Energia (rocket)

The Energia (or Energiya, Энергия in Russian, meaning Energy) rocket was a Soviet rocket that was designed by NPO Energia to serve as a heavy-lift expendable launch system as well as a booster for the Buran Space Shuttle. It had the capacity to place around 100 metric tons in Low Earth orbit.

History

Development

Work on the Energia/Buran system began in 1976 after the decision was made to cancel the unsuccessful N1 rocket. The cancelled N1 rocket-based Manned Lunar Launch Facilities and Infrastructure were used for Energia (notably the huge horizontal assembly building) — just as NASA reused infrastructure designed for the Saturn V in the Space Shuttle program. Energia also replaced the "Vulkan" concept, which was a design based on the Proton rocket and using the same toxic hypergolic fuels, but much larger and more powerful. The "Vulkan" designation was later given to a variation of the Energia which has eight boosters and multiple stages.

First launch

The Energia was first test-launched 15 May 1987 21:30 with Polyus (UKSS military payload), where the Energia itself functioned well, but the Polyus did not reach orbit due to a mishap of its own attitude control system after separation from Energia.

Second launch

The only other flight to orbit has been the successful mission in which the unmanned Shuttle Buran was brought to orbit, in 1988. Both the Energia and Buran programs were designed to maintain strategic parity between the two superpowers.

Discontinuation

Production of Energia rockets ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Buran shuttle project. Ever since, there have been persistent rumors of the renewal of production, but given the current political realities, that is highly unlikely. While the Energia is no longer in production, the Zenit boosters are still in production and in use. The four strap-on liquid-fuel boosters, which burned kerosene and liquid oxygen, were the basis of the Zenit rocket which used the same engines. The engine is the RD-170: a powerful, modern, and efficient design. It is still used on the Baikonur Cosmodrome-launched Zenit and on the Sea Launch floating launch platform system, which is built around the Zenit. A half sized derivative of the engine, the RD-180, powers Lockheed Martin's Atlas V, one of the two new U.S. EELV rockets (the other being the Boeing Delta IV). The quarter size derivate of the engine, the RD-190 would be used in the Russian Angara rocket.

Variants

Three major variants were planned after the original configuration, each with vastly different payloads.

Energia M

The Energia M was the smallest design configuration. The number of Zenit boosters was reduced from four to two, and instead of four RD-0120 engines in the core, it had only one. It was designed to replace the Proton rocket, but lost the 1993 competition to the Angara rocket.

Energia II ("Uragan")

Energia II, named "Uragan" ("Hurricane" in Russian), was a rocket planned to be fully reusable and would be able to land on a conventional airfield. Unlike the Energia, which was planned to be semi-reusable (like that of the U.S. Space Shuttle), the "Uragan" design would have allowed the complete recovery of all Buran/Energia elements, like that of the original totally reusable Orbiter/Booster concept of the U.S. Shuttle. The Energia II core would be capable of re-entering and gliding to a landing, presumably using technology developed for the Buran.

Vulkan-Hercules

The final unflown configuration was also the largest. With eight Zenit booster rockets and an Energia-M core as the upper stage of it, the "Vulkan" (which was interestingly the same name of another Soviet heavy lift rocket that was cancelled years earlier) or "Hercules" (which is the same name designated to the N-1 rockets) configuration could have launched up to 175 tonnes into orbit.^[1]

Footnote references

^ Godwin, Robert (2006). Russian Spacecraft. Space Pocket Reference Guides. Apogee Books. p. 59. ISBN 1-894959-39-6.

External links

Encyclopedia Astronautica: Energia
Official energia.ru page
Detailed site about Energia
K26 Energia page
Template:Ru icon A page about Energia rocket on a site about Buran spacecraft

Template:Russian launch vehicle

[1] Godwin, Robert (2006). Russian Spacecraft. Space Pocket Reference Guides. Apogee Books. p. 59. ISBN 1-894959-39-6.

