Shuttle Buran
Illustration of the Buran Shuttle on an Energiya booster rocket
Buran-Energia on the launch pad at Baykonur
Buran-Energia on the pad
Buran on liftoff
Buran on touchdowm
Buran piggybacked on an An-225 carrier
The Soviet reusable spacecraft program Buran ("Буран" meaning 'snowstorm' or 'blizzard' in Russian) began in 1976 at TsAGI as a response to the United States Space Shuttle program. Soviet politicians were convinced that the Space Shuttle could be used for military purposes, hence posing a potential threat to the balance of power during the Cold War. The project was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration.
Because Buran's debut followed Space Shuttle Columbia's and the visual similarities between the two shuttle systems, during the Cold War many have speculated that espionage played a role in the development of the Soviet shuttle, however we now know that while externally it was an aerodynamic copy of the space shuttle, internally it was all engineered and developed domestically.
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2 First flight 3 Aftermath 4 See also 5 External links |
The development of the Buran began in the early 1970ÃÂÃÂs as a response to the US Space Shuttle program, while the Soviet engineers favored a smaller, lighter, lifting body vehicle, the military leadership pushed for a direct, full scale copy of the delta wing Space Shuttle, in an effort to maintain the strategic parity between the superpowers..
The construction of the shuttles began in 1980 and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first suborbital test flight of a scale-model, however, took place as early as July 1983.
As the project lasted, five additional scale-model flights were performed. With the first full-scale Buran, 24 test flights were performed after which the shuttle was 'worn out'.
The first and only orbital launch of the (unmanned) shuttle Buran was at 3:00 GMT on November 15, 1988.
It was lifted into orbit by the specially designed Energiya booster rocket.
The life support system was not tested yet and no software was installed on the CRT displays.
The shuttle orbited the Earth twice before returning, performing an impressive automated landing on the shuttle runway at Baikonur Cosmodrome (more correctly called Tyuratam; the deception was intentionally performed by Soviet leaders in order to confuse Western intelligence agencies.) This is a capability that the US shuttle system does not have, but one which has been proposed for inclusion in the future to allow unmanned operation.
Part of the launch was televised, but the actual lift-off was not shown. This led to some speculation that the mission may have been fabricated, and that the subsequent landing may not have been from orbit but from a shuttle-carrying aircraft. (Note that in the United States, this procedure was used to test the flight characteristics of the Space Shuttle on approach and landing using the Approach and Landing Test vehicle Space Shuttle Enterprise, so that by the time mission STS-1 drew to a close, the handling characteristics of Space Shuttle Columbia would be known.)
After the first flight the project was suspended due to lack of funds and the political situation in the Soviet Union. The two subsequent orbiters, which were due in 1990 (codename Ptichka - little bird) and 1992 respectively were never completed. The project was officially shut down in 1993.
The program was to have carried out research, national-pride, and technological objectives similar to those of the US shuttle program, including resupply of the Mir space station, which was launched in 1986 and remained in service until 2001, when it was deorbited so that attention could be focused on the International Space Station, and so that it would not re-enter the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner the way Skylab did after plans to re-boost it with the Space Shuttle fell victim to unexpected program delays. When Mir was finally visited by a spaceplane, the visitor was an American shuttle—not Buran.
The completed shuttles called 1.01 and 1.02 and the remains of the project are now property of Kazakhstan. In 2002, the hangar housing the sole space-flown Buran orbiter and a mockup of the Energiya booster rocket collapsed due to incomplete maintenance. Eight workers were also killed in the collapse of the building's roof. The exact location of Buran 1.02 is not known today. A second series of orbiters began construction but was never completed, and at least one of the three was dismantled.
Development
First flight
Aftermath
See also
Russian space
Space
External links
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