... Baikonur Cosmodrome November 15, 1988 At the start universal transport rocket and space system"Energy-Buran".
To that The day has been prepared for over 12 years. And another 17 days due to cancellation launch October 29, 1988 when, 51 seconds before, the normal retraction of the platform with aiming devices did not pass and a command was issued to cancel the start. And then draining the fuel components, prevention, identifying the causes of failure and eliminating them. "Don't rush!" Chairman of the State Commission V.Kh.Doguzhiev warned. "First of all, safety!"
Everything happened before the eyes of millions of TV viewers... The tension of expectation is very high...
At 05:50, after a ten-minute warm-up of the engines, an optical-television surveillance aircraft (SOTN) MiG-25 takes off from the runway of the Yubileyny airfield - board 22. The aircraft is piloted by Magomed Tolboev, cameraman Sergei Zhadovsky is in the second cockpit. The task of the SOTN crew is to conduct a TV report with a portable TV camera and observe the launch of the Buran above the cloud layers. By this moment, several aircraft are already in the air at different altitude echelons - at an altitude of about 5000 meters and a distance of 4-6 km from the launch complex, the An-26 is patrolling and slightly higher than it, following pre-planned routes (zones) at a distance of 60 km from start, the meteorological reconnaissance aircraft is on duty.
At a distance of 200-300 km from the start, a Tu-134BV laboratory aircraft patrols, controlling the radio equipment of the automatic landing system from the air. In the morning, before the start, the Tu-134BV had already completed two control flights at a distance of 150-200 km from the start, according to which a conclusion was issued on the readiness of the landing complex.
Exactly ten minutes before the start, by pressing a button, the tester of the laboratory of the autonomous control complex Vladimir Artemyev issues the command "Start" - then everything is controlled only by automation.
One minute 16 seconds before the launch, the entire Energia-Buran complex switches to autonomous power supply. Now everything is ready to start...
Note: in
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Buran launched its only triumphant flight exactly according to the cyclogram - the "Lift Contact" command, fixing the gap in the last communications between the rocket and the launch complex (by this moment the rocket manages to rise to a height of 20 cm), passed at 6:00:1.25 Moscow time time.
(Launch sound recording wav/mp3)
The picture of the launch was bright and fleeting. The light from the searchlights at the launch complex disappeared into a puff of exhaust gases, from which, illuminating this huge bubbling man-made cloud with a fiery red light, a rocket slowly rose like a comet with a sparkling core and a tail directed towards the earth! It was a shame this spectacle was short! A few seconds later, only a fading spot of light in the cover of low clouds testified to the violent force that carried the Buran through the clouds. A powerful low roaring sound was added to the howls of the wind, and it seemed as if it was coming from everywhere, that it was coming from low lead clouds.
After 5 seconds, the Energia-Buran complex began to turn in pitch, in another second - a turn to 28.7º on a roll.
Further, only a few people directly observed the flight of the Buran - it was the crew of the An-26 transport aircraft, which took off from the Krainy airfield (commander Alexander Borunov), from which, through the side windows, three (!) Operators of the Central central television filming was carried out, and the crew of SOTN MiG-25, which was reporting from the stratosphere, capturing the moment of separation of the parablocks of the first stage.
The hall in the control bunker froze, it seemed that the thickened tension could be touched...
At the 30th second of the flight, the RD-0120 engines began to throttle up to 70% of thrust, at the 38th second, when passing through the section of maximum dynamic pressure, the RD-170 engines began.
The control system led the rocket exactly inside the calculated tube (corridor) of acceptable trajectories, without any deviations.
Everyone present in the control room is watching the flight with bated breath. The excitement is growing...
77th second - the thrust throttling of the engines of the C block has ended and they smoothly switch to the main mode.
On 109 second second, the thrust of the engines is reduced to limit the overload to 2.95g, and after 21 seconds, the engines of blocks A of the first stage begin to switch to the mode at the final stage (49.5%) of thrust.
Pro walks for another 13 seconds, and the loudspeaker is heard: "There is a shutdown of the first stage engines!" In fact, the command to turn off the engines of blocks 10A and 30A passed at the 144th second of the flight, and to turn off the engines of blocks 20A and 40A after another 0.15 seconds. Switching off the opposite side blocks at different times prevented the occurrence of disturbing moments during the movement of the rocket and ensured the absence of sharp longitudinal overloads due to a smoother drop in the total thrust.
After 8 seconds, at an altitude of 53.7 km at a speed of 1.8 km / s, the parablocs separated, which after 4 and a half minutes fell 426 km from the start.
At the fourth minute of the flight, from the right screen in the Main Hall of the Moscow Region Control Center, which was just watching what was happening at the launch site, the picture depicting the main stages of the return maneuver disappeared - after the 190th second of the flight, in the event of an emergency, the implementation of the return maneuver with the ship landing on the runway Baikonur has become impossible.
Immediately after the complex exited from low cloudiness, the Buran TV camera, located on the upper window of the docking control and surveying the upper hemisphere of the ship, began to transmit to the C flight control center picture that went around all the world's news agencies. Due to the constantly increasing pitch angle of the Buran over time, more and more, as it were, "lay on its back", so the camera installed "on the back of its head" confidently showed a black and white image of the earth's surface passing under it. At 320 seconds, the camera recorded a small centimeter-sized fragment flying past the cabin of the ship, which, most likely, was a broken fragment of the second stage heat-shielding coating.
On 413 -th second the throttling of the engines of the second stage began; after another 28 seconds, they are transferred to the final stage of thrust. Anguishing 26 seconds and... at the 467th second of the flight, the operator reports: "There is a shutdown of the second stage engines!"
Within 15 seconds, Buran "calmed" the entire bunch with its engines and at the 482nd second of the flight (with a control engine impulse of 2 m / s) separated from block C, entering orbit with a conditional perigee height of -11.2 km and apogee of 154.2 km . From that moment on, the control of the ship is transferred from the command center at Baikonur to the control center near Moscow.
In the hall, according to tradition, no noise, no exclamations. In accordance with the strict instructions of the technical director of the launch, B.I. Gubanov, all those present at the command post remain at their jobs - only the rocket men's eyes are burning. Under the table, they shake hands - the carrier's task is completed. Now it's all about the ship.
Through three and a half minutes "Buran", at the apogee of its trajectory, being in the "lying on its back" position, issued the first 67-second corrective impulse, having received an increment in orbital velocity of 66.7 m/s and being in an intermediate orbit with a perigee height of 114 km and an apogee 256 km. Managers on Earth breathed a sigh of relief: "There will be a first turn!"
On the second orbit, at the 67th minute of the flight, outside the radio communication zone, Buran began to prepare for landing - at 07:31:50, the RAM of the onboard computer system was reloaded from the magnetic tape of the on-board tape recorder to work on the descent section and pumping of fuel from bow tanks to stern tanks to ensure the required landing centering.
At 07:57, a newly refueled SOTN MiG-25 (LL-22) was rolled out onto the runway, and at 08:17 M. Tolboev and S. Zhadovsky again took their places in separate cabins of the aircraft. After the MiG-25 was towed to the runway, the equipment of the ground support complex (KSNO) began to line up on the taxiways.
At this time in space, the orbiter built an orientation to issue a braking impulse, again turning into a "back" position to the Earth, but this time with a "forward-up" tail. At 8:20, while over the Pacific Ocean at point 45º S and 135 º west, in the zone of visibility of the tracking ships "Cosmonaut Georgy Dobrovolsky" and "Marshal Nedelin", "Buran" turned on one of the orbital maneuvering engines for 158 seconds to issue a braking impulse of 162.4 m / s. After that, the ship built a landing ("aircraft") orientation, turning "in flight" and raising the "nose" by 37.39º to the horizon to ensure entry into the atmosphere with an angle of attack of 38.3º . Descending, the ship passed the height of 120 km at 08:48:11.
Atmospheric entry ( with a conditional border at a height H=100 km) occurred at 08:51 at an angle of -0.91º at a speed of 27330 km/h over the Atlantic at the point with coordinates 14.9º S and 340.5 º h.d. at a distance of 8270 km from the landing complex of Baikonur.
