Buran News

Here is a small reporting about the Buran-Energia project which was broadcasted on American television on last November15, for the 19th anniversary of the first flight of the shuttle.

Triumph and tragedy of “Energia” is a book about the most powerful launcher in the world: Energia. Written by Boris Ivanovich Gubanov, project manager, he tells the tragic history and the anecdotes of the elaboration of the launcher, as well as the vision of the Soviet’s space in the 2000s.

On May 15th, 1957 (50 years ago), the USSR proceeded to its first rocket fire, R7 (it exploded some minutes later). It is only October 4th of the same year that R7 put into orbit successfully the Sputnik, first artificial satellite of the Earth. This historic launch was going to open the gates of the space conquest. Conquest won at first by the tremendous leadership of the Soviets (first satellite, first man in the space, first woman in the space, first pedestrian spatial), but these last ones were overtake by the Americans and lost the race to the Moon.

At the end of the 70s the Soviets decided to come back on the front scene after the bitter echec of N1, they launch the Buran-Energia project, the heavy thrower Energia of which allows to put on low orbit 100 t of payload.

It is the May 15th, 1987 (20 years ago) the first launch of Energia took place. Initially planned with a fictitious payload (placed on the side of the thrower), the launch will be made finally with the Polyus system. But after a breakdown of the Polyus’s propulsion system it was not able to reach its working orbit and crashed in the Pacific Ocean.

In spite of this failure the Energia thrower carries out his mission (2 launches at all since this date) with success.

Regrettably, Energia was give up after the fall of the USSR by the Russian authorities, because the thrower is partially Ukrainian.

Here is a page on the Tsniimash institut of Moscow. It is this institut which lead the mechanical stress tests on Buran and Energia since 1983. This article contains original pictures shoot at that time.

Here is some pictures of the launch pad 110 and 250 shot in 2006. To remind you, the 110 area was used to launch Buran in November 15, 1988, whereas the 250 area was used to launch Polyus in May 17, 1987.

Those 2 areas haven’t been used since then and are in a bad shape now.

Area 110:

Area 250:

I added a new document Birds of a feather. Birds of a Feather? How Politics and Culture Affected the Designs of the U.S. Space Shuttle and the Soviet Buran. This work by Stephen J. Garber is very interesting because it shows the evolution of the orbital planes conception from the American and Soviet side as well as the various political and technical choices which led to such solution. Furthermore it shows clearly that the development of Buran was not due to a scientific need but indeed to balance the military forces between the 2 sides.

Here are some pictures of the Energia’s first stage, in the Baikonur’s workshop:

I added them in the Energia’s pictures section.

I published some pages on the Soviets then Russians engines developped by the NPO Energomash company. I speak about the company and its history, then the various engines it designed for launchers. I also published a page on the rocket engine mechanism and the difference between the opened and closed cycle.