Shuttle Buran

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Space Shuttles
Image:Flag of the United States.svg US Space Shuttle program
Image:Flag of the Soviet Union.svg Soviet Shuttle Buran program
  • Buran (retired, damaged)
  • Ptichka (unfinished)
  • 2.01 (unfinished)
  • 2.02 (dismantled)
  • 2.03 (dismantled)
Image:Baikal liftoff.jpg
Image:Буран rus.jpg
Image:Buran AN-225.jpg
Image:Shuttle buran.png

The Soviet reusable spacecraft program Buran ("Бура́н" 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 would be an effective military weapon since the U.S. Department of Defense took part in the project, and could pose 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.

Buran is partially similar to the NASA Space Shuttle, while many features are significantly more advanced.

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Similarities to NASA Space Shuttle

Because Buran's debut followed that of Space Shuttle Columbia's, and because there were striking visual similarities between the two shuttle systems—a state of affairs which recalled the similarity between the Tupolev Tu-144 and Concorde supersonic airliners—many speculated that Cold War espionage played a role in the development of the Soviet shuttle. It is now known, however, that, while externally it was an aerodynamically similar to the Space Shuttle, internally it was all engineered and developed domestically, many features being significantly more advanced.

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Key differences from the NASA Space Shuttle

  • Buran was not an integral part of the system, but rather a payload for the Energia launcher. Other payloads than Buran, with mass as high as 80 metric tons, could be lifted to space by Energia, as was the case on its first launch.
  • Energia was designed from the start to be configured for a variety of uses, rather than just a shuttle launcher. The heaviest configuration (never built) would have been able to launch 200 tons into orbit.
  • As Buran was designed to be capable of both manned and unmanned flight, it had automated landing capability; the manned version was never operational.
  • The orbiter had no main rocket engines, freeing space and weight for additional payload; the largest cylindrical structure is the Energia carrier-rocket, not just a fuel tank.
  • The boosters used liquid propellant (kerosene/oxygen).
  • The Energia carrier, including the main engines, was designed to be reusable but funding cuts meant that a reusable version of Energia was never completed. The U.S. Space Shuttle has reusable main engines in the orbiter and reusable Solid Rocket Boosters but requires a new External Tank for each flight, as the tank is not recovered and is allowed to burn up in the atmosphere.
  • Buran could lift 30 metric tons into orbit in its standard configuration, compared to the Space Shuttle's 25 metric tons.
  • The high lift-to-drag ratio of Buran is 6.5 against 5.5 for the Space Shuttle.
  • Buran was designed to return 20 metric tons of payload from orbit, as against 15 metric tons for the Space Shuttle orbiter.
  • The thermal protection tiles on the Buran and U.S. Space Shuttles are laid out differently. Soviet engineers believed their design to be thermodynamically superior. Buran's TPS does not have the grey Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) panels or nosecap of the STS, the former being the primary cause of the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.
  • Buran's equivalent of the shuttle's Orbital Maneuvering System used safer propellants with lower toxicity (GOX/Kerosene), and gave higher performance.
  • Buran was designed to be moved to the launch pad horizontally on special train-tracks, and then erected at the launch site. This enabled a much faster roll out than the US Space Shuttle, which is moved vertically and hence very slowly.
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Development

The Soviet reusable space-craft program has its roots in the very beginning of the space age, the late 1950s. The idea of Soviet reusable space flight is very old, though it was neither continuous, nor consistently organized. Before Buran no project of the programme reached production.

The idea saw its first iteration in the Burya high atmosphere rocket aircraft, which reached the prototype stage. Several test flights are known, before it was cancelled by order of the Central Committee. The Burya had the goal of delivering a nuclear payload, presumably to the United States, and then returning to base. The cancellation was based on a final decision to develop ICBMs. The next iteration of the idea was Zvezda from the early 1960s, which it seems also reached a prototype stage, although nothing else about the project is clear. After Zvezda, there was a hiatus in reusable projects until Buran.

The development of the Buran began in the early 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. While the Soviet engineers favoured 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 took place as early as July 1983. As the project progressed, five additional scale-model flights were performed. A test vehicle was constructed with four jet engines mounted at the rear; this vehicle is usually referred to as OK-GLI, or as the "Buran aerodynamic analogue". The jets were used to take off from a normal landing strip, and once it reached a designated point, the engines were cut and OK-GLI glided back to land. This provided invaluable information about the handling characteristics of the Buran design, and was much more convenient than the carrier plane/air drop method used by the USA and the Enterprise test craft. Twenty-four test flights of OK-GLI were performed after which the shuttle was "worn out".

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First flight

The first and only orbital launch of the (unmanned) shuttle Buran 1.01 was at 3:00 UTC on 15 November 1988. It was lifted into orbit by the specially designed Energia booster rocket. The life support system was not installed and no software was installed on the CRT displays.

