'Remains Of A Soviet Shuttle'

Man, that is disheartening.. That thing looks like it was well built. It could have done well..


Poverty...
 
Was it ever close to being a reality? I doubt it. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. :sleep:
 
I don't think it ever got close to actually becoming a viable platform for the Soviet space mission. The Soviet government ran out of money and rockets were proven technology.
 
AndyG43 said:
iirc there was one (unmanned) orbital flight, before the project was canned.
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Yup. It was called the "Buran" ("Snowstorm") and it was launched on a single, remotely-controlled orbital mission mounted on a massive, liquid-fueled, heavy lift launcher called "Energia" ("Energy"), itself only used twice before bring cancelled. I believe the Buran orbiter may have had a pair of integrally mounted turbojets (or it was intended to eventually have them) to give it a limited cross-track and go-around capability, something the American shuttles lacked.

Video

N.
 
The article mentioned that it was being restored to flying condition and would perform demonstrations in 2013. This still has the potential to be successful.
 
My wife and I saw this at the Paris Air Show in 1987. It was mounted on their big a**ed transport....whose name I forget, hence my somewhat modified nomenclature.
 
yeah it'd be the An225 Mriya (Dream), the only aircraft chosen to lift the Buran... good job i'm planning to get to MAKS in 2013! woohoo! hope they get this off the ground... metaphorically and physically.... :salute:
 
Apparently it was destroyed when the hangar it was kept in collapse (killing 8), the accident included the real life size mock up.
If they restore it, i presume it will be to display status.
IF (big, HUGE, if) they restore it to operational status, there is absolutely NO DOUBT they will profit in the big hole left by the US Space Shuttle.

Best regards

Prowler
 
Prowler1111 said:
Apparently it was destroyed when the hangar it was kept in collapse (killing 8), the accident included the real life size mock up.
If they restore it, i presume it will be to display status.
IF (big, HUGE, if) they restore it to operational status, there is absolutely NO DOUBT they will profit in the big hole left by the US Space Shuttle.

Best regards

Prowler
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Done a bit more research on this; the hangar collapse in 2002 destroyed the Buran that had made the orbital flight, as well as a mock up of the Energia rocket.

The Buran program had several vehicles involved:

There were 1/8th scale models used in 5 sub orbital test flights.

There was a full size aerodynamic test model known as OK-GLI (similar in principle to NASA's Enterprise); this had turbojets, so could actually take off and climbb to altitude, then glide back as part of the tests - Neil, I think this may be what you were referring to? It is now on display in a German museum. (More here)

There was the single completed orbiter which was destroyed.

At the time when the project was cancelled, there were 4 other Burans on order. The 2nd vehicle was nearly complete; this is now at Baikonur Cosmodrome, presumably for display. The third vehicle, which was to be an improved model, was only partially completed - this is the shuttle shown in the article. It was displayed at MAKS 2011, which has caused a lot of controversy in Russia; basically a quick "restoration" (i.e. a couple of tins of paint) was carried out on the left side, the right side was untouched, so it was a very shabby exhibit, which very much wounded national pride. (More here). As she was, at best, only 50% completed, I think it unlikely she will be restored to an airworthy condition, but let's hope that they can properly restore her to display standards so Matt can get some decent photos.

And here is a video showing the scale of the problem, and the transportation to Zhukovsky. Obviously it is in Russian, but the visuals tell the story.

 
Prowler1111 said:
Apparently it was destroyed when the hangar it was kept in collapse (killing 8), the accident included the real life size mock up.
If they restore it, i presume it will be to display status.
IF (big, HUGE, if) they restore it to operational status, there is absolutely NO DOUBT they will profit in the big hole left by the US Space Shuttle.

Best regards

Prowler
Click to expand...

There was one that was destroyed in the hangar collapse. Along with the vast majority of repair/operational equipment for Buran. After the Soviet collapse in the early 90's To my knowlede that one still survives, but is in extremely poor shape. There was also bits and pieces of 1 more that was in production. It is missing all the tiles, and internal components.

There is also part of a second An-225. Which they are actually looking at finishing now. After Buran's demise the original was sort of left missionless. Not long after the Russian's figured out they could make a lot of money leasing it out to carry cargo around the world. So now they do a lot of the odd lifting jobs. The aircraft is showing its age though, and with concerns for its airframe life becoming bigger everyday there is talk of finishing this second one. Unfortunately though it will have a regular tail like the An-124, and not the cool split tail that the current 225 has (due to having to carry Buran).

http://www.buran-energia.com/blog/baikonur-cosmodrome-museum/ Here is the Kazakhstan Buran. Apparently there are more of them left than I thought between the 5 or so they built, and then all the static test models. Soviet history sure is fascinating.
 
I really don't think it's fair to say that the Soviets completely ripped off the American Shuttle program, despite the obvious similarities to the casual observer. There are only a handful of designs that will actually work for a given role; in this instance, a reusable space plane.

One of the most significant differences is the lack of ascent propulsion on Buran itself, Energia did all the lifting there (the only other Energia launched was used to deploy the Polyus laser satellite). Buran was also meant to have two robotic arms, as opposed to the one on the American Orbiter.

Only the Buran prototype, OK-GLI (which I've been on, when it was on display in Sydney) had jet propulsion for aerodynamic tests, but I've seen proposals for a weaponised version of Buran, OK-92, with the engines intended to give extended glide range. Smaller derivatives were proposed to be launched off the back of the Antonov An-325, the unbuilt launch platform originally intended for HOTOL, with an additional two engines.
 
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