Buran-Energia

Gleb Evgeniyevich Lozino-Lozinsky (December 25, 1909-November 28, 2001) was chief designer of the Spiral and Buran space systems, on last december 25, he should have had 100 years.

After his studies he became a plane engine specialist at the Mikoyan design bureau. During the 60′s he works as chief project on Spiral program, then enter at NPO Molnya as the main constructor of the Buran space shuttle, in the 90′s he will start the MAKC project (small space shuttle).

He was persuated that space travels should be done in winged spacecraft.

Here is a reporting that was broadcasted on TVRoscosmos:

The first version of the FCS Mag has arrived. This review was made by some members of the Space Exploration Forum (in French) for the joy of everybody and not only specialists. The advantage of this formula is that the articles are written by passionnated people of this field (professionals or amateurs) which make them very interesting.
We can find articles about space news, missions in the ISS for example, as well as historical and scientific articles.

I wish long life for the webzine.

To download it it’s here or on the picture.

Here is some pictures of the last BOR-5 (more pictures) in Russia, it is stocked at the Monino airbase. On those pictures we can see details on the temperature regulation system in the wings and attitude thrusters on the back.

Thanks to Orbicraft.

I had the occasion to visit, this summer, the Cosmonautic museum of Kaluga. This is the first museum about space exploration, it was built in 1967 under the decision of S.P. Korolev, even if it is a little bit old it is still an astonishing place because of its assortments and rockets.

The visit begins here.

Here is some pictures, of the personal collection of Eugene Arseniev, taken during the arrival of the EPOS at the Monino base.

More pictures in the gallery.

Source: Orbicraft.

On last September 29 was a tsunami, caused by an earthquake 200km South West of the archipelago, which devastated the american Samoa’s island and killed about 200 people. The islands were severly damaged and many installations were destroyed or badly injured, like two electrical power plants.

The american president Barack Obama declared the Samoa islands in emergency state: he allocated a federal subvention to help the assistance. The FEMA arraigned to fly in some replacement generators, that arrived on the 13th October. The Mriya touched down in the early hours and left late afternoon after discharging ten large generators, fuel tanks and other equipments.

Thanks to Derek W. for the pictures.

Here is some pictures I took in the Tushino’s suburbs where Buran OK-2.01 is parked.

Landing gear.

Actuator of the vertical stabilizer.

Reinforced Carbon Carbon tile (leading edge of the wing).

Braking parachute it’s weighting 175kg and was used to slow down the shuttle after it’s landing. We can see on the third picture the user’s guide.

I recently visited the Memorial museum of Astronautics in Moscow, this museum is located under the Space Conqueror monument near the VDNKh park.
The museum reopened this year (on April 12, 2009) with pomp and circumstance and now exhibit many interesting objects.

The visit starts here.