The shuttle orbited the Earth twice before returning, performing an automated landing on the shuttle runway at Baikonur Cosmodrome.

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.) Since then, the launch video has been released to the public, confirming that the shuttle did indeed lift off, with the poor weather conditions described by the Russian media at the time easily seen.

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Aftermath

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 (informally Ptichka, meaning "little bird") and 1992 were never completed. The project was officially terminated on June 30 1993 by President Boris Yeltsin. At the time of its cancellation, 20 billion roubles had been spent on the Buran program. [1]

While lack of money is generally accepted as the reason for the cancellation of the Buran program, there were rumours that the original Buran was so damaged upon return from its only space flight as to make another launch unfeasible. Photographs and videos of the Buran upon landing from orbit do not lend much credence to this hypothesis.

The program was to have boost national pride, carried out research, and met technological objectives similar to those of the U.S. shuttle program, including resupply of the Mir space station, which was launched in 1986 and remained in service until 2001. When Mir was finally visited by a space shuttle, the visitor was an American shuttle, not Buran.

The Buran SO, a docking module that was to be used for rendezvous with the Mir space station, was refitted for use with the U.S. Space Shuttles during the Shuttle-Mir missions.

The completed shuttles 1.01 (11F35 K1, "Buran") and 1.02 (11F35 K2, informal "Ptichka"), and the remains of the project are now the property of Kazakhstan. In 2002, the hangar housing the sole space-flown Buran 1.01 orbiter and a mockup of the Energiya booster rocket collapsed due to incomplete maintenance, damaging the vehicle. Eight workers were also killed in the collapse of the building's roof [2].

Burans 2.01 (11F35 K3) and 2.02 (11F35 K4) (a second series with a modified flight-deck design, equipped with Zvezda K-36RB ejection seats for the first manned flights) never left the Tushino factory and remain there in poor condition. Parts from these vehicles are being sold on the Internet.

The partially built Buran 2.03 (11F35 K5) was dismantled when the programme was closed, and no longer exists.

As well as the five "production" Burans, there were eight test vehicles. These were used for static testing or atmospheric trials, and some were merely mock-ups for testing of electrical fittings, crew procedures, etc.

Serial numbers and current status

OK-M (later OK-ML-1) Static test Now at Baikonur Cosmodrome
OK-GLI Aero test  
OK-KS Static electrical/integration test Now at the Energia factory in Korolev
OK-MT (later OK-ML-2) Engineering mock-up Now at Baikonur Cosmodrome
OK-??? Static test Status unknown
OK-TVI Static heat/vacuum testbed Status unknown
OK-??? Static test Status unknown
OK-TVA Static test Now in Gorky Park, Moscow

The OK-GLI test vehicle was fitted with four jet engines mounted at the rear (the fuel tank for the engines occupied a quarter of the cargo bay). This Buran could take off under its own power for flight tests, in contrast to the American Enterprise test vehicle, which was entirely unpowered and relied on an air launch.

After the program was cancelled, OK-GLI was stored at Zhukovsky Air Base, near Moscow, and eventually bought by an Australian company, Buran Space Corporation. It was transported by ship to Sydney, Australia via Gothenburg, Sweden [3] — arriving on February 9, 2000 — and appeared as a static tourist attraction under a large temporary structure in Darling Harbour for a few years.[4][5]

Visitors could walk around and inside the vehicle (a walkway was built along the cargo bay), and plans were in place for a tour of various cities in Australia and Asia. The owners, however, went into bankruptcy, and the vehicle was moved into the open air, where it suffered some deterioration and vandalism.

In September 2004 a German reporter team found the Shuttle near Bahrain. It was bought by the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum, and was transported to Germany in 2005.

The 2003 grounding of the U.S. Space Shuttles caused many to wonder whether the Russian Energia launcher or Buran shuttle could be brought back into service. By then, however, all of the equipment for both (including the vehicles themselves) had fallen into disrepair or been repurposed after falling into disuse with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Image:StarToysCover.png

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Buran in science fiction

Shuttle Buran, alongside with another Soviet space orbiter project, Spiral, is used in Sergey Lukyanenko's The Stars Are Cold Toys novel. Equipped with a fictional 'jumper engine', Buran is one of the primary means of interstellar trade with aliens. Similar plotlines featuring Space Shuttle are typical in Western science fiction. However, it is likely that whatever nation or coalition undertakes the next manned space flight above Earth's van Allen belts, it will use traditional space capsules, not space planes.Template:Fact

Buran is featured in the beginning of Payne Harrison's space shuttle thriller Storming Intrepid.

The shuttle Buran is also featured in a mission of the Rainbow Six video game expansion pack, Eagle Watch.

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See also

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Russian space

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Space

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