “Baikal” made an emergency landing. This served as the basis for curtailing the Russian program to create reusable ships.

In fact, the inscription “Baikal” (in red in a straight font like “Arial”) adorned the side of the first flight prototype of the Buran MTKK for almost the entire time of ground tests. However, shortly before launch, the name “Buran” was written on board the MTKK in black, slanted font, under which it took off and became known throughout the world. The name of the ship and the entire program - “Buran” - was known to everyone who had at least some connection to them (including outside the USSR) from the very beginning of the development of the program. However, due to the all-encompassing secrecy, this word was not recommended to be used openly, and therefore “Baikal” was born (and was later put into circulation open name launch vehicle "Energia", known to specialists as product 11K25).

The story about the flight of the spaceship "Baikal" is an April Fool's joke (2000), created by the administrator of the website www.buran.ru Vadim Lukashevich. The joke was executed at the highest professional level, and if it weren’t for special hints that this is a joke (the background of the article is made in the form of a low-contrast repeating pattern consisting of a silhouette of a ship and the inscription “Happy April Fools”), even specialists in the field of astronautics would have thought It's hard to explain that this is a joke.

A total of 6 people were enrolled in the first group on July 12, 1977:
Volk, Igor Petrovich
Kononenko, Oleg Grigorievich
Levchenko, Anatoly Semenovich
Sadovnikov, Nikolai Fedorovich
Stankevicius, Rimantas Antanas
Shchukin, Alexander Vladimirovich

Progenitor of the Buran

Buran was developed under the influence of the experience of overseas colleagues who created the legendary “space shuttles”. Reusable Space Shuttle 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. This date 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 American taxpayers $450 million. For comparison, the launch price of a one-time Soyuz is $35-40 million. So why did the Americans take the path of creating just such spaceships? And why did the Soviet leadership become so interested in the American experience? It's all about the arms race.

Space Shuttle is the brainchild Cold War, more precisely, the ambitious Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) program, the task of which was to create a system to counter Soviet intercontinental missiles. The colossal scope of the SDI project 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 of 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 of using the shuttle as an orbital rocket carrier did indeed sound, but the Americans abandoned it even before the spacecraft's first flight.

Many in the USSR also feared that the shuttles could be used to steal Soviet spacecraft. The fears were not unfounded: the shuttle had an impressive robotic arm on board, and the cargo bay could easily accommodate even large space satellites. However, the Americans’ plans did not seem to include the abduction of Soviet ships. And how could such a demarche be explained in the international arena?

However, in the Land of the 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 works, delivering cargo into orbit and returning it to Earth. But the main purpose of the Buran was to carry out military missions. It was seen as the main element of a space combat system, designed both to counter possible aggression from the United States and to carry out counterattacks.

In the 1980s, the Skif and Cascade combat orbital vehicles were developed. They were largely unified. Their launch into orbit was considered one of the main tasks of the Energia-Buran program. The combat systems were supposed to destroy US ballistic missiles and military spacecraft with laser or missile weapons. To destroy targets on Earth, it was planned 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 power of 5 Mt. 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 combat units of which would be the modules of the Buran spacecraft. Each such module carried destructive elements in the cargo compartment, and in the event of war they were supposed to fall on the enemy’s head. The elements were gliding carriers of nuclear weapons, located on so-called revolver installations inside the cargo compartment. The Burana module could accommodate up to four revolving mounts, each of which carried up to five submunitions. At the time of the ship's first launch, all these combat elements were at the development stage.

With all these plans, by the time of the ship’s first flight there was no clear understanding of its combat missions. There was also no unity among the specialists involved in the project. Among the country's leaders there were both supporters and ardent opponents of the creation of Buran. But the leading developer of Buran, Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky, has always supported the concept of reusable devices. 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 appearance of Buran.

It was the fear of “new space weapons” 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. 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 its characteristics 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, greater 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 mass can be launched into orbit by the same type of launch vehicle. The advantage of the American cosmodrome over Baikonur was estimated at approximately 15%. All this led to the fact that the design of the Soviet ship had to be changed in the direction of reducing weight.

