Buran-Energia

Here is some pictures taken in October 2010 of the Energia M mock-up in the vertical vibration test building in Baikonur.

Other pictures are here in the gallery.

Today buran-energia.com has 5 years. It has been 5 years since I have started this project to make a website in french/english about the Buran space shuttle, and with the researchs I did I discovered other Soviets space projects (such as Spiral and BOR, …) which gave me the the idea to speak about them, and now the website is dedicated not only to Buran but to the Soviets and Russians space shuttle.

I still have a lot of subjects to speak about and informations to complete about Buran (ground installations, landing system, …).

So stay tunned.

The Siberian scientific aviation institute named after S.A. Chaplygin is located at Novosibirsk and is the biggest aviation research center of the East Russia.

This institute is equipped with apparels to heat up and cool down materials, this is why it seems that they worked on the Buran’s heat shield.

Here is two pictures of the vertical stabilizer located in the hangar.

Source: Gelio.

Few weeks ago some people got inside the Buran’s assembly building at Baikonur, the MZK. They found two shuttles, the test shuttle OK-MT and the second shuttle of first generation OK-1.02 named Ptichka (little bird).

This shuttle was finished at 95% when the program was stopped and had some modifications in comparison of the model which flew.

On those pictures we can see that the cabin lost a lot of its on-board apparels during the last years. It is difficult to imagine what was really the completion level at that time. We can also see the details of the air-lock module for docking with the MIR space station (APAS system).

Pictures of the inside and the outside of the shuttle.

Here are some pictures of the shuttle OK-MT taken at the beginning of August in the MZK building in Baikonur.

This building has been disused since the end of the program (beginning of the 90′s) this is easily noticeable due to the pile of dust on the orbiter.

The OK-2.01 shuttle was moved few weeks ago from its storage area (Tushino banks) to the Zhukovsky airport to be restored.

This is the first picture of the restoration shoot by Ivan Kirilov, where we can see the work achieved.

Clearly the « restoration » had to be done for the MAKS-2011, because the heat shield was not restored, only a layer of paint was put on the existing tiles. The leading edge and the nose cone are missing, there is not rear view but knowing that the engines weren’t on the model during it’s storage period there is few chance that they put them on the shuttle.

Update 17/08/2011:

Here are 2 new pictures of the MAKS 2011,  head side for visitors, reverse side … without comments.

The Buran shuttle OK-2.01 was moved yesterday (Wednesday 22) for the MAKS 2013.

It’s in the Tushino region, East of Moscow, that the shuttle has been lying for years, this Buran shuttle of second generation wasn’t finished when the program was stopped  in the beginning of the 90′s. Since then Molniya institute has been stocked it on a canal’s wharfage not far from the assembly factory.

On Wednesday 22, June during the day the shuttle was put on a barge to be moved to the MAKS 2013 international air show, which will take place in the Zhukovsky town (Moscow region).

Source: tushino.livejournal.com.

Update:

The shuttle has arrived at Zhukovsky on Monday 27, June.

From 20 to 26 June at Le Bourget airport stand the international air show of Le Bourget.

I went there the whole tuesday and was mainly interested by the space stands.

Unfortunately this edition doesn’t excel in the space domain. Indeed, the NASA has no stand, the JAXA (Japan space agency) shows only it’s supersonic jet, the ESA shows us some Europe pictures made from SPOT, and the Russian stand of ROSCOSMOS went with their regular mock-ups.

The ESA presents us some informations about the capsule iXV (Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle) which seems to be a new test bench for manned or unmanned (cargo) spacecraft.

On the Russian stand only a mock-up of the new capsule ACTS (developped by RKK Energia) to replace the Soyuz spacecraft is the only news. But this project is in it’s conception phase and computer simulation, it was difficult to know more, and what is its position in comparison of the Soyuz, what launcher will be used, a Soyuz, a Zenit?

About the air show the troubles of Airbus vitiated the European demonstration. The A380 without its wingtip couldn’t flight and the engines of the A400M allows him only to do « normal » passes. At last, the now usual, absence of Russian fighters hedged the air demonstrations.

But some planes on the ground need to be seen, like the C-5 Galaxy, the A-300 Zero G or the solar plane « Solar Impulse ».

The lack of real novelty in the space those past times perfectly reflected in this edition, but the presence of some European astronauts at the ESA/CNES stands allow, to the space exploration enthusiasts, to be comforted.

Update:

Finally the A380 could be repaired quickly during the week, here are some pictures of its flight demonstration:

The patrouille de France:

Conference with the Belgian astronaute Franck De Winne: