Buran-Energia

Near the battlements of the Peter and Paul’s Fortress, of St Petersburg, is located a museum dedicated to the first works of the LenGIRD and then to the space exploration of the USSR. The museum is named after Valentin P. Glushko who was one of the firsts founder’s of the LenGIRD (Group for the Study of Reactive Motion) in 1931.

The visit begins here.

The first issue of Espace et Exploration (Space and Exploration) will be available in kiosks on next december 22, it will be publish every 2 months for only 5,90€

There will be, news about space, informations about manned space flights, view of space, interviews, etc. Well, only interesting things.

It’s good to know that a new magazine 100% about space is on it’s way to our homes, I missed it !!

Unfortunatly, it’s only in French.

More informations on the website: espace-exploration.com.

Here is a set of videos published by TV Roscosmos and TsAGI press about the TsAGI test insitute.

This institute is 90 years old and is a necessary step in the validation process of all flying apparatus in the Russian Federation and previously in the USSR.

The development of the Buran shuttle and Energia launch vehicle also needed batch tests in wind tunnels like we can see in the reportings.

TsAGI press:

TV Roscosmos:

Some days ago TV Roscomos published a reporting about the Buran-Energia program named Последний « Буран » Империи (The last Snowstorm of the Empire).

It was the most expensive space program of the USSR, but after one successful flight, in automatic regime, the project was grounded and then stopped.
This reporting explains why the Soviets choose to build a shuttle and why it was done this way.

From: TV Roscosmos.

Pictures on Polyus are difficult to find, mostly because it was part of the Soviet military defense program.

Here are 3 new pictures of the Polyus on the launch pad 250 with the Energia launch vehicle.

Other pictures on Polyus here.

Here are pictures I took of the space department in the Polytechnical museum in Moscow.

The museum is really big and has many other departments (cars, aviation, energie, telecommunication, …), if you go in Moscow you should visit it.

Back from my little trip in Russia I publish pictures of the space museums I visited. Here, it’s the museum of aviation and cosmonautic which is located in Moscow not far from the former airport.

Other museum’s pictures will come.

Here begin the visit.

During a meeting for the inauguration of a school, director of Roscomos, A.N. Perminov confirmed that there is no plans to revive the Buran project, nor develop a reusable system, at least like the Buran/Shuttle.

In accordance to the president of Roscosmos there is no plan to develop a reusable transport system even if the idea is interesting and it is necessary to continue researches in this field. But the way it was done on Buran and on the American Shuttle is detrimental because it implies important using costs and it is not secure.

The main point is the economical aspect, the cost of a launch of the American Shuttle is up to 0.5 billion of dollars, this is a lot of money even for a country like the United States.

The second point is about security, this spacecraft is not reliable at 100%, two accidents on the Shuttle showed it. Despite the hight level of design of Buran and the Shuttle, this is the same for Buran. This way has no advantage and is hazardous.

Ещё на один вопрос ответил А.Н. Перминов – о «Буране»: «Нет ли сегодня планов возрождения этого проекта или каких-то других проектов создания многоразовых пилотируемых космических кораблей?»
«Не хотелось вас огорчать, но лучше сразу сказать: нет, не планируем. Идея создания многоразовых космических кораблей сама по себе хорошая и будет использована дальше однозначно. Но как она была исполнена и на «Буране», и на американских шаттлах, она оказалась невыгодной из-за высокой стоимости обслуживания и ненадёжности.
Во-первых: экономический аспект. Стоимость запуска одного шаттла обходится НАСА до 0,5 млрд долларов. Это очень много даже для такой страны, как Америка.
Во-вторых: надёжность. Пока ещё не обеспечена 100-процентная надёжность кораблей многоразового использования, и 2 случая катастроф с шаттлами тому свидетельство. Несмотря на отличия в схеме компоновки «Бурана» и шаттлов, всё остальное на «Буране» то же самое – те же недостатки. Это направление оказалось невыгодным и опасным.

Source: http://www.federalspace.ru/main.php?id=2&nid=11499