-The Mriya is destroyed. |
-Shipping of Buran-KS to Sotchi. |
-Antonov is no more. |
-Buran is now a museum. |
-New pictures of the blogger Ralph Mirebs. |
The purposes of the Buran space shuttle were formulated for the first time in the specifications of the universal space system, written by the central headquarters of the spatial means of the defence Ministry of the USSR, and ratified by D.F. Ustinof on November 7th, 1976 (according to certain sources 8).
Buran was intended to:The initial specifications planned the construction of 5 space shuttles for a frequency of 30 flights a year.
At the end of the 60s and at the beginning of the 70s the USA began to study the possibility of doing hostilities in space. In the USSR this idea appeared in 1976 from the instigation of the Central committee of the Communist Party of the USSR and the Cabinet of the USSR (Study of the possibility of creating a weapon for the conducting hostilities in space). The works were entrusted to NPO Energia. In the years 70-80 were led the studies with the aim of defining the tasks to annihilate military spaceships, missiles in flight, as well as air, ground and maritime objectives, both at the level of the means of production and financialy. 2 spaceships was elaborated on a common base to fight spatial military objects, equipped by various types of weaponry, laser (as "Skif") or of rockets (as "Kaskad"). The base of 2 devices became the unified block of service for the orbiting combat space station Polyus 17К ДОС. Unlike the station, the service block had to contain a large number of fuel tanks to be able to make numerous operations in orbit.
Caption: 1-Section of on-board fuel, 2-Machines system, 3-Special weaponry. | Caption: 1-Basic section including the fuel and the group of machines, 2-On-board armament, 3-Auto-aimed rockets | Auto-aimed rocket |
Putting into orbit those spaceships was supposed to be realized by Buran (during the experiment by "Proton" rocket launcher). Fuel tanks for the refueling were also put in orbit by Buran. To maintain the good functioning of the combat systems during long durations it was planned to send crews (2 people, up to 7 days), including by Soyouz spaceship.
Because the "Kaskad" vessel is lighter than "Skif" (the laser armament is very heavy) allowed this vessel to take more fuel. Besides, the Kaskads vessel must be put into orbit on a low orbit, whereas the second must be put on an average or geostationary orbit.
To destroy the enemy missiles quickly and their warheads, NPO Energia planned the use of "Kaskad" and its antimissile rockets.
These rockets were specially studied in this task and possessed the same characteristics of trajectory and speed as inter-continental missile. A not cryogenic fuel was used for these rocket and the miniaturization of on-board systems made them successful weapons. At the beginning of the 90s due to the change of politics the researches in this domain were stopped, the divisions which had worked on these projects were dissolved.
According to other sources the "Kaskad" vessel was elaborated by the company of A.E. Nudelmana supervised by NPO Energia. The putting into orbit of "Kaskad" had to be made by the Progress vessel. Five flights of "Kaskad" were planned for the first stage 1986-88. The factory of the experimental mechanical engineering industries (ЗЭМ) began the manufacturing under the numbers 129, 130, 131, 132, 133. However the project did not reached the flight tests. Vessels are renamed and in 1990 the project is closed.
The company responsible for the creation of the laser was "Astrophysical" NPO - Soviet general company of lasers. After the transfer of "Skif" from NPO Energia to KB "Salyut" at the beginning of the 80s the heavy combat station "Skif" is elaborated. In august 18th, 1983, General Secretary of the Central committee of the Communist Party of the USSR Iury Andropov makes the demand that the USSR stops the develKaskadopment of all the space defence systems. However, because of the americans started their strategic project of defence (IDS) the works on "Skif" continued. On May 15th, 1987 the station "Skif-DM" of about 80 t is launched by Energia LV, but gets damaged offshore due to a failure of the propulsion system.
For the destruction of important ground objectives was elaborated the space combat station on the basis of the series 17К ДОС and to which was added combat modules. The on-board systems were autonomous and borrowed from Buran.
The military load of Buran was elaborated on confidential decision of the Committee of the Communist party of the USSR and the Cabinet of the USSR "Study of the possibility of the creation of weapon for conducting hostilities in space" on 1976.
It is not excluded that if necessary (for example if the attack order was cancelled) the remote manipulator system could reload bombs inside the payload bay for a later use. |
To prevent the technical risks and the considerable damage of the loss of a device, it was suggested to create a redundancy of the on-board devices.
The persons whom elaborated the principles and the ways of the exploitation of Buran were: V.G.Aliev, B.I.Sotnikov, P.M.moineau, S F.Sadovyj, A.V.Egor, S.I.Alexander, N.A.Brjuhanov, V.V.Antonov, V.I.Berzhatyj, O.V.Mitichkin, J.P.Ulybyshev etc....
In May 1974, a large shake-up of the Soviet program took place which led to the Buran of the project. Vasiliy Mishin, who was the designer at the influential TsKBEM design bureau, was fired while he was in the hospital. TsKBEM with Valentin Glushko's KB EnergoMash bureau to form powerful new Energia Scientific Production Organization (NPO Energia). then took over this huge new organization, supervising all Soviet human spacecraft, launch vehicles, and reconnaissance Famed Soviet rocketry pioneer Sergei Korolev had founded seed of NPO Energia, but now Glushko had more power. As one of his first official the vindictive Glushko signed an order suspending all on the N1 and associated lunar projects. In single stroke, Glushko had cancelled Mishin's grand plans space exploration. Glushko was personally interested in a super-heavy launch vehicle. Despite many possible scenarios, it unclear what the prime goal or mission for a vehicle would be. Nevertheless, designers began some work on what became the Energia launch vehicle 1974. Soon, however, the military found a purpose such a vehicle.