The weather in the area of the landing airfield did not improve significantly. A strong, gusty wind still blew. Saved by the fact that the wind was blowing almost along the runway - wind direction 210º , speed 15 m/s, gusts up to 18-20 m/s. Wind (his corrected speed and direction were transmitted to the ship before the braking impulse was issued) unambiguously determined the landing approach direction from the northeast direction, on the runway of the landing complex (Yubileiny airfield) No. 26 (true landing heading No. 2 with an azimuth of 246º 36 "22" "). Thus, the wind for the planning ship became oncoming (under 36º left). The same runway, when approached from the south-western direction, had a different number - No. 06.
At 08:47, the MiG-25 engines are started, and at 08:52 Tolboev receives permission to take off. A few minutes later (at 08:57) the plane for the second time this morning takes off rapidly into the gloomy sky, and, after a sharp left turn, disappears into the clouds, leaving to meet the Buran.
Navigator-operator Valery Korsak began to take him to the waiting area to meet the orbital ship. It was necessary to perform not quite the usual guidance of the "interceptor" on an air target. In practice air defense it is assumed that the interceptor is catching up with the target. Here, the target itself had to catch up with the "interceptor", and its speed decreased all the time, changing over a wide range. To this should be added a constant decrease in altitude with a high vertical speed, and a changeable course of the target, but the most important thing is a large degree of uncertainty in the trajectory after the ship leaves the plasma region and on the descent. With all these difficulties, the aircraft should have been brought to the visual visibility range of the ship - 5 km, because there was no onboard radar, since it was still a flying laboratory based on the MiG-25, and not a full-fledged combat interceptor ...
At this moment, Buran pierces the upper layers of the atmosphere like a fiery comet. At 08:53, at an altitude of 90 kilometers, due to the formation of a plasma cloud, radio contact with it was interrupted for 18 minutes (the movement of Buran in plasma is more than three times longer than during the descent of disposable Soyuz-type spacecraft.
Flight
"Burana" in the hypersonic gliding area, in a cloud of high-temperature plasma (see our photo archive for other flight illustrations).During the absence of radio communications, control over the flight of the Buran was carried out by national means of the missile attack warning system. For this, radar means of controlling outer space with "over-the-horizon" radars were used, which, through the command post R Strategic Rocket Forces Golitsino-2 (in the city of Krasnoznamensk near Moscow) constantly transmitted information about the parameters of the Buran's descent trajectory in the upper atmosphere with the passage of specified boundaries. At 08:55 a height of 80 km was passed, at 09:06 - 65 km.
In the process of descending, in order to dissipate kinetic energy, Buran performed an extended S-shaped "snake" due to a programmatic change in the roll, while simultaneously implementing a lateral maneuver 570 km to the right of the orbit plane. When shifting, the maximum roll value reached 104º left and 102 º to the right. It was at the moment of intensive maneuvering from wing to wing (rolling speed reached 5.7 degrees / sec) that a fragment fell into the field of view of the onboard television camera, falling from top to bottom in the inter-cabin space, which made some specialists on Earth nervous: "Well, that's it, the ship began to fall apart!" A few seconds later, the camera even captured the partial destruction of the tiles next to the upper contour of the porthole...
In the aerodynamic braking area, sensors in the forward fuselage recorded a temperature of 907º C, on the toes of the wing 924º C. The maximum design heating temperatures were not reached due to a smaller reserve of stored kinetic energy (the launch mass of the spacecraft in the first flight was 79.4 tons with a design 105 tons) and lower braking intensity (the value of the implemented lateral maneuver in the first flight was three times less than the maximum possible 1700 km). Nevertheless, the on-board television camera recorded that pieces of thermal protection in the form of blots hit the windshield, which then completely burned out within a few tens of seconds and were carried away by the oncoming air flow. These were "splashes" from the burn-out paintwork of the heat-protective coating (HRC), falling on the windshields due to the decrease in the angle of attack as the descent in the atmosphere: after the speed dropped to M=12, the angle of attack began to gradually decrease to α=20º at M=4.1 and up to α=10 º at M=2.
The post-flight analysis showed that in the altitude range of 65...20 km (M=17.6...2), the actual values of the lift coefficient C y constantly exceeded the calculated ones by 3...6%, remaining, nevertheless, in acceptable limits. This led to the fact that when the real drag coefficient coincided with the calculated one, the actual value of the balancing quality of the "Buran" at speeds M = 13 ... 2 turned out to be 5 ... 7% higher than the calculated one, being at the upper limit of permissible values. Simply put, the Buran flew better than expected, and this after many years of blowing scale models in wind tunnels and suborbital flights of BOR-5!
After passing the plasma formation site at 09:11, at an altitude of 50 km and a distance of 550 km from the runway, Buran contacted the tracking stations in the landing area. His speed at that moment was 10 times the speed of sound. The following reports were held at the MCC by loudspeaker:"There is a telemetry reception!", "There is a detection of the ship by means of landing locators!", "The ship's systems are working normally!"
In the speed range M=10...6, the maximum deflection of the balancing flap was noted - the control system tried to unload the ailerons for intensive maneuvering. A little more than 10 minutes remained before landing ...
The ship passed the altitude of 40 km at 09:15. Descending, at an altitude of 35 km, in the area of the eastern coastline of the Aral Sea (at a distance of 189 km to the landing point), the Buran passed over the air corridor of the Moscow-Tashkent international air route, from the southwest of the enveloping border of the Leninsky air hub area, which includes includes the air traffic control and airspace use areas in the vicinity of the launch complexes of Baikonur, the landing complex "Buran" (airfield "Yubileiny"), the airfield of Leninsk ("Krainy") and the airport of Dzhusaly.
At that moment, the ship was in the area of responsibility of the Kzyl-Orda regional center of the unified air traffic control system of the USSR, which controlled the flights of all aircraft outside the Leninsky air hub at altitudes of more than 4500 meters, except, of course, Buran, rushing in the stratosphere at hypersonic speed .
The orbital spacecraft crossed the border of the air hub "Leninsky" at a distance of 108 km from the landing point, being at an altitude of 30 km. At that moment, it passed over a section of the air corridor No. 3 Aralsk-Novokazalinsk, and flew, surprising its creators - in the speed range M = 3.5 ... 2, the balancing quality exceeded the expected calculated values \u200b\u200by 10%!
The direction of the wind in the area of the airfield "Yubileiny", transmitted on board the ship, caused the ship to be brought to the eastern energy dissipation cylinder and approached with the azimuth of the true landing course No. 2.
At 09:19 Buran entered the target zone at an altitude of 20 km with minimal deviations , which was very useful in difficult weather conditions. The reactive control system and its executive bodies were switched off and only the aerodynamic rudders involved at an altitude of 90 km, continued to lead the orbiter to the next destination - key point.
So far, the flight has been strictly following the calculated descent trajectory - on the control displays of the MCC, its mark has shifted to landing complex runway almost in the middle of the acceptable return corridor. "Buran" was approaching the airfield somewhat to the right of the runway axis, and everything went to the fact that it would "dissipate" the rest of the energy on near "cylinder". So thought the experts and test pilots who were on duty on joint command and control tower. In accordance with the landing cyclogram, the onboard and ground facilities of the radio beacon system are switched on. However, when exiting key point from a height of 20 km, "Buran" "laid" a maneuver that shocked everyone in the OKDP. Instead of the expected landing approach from the southeast with a left bank, the ship vigorously turned to the left, onto the northern heading cylinder, and began to approach the runway from the northeast with a list of 45º to the right wing.
Pre-landing maneuvering of the Buran in the atmosphere (see our photo archive for other illustrations of the flight).
At an altitude of 15300 m, the Buran's speed became subsonic, then, when performing its "own" maneuver, the Buran passed at an altitude of 11 km above the band at the zenith of the radio landing aids, which was the worst case in terms of ground antenna patterns. In fact, at that moment, the ship generally "fell" out of the field of view of the antennas, the scanning sector of which in the vertical plane was in the range of only 0.55º
-30
º
over the horizon. The confusion of the ground operators was so great that they stopped pointing the escort plane at the Buran!
