Buran-Energia

Here are some pictures of Energia-M took at baikonur in 1991.

Those pictures are from a private collection.

Other pictures here.

Igor Volk (tests pilots chief of the Buran program) was at the Speyer museum (Germany) on last 8th May to receive the TM-19 Soyuz capsule and attend an autograph show in the new space building.

Pictures: Nicolas Pillet.

The new edition of the FCS magazine has arrived !

It is a little bit smaller than the number 1 but contains 106 pages where you will be able to read articles about the Apollo program and the Soviet exploration of the Moon through the Lunakhod rovers, there are interviews and also actualities articles notably with the mission on the ISS of Maxim Suraev.

You can download it here (in French).

Some days ago TV Roscosmos published a reporting about space planes, Spiral, BORs, and Buran, and their military implications. Their development were closely linked to the vision of Gleb Lozino Lozinsky (chief of the Buran project) which thought that space travels must be done aboard space planes.

The Moscow’s authorities will ask that the houses will be set with new energy-efficient technologies developped by the All-Russia Research Institute of Aviation Materials, reported the journalists last 20 march during a visit of this institut by the mayor Yuri Luzhkov.

The mayor specified that one of the most important task of the city is to insure a good energy control for heating houses and to promote the use of new technologies. He also added that in 2010 the city will spend more than 8 billion rubles about scientific development which is more than the previous year.

As the institut’s director Yevgeny Koblov said, the discussion will be about the use of materials, developped for the Buran project, to increase the thermal efficiency of the houses. According to him some agreement had already been settled. Moreover, said Koblov, Moscow is considering the utilisation of carbon fibers developped by the institut for the construction of buildings.

The All-Union Research Institute of Aviation Materials was created and attached to the ministry of heavy industry of the USSR in 1932, then to the governement of the Russian Federation.

Here is some pictures I took last summer at Tushino (suburbs of Moscow) where the second generation Buran OK-2.01 is stocked, we can see that she is in a pretty bad shape.

It’s with great pleasure that I present you a special book (special because the thematic is rare). This book speaks about a theme that passionate a lot of us, human spaceflights, and especially the flight of a Russian Cosmonaut on-board the MIR space station.

Hugo Boris came at Baikonur for his researches and this is where I meet him (my trip to Baikonur).

But instead of paraphrasing him I going to let him talk:
Three years of work… The investigation allowed me to meet many cosmonauts. I went to the star city, at Moscow. But most of all at Baikonur, in Kazakhstan, where I attend a manned launch. This moment was soul-stirring, more than I can imagine. In fact, I can’t get over this trip, I think of it every day.

I haven’t danced for a long time (Je n’ai pas dansé depuis longtemps, in French) – Hugo Boris – ed. Belfond

Ivan was chosen to be the first man to stay more than four hundred days in Earth orbit.
An ordinary man, married, father of two children, leave the planet.
While the soviet empire collapse into chaos, he is revolving endlessly.
For him, the Sun rises and sets down sixteen times a day.
As time is passing by he is loosing sleep, smell, taste.
His vertebral column doesn’t bear him anymore.
His mind is wavering.
He has been practicing for many years, the mind entirely pointed toward space.
Now, he is only thinking of Earth. He misses Earth like a woman.

An interview (in French) of Hugo Boris on France 2 television, in the broadcasting « Dans quelle étagère… »:

Some days ago a documentary was broadcasted about the Spiral system on Russian TV Cultura. Here is a part.

Source: orbicraft.

You can find other videos here.