Energia
Energia on the launch pad
Energia on the launch pad
Energia on the launch pad
Energia lifting off with the UKSS military payload
The Energia (or Energiya, Энергия in Russian) rocket was a Soviet craft that was designed at TsAGI to serve as a heavy-lift expendable launch system as well as a booster for the Buran Space Shuttle. It had the capacity to place up to 100 tons in low Earth orbit, although it could be configured for heavier payloads comparable or even greater than those of Saturn V. It was first test-launched alone in 1987 with the UKSS military palyoad, and with an unmanned Buran orbiter in 1988.
Enegria exceeded both the payload capability and the technical performances of the Saturn V, earning itself the status of the most complex and powerful heavy rocked ever constructed. The immense costs of developing the Enegia and the Buran systems, are according to many analysts one of the main reasons of Soviet UnionÃÂÃÂs economic collapse. Both projects where designed to be on the backbone itself of the strategic parity between the two superpowers.
Work on the Energia/ Buran system began in 1976 after the decision was made to cancel the unsuccessful N-1 superbooster. It also replaced the "Vulkan" concept, which was a design based on the Proton and using the same toxic hypergolic fuels, but much larger and more powerful.
The cancelled N-1 rocket based Manned Lunar Launch Facilities and Infrastructure were used for Energiya. The N-1 was capable of putting 95 metric tonnes into LEO and was powered by 30 Kuznetzov NK-15 engines developing 1,544 kilonewtons (kN) thrust each for a total of 46 meganewtons (MN) (10.2 million pounds), thus far exceeding the US-Saturn V at 33 MN (7.5 million pounds) lift-off thrust.
Production of Energia rockets ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Buran shuttle project.
The Energia rocket has so far had only two flights, the first on May 15 1987, with the UKSS military payload, and the second on November 15 1988, with the Buran Shuttle. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union there have been persistent rumors of the renewal of the production, but given the current market realities, that is highly unlikely.
Energia lives on, in a sense. The four strap on liquid fuel boosters, which burned kerosene and liquid oxygen, were the basis of the "Zenit" rocket which used the same engines. The engine is the RD-170, a powerful, modern and efficient design. It is still used on the Baikonur launched Zenit and on the "Sea Launch" floating launch platform system, which is built around the Zenit. A less powerful derivative of the engine, the RD-180, is the engine that powers Lockheed Martin's Atlas V, one of the two new U.S. EELV rockets (the other being the Boeing Delta IV).
The company S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia is still in business.