Safety

The safety and the reliability were important points of the conception of Klipper, so after one failure the operations in orbits had still to be possible and after two failures the return of the crew had still to be possible. Moreover the crew could be also saved in any phase of the flight. The return probability of the crew was estimated at 99.9%.

The safety of the crew was assured during takeoff by use of a launch escape system. In case of major failure the rescue tower was started and propelled the spacecraft far from the rocket.
The launch escape system consisted of 2*4 nozzles ejecting gases at very high speed from the combustion of a powder booster.

In another version of the kliper the launch escape system was replaced by an ejection ring, surrounding the service module, it was made of 2*4 powder boosters (more powerful than those used for the tower escape system) with the aim of ejecting Kliper and the service module far from the rocket.

Caption: 1-Cabin; 2-Airfoil; 3-Ejection system

If the ejection of Kliper was late the engines could guarantee a put into orbit at 200km. Because of the importance of the engines in this task but also for the breaking impulse (for the reentry) these last ones were doubled assuring a success of the operations with two breakdowns.

Engines

The main engines worked with ethanol and liquid oxygen (from RKK Energia, june 2005).

Energy

After all the iterations on the project, the majority of energies types had been considered. The solar arrays (fixed on the service module) were replaced by batteries then these last ones were replaced by fuel cells. The electricity was used to power the on-board systems (navigation, life support system, ...) but also the aerodynamic elements (body flaps, elevons) which were electromechanic and hydraulic.

Heat shield

The Kliper's heat shield was divided into three parts, as for Buran, a zone of high temperatures, a zone of medium temperature and finally a zone of low temperatures.
As for the Buran project the zone of high temperature, the nose and the billy, was covered by a reusable and modifiable heat shield made from tiles. To limit maintenance works (by decreasing the number of tiles) the engineers had decided to increase the tiles's size from 150x150mm to 300x300mm.
The part of medium temperature should have been covered by a thermal blanket similar to the one of the Shuttle.

Left schem: airfoil studied for Kliper. Right schem: airfoil like Buran.	Air flow at the wing's leading edge