Buran-Energia

Here is some pictures of the test shuttle OK-TVA that I took in Moscow the last August.

This test shuttle was used for testing the heat shield, and for mechanical and acoustics tests.

It was moved in the Gorky parc in 1997 and renovated. The tiles of the heat shield were removed and replaced by ones in wood, but the bottom on the shuttle doesn’t have any. The payload bay was fit out to a cinema room where a movie is shown, moreover the people are sitting on articulated chair which let us think that the show will be interesting (like we can see in futuristic parks). But nothing at all, the movie is not about Buran, we only see a picture of the lift off of 1988 and during 10 minutes they show us pictures of the Earth (like a Power Point presentation made by a 10 years old boy), moreover the chairs are not working !

It worth the price we payed (50 rubles to get in the park + 50 rubles for this « show »), around 5 US dollars, but they could have made something much better !

The other pictures are here.

This summer I went to MAKS 2007, at the military base of Tchkalov in the Zhukovsky town, near Moscow (40 km). MAKS is an exhibition show which exists since 1992, this year it was from 21 to 26 of August.
Here is some pictures I took.

A copy of a BOR 4:

A BOR 2 which flew into space:

The Molniya stand, always empty, with a model kit of Buran and the MAKS shuttle:

Other pictures:

Here is an article about the different ways of use of Buran (with an high proportion for the military). Of course Buran should be used for putting into orbit different kind of objects (civil or military), but also for a module of a combat space station.

We are far from the peaceful space wanted by Mikhail Gorbatchev.

I added on the Buran section 2 articles, one on the auxiliary power system, the VSU, indeed Buran wasn’t equipped with fuel cells so it used a turbine powered by hydrazine to generate the energie of the on-board systems. And another one about the 37KB module which was used during the first flight of Buran to put additional instruments on-board.

The world’s largest nonpermanent aerospace exhibition will lift off at Tsim Sha Tsui in December.

« Space Shuttle 2007, » as the exhibition is called, will feature retired space shuttle Buran and other items on loan from the Russian space program and the United States’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

« The goals of the exhibition are twofold: to provide an educational experience for visitors, and to give local tourism a boost, » Hong Kong Space Shuttle 2007 project director Karen Loh Yuk-ying said yesterday.

The highlight is the space shuttle Buran, which has been exhibited in Sydney, Australia, and in Bahrain. It is the only space shuttle ever to have been publicly displayed.

Space Shuttle 2007 opens at the West Kowloon (Hong Kong) Reclamation Area on December 12.

Official website

Here is a new set of pictures.

The first set is about Buran and Mriya.

• Mriya during a flight test with Buran.
• Loading/unloading of Buran at the Baikonur airport
• Buran and Mriya at Le Bourget 1989
• Lift off of the mriya at the end of the Bourget airshow (1989)

The next pictures were taken during the assembly of the Mriya:

The last set of pictures is about the VM-T Atlant transportation plane, we can see it carrying the Buran’s fuselage and the oxygen tank of Energia (MAKC):

I added a section in the Built models part, for the OK-2.01 shuttle with inside and outside pictures, taken at the TMZ factory in Moscow.

Here is some pictures of the carry over of the OK-GLI shuttle from the Bahraini port to the German museum (Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum) taken in April 2007.