Post-flight analysis showed that the probability of choosing such a trajectory was less than 3%, however, under the current conditions, this was the most correct decision of the ship's on-board computers! Moreover, telemetry data testified that the movement along the surface of the conditional heading cylinder in projection onto the earth's surface was not a circular arc, but part of an ellipse, but the winners are not judged!
Height - twenty-five,
to the Earth another quarter of an hour -
homecoming
from the depths of his starry abode.
And ready for a long time
for landing him a strip,
The path to which lies
under the protection of the wing of a fighter.
That went through the layer
clouds that came at the wrong time,
Silence on earth
everyone fell into an uneasy silence.
His entire flight was
like a bright cosmic ray
Illuminated for everyone
fantastic distances.
That's all. On the ground.
Hear the joy in everyone's voices,
And the creators of everything
congratulations on the undeniable victory.
He made his way to the Boeing X-37B on December 3, 2010. But taking into account the fact that the launch weight of the Kh-37V is about 5 tons, the flight of the 80-ton Buran can still be considered unsurpassed.
Buran - a snow storm, a snowstorm in the steppe. (Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. S.I. Ozhegov, M.: Russian language, 1975).
Many years later, Sergei Grachev, assistant to the senior flight director, recalled: "I am in the control room and choose - where is the best place to observe the launch? I ran out onto the balcony of the 5th floor of the OKDP - and there the wind rumbles in the metal flooring - you can hardly hear how it takes off" Energy". I decided to go back to the control room and watch out the window. Before launch - a few minutes. I mentally calculate: so - the distance is 12 km, the speed of sound, the movement of the shock wave - if it explodes at the start, - and I tell the dispatchers: look, if you will see a flash at the start - immediately fall to the floor under the windows against the wall and do not move! After Energia-Buran left for cloudiness, I mentally imagine - and if the "comet tail" suddenly appears again from under the clouds? After all, there were such cases at the training ground , were..."
The launch and acceleration of the orbital ship by the carrier rocket takes place against the background of changing external parameters of the atmosphere. These perturbations are random in nature, so the trajectory parameters have acceptable deviations, changing not only from flight to flight, but also during one flight. Under such conditions, it is impossible to determine a fixed design flight path and one has to consider only calculation tube trajectories, in which the actual trajectory must lie with a certain probability. The calculated trajectory tubes for the Buran launch site were determined for a probability of 0.99, for the Buran descent trajectory, due to increased requirements for a non-motorized landing, they were even more accurate: 0.997!
Post-flight analysis of telemetry showed that there was a flash during launch fire detectors by radiation from engine torches, due to which emergency drain covers opened in the tail compartment of block C, designed to relieve excess pressure in emergency situations in the event of a fire and / or operation of the fire and explosion warning system (SPVP). Due to the erroneous operation of the sensors, even at the start, the SPVP began an emergency purge of the engine compartment of block C with inert gas at a flow rate of up to 15 kg / s, due to which, by the 70th second of the flight, the entire supply of inert gas was used up, and then the flight continued with inoperable SPVP.
Carefully examining the video recording, one can detect another surprising phenomenon: when flying over a mountainous area, a certain dark object comes into view, moving faster than the Buran and, due to this, crossing the frame in a straight line in the direction from below (in the center of the lower border of the frame) - up - to the right , i.e.as if in a lower orbit with a lower inclination. The video recording at the disposal of the webmaster does not allow to reliably link this event by flight time.
Several questions arise: if this is a space object, then why does it look too dark in the illuminated part of the orbit? If this is an insect that got inside the Buran cabin and crawls along the inner surface of the porthole, then why does it crawl in a straight line at a constant speed and what does it breathe in the completely nitrogen (oxygen-free) atmosphere of the cabin? Most likely, this is a fragment (garbage?) flying in weightlessness inside the cabin and accidentally falling into the field of view of the camera
You can see it all for yourself
by downloading the video clip
. control engines of the reactive control system (RCS) the following:
First, in the initial phase of the descent , elevons are connected to the control loop to balance the ship and remove static components in commands for the operation of the control engines of the DCS. Then, as the velocity pressure increases, the transition to aerodynamic controls is carried out and the transverse (q = 50 kgf / m 2) and longitudinal (q = 100 kgf / m 2) channels of the DCS are switched off sequentially. "scheme (creating a slip followed by a roll rotation) until transonic speeds are reached.
Anton Stepanov, a participant in the events described in the OKDP, recalls: “At the moment of a sharp change in the course of the Buran, one of the female operators of our ES series computers shouted “Come back!”, - her face should have been seen - it was both fear and hope, and worries for the ship as for her own child." The surprise of the air traffic controllers is easy to understand, since in the central air traffic control room in the OKDP, to facilitate reading information on circular monitors, directly on the screen glasses, the operators drew in advance with black felt-tip pens the expected approach trajectories of Buran for landing. Naturally, no real, but least probable and therefore completely unexpected trajectory was drawn, and the deviation immediately became noticeable.
Newsreel footage testifies that in the MCC, the landing approach scheme was also displayed on all screens through the southern heading adjustment cylinder (see photo from the MCC screen on the right).
Years later, Vladimir Ermolaev, who was at the time of landing tens of meters from the runway, and thus, being one of the closest people to the returned Buran, recalled: "... We stared at the Buran that suddenly fell out of low clouds" "It was already moving with its landing gear down. It was going somehow heavily, stone-like, as if glued to a transparent glass glide path. Very smoothly. In a straight line. So it seemed. Open-mouthed, we all looked at the Buran approaching us and flying straight into our mouths of "MiG" escort... Touching... parachute... got up... Everything... EVERYTHING!!!
We were still standing dazed, with our mouths open, deafened by the MiG engines and fanned by some kind of warm breeze brought by the Buran from somewhere from there ... From the plasma section of the descent, probably ... God knows ... "
For comparison, in August 2007, the flight of the American space shuttle Endeavor was shortened by a day due to tropical hurricane Dean approaching the Kennedy Space Center. When deciding on an early landing, the determining factor was the limitation on the maximum value of the crosswind during landing for shuttles - 8 m/sec.
The poem "The Flight of the Storm" by Vitaly Chubatykh, Ternopil, March 1, 2006
| This website is based on an article
web-masters "Buran: Facts and Myths", written for the 20th anniversary of the Buran flight and published in the journal "Cosmonautics News" No. 11/2008 (pp. 66-71). The article was recognized as the "Best Article of 2008" and took second place in the contest of authors of the magazine "Cosmonautics News" in the nomination "The most popular author of 2008 among non-professional journalists", see certificates on the right.
In addition, the text of the article without changes was posted on the website of the Federal Space Agency as a story about the Buran flight. |
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Reusable orbital ship (according to the terminology of Minaviaprom - orbital aircraft) "Buran"
(product 11F35)
"B Uranus"- a Soviet winged reusable orbital ship. Designed to solve a number of defense tasks, launching various space objects into orbit around the Earth and servicing them; delivering modules and personnel for assembling large structures and interplanetary complexes in orbit; returning to Earth faulty or outdated satellites, development of equipment and technologies for space production and delivery of products to Earth, and other cargo and passenger transportation along the Earth-space-Earth route.
Internal layout , construction .
In the bow of the "Buran" there is a sealed plug-in cabin with a volume of 73 cubic meters for the crew (2 - 4 people) and passengers (up to 6 people), compartments
on-board equipment and a bow block of control engines.
The middle part is occupied by the cargo compartmentwith doors opening upwards, in which manipulators are placed for loading and unloading and installation and assembly work and variousoperations for servicing space objects. Under the cargo compartment there are units of power supply and temperature control systems. Propulsion units, fuel tanks, hydraulic system units are installed in the tail section (see fig.). The design of "Buran" used aluminum alloys, titanium, steel and other materials. To resist aerodynamic heating during de-orbit, the outer surface of the spacecraft has a heat-shielding coating that is designed for reusable use.
