Buran-Energia

Here is some pictures of the atmospherical test shuttle, Buran OK-GLI at the MAKS 1999.

The MAKS is the international aerospace exhibition of Moscow. It’s taking place on different Moscow’s airports ( Jukovski, Vnukovo, Modino, etc). The first exhibition began in 1992, since 1993 it has been renamed in MAKS and take place every 2 years.

The other pictures here.

The experimental space shuttle Buran OK-GLI should go to Germany in the next days. On February, 27 2008 the direction of the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum went to Bahrain (where it was stocked) to receive the authorization to move the shuttle.

The shuttle will be carried by boat in the next weeks. 23 days later it will arrive at Rotterdam, then it will be carried by barge to the Technik Museum Speyer (town of Speyer).

The shuttle will take place in the biggest hangar of the museum (still in construction).

It’s the end of 3 years of proceedings and the beginning of a new life for the shuttle.

Update of March 6:

Buran left Bahrain during the night of Tuesday 4 to Wednesday 5, she is on the way to Rotterdam where she will arrive at the end of march. The hangar which shelter her is 22m heigh, it should be finished when she will arrive. It cost 10 million euros.

Here is a small reporting about the Buran-Energia project which was broadcasted on American television on last November15, for the 19th anniversary of the first flight of the shuttle.

Here it is a very interesting reporting, in Russian, about the Buran space shuttle. It was broadcasted on Russian television in the show « Russia’s wings ».

More videos.

There are 2 new videos about the OK-GLI shuttle, one on its assembling once arriving at the Sydney’s harbor, and another one on the reception of the exhibition.
Indeed, in february 2000 the test space shuttle OK-GLI is send at Sydney (Darling Harbour) for an exhibition about the Buran project. But due to financial troubles the exhibition is closed few months later.

Another video is about the transportation of Buran models to Baikonur with the VM-T Atlant and AN-225 planes.

The last video is a little presentation of the MIG-25, plane which was used to chase Buran during its descent to the Baikonur airport in November 15, 1988.

Videos:

A reader of Livejournal.com recently took pictures of the shuttle 2.01. These pictures were taken from a boat on a canal around the Tushino airbase. We can see the 2.01 model, without wings, covered by a tarpaulin as the only protection.

A reader of Airliners.net went to Bahrein 2 days ago and had an interesting meeting:

Out of a pure coincidence I had the opportunity to see, touch and photograph the Russian orbiter Buran two days ago. As you might know, the static test model (not intended for space travel) BTS-02 is in storage in Bahrain since 2006, It is hard to find out the full story but apparently the Auto und Technik Museum Sinsheim (Germany) bought this frame for static display but there is some sort of issue going on about who owns it, so in the meanwhile it sits there in the desert sun in the middle of a huge pile of junk and containers.

I flew from Dubai to Frankfurt two days ago and stopped for a half day in Bahrain to explore the country. I had previously looked up the orbiter’s approximate location in Google Earth, so I drove to the area with my rental car. It is a slightly dirty, run-down dock yard / industrial area. I parked my car as close as possible to where I thought I’d find the Buran, and started walking around. It was really hot and humid, you step out of the air condition and you sweat right away. I reached a huge wall and from my memory it was right behind it, so I walked along the wall past various large buildings until I came to a gate with a guard. I asked him if he could help me, and he said yes the « Space Shuttle » is inside this particular container yard (more like a junk yard) but unfortunately I could not go there. I kind of started a conversation with him and we sat down in his air conditioned office, we talked about his native country Pakistan, and finally I asked him why I couldn’t see the Buran and he told me his boss wouldn’t let him take anyone near it, so I asked him where his boss was and he said he’s off duty due to Ramadan.

Problem solved! I convinced him that when his boss isn’t here he can’t see me (which is true) so we wandered through piles of scrap metal and what not. And then the Buran was right before me. What an incredible feeling! This beat-up wingless shoe box was once the pride of the Soviet space program! The heat tiles in the bottom were all burnt up, so there must have been some sort of fire testing. The whole frame looked very low-tech, hoses and tubes hung out from where the wings were once attached. Even though the frame was completely surrounded by containers and a building wall, there were two particular angles from where I could take photos that showed at least a part of the fuselage. The guard told me not to take any more pictures than these, and he wanted us to leave as soon as possible (not sure if it was for fear of his boss or piles of scrap metal collapsing above us). I would have loved to stay a while to enjoy the special situation, but after only about 3 minutes we left again.

I’m uploading two shots into the A.net database right now, they’re not perfect, but I’d say they’re pretty rare, so I hope they accept them. There’s no photo of Buran at Bahrain in the database, you don’t even find many photos elsewhere on the internet, also there is no photo of this particular frame and there are only a handful of Buran photos altogether. So I’ll see if they take it!

Here is a new reporting on Buran which was broadcasted on ORT, russian canal 1, few weeks ago. This reporting speaks about military applications of Buran (complementary informations), BORs mock-ups and the new space shuttle made by NPO Energia: Klipper.