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buran - Russian Space Shuttle

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    #2
    Redshift
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,486 ✭✭✭Redshift


    Looks the the shuttle with a few mainly cosmetic tweaks. I'm surprised they didn't try for a different concept perhaps something cheaper and more efficient with a smaller payload capacity; especially given the dangerous shortcomings in the shuttle design.


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    #3
    albertw
    Closed Accounts Posts: 395 ✭✭albertw


    One of which is still in Gorky Park apparently.

    A crucial difference being that Buran had liquid fuel boosters.


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    #4
    Redshift
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,486 ✭✭✭Redshift


    albertw wrote:
    One of which is still in Gorky Park apparently.

    A crucial difference being that Buran had liquid fuel boosters.

    Yeah it's always nice to be able to turn something that powerful off; especially when sitting on top of it.


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    #5
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,400 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    No Buran had NO boosters - it was all done by the Energia rocket - meant it could carry another 5 tons up and down and if you used Energia without the shuttle it could put 120 tonnes into orbit instead of the 30 tonnes the americans are limited to .

    I heard that Buran used tiles that wern't as differentiated as the america ones but that web page seems to indicate they were shaped.

    They only got a million for the one in the fairground but wasn't that just to make sure no one ever spent any money on it. Look at the TRS-2 , Irish railways etc. there is another one with jet engines that can fly under it's own steam apparently you could buy it for about €35m and they might be able to make it spaceworthy. ( is it ture that they are building a second Antanov 225 ? )


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    #6
    albertw
    Closed Accounts Posts: 395 ✭✭albertw


    Capt'n Midnight wrote:
    No Buran had NO boosters - it was all done by the Energia rocket

    And either side of the main cylinder of Energia with 2 main engines on it are 4 smaller cylinders with smaller engines on them, most people looking at a picture of it would identify them as boosters based on the more familiar shuttle/tank design.

    It's all one rocket in the sense that bits didn't detach (the flown versions), but it had several engines, which operated in stages, the outer ones being referred to as boosters (in some literature). Those boosters were the 1st stage rockets and could be shut off.


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    #7
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 91,400 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    What I meant was that unlike the US Shuttle , the buran itself didn't have any rocket engines built in.

    IIRC each of the 4 boosters could be used as first stage of a much smaller satellite launch system. Unlike the US shuttle almost every component could be used for other things than launching a shutt.e


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    #8
    rsynnott
    Registered Users Posts: 4,003 ✭✭✭rsynnott


    Capt'n Midnight wrote:
    What I meant was that unlike the US Shuttle , the buran itself didn't have any rocket engines built in.

    IIRC each of the 4 boosters could be used as first stage of a much smaller satellite launch system. Unlike the US shuttle almost every component could be used for other things than launching a shutt.e

    Not quite; the Energia rocket used for Buran was a quad-core rocket with 4 boosters. The Energia-2 configuration ws a single-core with two boosters, and could be used for large sattelites (only one was ever launched; launch was successful, but the item launched (military platform) misfired a rocket engine, causing it to return to Earth a bit sooner than expected ;). There was also a version of the Energia-2 that could land like a Shuttle, and there was going to be a similar version of the big Energia. Then there was a super-Energia with (I think) 8 boosters, and an Energia-2 <i>on top</i>. That was able to put 175 tonnes in LEO; considerably more than the Saturn V. It was never used.

    The Buran was different from the US Shuttle in that it had 33% extra payload, was a bit more manuverable, and could be flown entirely automatically (and that was how the only flight was done). It's not at all surprising that it looked so similar; that general shape had been looked at for space planes for quite a long time before either vehicle.


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