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Buran programme

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This article is about the Buran space program in general. For specific information about the spacecraft, see Buran (spacecraft). For other uses see Buran.
File:Space shuttle USSR.jpg
Diagram of a Energia rocket with Buran shuttle.

The Soviet reusable spacecraft program Buran ("Бура́н" meaning "Snowstorm" or "Blizzard" in Russian) began in 1976 at TsAGI as a response to the United States Space Shuttle program. The project was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration.

Buran is somewhat similar to the NASA Space Shuttle, although many features differ.

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

File:DF-ST-90-07206.JPEG
Another view of the Buran on the Antonov An-225.

The development of the Buran began in the early 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. While the Soviet engineers favoured a smaller, lighter lifting body vehicle, the military leadership pushed for a direct, full scale copy of the double-delta wing Space Shuttle, in an effort to maintain the strategic parity between the superpowers.

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. Enterprise, on the other hand, was intended to be reused as an operational spacecraft and could not be modified with jet engines and the plumbing for them. Twenty-four test flights of OK-GLI were performed after which the shuttle was "worn out".

First flight

Further information: Shuttle Buran § First flight

The first and only orbital launch of the (unmanned) shuttle Buran 1.01 was at 3:00 UTC on 15 November 1988. It was lifted into orbit by the specially designed Energia booster rocket. The life support system was not installed and no software was installed on the CRT displays.[1] The shuttle orbited the Earth twice in 206 minutes of flight. On its return, it performed an automated landing on the shuttle runway at Baikonur Cosmodrome.[2]

Planned flights

The planned flights for the shuttles in 1989, before the downsizing of the project and eventual cancellation, were:[3]

  • 1991 - Shuttle Ptichka unmanned first flight, duration 1-2 days.
  • 1992 - Shuttle Ptichka unmanned second flight, duration 7-8 days. Orbital maneuvers and space station approach test.
  • 1993 - Shuttle Buran unmanned second flight, duration 15-20 days.
  • 1994 - Shuttle 2.01 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.

The planned unmanned second flight of the Ptichka was changed in 1991 to the following:

  • December 1991 - Shuttle 1.02 - informally "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

Atmospheric Buran testbed, MACS, Zhukovski, 1999.

After the first flight, the project was suspended due to lack of funds and the political situation in the Soviet Union. The two subsequent orbiters, which were due in 1990 (informally Ptichka, meaning "little bird") and 1992 (Shuttle 2.01) were never completed. The project was officially terminated on June 30 1993 by President Boris Yeltsin. At the time of its cancellation, 20 billion roubles had been spent on the Buran program.[4]

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. [5]

Current status

As well as the five "production" Burans, there were eight test vehicles. These were used for static testing or atmospheric trials, and some were merely mock-ups for testing of electrical fittings, crew procedures, etc.

Image Serial number Construction Date Usage Current status[6]
Space Flight Burans (Production vehicles)
Shuttle OK-1K1 - "Buran" (11F35 K1) 1986 Unmanned flight (1988) Destroyed in a 2002 hangar collapse.
This file may be deleted after Tuesday, 8 April 2008. || Shuttle OK-1K2 - informally "Ptichka" (11F35 K2) || 1988 || 95-97% completed, unused || Property of Kazakhstan, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the MIK Building.
File:Shuttle 2.01 '11F35 K3.jpg Shuttle OK-2K1 "Baikal" (?) (11F35 K3) 1990? Incomplete Located in an aviation museum in Sinsheim, Germany.
File:Shuttle2.02.jpg Shuttle OK-TK(?) (11F35 K4) 1991? Incomplete Partially dismantled, remains outside Tushino Machine Building Plant, near Moscow.
Shuttle 2.03 (11F35 K5) 1992? Incomplete Dismantled.
Aero and Static Tester Burans (Mock-ups)
OK-M (later OK-ML-1) 1982 Static test Static test model: parts, normal temperature static loads, moment of inertia, payload mass, interface tests (horizontal and vertical) with the launch vehicle. Located at Baikonur Cosmodrome.
OK-KS (003) 1982 Static electrical/integration test Static test model: electronic and electric. Located at the Energia factory in Korolev
OK-MT (later OK-ML-2) 1983 Engineering mock-up Static test model: documentation, loading methods for liquids and gases, hermetic system integrity, crew entry and exit, manuals. Located at Baikonur Cosmodrome.
OK-GLI (Buran Analog BST-02) 1984 Aero test Analogue aero test model. Completed 25 aero test flights and 9 taxi tests. Bought by the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum, transported to Germany in 2008. As of June 2006 it was in Bahrain.
OK-??? (Model 005?) Static test Vibration and vacuum test vehicle. Location unknown.
OK-TVI Static heat/vacuum testbed Static test model: Environmental chamber heat/vacuum, thermal regimes. Location unknown.
OK-??? (Model 008?) Static test Vibration and vacuum test vehicle. Location unknown.
OK-TVA Static test Structural test vehicle: loads and stresses, heating and vibration. Located in Gorky Park, Moscow.
Related Scale Models and Ships
BOR-4 1982-1984 Sub-scale model of the Spiral space plane 1:2 scale model of Spiral space plane. 5 launches. NPO Molniya, Moscow.
BOR-5 ("Kosmos") 1983-1988 Suborbital test of 1/8 scale model of Buran 5 launches, none were reflown but at least 4 were recovered. NPO Molniya, Moscow.
Full-scale crew section Medical-biological tests
GLI Horizontal Flight Simulator Flight control software fine tuning
Wind tunnel models Scales from 1:3 to 1:550 85 models built
Gas dynamics models Scales from 1:15 to 1:2700

Future possibilities

The 2003 grounding of the U.S. Space Shuttles caused many to wonder whether the Russian Energia launcher or Buran shuttle could be brought back into service. By then, however, all of the equipment for both (including the vehicles themselves) had fallen into disrepair or been repurposed after falling into disuse with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Technical data

Atmospheric Buran testbed, MACS, Zhukovski, 1999.