A flexible thermal protection is installed on the upper surface, which is less subject to heating, and other surfaces are covered with heat-protective tiles made on the basis of quartz fibers and withstanding temperatures up to 1300ºС. In especially heat-stressed areas (in the toes of the fuselage and wing, where the temperature reaches 1500º - 1600ºС), a carbon-carbon composite material is used. The stage of the most intense heating of the SC is accompanied by the formation of an air plasma layer around it, however, the SC structure does not warm up to more than 160°C by the end of the flight. Each of the 38600 tiles has a specific installation location, due to the theoretical contours of the OK case. To reduce thermal loads, large values of the bluntness radii of the wing and fuselage toes were also chosen. Estimated design resource - 100 orbital flights.
The internal layout of the Buran on the poster of NPO Energia (now the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation). Explanation of the designation of the ship: all orbital ships had the code 11F35. The final plans were to build five flying ships, in two series. Being the first, "Buran" had an aviation designation (at NPO Molniya and the Tushino Machine-Building Plant) 1.01 (the first series - the first ship). NPO Energia had a different designation system, according to which Buran was identified as 1K - the first ship. Since the ship had to perform different tasks in each flight, the flight number was added to the ship's index - 1K1 - the first ship, the first flight.
Propulsion system and onboard equipment.
The joint propulsion system (JPU) ensures the additional insertion of the spacecraft into the reference orbit, the performance of interorbital transitions (corrections), precise maneuvering near the orbital complexes being serviced, the orientation and stabilization of the spacecraft, and its deceleration for deorbiting. The ODE consists of two orbital maneuvering engines (in the figure on the right) operating on hydrocarbon fuel and liquid oxygen, and 46 gas-dynamic control engines grouped into three blocks (one nose block and two tail blocks). More than 50 onboard systems, including radio engineering, TV and telemetry systems, life support systems, thermal control, navigation, power supply and others, are combined on the basis of a computer into a single onboard complex, which ensures the duration of the Buran's stay in orbit up to 30 days.
The heat released by the onboard equipment is supplied by means of a coolant to radiation heat exchangers installed on the inside of the cargo compartment doors and radiated into the surrounding space (the doors are open during flight in orbit).
Geometrical and weight characteristics. The length of the Buran is 35.4 m, the height is 16.5 m (with the landing gear extended), the wingspan is about 24 m, the wing area is 250 square meters, the fuselage width is 5.6 m, the height is 6.2 m; the diameter of the cargo compartment is 4.6 m, its length is 18 m. The launch weight of the OK is up to 105 tons, the weight of the cargo delivered into orbit is up to 30 tons, the mass returned from orbit is up to 15 tons. The maximum fuel capacity is up to 14 tons.
The large overall dimensions of the Buran make it difficult to use ground means of transportation, so it (as well as the launch vehicle units) is delivered to the cosmodrome by air by the VM-T aircraft of the Experimental Machine-Building Plant named after V.I. V.M. Myasishchev (at the same time, the keel is removed from the Buran and the mass is brought to 50 tons) or by the An-225 multi-purpose transport aircraft in a fully assembled form.
The ships of the second series were the crowning achievement of the engineering art of our aircraft industry, the pinnacle of domestic manned cosmonautics. These ships were to become truly all-weather and round-the-clock manned orbital aircraft with improved flight performance and significantly increased capabilities due to many design changes and improvements. In particular, they increased the number of shunting engines due to the new -You can learn much more about winged spaceships from our book (see the cover on the left) "Space Wings", (M .: Lenta Wanderings, 2009. - 496s.: Il.) Today - this is the most complete Russian-language encyclopedic narrative of dozens of domestic and foreign projects. Here's what it says in the book's synopsis:
"
The book is devoted to the stage of emergence and development of cruise rocket and space systems, which were born at the "junction of three elements" - aviation, rocket technology and astronautics, and absorbed not only the design features of these types of equipment, but also the whole heap of technical and military technologies accompanying them. political problems.
The history of the creation of aerospace vehicles of the world is described in detail - from the first aircraft with rocket engines of the times of World War II to the start of the implementation of the Space Shuttle (USA) and Energiya-Buran (USSR) programs.
The book, designed for a wide range of readers interested in the history of aviation and astronautics, design features and unexpected twists in the fate of the first projects of aerospace systems, contains about 700 illustrations on 496 pages, most of which are published for the first time.
Assistance in the preparation of the publication was provided by such enterprises of the Russian aerospace complex as NPO Molniya, NPO Mashinostroeniya, Federal State Unitary Enterprise RSK MiG, LII named after M.M. Gromov, TsAGI, as well as the Museum of the Marine Space Fleet. The introductory article was written by General V.E. Gudilin, a legendary figure in our cosmonautics.
You can get a more complete picture of the book, its price and purchase options on a separate page. There you can also get acquainted with its content, design, introductory article by Vladimir Gudilin, authors' preface and imprint editions.
"Buran" was intended for:
The first and only space flight "Buran" made November 15, 1988. A number of technical solutions obtained during the creation of Buran are still used in Russian and foreign rocket and space technology.
Encyclopedic YouTube
1 / 5
✪ The mysterious death of test pilots | Reusable spacecraft "Buran"
✪ "Oblivion of Buran. Secrets of forgotten victories" (2009)
✪ The first and only flight of "Buran"
✪ NPO Lightning. Spaceship Buran. part two - testing by space.
✪ Orbital Ship "BURAN" 1988
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The production of orbital ships has been carried out at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant since 1980; by 1984, the first full-scale copy was ready. From the factory, the ships were delivered by water transport (on a barge under an awning) to the city of Zhukovsky, and from there (from the Ramenskoye airfield) - by air (on a special VM-T transport aircraft) - to the Yubileiny airfield of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
In 1984, at the LII im. M. M. Gromov, crews were formed to test the Buran analogue - BTS-02, which were carried out until 1988. The same crews were planned for the 1st manned flight of Buran.
- "Western alternate airfield" - airport Simferopol in the Crimea with a reconstructed runway with dimensions of 3701x60 m ( 45°02′42″ s. sh. 33°58′37″ E d. HGIOL) ;
- "Eastern alternate airfield" - the military airfield Khorol in the Primorsky Territory with a runway measuring 3700x70 m ( 44°27′04″ s. sh. 132°07′28″ E d. HGIOL).
At these three airfields (and in their areas), Vympel complexes of radio-technical systems for navigation, landing, trajectory control and air traffic control were deployed to ensure the regular landing of the Buran (in automatic and manual mode).
According to some reports, in order to ensure readiness for an emergency landing of Buran (in manual mode), runways were built or reinforced at fourteen more airfields, including those outside the territory of the USSR (in Cuba, in Libya).
A full-size analog of the Buran, which had the designation BTS-002 (GLI), was made for flight tests in the Earth's atmosphere. In its tail section were four turbojet engines that allowed it to take off from a conventional airfield. In -1988, it was used in (the city of Zhukovsky, Moscow Region) to work out the control system and the automatic landing system, as well as to train test pilots before space flights.
On November 10, 1985, at the Gromov Flight Research Institute of the USSR Ministry of Aviation Industry, a full-size analog of the Buran made the first atmospheric flight (machine 002 GLI - horizontal flight tests). The car was piloted by LII test pilots Igor Petrovich Volk and R. A. Stankyavichus.
Earlier, by order of the USSR Ministry of Aviation Industry dated June 23, 1981 No. 263, the Industry Detachment of Test Cosmonauts of the USSR Ministry of Aviation Industry was created, consisting of: Volk I.P., Levchenko A.S., Stankyavichus R.A. and Shchukin A.V. (first set) .
Flight
The space flight of Buran took place on November 15, 1988. The Energiya launch vehicle, launched from pad 110 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, launched the spacecraft into near-Earth orbit. The flight lasted 205 minutes, during which time the ship made two orbits around the Earth, after which it landed at the Yubileiny airfield of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
The flight took place in automatic mode using the on-board computer and on-board software. Over the Pacific Ocean "Buran" was accompanied by the ship of the measuring complex of the Navy of the USSR "Marshal Nedelin" and the research vessel of the USSR Academy of Sciences "Cosmonaut Georgy Dobrovolsky".
