Buran-Energia

At the begining of June Ralph Mirebs took beautifull pictures of the Burans shuttles OK-1.02 and OK-MT in the MZK building at Baikonur.

Last week he fought back and slipped inside the vertical test building of the Energia launcher. Actually there is inside a full-size mock-up of the Energia M launcher which was a less powerfull version of Energia intented for launching less massive satellites (34t instead of 100t in low earth orbit).

Source: Ralph Mirebs.

Today we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Buran’s flight.

The start was given at 6 o’clock AM (Moscow time) under a thick cloud cover. The flight went through without specifics troubles and the shuttle landed smoothly on the runway of the Yubileyniy’s airport, specially designed for this purpose.

This flight is a first in the history of space exploration because it’s the first automatic flight of a space shuttle. Only the de-orbit command was transmitted from the ground.

Unfortunately, the financial and political situation of the USSR at that time was disastrous, the program was expensive and priorities has changed. The Energia-Buran program is slowly paused. There will be no further launches, despite the many opportunities that allowed the shuttle. Even the launcher Energia is abandoned.

Since then, no manned shuttle has reiterated the achievement of being driven solely by the on-board computer.

This program has been the swansong of the Soviet Cosmonautics.

TV Roscosmos published a reporting about Buran-Energia with an complete interview of Oleg Baklanov, member of the CPSU Central Committee (1988-1991) responsible for issues of state defense. He was a strong supporter of this project and ask for the developing of such powerful launcher to continue the space exploration and increase the transportations conditions of cosmonauts.

Other reporting here.

Today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first Energia‘s flight on May 15, 1987.

It is at 21h30 (Moscow time) that the rocket was launched for the first time with the Polious space combat station as a payload. The launch went fine, despite a trouble during take off, but a malfunction in the orientation system didn’t allowed it to reach it’s orbit.

The second and last launch of Energia took place one year later with Buran on November 15, 1988.

Even if Energia was a versatile, adjustable, very powerful (100t in low earth orbit) and reliable (2 launch and 2 success) rocket, the lack of large scale projects and the collapse of the USSR buried it. Only its boosters made from Zenit launcher are still used today.

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.

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.