Buran-Energia

This 2 new modelisations are in-touch with the SPIRAL project.

The first one is a detailed model of a BOR-4 (orbital plane without pilot), we can see the different on-board equipment, actuators and engines.

The second picture is one of an orbital plane mounted on top of a Soyouz rocket. This combat plane was part of the SPIRAL program and could put into orbit by a launching plane GSR or simply by a semiorka rocket.

Here is a new reporting on Buran which was broadcasted on ORT, russian canal 1, few weeks ago. This reporting speaks about military applications of Buran (complementary informations), BORs mock-ups and the new space shuttle made by NPO Energia: Klipper.

There is no more CDs of the Buran’s encyclopaedia (v3.5), it’s out of stock and there will be no more republishe.

However a DVD version will arrive in few months with a lot of new documents, pictures and videos.
To wait you can still buy the download version (.zip) of the encyclopaedia (same content), but cheaper! The DVD version will also be downloadable as soon as possible.

Here is some pictures of the test shuttle OK-TVA that I took in Moscow the last August.

This test shuttle was used for testing the heat shield, and for mechanical and acoustics tests.

It was moved in the Gorky parc in 1997 and renovated. The tiles of the heat shield were removed and replaced by ones in wood, but the bottom on the shuttle doesn’t have any. The payload bay was fit out to a cinema room where a movie is shown, moreover the people are sitting on articulated chair which let us think that the show will be interesting (like we can see in futuristic parks). But nothing at all, the movie is not about Buran, we only see a picture of the lift off of 1988 and during 10 minutes they show us pictures of the Earth (like a Power Point presentation made by a 10 years old boy), moreover the chairs are not working !

It worth the price we payed (50 rubles to get in the park + 50 rubles for this « show »), around 5 US dollars, but they could have made something much better !

The other pictures are here.

When I went to Moscow this summer, I went to the military airfield of Monino. This airfield is near Moscow (only few kilometers) and has a really beautiful assortment of planes. Their is all the main soviet planes (Sukhoï, Mig, Lisunov, Mikoyan, Myasischev, …) which distinguished them-self at their time.

In this assortment their is the EPOS 105.11 plane, full-size model test, which was part of the SPIRAL project in the 60s-70s.

The other pictures are here.

Here is an article about the different ways of use of Buran (with an high proportion for the military). Of course Buran should be used for putting into orbit different kind of objects (civil or military), but also for a module of a combat space station.

We are far from the peaceful space wanted by Mikhail Gorbatchev.

I added on the Buran section 2 articles, one on the auxiliary power system, the VSU, indeed Buran wasn’t equipped with fuel cells so it used a turbine powered by hydrazine to generate the energie of the on-board systems. And another one about the 37KB module which was used during the first flight of Buran to put additional instruments on-board.

Here is a little animation on SPIRAL, to download it’s in the video gallery.

Even if the launcher plane and the auxiliary rocket have differences in comparison with the originals blueprints, this animation is very well done.