During the landing phase, there was an emergency, which, however, only underlined the success of the creators of the program. At an altitude of about 11 km, the Buran, which received information from the ground station about the weather conditions at the landing site, unexpectedly made a sharp maneuver for everyone. The ship described a smooth loop with a 180º turn (initially entering the runway from the northwest direction, the ship landed, entering from its southern end). As it turned out later, due to the storm wind on the ground, the ship's automation decided to additionally reduce speed and go along the most advantageous landing trajectory under the new conditions.
At the time of the turn, the ship disappeared from the field of view of ground surveillance equipment, communication was interrupted for a while. Panic began in the MCC, the responsible persons immediately proposed to use the emergency system for undermining the ship (TNT charges were installed on it, provided to prevent the top-secret ship from crashing on the territory of another state in case of loss of course). However, Stepan Mikoyan, Deputy Chief Designer of NPO Molniya for flight tests, who was in charge of controlling the ship in the descent and landing section, decided to wait, and the situation was resolved successfully.
Initially, the automatic landing system did not provide for the transition to manual control mode. However, test pilots and cosmonauts demanded that the designers include a manual mode in the landing control system:
... the control system of the Buran ship was supposed to automatically perform all actions up to the ship stopping after landing. The participation of the pilot in the management was not provided. (Later, at our insistence, they nevertheless provided for a backup manual control mode in the atmospheric leg of the flight during the return of the spacecraft.)
A significant part of the technical information about the course of the flight is not available to a modern researcher, since it was recorded on magnetic tapes for BESM-6 computers, no serviceable copies of which have been preserved. It is possible to partially recreate the course of the historical flight using the preserved paper rolls of printouts on the ATsPU-128 with selections from on-board and ground telemetry data.
Subsequent events
In 2002, the only Buran flying into space (product 1.01) was destroyed during the collapse of the roof of the assembly and test building at Baikonur, in which it was stored along with finished copies of the Energia launch vehicle.
After the disaster of the Columbia spacecraft, and in particular with the closure of the Space Shuttle program, the Western media have repeatedly expressed the opinion that the US space agency NASA is interested in the revival of the Energia-Buran complex and intends to place an appropriate order for Russia in the near future. time. Meanwhile, according to the Interfax news agency, director G.G.Raykunov said that Russia could return after 2018 to this program and the creation of launch vehicles capable of launching cargo up to 24 tons into orbit; testing will begin in 2015. In the future, it is planned to create rockets that will deliver cargo weighing more than 100 tons into orbit. In the distant future, there are plans to develop a new manned spacecraft and reusable launch vehicles.
Specifications
One of the numerous specialists in heat-shielding coating was the musician Sergey Letov.
Comparative analysis of the Buran and Space Shuttle systems
With an outward resemblance to the American Shuttle, the Buran orbital ship had a fundamental difference - it could land in a fully automatic mode using an on-board computer and the Vympel ground complex of radio engineering systems for navigation, landing, trajectory control and air traffic control.
"Shuttle" lands with idle engines. It does not have the ability to land several times, so there are several landing sites in the United States.
"Buran": the name of the complex "Energy - Buran". The complex consisted of the first stage, which was four side blocks with oxygen-kerosene engines RD-170 (in the future, their return and reusable use was envisaged), the second stage with four oxygen-hydrogen engines RD-0120, which is the basis of the complex and docked to it the returning space apparatus "Buran". At launch, both stages were launched. After resetting the first stage (4 side blocks), the second continued to work until reaching a speed slightly less than orbital. The final conclusion was carried out by the engines of the Buran itself, this excluded contamination of the orbits by fragments of spent rocket stages.
This scheme is universal, since it made it possible to launch into orbit not only the Buran MTKK, but also other payloads weighing up to 100 tons. The Buran entered the atmosphere and began to slow down (the entry angle was about 30°, the entry angle gradually decreased). Initially, for controlled flight in the atmosphere, the Buran had to be equipped with two turbojet engines installed in the aerodynamic shadow zone at the base of the keel. However, by the time of the first (and only) launch, this system was not ready for flight, therefore, after entering the atmosphere, the ship was controlled only by control surfaces without using engine thrust. Before landing, Buran carried out a speed-damping corrective maneuver (flying in a descending eight), after which it went to land. In this single flight, the Buran had only one attempt to land. During landing, the speed was 300 km / h, during entry into the atmosphere it reached 25 speeds of sound (almost 30 thousand km / h).
Unlike the Shuttles, the Buran had an emergency crew rescue system. At low altitudes, a catapult operated for the first two pilots; at a sufficient height, in the event of an emergency, Buran could separate from the launch vehicle and make an emergency landing.
The chief designers of the Buran never denied that the Buran was partially copied from the American Space Shuttle. In particular, General Designer Lozino-Lozinsky spoke on the issue of copying as follows:
The general designer Glushko considered that by that time there were few materials that would confirm and guarantee success, at a time when the flights of the Shuttle proved that a configuration similar to the Shuttle worked successfully, and there is less risk when choosing a configuration. Therefore, despite the larger useful volume of the Spiral configuration, it was decided to carry out the Buran in a configuration similar to the Shuttle configuration.
... Copying, as indicated in the previous answer, was, of course, completely conscious and justified in the process of those design developments that were carried out, and during which, as already indicated above, many changes were made to both the configuration and the design. The main political requirement was to ensure that the dimensions of the payload compartment were the same as the payload compartment of the Shuttle.
... the absence of sustainer engines on the Buran noticeably changed the centering, the position of the wings, the configuration of the influx, well, and a number of other differences.
Causes and effects of system differences
The original version of the OS-120, which appeared in 1975 in Volume 1B "Technical Proposals" of the "Integrated Rocket and Space Program", was an almost complete copy of the American space shuttle - in the tail section of the ship there were three sustainer oxygen-hydrogen engines (11D122 developed by KBEM with a thrust along 250 tons s and specific impulse 353 sec on the ground and 455 sec in vacuum) with two protruding engine nacelles for orbital maneuvering engines.
The key issue turned out to be the engines, which were supposed to be equal in all basic parameters to or exceed the characteristics of the onboard engines of the American SSME orbital spacecraft and side solid-propellant boosters.
The engines, created in the Voronezh Design Bureau for Chemical Automation, turned out to be compared with the American counterpart:
- heavier (3450 vs. 3117 kg),
- slightly larger in size (diameter and height: 2420 and 4550 versus 1630 and 4240 mm),
- with a slightly lower thrust (at sea level: 156 versus 181 t. s.), although in terms of specific impulse, which characterizes the efficiency of the engine, it was somewhat superior.
At the same time, ensuring the reusable use of these engines was a very significant problem. For example, the Space Shuttle engines, which were originally created as reusable engines, eventually required such a large amount of very expensive routine maintenance between launches that the Shuttle did not fully justify the hopes for reducing the cost of putting a kilogram of cargo into orbit economically.
It is known that in order to launch the same payload into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, for geographical reasons, you need to have more thrust than from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome. To launch the Space Shuttle system, two solid-propellant boosters with a thrust of 1280 tons each are used. each (the most powerful rocket engines in history), with a total thrust at sea level of 2560 t.s., plus a total thrust of three SSME 570 t.s. This is enough to launch a payload of up to 110 tons from the Canaveral Cosmodrome, including the shuttle itself (78 tons), up to 8 astronauts (up to 2 tons) and up to 29.5 tons of cargo in the cargo compartment. Accordingly, to put into orbit 110 tons of payload from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, all other things being equal, it is required to create thrust when separated from the launch pad by about 15% more, that is, about 3600 t.s.
The Soviet orbital ship OS-120 (OS means "orbital aircraft") was supposed to have a weight of 120 tons (to add to the weight of the American shuttle two turbojet engines for flying in the atmosphere and an ejection system for two pilots in an emergency). A simple calculation shows that to put into orbit a payload of 120 tons, more than 4000 tons of thrust on the launch pad is required.
