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Although the Buran spacecraft was similar in appearance to the NASA Space Shuttle, and could similarly function as a re-entry spaceplane, the main engines during launch were on the Energia rocket and not taken into orbit on the spacecraft. Smaller rocket engines on the shuttle body provided propulsion in orbit and de-orbital burns.
The Buran orbiter which flew the test flight was crushed in the Buran hangar collapse on May 12, 2002 in Kazakhstan. The OK-GLI resides in Technikmuseum Speyer. The Buran program matched an expendable rocket to a reusable spaceplane.
Contents
Background
The Soviet reusable space-craft program has its roots in the very beginning of the space age, the late 1950s. The idea of Soviet reusable space flight is very old, though it was neither continuous, nor consistently organized. Before Buran, no project of the program reached production.The idea saw its first iteration in the Burya high-altitude jet aircraft, which reached the prototype stage. Several test flights are known, before it was cancelled by order of the Central Committee. The Burya had the goal of delivering a nuclear payload, presumably to the United States, and then returning to base. The cancellation was based on a final decision to develop ICBMs. The next iteration of the idea was Zvezda from the early 1960s, which also reached a prototype stage. Decades later, another project with the same name was used as a service module for the International Space Station. After Zvezda, there was a hiatus in reusable projects until Buran.
Development
Soviet engineers were initially reluctant to design a spacecraft that looked superficially identical to the Shuttle, but subsequent wind tunnel testing showed that NASA's design was already ideal.[5] NPO Molniya conducted all development under the lead of Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy.
The construction of the shuttles began in 1980, and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first suborbital test flight of a scale-model (BOR-5) took place as early as July 1983. As the project progressed, five additional scale-model flights were performed. A test vehicle was constructed with four jet engines mounted at the rear; this vehicle is usually referred to as OK-GLI, or as the "Buran aerodynamic analogue". The jets were used to take off from a normal landing strip, and once it reached a designated point, the engines were cut and OK-GLI glided back to land. This provided invaluable information about the handling characteristics of the Buran design, and significantly differed from the carrier plane/air drop method used by the USA and the Enterprise test craft. Twenty-four test flights of OK-GLI were performed after which the shuttle was "worn out". The developers considered using a couple of Mil Mi-26 helicopters to "bundle" lift the Buran, but test flights with a mock-up showed how risky and impractical that was.[6] The VM-T ferried components[7] and the Antonov An-225 Mriya (the heaviest airplane ever) was designed and used to ferry the shuttle.[8][9]
Buran cosmonaut preparation
A rule, set in place because of the failed Soyuz 25 of 1977, insisted that all Soviet space missions contain at least one crew member who has been to space before. In particular, in 1982, it was decided that all Buran commanders and their back-ups would occupy the third seat on a Soyuz mission, prior to their Buran spaceflight.[3] Several people had been selected to potentially be in the first Buran crew. By 1985, it was decided that at least one of the two crew members would be a test pilot trained at the Gromov Flight Research Institute (known as "LII"), and potential crew lists were drawn up.[3] Only two potential Buran crew members reached space: Igor Volk, who flew in Soyuz T-12 to the space station Salyut 7, and Anatoli Levchenko who visited Mir, launching with Soyuz TM-4 and landing with Soyuz TM-3.[3] Both Soyuz spaceflights lasted about a week.Spaceflight of Igor Volk
Main article: Soyuz T-12
Volk was planned to be the commander of the first Buran flight. There
were two purposes of the Soyuz T-12 mission, one of which was to give
Volk spaceflight experience. The other purpose, seen as the more
important factor, was to beat the United States and have the first spacewalk conducted by a woman.[3]Spaceflight of Anatoli Levchenko
Levchenko was planned to be the back-up commander of the first Buran flight, and in March 1987 he began extensive training for his Soyuz spaceflight.[3] In December 1987, he occupied the third seat aboard Soyuz TM-4 to Mir, and returned to Earth about a week later on Soyuz TM-3. His mission is sometimes called Mir LII-1, after the Gromov Flight Research Institute shorthand.[10] Levchenko died of a brain tumour the following year, leaving the back-up crew again without spaceflight experience. A Soyuz spaceflight for another potential back-up commander was pursued by the Gromov Flight Research Institute, but such a spaceflight never occurred.[3]Orbital flight
Planned flights
The planned flights for the shuttles in 1989, before the downsizing of the project and eventual cancellation, were:[13]- 1991 — Shuttle 1.02 Ptichka unmanned first flight, duration 1–2 days.
- 1992 — Shuttle 1.02 Ptichka unmanned second flight, duration 7–8 days. Orbital maneuvers and space station approach test.
- 1993 — Shuttle 1.01 Buran unmanned second flight, duration 15–20 days.
- 1994 — Shuttle 2.01 Baikal first manned space test flight, duration of 24 hours. Craft equipped with life-support system and with two ejection seats. Crew would consist of only two cosmonauts with Igor Volk as commander, and Aleksandr Ivanchenko as flight engineer.
- Second manned space test flight, crew would consist of only two cosmonauts.
- Third manned space test flight, crew would consist of only two cosmonauts.
- Fourth manned space test flight, crew would consist of only two cosmonauts.
- December 1991 — Shuttle 1.02 Ptichka unmanned second flight, with a duration of 7–8 days. Orbital maneuvers and space station approach test:
- automatic docking with Mir's Kristall module
- crew transfer from Mir to the shuttle, with testing of some of its systems in the course of twenty-four hours, including the remote manipulator
- undocking and autonomous flight in orbit
- docking of the manned Soyuz-TM 101 with the shuttle
- crew transfer from the Soyuz to the shuttle and onboard work in the course of twenty-four hours
- automatic undocking and landing
Cancellation (1993)
The program was designed to boost national pride, carry out research, and meet technological objectives similar to those of the U.S. shuttle program, including resupply of the Mir space station, which was launched in 1986 and remained in service until 2001. When Mir was finally visited by a space shuttle, the visitor was a U.S. shuttle, not Buran.
The Buran SO, a docking module that was to be used for rendezvous with the Mir space station, was refitted for use with the U.S. Space Shuttles during the Shuttle-Mir missions.[15]
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