Mass breakdown

  • Mass of Total Structure / Landing Systems: 42,000 kg
  • Mass of Functional Systems and Propulsion: 33,000 kg
  • SSME 14,200
  • Maximum Payload: 30,000 kg
  • Maximum liftoff weight: 105,000 kg

Dimensions

  • Length: 36.37 m
  • Wingspan: 23.92 m
  • Height on Gear: 16.35 m
  • Payload bay length: 18.55 m
  • Payload bay diameter: 4.65 m
  • Wing glove sweep: 78 degrees
  • Wing sweep: 45 degrees

Propulsion

  • Total orbital maneuvering engine thrust: 17,600 kgf
  • Orbital Maneuvering Engine Specific Impulse: 362 sec
  • Total Maneuvering Impulse: 5 kgf-sec
  • Total Reaction Control System Thrust: 14,866 kgf
  • Average RCS Specific Impulse: 275-295 sec
  • Normal Maximum Propellant Load: 14,500 kg

Similarities to NASA Space Shuttle

Because Buran's debut followed that of Space Shuttle Columbia's, and because there were striking visual similarities between the two shuttle systems—a state of affairs which recalled the similarity between the Tupolev Tu-144 and Concorde supersonic airliners—many speculated that Cold War espionage played a role in the development of the Soviet shuttle. Despite remarkable external similarities, many key differences existed, which suggests that, had espionage been a factor in Buran's development, it would likely have been in the form of external photography or early airframe designs.

Key differences from the NASA Space Shuttle

  • Buran was not an integral part of the system, but rather a payload for the Energia launcher. Other payloads than Buran, with mass as high as 80 metric tons, could be lifted to space by Energia, as was the case on its first launch. A similar proposal, the shuttle-C concept, was envisaged to complement the space shuttle but never moved beyond experimental mock-up stage.
  • Energia was designed from the start to be configured for a variety of uses, rather than just a shuttle launcher. The heaviest configuration (never built) would have been able to launch 200 tons into orbit.
  • Energia was also capable of delivering a payload to the Moon. However, this configuration was never tested.
  • As Buran was designed to be capable of both manned and robotic flight, it had automated landing capability; the manned version was never operational. The Space Shuttle was later retrofitted with an automated landing capability; the equipment to make this possible was first flown on STS-121, but is intended only as a contingency, and has never been used on any flight.
  • The orbiter had no main rocket engines, freeing space and weight for additional payload; the largest cylindrical structure is the Energia carrier-rocket, not just a fuel tank.
  • The boosters used liquid propellant (kerosene/oxygen).
  • The Energia carrier, including the main engines, was designed to be reusable but funding cuts meant that a reusable version of Energia was never completed. The U.S. Space Shuttle has reusable main engines in the orbiter and reusable Solid Rocket Boosters but requires a new External Tank for each flight, as the tank is not recovered and is allowed to burn up in the atmosphere.
  • Buran could lift 30 metric tons into orbit in its standard configuration, compared to the early Space Shuttle Orbiters's 25 metric tons (later Orbiters were physically several tonnes lighter and could carry a correspondingly heavier payload).
  • The high lift-to-drag ratio of Buran is 6.5 against 5.5 for the Space Shuttle.
  • Buran was designed to return 20 metric tons of payload from orbit, as against 15 metric tons for the Space Shuttle orbiter.
  • The thermal protection tiles on the Buran and U.S. Space Shuttles are laid out differently. Soviet engineers believed their design to be thermodynamically superior. Buran's TPS does not have the grey Reinforced Carbon-Carbon (RCC) panels or nosecap of the STS, damage to the former being the primary cause of the destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.
  • Buran's equivalent of the shuttle's Orbital Maneuvering System used safer propellants with lower toxicity (GOX/Kerosene), and gave higher performance (a specific impulse of 362 seconds).
  • Buran was designed to be moved to the launch pad horizontally on special train tracks, and then erected at the launch site. This enabled a much faster rollout than the US Space Shuttle, which is moved vertically, and as such must be moved very slowly.
  • The Energia rocket was not covered in foam, the shedding of which led to the destruction of Columbia. In addition, the booster rockets were not constructed in segments vulnerable to leakage through O-rings, which caused the destruction of Challenger. However, the liquid fuel for the booster rockets (see above) would have made them less easy to prepare - and hold ready - for flight than solid rocket fuel in the Shuttle boosters and in addition represented a potential explosive hazard on the ground. Comparison should be drawn with the problems encountered with Soviet-era liquid-fueled ICBMs (e.g., SS-18s vs. Minuteman solid rocket fueled ICBMs of the same era in the USA) which could only remain fueled for a short period due to the toxicity/corrosive effects of the fuels themselves.

See also

Russian space

Space

References

  1. ^ "Shuttle Buran". NASA. 12 November 1997. Retrieved 2006-08-15. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ Chertok, Boris Yevseyevich (2005). Asif A. Siddiqi (ed.). Raketi i lyudi (trans. "Rockets and People") (PDF). NASA History Series. p. 179. Retrieved 2006-07-03.
  3. ^ "Экипажи "Бурана" Несбывшиеся планы". buran.ru. Retrieved 2006-08-05.
  4. ^ Wade, Mark. "Yeltsin cancels Buran project". Astronautix. Retrieved 2006-07-02.
  5. ^ Mir-Shuttle Docking Module
  6. ^ "Energia Buran Where are they now". k26.com/buran/. Retrieved 2006-08-05.
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