At the same time, it turned out that the thrust of the propulsion engines of the orbital ship, if a similar configuration of the shuttle with 3 engines is used, is inferior to the American one (465 t.p. vs. 570 t.p.), which is completely insufficient for the second stage and the final launch of the shuttle into orbit. Instead of three engines, it was necessary to install 4 RD-0120 engines, but there was no space and weight in the design of the airframe of the orbital ship. The designers had to drastically reduce the weight of the shuttle.
Thus, the project of the OK-92 orbital ship was born, the weight of which was reduced to 92 tons due to the refusal to place main engines together with a system of cryogenic pipelines, to lock them when separating the external tank, etc. As a result of the development of the project, four (instead of three) RD-0120 engines were moved from the rear fuselage of the orbiter to the lower part of the fuel tank. However, unlike the Shuttle, which was unable to perform such active orbital maneuvers, Buran was equipped with 16 tons of thrust maneuvering engines, which allowed it to change its orbit over a wide range if necessary.
On January 9, 1976, the general designer of NPO Energia, Valentin Glushko, approved the "Technical Information" containing a comparative analysis of the new version of the OK-92 ship.
After the release of Decree No. 132-51, the development of the orbiter glider, the means of air transportation of the ISS elements and the automatic landing system was entrusted to the specially organized NPO Molniya, headed by Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky.
The changes also affected the side accelerators. The USSR did not have design experience, the necessary technology and equipment for the production of such large and powerful solid-propellant boosters, which are used in the Space Shuttle system and provide 83% of thrust at the start. A harsher climate required more complex chemicals to operate over a wider temperature range, solid-fuel boosters created dangerous vibrations, did not allow thrust control, and destroyed the ozone layer of the atmosphere with their exhaust. In addition, solid-fuel engines are inferior in specific efficiency to liquid ones - and the USSR, due to the geographical location of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, required greater efficiency to output a payload equal in terms of the Shuttle's TK. The designers of NPO Energia decided to use the most powerful rocket engine available - the four-chamber RD-170 engine, created under the leadership of Glushko, which could develop thrust (after refinement and modernization) of 740 t. However, instead of two side accelerators, 1280 t. use four of 740 each. The total thrust of the side boosters, together with the engines of the second stage RD-0120, when separated from the launch pad, reached 3425 tons, which is approximately equal to the starting thrust of the Saturn-5 system with the Apollo spacecraft (3500 tons from .).
The possibility of reusing side boosters was an ultimatum requirement of the customer - the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Ministry of Defense represented by D. F. Ustinov. It was officially believed that the side boosters were reusable, but in those two Energia flights that took place, the task of preserving the side boosters was not even set. American boosters are parachuted into the ocean, which provides a fairly "soft" landing, sparing the engines and booster hulls. Unfortunately, under the conditions of a launch from the Kazakh steppe, there is no chance for a “splashdown” of the boosters, and a parachute landing in the steppe is not soft enough to save the engines and rocket bodies. Gliding or parachute landing with powder engines, although designed, was not implemented in the first two test flights, and further developments in this direction, including the rescue of blocks of both the first and second stages with the help of wings, were not carried out due to the closure of the program.
The changes that made the Energy-Buran system different from the Space Shuttle system had the following results:
Military-political system
According to foreign experts, Buran was a response to a similar American Space Shuttle project and was conceived as a military system, which, however, was a response to, as it was then believed, the planned use of American shuttles for military purposes.
The program has its own background:
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Reusable space systems had both strong supporters and authoritative opponents in the USSR. Wanting to finally decide on the ISS, GUKOS decided to choose an authoritative arbiter in the dispute between the military and industry, instructing the head institute of the Ministry of Defense for military space (TsNII 50) to conduct research work (R&D) to justify the need for the ISS to solve the problems of the country's defense capability. But even this did not bring clarity, since General Melnikov, who led this institute, having decided to play it safe, issued two “reports”: one in favor of the creation of the ISS, the other against. In the end, both of these reports, overgrown with numerous authoritative "Agreed" and "Approve", met in the most inappropriate place - on the table of D. F. Ustinov. Annoyed by the results of the "arbitration", Ustinov called Glushko and asked to bring him up to date, providing detailed information on the options for the ISS, but Glushko unexpectedly sent an employee to a meeting with the Secretary of the Central Committee, a candidate member of the Politburo, instead of himself - the General Designer - his employee, and . O. Head of Department 162 Valery Burdakov.
Arriving at Ustinov's office on Staraya Ploshchad, Burdakov began answering questions from the Secretary of the Central Committee. Ustinov was interested in all the details: why the ISS is needed, what it could be, what we need for this, why the US is building its own shuttle, what threatens us. As Valery Pavlovich later recalled, Ustinov was primarily interested in the military capabilities of the ISS, and he presented to D.F. Ustinov his vision of using orbital shuttles as possible carriers of thermonuclear weapons that could be based on permanent military orbital stations in immediate readiness to deliver a crushing blow to anywhere on the planet.
The prospects for the ISS, presented by Burdakov, so deeply excited and interested D. F. Ustinov that he quickly prepared a decision that was discussed in the Politburo, approved and signed by L. I. Brezhnev, and the topic of a reusable space system received the highest priority among all space programs in the party-state leadership and the military-industrial complex.
Drawings and photographs of the shuttle were first received in the USSR through the GRU in early 1975. Immediately, two examinations were carried out for the military component: at military research institutes and at the Institute of Applied Mathematics under the direction of Mstislav Keldysh. Conclusions: “the future reusable ship will be able to carry nuclear weapons and attack the territory of the USSR with them from almost anywhere in near-Earth space” and “The American shuttle with a payload capacity of 30 tons, if loaded with nuclear warheads, is capable of flying outside the radio visibility zone of the domestic missile attack warning system. Having made an aerodynamic maneuver, for example, over the Gulf of Guinea, he can release them across the territory of the USSR "- they pushed the leadership of the USSR to create an answer -" Buran ".
And they say that we will fly there once a week, you understand ... But there are no goals and cargoes, and immediately there is a fear that they are creating a ship for some future tasks that we do not know about. Possible military use? Undoubtedly.
And so they demonstrated this by flying over the Kremlin on the Shuttle, this was a surge of our military, politicians, and so a decision was made at one time: working out a technique for intercepting space targets, high, with the help of aircraft.
By December 1, 1988, there had been at least one classified Shuttle launch with military missions (NASA flight code STS-27). In 2008, it became known that during the flight on the instructions of the NRO and the CIA, the all-weather reconnaissance satellite Lacrosse 1 was launched into orbit. (English) Russian, who took pictures in the radio range using radar.
The United States stated that the Space Shuttle system was created as part of a program of a civilian organization - NASA. In 1969-1970, the Space Task Force, led by Vice President S. Agnew, developed several options for promising programs for the peaceful exploration of outer space after the end of the lunar program. In 1972, Congress, based on economic analysis, supported a project to create reusable shuttles to replace disposable rockets.
Product list
By the time the program was closed (early 1990s), five flight copies of the Buran spacecraft had been built or were under construction:
- Product 1.01 "Buran"- the ship made a space flight in automatic mode. It was located in the collapsed assembly and testing building at the 112th site of the cosmodrome, completely destroyed along with the model launch vehicle Energia during the collapse of the assembly and testing building No. 112 on May 12, 2002. Was the property of Kazakhstan.
- Product 1.02 "Storm" - was supposed to make a second flight in automatic mode with docking with the manned station "Mir". It is located at the Baikonur Cosmodrome and is the property of Kazakhstan. In April 2007, a mass-dimensional model of the product, previously abandoned in the open air, was installed in the exposition of the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum (site 2). Product 1.02 itself, together with the OK-MT model, is located in the assembly and filling building, and there is no free access to it. However, in May-June 2015, blogger Ralph Mirebs managed to take a number of photos of the collapsing shuttle and mock-up.