In total, 1,200 enterprises in the country worked on the creation of Buran, and during its development 230 unique
technologies.

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 the Soviet ship with their own eyes - the pilot of the MiG-25 fighter and the flight operator of the cosmodrome: the Buran flew without a crew, and from the moment it took off until it touched the ground it was controlled by an on-board computer.

The flight of the ship was a unique event. For the first time in all the history of space flights, 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 senior officials did not believe in the success of the mission, believing that the ship would crash upon 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 not always ready to entrust their lives to the autopilot, and subsequently the possibility of manual landing was added to the Buran software.

Peculiarities

Buran was built according to the “tailless” aerodynamic design and had a delta wing. Like its overseas counterparts, it 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 device 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-protective materials exceeded 7 tons.

The large cargo compartment made it possible to take on board large cargo, for example, space satellites. To launch such devices 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 were involved in the launch of the spacecraft. On initial stage During the flight, four missiles with RD-170 liquid-fuel engines, the most powerful liquid-fuel engines ever created, undocked from the 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 consists of four RD-0120 liquid oxygen-hydrogen engines installed on the central fuel tank. The operating time of these engines reached 500 s. After the fuel was used up, the ship undocked from the huge tank and continued its flight independently. 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 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 supposed to be a giant fuel tank. However, unlike the engines of the American shuttles, which splashed down gently in the ocean, the Soviet boosters landed in the steppe near Baikonur, so reusing them was quite problematic.

Another feature of the Buran was that its propulsion engines were not part of the vehicle 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 have two built-in jet engines for maneuvers and landing, but for its first flight the device was not equipped with them and was actually a “naked” glider. Like its American counterpart, the Buran could only land once—in case of a mistake, there was no second chance.

The big advantage was that the Soviet concept made it possible to launch into orbit not only a ship, but also additional cargo weighing up to 100 tons. The domestic shuttle had some advantages over the shuttles. For example, it could carry up to ten people (versus seven crew members for 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 the Buran and a crew rescue system. At low altitude, the pilots could eject, and if an unforeseen situation occurred above, the ship would separate from the launch vehicle and land like an airplane.

What's the result?

The fate of "Buran" from its birth was difficult, and the collapse of the USSR only aggravated the difficulties. By the early 1990s, 16.4 billion Soviet rubles (about $24 billion) were spent on the Energia-Buran program, although its future 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, another 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 remains in the cosmodrome museum and is the property of Kazakhstan. The half-painted third sample could be seen at the MAKS-2011 air show. The fourth and fifth devices were no longer completed.

“When talking about the American shuttle and our Buran, you need, first of all, to understand that these programs were military, both,” says aerospace specialist, candidate of physical sciences Pavel Bulat. — Buran’s scheme was more progressive. Separately the rocket, separately the payload. Talk about something economic efficiency it wasn’t necessary, but technically the Buran-Energia complex was much better. There is nothing forced in the fact that Soviet engineers refused to place engines on the ship. We designed a separate rocket with the payload mounted on the side. The rocket had specific characteristics unsurpassed either before or since. She could have been rescued. Why install an engine on a ship under such conditions?... It’s just an increase in cost and a decrease in weight output. And organizationally: the rocket was made by RSC Energia, the airframe by NPO Molniya. On the contrary, for the United States this was a forced decision, not a technical one, but a political one. The boosters were made with a solid rocket motor to load the manufacturers. “Buran”, although it was made on the direct orders of Ustinov, “like a shuttle,” was verified with technical point vision. It really turned out much more perfect. 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 broke 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 of the 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 the Buran, disposable ships were, are and in the foreseeable future will remain much cheaper ships. Therefore, the closure of the Buran project, as well as the abandonment of the shuttles, seems to be the right decision.

The history of the creation of the shuttle and Buran makes us think once again about how deceptive the seemingly profitable ones can be. promising technologies. Of course, new reusable vehicles will sooner or later see the light of day, but what kind of ships they will be is a different question.

There is another side to the issue. During the creation of Buran, the space industry gained invaluable experience, which in the future could be used to create other reusable ships. The very fact of the successful development of Buran speaks of the highest technological level of the USSR.

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