70 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
70 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Buran programme"
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chunk: 5/5
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme"
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category: "reference"
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tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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date_saved: "2026-05-05T12:39:22.205241+00:00"
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instance: "kb-cron"
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---
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Over time, several scientists looked into trying to revive the Buran programme, especially after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
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The 2003 grounding of the U.S. Space Shuttles caused many to wonder whether the 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.
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In 2010 the director of Moscow's Central Machine Building Institute said the Buran programme would be reviewed in the hope of restarting a similar crewed spacecraft design, with rocket test launches as soon as 2015. Russia also continues work on the PPTS but has abandoned the Kliper program, due to differences in vision with its European partners.
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Due to the 2011 retirement of the American Space Shuttle and the need for STS-type craft in the meantime to complete the International Space Station, some American and Russian scientists had been mulling over plans to possibly revive the already-existing Buran shuttles in the Buran programme rather than spend money on an entirely new craft and wait for it to be fully developed but the plans did not come to fruition.
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On the 25th anniversary of the Buran flight in November 2013, Oleg Ostapenko, the new head of Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, proposed that a new heavy-lift launch vehicle be built for the Russian space programme. The rocket would be intended to place a payload of 100 tonnes (220,000 lb) in a baseline low Earth orbit and is projected to be based on the Angara launch vehicle technology.
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== Vehicles ==
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=== Energia launch vehicle ===
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=== Buran orbiter ===
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=== Antonov An-225 Mriya ===
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=== Energia liquid rocket booster ===
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== Energia-Buran and the US Space Shuttle ==
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=== Comparison to NASA's Space Shuttle ===
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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. NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher stated that Buran was based on a rejected NASA design.
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=== Key differences between Energia-Buran system and NASA's Space Shuttle ===
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Unlike the Space Shuttle's boosters, each of Energia's four boosters had their own guidance, navigation, and control system. Known as Zenit-2, they were used as launch vehicles on their own to deliver smaller payloads than those requiring the complete Energia-Buran system. Space Shuttle boosters each had their own guidance and control system, but all navigation functions were centrally located in the shuttle orbiter; the autonomous guidance functions of the boosters were therefore more limited, primarily oriented to safe separation from the external tank and orbiter during staging after booster fuel exhaustion.
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Energia could be configured with four, two or no boosters for payloads other than Buran, and in full configuration was able to put up to 100 metric tons into orbit. The Space Shuttle orbiter was integral to its launch system and was the system's only payload.
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Energia's four boosters used liquid propellant (kerosene/oxygen). The Space Shuttle's two boosters used solid propellant.
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The liquid fuelled booster rockets were not constructed in segments vulnerable to leakage through O-rings, which caused the destruction of Challenger.
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Energia's four boosters were designed to be recovered after each flight, though they were not recovered during Energia's two operational flights. The Space Shuttle's boosters were recovered and reused.
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Buran's equivalent of the Space Shuttle Orbital Maneuvering System used GOX/LOX/Kerosene propellant, with lower toxicity and higher performance (a specific impulse of 362 seconds (3.55 km/s) using a turbopump system) than the Shuttle's pressure-fed monomethylhydrazine/dinitrogen tetroxide OMS engines.
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Buran was designed to be capable of both piloted and fully autonomous flight, including landing. The Space Shuttle was later retrofitted with remote control functions extending its existing crewed automated landing capability to enable uncrewed landings, first flown 18 years after the Buran on STS-121, but the system was intended to be used only in contingencies.
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The nose landing gear was located much farther back on the fuselage rather than just under the mid-deck as with the NASA Space Shuttle.
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Buran was designed to lift 30 metric tons into orbit in its standard configuration, comparable to the early Space Shuttle's original 27.8 metric tons.
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Buran could return 20 tons from orbit, vs the Space Shuttle's 15 tons.
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Buran included a drag chute; the Space Shuttle originally did not, but was later retrofitted to include one.
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The lift-to-drag ratio of Buran is cited as 5.6, compared to a subsonic L/D of 4.5 for the Space Shuttle.
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Buran and Energia were moved to the launch pad horizontally on a rail transporter, and then erected and fuelled at the launch site. The Space Shuttle was transported vertically on the crawler-transporter with loaded solid boosters but the main tank was fuelled at launch site.
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Buran was intended to carry a crew of up to ten. The Shuttle carried up to eight in the largest crewed mission, normally carried between five and seven people in most missions, and could have carried up to eleven in an emergency (such as in the unlaunched STS-400 rescue mission).
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Buran has a different thermal protection tile layout on its underside, in which all gaps between heat tiles are parallel or perpendicular to the direction of airflow around the orbiter.
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== See also ==
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MAKS (spacecraft) – Soviet air-launched spaceplane concept
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Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-105 – Soviet spaceplane test programme
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Space Shuttle program – American spaceplane
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Tupolev OOS – Soviet air-launched spaceplane concept
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== References ==
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== Footnotes ==
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== Bibliography ==
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Hendrickx, Bart & Vis, Bert (4 October 2007). Energiya-Buran: The Soviet Space Shuttle. Springer-Praxis. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-73984-7. ISBN 978-0-387-69848-9.
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== External links ==
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Buran.ru, official website by NPO Molniya
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Buran.ru unofficial space encyclopedia (ru)
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Buran at Encyclopedia Astronautica
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Buran and Energia at Buran-Energia.com
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Buran at RussianSpaceWeb.com
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Buran: The Soviet Space Shuttle Success Story at TASS (in English) |