[1]

v t e RD-170 rocket engine family
Derivatives	RD-171 RD-180 RD-191 RD-151
Technologies	Bipropellant LOX RP-1 Staged combustion cycle
Historic rockets	Atlas III (RD-180) Energia (RD-170) Naro-1 (RD-151)
Current rockets	Angara (RD-191) Antares (200-series) (RD-181) Atlas V (RD-180) Zenit (RD-171)
Cancelled proposals	GX (RD-180) Rus-M (RD-180)

v t e Orbital launch systems
List of orbital launch systems Comparison of orbital launch systems
Current	Angara 1.2 A5 Ariane 6 Atlas V Ceres 1 1S Chollima-1 Electron Falcon 9 Block 5 Falcon Heavy Firefly Alpha Gravity-1 GSLV H-IIA H3 Hyperbola-1 Jielong 1 3 KAIROS^† Kaituozhe 2 Kinetica 1 Kuaizhou 1 1A 11 Long March 2C 2D 2F 3A 3B/E 3C 4B 4C 5 5B 6 6A 7 7A 8 11 11H LVM3 Minotaur I IV V C Nuri OS-M1^† Pegasus XL Proton-M PSLV Qaem 100 Qased RS1^† Shavit 2 Simorgh SLS Block 1 Soyuz-2 2.1a / STA 2.1b / STB 2-1v SSLV Starship Tianlong-2 Unha Vega original C Vulcan Centaur Zhuque 2
In development	Antares 330 Bloostar Cyclone-4M Epsilon S Eris Gravity-2 Hyperbola-2 Irtysh Kuaizhou 21 31 Long March 9 10 12 Miura 5 MLV Neutron New Glenn New Line 1 NGLV Nova OS-M 2 4 Orbex Prime Pallas-1 Red Dwarf SLS Block 1B Block 2 Soyuz-7 Terran R Tianlong-3 VLM Vega E Zero Zhuque 3 Zuljanah
Retired	Antares 110 120 130^† 230 230+ Ariane 1 2 3 4 5 ASLV Athena I II Atlas B D E/F G H I II III LV-3B SLV-3 Able^† Agena Centaur Black Arrow Conestoga^† Delta A B C D E G J L M N 0100 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 II III IV IV Heavy Diamant Dnepr Energia Epsilon Europa I^† II^† Falcon 1 Falcon 9 v1.0 v1.1 v1.2 "Full Thrust" Feng Bao 1 GSLV Mk I H-I H-II H-IIB Juno I Juno II Kaituozhe-1 Kosmos original 1 2/2I 3 3M Lambda 4S LauncherOne Long March 1 1D^† 2A 2E 3 3B 4A Mu 4S 3C 3H 3S 3SII V N1^† N-I N-II Naro-1 Paektusan^† Pilot-2^† R-7 Luna Molniya M L Polyot Soyuz original FG L M U U2 Soyuz/Vostok Sputnik Voskhod Vostok L K 2 2M R-29 Shtil' Volna^† Rocket 3 Safir 1 1A 1B Saturn I IB V Scout X-1 Blue Scout II^† X-2^† X-2M X-3 X-3M X-4 X-2B^† B A B-1 D-1 A-1 E-1 F-1 G-1 Shavit original 1 SLV Space Shuttle SPARK^† Sparta SS-520 Start-1 Terran 1^† Thor Able Ablestar 1 2 Agena A B D Burner 1 2 Delta DSV-2U Thorad-Agena SLV-2G SLV-2H Titan II GLV IIIA IIIB IIIC IIID IIIE 34D 23G CT-3 IV Tsyklon R-36-O original 2 3 Universal Rocket UR-500 Proton Proton-K Rokot Strela Vanguard VLS-1^† Zenit 2 2M 2FG 3SL 3SLB 3F Zhuque 1^†
Classes	Sounding rocket Small-lift launch vehicle Medium-lift launch vehicle Heavy-lift launch vehicle Super heavy-lift launch vehicle
This Template lists historical, current, and future space rockets that at least once attempted (but not necessarily succeeded in) an orbital launch or that are planned to attempt such a launch in the future Symbol ^† indicates past or current rockets that attempted orbital launches but never succeeded (never did or has yet to perform a successful orbital launch)

v t e Buran programme
List of missions
Components	Energia Mir Kvant-1 Kvant-2 Kristall Androgynous Peripheral Attach System
Orbiters	OK-GLI (BTS-02) Buran (1.01) Ptichka (1.02) 2.01 2.02 2.03
Sites	Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 110 Landing sites Baherove Khorol Yubileyniy
Testing	BOR-4 BOR-5
Support	VM-T An-225 Mriya
Space suits	Strizh Orlan