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.

It is with a simple press release that the Russian press agency (RIA Novosti) announced the death of the test pilot Pyotr Ostapenko on April 8, 2012, at the age of 83.

Pyotr Ostapenko worked all his career (1958-1981) for the design bureau MiG as a test pilot. He flew more than 5000 hours, did more than 10000 landings, and held 8 world records of which some are not smashed.
Thus he worked during the 70s on the space program Spiral as a test pilot of EPOS 105-11 (analog plane of the space plane EPOS).

During his career he helped develop no less than 64 planes such as MiG-21, MiG-23, MiG-25, MiG-27, MiG-29 and the MiG-31. His contribution to the school of test pilots was very important.

He was awarded of :

• Order of the Red Star (1964)
• Order of the Red Banner (1966)
• Lenin’s Order (1971)
• Hero of the USSR (1971)
• Test Pilot of the USSR (1973)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1974)
• Laureate of the state price of the USSR (1981)

Some installations (stairs and quarters) were made for the competitor in front of the Buran OK-TVA whereas a giant screen was settled behind her. During the show animations were displayed on the shuttle and the screen giving a striking effect.

Pictures of the show:

And the video of the animations:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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.

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.

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.