Buran-Energia

On May 15th, 1957 (50 years ago), the USSR proceeded to its first rocket fire, R7 (it exploded some minutes later). It is only October 4th of the same year that R7 put into orbit successfully the Sputnik, first artificial satellite of the Earth. This historic launch was going to open the gates of the space conquest. Conquest won at first by the tremendous leadership of the Soviets (first satellite, first man in the space, first woman in the space, first pedestrian spatial), but these last ones were overtake by the Americans and lost the race to the Moon.

At the end of the 70s the Soviets decided to come back on the front scene after the bitter echec of N1, they launch the Buran-Energia project, the heavy thrower Energia of which allows to put on low orbit 100 t of payload.

It is the May 15th, 1987 (20 years ago) the first launch of Energia took place. Initially planned with a fictitious payload (placed on the side of the thrower), the launch will be made finally with the Polyus system. But after a breakdown of the Polyus‘s propulsion system it was not able to reach its working orbit and crashed in the Pacific Ocean.

In spite of this failure the Energia thrower carries out his mission (2 launches at all since this date) with success.

Regrettably, Energia was give up after the fall of the USSR by the Russian authorities, because the thrower is partially Ukrainian.

At the begining of the month the Antonov 225 was ingured on the front landing gear at the United Arab Emirates (RKT — Ras al Khaymah). We don’t know much more about this trouble.

After the movement of OK-M near the Baikonur’s museum, the thermal shield was renewed, they transformed the cockpit and a showroom was set up in the payload bay. Initially the cockpit was not functional because this model was intended has thermal tests, so this version of the cockpit was created from scratch.

Here is a new document about the TsAGI wind tunnel which was used on the Buran shuttle.

A BAHRAINI court yesterday ordered that a space shuttle (OK-GLI), which has been stranded in Bahrain for over four years, be returned to its Russian owners. The Buran has been stranded in Bahrain since mid-2002 due to a court dispute over who it belongs to.

Russian company NPO Molniya originally sold it to Singapore-based Space Shuttle World Tour, but later filed a case in the Bahrain courts claiming the latter failed to make all the payments.

The High Criminal Court ruled in NPO Molniya’s favour on October 31 last year and ordered for the sale contract to be terminated.

However, the Singaporean company appealed against the verdict in the Supreme Civil Appeal Court, which upheld the original verdict yesterday.

Under the terms of sale, the Singaporean company agreed to buy the Buran for $320,000 (BD120,960).

It was supposed to pay the amount in two equal instalments and coughed up $160,000 (BD60,480) in April 2002.

However, it failed to meet a condition that said it should pay the second instalment within a month.

The shuttle was brought to Bahrain by Pico in July 2002 and was a feature of the Bahrain Summer festival.

Pico had negotiated with Space Shuttle World Tour to bring it here, but a case was filed in Bahrain by NPO in 2002 to prevent the shuttle from being sent to Thailand as a tourist attraction – claiming the sale was null and void because Space Shuttle World Tour had breached the contract.

Bahrain’s Supreme Civil Appeal Court also ruled yesterday that Pico, or any other party, had any right to the spacecraft.

Bahrain’s Cassation Court has previously overruled a High Civil Court decision that the dispute fell outside Bahraini jurisdiction.

Before coming to Bahrain, Buran was shipped to Australia in 2000 to become a tourist attraction, but failed to earn enough money to stay open.

The GDN reported last September that labourers had been sleeping inside the shuttle after getting through a hole in its structure.

Here is a page on the Tsniimash institut of Moscow. It is this institut which lead the mechanical stress tests on Buran and Energia since 1983. This article contains original pictures shoot at that time.

On Tuesday, 20 March on the russian channel one was telecasted a show about the SPIRAL project. This project aimed to put into orbit a small space plane launch by a high altitude plane carrier. This project was a forerunner of Buran.

The video (in russian) is available on download in the Gallery part.

This is 2 videos on Buran, the first speaks about the Buran-Energia project, the second is about the OK-GLI disembarking in february 2000 at Sydney.