- Product 2.01 "Baikal" - the degree of readiness of the ship at the time of the cessation of work was 30-50%. Until 2004, it was in the workshops, in October 2004 it was transported to the berth of the Khimki reservoir for temporary storage. On June 22-23, 2011, it was transported by river transport to the airfield in Zhukovsky, for restoration and subsequent display at the MAKS air show.
- Item 2.02 - was 10-20% ready. Dismantled (partially) on the stocks of the Tushino Machine-Building Plant.
- Product 2.03 - the backlog was destroyed in the shops of the Tushino Machine-Building Plant.
List of layouts
During the work on the Buran project, several mock-ups were made for dynamic, electrical, airfield and other tests. After the closure of the program, these products remained on the balance sheet of various research institutes and industrial associations. It is known, for example, that the rocket and space corporation Energia and NPO Molniya have prototypes.
- BTS-001 OK-ML-1 (product 0.01) was used to test the air transportation of the orbital complex. In 1993, a full-size model was leased to the Cosmos-Earth society (president - cosmonaut German Titov). Until June 2014, it was installed on Pushkinskaya embankment of the Moskva River in the Central Park culture and rest named after. Gorky. As of December 2008, a scientific and educational attraction was organized in it. On the night of July 5-6, 2014, the layout was moved to the territory of VDNH for the celebration of the 75th anniversary of VDNKh.
- OK-KS (product 0.03) is a full-size complex stand. It was used for testing air transportation, complex testing of software, electrical and radio testing of systems and equipment. Until 2012, he was in the building of the control and testing station of RSC Energia, the city of Korolev. It was moved to the territory adjacent to the center building, where conservation is currently underway. After conservation, it will be installed on a specially prepared site on the territory of RSC Energia.
- OK-ML1 (product 0.04) was used for dimensional and weight fitting tests. Located in the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum.
- OK-TVA (product 0.05) was used for heat-vibration-strength tests. Located in TsAGI. As of 2011, all mock-up compartments have been destroyed, with the exception of the left wing with the landing gear and standard thermal protection, which were included in the orbiter mock-up.
- OK-TVI (product 0.06) was a model for thermal vacuum tests. It is located in NIIKhimMash, Peresvet, Moscow Region.
- OK-MT (product 0.15) was used to practice pre-launch operations (ship refueling, fitting and docking work, etc.). Currently located at the site of Baikonur 112A, ( 45°55′10″ s. sh. 63°18′36″ E d. HGIOL) in building 80, together with item 1.02 "Storm". It is the property of Kazakhstan.
- 8M (product 0.08) - the layout is only a cabin model with hardware stuffing. Used to test the reliability of ejection seats. After completion of work, he was on the territory of the 29th Clinical Hospital in Moscow, then he was transported to the Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow. Currently located on the territory of the 83rd Clinical Hospital of the FMBA (since 2011 - the Federal Scientific and Clinical Center for Specialized Types of Medical Care and Medical Technologies of the FMBA).
In philately
In culture
- In 1991, the Soviet science fiction comedy “Abdullajan, or Dedicated to Steven Spielberg”, directed by Zulfikar Musakov, was released about the adventure of an alien in an Uzbek village. At the beginning of the film, the launch and joint flight of the American shuttle and the Soviet Buran are shown.
- Buran - MSX game, 1990
- Assemble Buran - PC Byte game, 1989
see also
- BOR-5 - weight model of the Buran orbiter
Notes
- Application Buran
- Speech Gen. const. NPO "Lightning" G. E. Lozino-Lozinsky at the scientific and practical exhibition-conference "Buran" - a breakthrough to super-technologies, 1998
- Landing complex cosmodrome Baikonur
- Alternate airfields for Buran
- Layout in Crimea objects Complex radiotechnical systems navigation, landing monitoring trajectory and air traffic control Vympel
- Unlike the American Shuttle, which traditionally performs pre-landing maneuvers and landing on manual control (entry into the atmosphere and deceleration to the speed of sound in both cases are fully computerized). This fact - the flight of a spacecraft into space and its descent to Earth in automatic mode under the control of an onboard computer - entered into
Work on the Energia-Buran program began in 1976.
86 ministries and departments and 1286 enterprises throughout the USSR (about 2.5 million people in total) took part in the creation of this system.
The lead developer of the ship was the specially created NPO Molniya. Production has been carried out at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant since 1980; by 1984, the first full-scale copy was ready. From the factory, the ships were delivered by water transport to the city of Zhukovsky, and from there (from the Ramenskoye airfield) - by air (on a special transport aircraft VM-T) - to the Baikonur cosmodrome.
Buran made its first and only space flight on November 15, 1988. The spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome using the Energia launch vehicle and, after flying around the Earth, landed at the specially equipped Yubileiny airfield at Baikonur. The flight took place without a crew, completely in automatic mode, unlike the "shuttle", which can only land on manual control.
In 1990, work on the Energia-Buran program was suspended, and in 1993 the program was finally closed. The only Buran flying into space (1988) was destroyed in 2002 by a collapsed roof of the hangar of the assembly and test building at Baikonur.
During the work on the Buran project, several mock-ups were made for dynamic, electrical, airfield and other tests. After the closure of the program, these products remained on the balance sheet of various research institutes and industrial associations. It is known, for example, that Rocket and Space Corporation Energia and NPO Molniya have prototypes.
The length of the Buran is 36.4 m, the wingspan is about 24 m, the height of the ship when it is on the chassis is more than 16 m, the launch weight is more than 100 tons. The cargo compartment holds a payload weighing up to 30 tons. In the bow The compartment contains a sealed all-welded cabin for the crew and people for work in orbit (up to 10 people) and most of the equipment for ensuring flight as part of the rocket and space complex, autonomous flight in orbit, descent and landing. The volume of the cabin is over seventy cubic meters.
It has a delta wing with variable sweep, as well as aerodynamic controls that work during landing after returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere - rudder, elevons and an aerodynamic flap.
"Baikal" is the name of the Soviet reusable transport spacecraft created as part of the Energia-Buran program. The launch took place on February 4, 1992. The flight program included a seven-day stay in space and docking with the Mir station. Unfortunately, at the very beginning of the flight, an emergency situation occurred and the Baikal made an emergency landing. This served as the basis for curtailing the Russian program for the creation of reusable ships.
In fact, the inscription "Baikal" (in red in plain type like "Arial") adorned the side of the first flight copy of the Buran MTKK for almost the entire time of ground tests. However, shortly before launching on board the MTKK, the name "Buran" was inscribed in black italic type, under which he went flying and became known to the whole world. The name of the ship and the entire program - "Buran" - was known to everyone who had anything to do with them (including those outside the USSR) from the very beginning of the development of the program. However, due to the all-encompassing secrecy, this word was not recommended to be used openly, in connection with which Baikal was born (and later the open name of the Energia launch vehicle, known to specialists as product 11K25, was put into circulation).
The story about the flight of the Baikal spacecraft is an April Fool's joke (2000) created by the administrator of the www.buran.ru website Vadim Lukashevich. The joke is executed at the highest professional level, and, if it were not for special hints that this is a joke (the background of the article is made in the form of a low-contrast repeating pattern, consisting of the silhouette of a ship and the inscription "Happy April First"), even specialists in the field of astronautics would have been It's hard to explain that this is a hoax.
In total, 6 people were enrolled in the first group on July 12, 1977:
Wolf, Igor Petrovich
Kononenko, Oleg Grigorievich
Levchenko, Anatoly Semyonovich
Sadovnikov, Nikolai Fyodorovich
Stankevicius, Rimantas Antanas
Schukin, Alexander Vladimirovich
Almost everyone who lived in the USSR and who is at least a little interested in astronautics has heard of the legendary Buran, a winged spacecraft that was launched into orbit in combination with the Energia launch vehicle. The pride of Soviet space rocketry, the Buran orbiter made its only flight during perestroika and was badly damaged when the roof of the Baikonur hangar collapsed at the beginning of the new millennium. What is the fate of this ship, and why the Energia-Buran reusable space system program was frozen, we will try to figure it out.
History of creation
"Buran" is a winged reusable spacecraft of aircraft configuration. Its development began in 1974-1975 on the basis of the "Integrated Rocket and Space Program", which was the response of the Soviet cosmonautics to the news in 1972 that the United States had launched the Space Shuttle program. So the development of such a ship was at that time a strategically important task for deterring a potential enemy and maintaining the positions of a space superpower by the Soviet Union.
The first Buran projects, which appeared in 1975, were almost identical to the American shuttles, not only in appearance, but also in the structural arrangement of the main components and blocks, including main engines. After numerous improvements, the Buran became the way the whole world remembered it after the flight in 1988.
Unlike the American shuttles, it could deliver a greater weight of cargo (up to 30 tons) into orbit, as well as return up to 20 tons to the ground. But the main difference between the Buran and the shuttles, which determined its design, was a different placement and number of engines. On the domestic ship there were no sustainer engines that were transferred to the launch vehicle, but there were engines to bring it into orbit. In addition, they turned out to be somewhat heavier.
The first, only and completely successful flight of Buran took place on November 15, 1988. The Energia-Buran ISS was launched into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:00 am. It was a completely autonomous flight, not controlled from Earth. The flight lasted 206 minutes, during which the ship took off, went into earth orbit, circled the Earth twice, returned safely and landed at the airfield. It was an extremely joyful event for all developers, designers, everyone who somehow participated in the creation of this technical miracle.
It is sad that this particular ship, which made an “independent” triumphal flight, was buried in 2002 under the rubble of the collapsed roof of the hangar.
In the 90s, state funding for space development began to decline sharply, and in 1991 the Energia-Buran ISS was transferred from the defense program to the space program to solve national economic problems, after which, in the following 1992, the Russian Space Agency decided to stop work on the project of the reusable Energia-Buran system, and the created backlog was mothballed.
Ship device
The ship's fuselage is conditionally divided into 3 compartments: nose (for the crew), middle (for payload) and tail.
The nose of the hull structurally consists of a bow spinner, a pressurized cockpit and an engine compartment. The interior of the cabin is divided by floors that form decks. Decks together with frames provide the necessary strength to the cabin. In front of the cab, there are portholes on top.
The cabin is divided into three functional parts: the command compartment, where the main crew is located; household compartment - to accommodate an additional crew, spacesuits, berths, a life support system, personal hygiene products, five blocks with control system equipment, elements of a thermal control system, radio engineering and telemetry equipment; an aggregate compartment that ensures the operation of thermoregulation and life support systems.
To place cargo on the Buran, a capacious cargo compartment with a total volume of approximately 350 m3, a length of 18.3 m and a diameter of 4.7 m is provided. The compartment also allows you to serve the placed cargo and monitor the operation of the on-board systems until the very moment of unloading from the Buran.
The total length of the Buran ship is 36.4 m, the fuselage diameter is 5.6 m, the height on the chassis is 16.5 m, the wingspan is 24 m. The chassis has a base of 13 m, a track of 7 m.
The main crew was planned from 2-4 people, but the spacecraft can take on board an additional 6-8 researchers to carry out various work in orbit, that is, Buran can actually be called a ten-seat vehicle.
The duration of the flight is determined by a special program, the maximum time is set to 30 days. In orbit, good maneuverability of the Buran spacecraft is ensured by additional fuel reserves of up to 14 tons, the nominal fuel reserve is 7.5 tons. The integrated propulsion system of the Buran spacecraft is a complex system that includes 48 engines: 2 orbital maneuvering engines to bring the device into orbit with a thrust of 8.8 tons, 38 motion control jet engines with a thrust of 390 kg and 8 more engines for precision movements ( accurate orientation) with a pull of 20 kg. All these engines are fed from single tanks with hydrocarbon fuel "cycline" and liquid oxygen.
Orbital maneuvering engines are located in the tail compartment of the Buran, and control engines are located in the blocks of the nose and tail compartments. Early designs also called for two 8-ton thrust jet engines to enable deep lateral maneuver flight in landing mode. These engines did not make it into later ship designs.
The Buran engines make it possible to perform the following main operations: stabilization of the Energia-Buran complex before its separation from the second stage, separation and removal of the Burana spacecraft from the launch vehicle, bringing it to the initial orbit, formation and correction of the working orbit, orientation and stabilization, interorbital transitions, rendezvous and docking with other spacecraft, deorbit and deceleration, control of the spacecraft's position relative to its center of mass, etc.
At all stages of the flight, the Buran is controlled by the electronic brain of the ship, it also controls the operation of all on-board systems and provides navigation. In the final ascent phase, it controls the entry into the reference orbit. During orbital flight, it provides orbit correction, deorbit and immersion into the atmosphere to an acceptable height with subsequent return to the working orbit, program turns and orientation, interorbital transitions, hovering, rendezvous and docking with a cooperating object, spin around any of the three axes. During descent, it controls the ship's deorbit, its descent in the atmosphere, the necessary lateral maneuvers, arrival at the airfield and landing.
The basis of the automatic ship control system is a high-speed computing complex, represented by four interchangeable computers. The complex is capable of instantly solving all tasks within the framework of its functions and, first of all, linking the current ballistic parameters of the ship with the flight program. The Buran's automatic control system is so perfect that during future flights the ship's crew in this system is considered only as a link that duplicates the automation. This was the fundamental difference between the Soviet shuttle and the American shuttles - our Buran could perform the entire flight in automatic unmanned mode, go into space, safely return to earth and land at the airfield, which was clearly demonstrated by its only flight in 1988. The landing of the American shuttles was carried out entirely on manual control with idle engines.
Our car was much more maneuverable, more complex, smarter than its American predecessors and could automatically perform a wider range of functions.
In addition, Buran developed an emergency crew rescue system in case of emergency. At low altitudes, a catapult for the first two pilots was intended for this; in the event of an emergency at a sufficient height, the ship could disconnect from the launch vehicle and make an emergency landing.
For the first time in rocket science, a diagnostic system was used on a spacecraft, covering all spacecraft systems, connecting backup sets of equipment or switching to a backup mode in case of possible malfunctions.
The device is designed for 100 flights in both autonomous and manned modes.
The present
The winged spacecraft "Buran" did not find peaceful use, since the program itself was defense and could not be integrated into the peaceful economy, especially after the collapse of the USSR. Nevertheless, it was a great technological breakthrough, dozens of new technologies and new materials were worked out at Buran, and it is a pity that these achievements were not applied and developed further.
Where are the famous Buranas in the past, on which the best minds, thousands of workers worked, and on which so much effort was spent and so many hopes were placed?
In total, there were five copies of the Buran winged ship, including unfinished and started vehicles.
1.01 "Buran" - carried out the only unmanned space flight. It was stored at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the assembly and test building. At the time of destruction during the collapse of the roof in May 2002, it was the property of Kazakhstan.
1.02 - the ship was intended for the second flight in autopilot mode and docking with the Mir space station. It is also owned by Kazakhstan and installed in the museum of the Baikonur Cosmodrome as an exhibit.
2.01 - the readiness of the ship was 30 - 50%. He was at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant until 2004, then spent 7 years on the pier of the Khimki reservoir. And, finally, in 2011 it was transported for restoration to the Zhukovsky airfield.
2.02 - 10-20% readiness. Partially dismantled on the stocks of the Tushino plant.
2.03 - the backlog was completely destroyed.
Possible perspectives
The Energia-Buran project was closed, among other things, due to the unnecessary delivery of large cargoes into orbit, as well as their return. Being built more for defense than for peaceful purposes, in the era of "star wars", the domestic space shuttle "Buran" was far ahead of its time.
Who knows, maybe his time will come. When space exploration becomes more active, when it will be necessary to frequently deliver cargo and passengers to orbit and vice versa.
And when the designers finalize that part of the program that concerns the preservation and relatively safe return to earth of the stages of the launch vehicle, i.e., they make the system for launching into orbit more convenient, which will significantly reduce the cost and make reusable not only the use of a cruise ship, but also the system " Energy-Buran" in general.
