Space shuttle and Buran spaceship. Reusable orbital ship "Buran"

"BURAN" - Soviet winged orbital ship reusable. Designed to solve a number of defense problems, launching various space objects into orbit around the Earth and servicing them; delivery of modules and personnel for assembling large-sized structures and interplanetary complexes in orbit; return to Earth of faulty or exhausted satellites; development of equipment and technologies for space production and delivery of products to Earth; performing other cargo and passenger transportation along the Earth-space-Earth route.

External configuration

The Buran orbital vehicle is designed according to an airplane design: it is a “tailless” one with a low-lying, double-swept delta wing along the leading edge; aerodynamic controls include elevons, a balancing flap located in the rear part of the fuselage, and a rudder, which, “flashing” along the trailing edge (fig. on the right), also serves as an air brake; An airplane-style landing is ensured by a tricycle (with nose wheel) retractable landing gear.

Internal layout, design

In the bow of the Buran there is a sealed insert cabin with a volume of 73 cubic meters for the crew (2 - 4 people) and passengers (up to 6 people), on-board equipment compartments and a bow control engine block.

The middle part is occupied by a cargo compartment with doors that open upward, which houses manipulators for loading and unloading, installation and assembly work and various operations for servicing space objects. Under the cargo compartment there are units of power supply and temperature control systems. The propulsion system units, fuel tanks, and hydraulic system units are installed in the tail compartment. Aluminum alloys, titanium, steel and other materials are used in the design of the Buran. To resist aerodynamic heating during descent from orbit, the outer surface of the spacecraft has a heat-protective coating designed for repeated use.

A flexible thermal protection is installed on the upper surface, which is less susceptible to heating, and other surfaces are covered with heat-protective tiles made on the basis of quartz fibers and withstanding temperatures up to 1300ºС. In especially heat-stressed areas (in the fuselage and wing toes, where the temperature reaches 1500º - 1600ºС), a carbon-carbon composite material is used. The stage of the most intense heating of the orbital vehicle is accompanied by the formation of a layer of air plasma around it, but the structure of the orbital vehicle does not warm up to more than 160ºC by the end of the flight. Each of the 38,600 tiles has a specific installation location, determined by the theoretical contours of the orbiter's hull. To reduce thermal loads, large values ​​of the blunting radii of the wing and fuselage tips were also chosen. The design life of the structure is 100 orbital flights.

Propulsion system and on-board equipment

The integrated propulsion system (UPS) ensures further insertion of the orbital vehicle into the reference orbit, performance of inter-orbital transitions (corrections), precise maneuvering near the serviced orbital complexes, orientation and stabilization of the orbital vehicle, and its braking for deorbiting. The ODU consists of two orbital maneuvering engines (on the right), running on hydrocarbon fuel and liquid oxygen, and 46 gas-dynamic control engines, grouped into three blocks (one nose block and two tail blocks). More than 50 onboard systems, including radio engineering, TV and telemetry complexes, life support systems, thermal control, navigation, power supply and others, are combined on a computer basis into a single onboard complex, which ensures the duration of Buran's stay in orbit up to 30 days.

The heat generated by the on-board equipment is supplied with the help of a coolant to radiation heat exchangers installed on the inside of the cargo compartment doors and radiated into the surrounding space (the doors are open during flight in orbit).

Geometric and weight characteristics

The length of the Buran is 35.4 m, height 16.5 m (with the landing gear extended), wingspan is about 24 m, wing area is 250 square meters, fuselage width is 5.6 m, height is 6.2 m; The diameter of the cargo compartment is 4.6 m, its length is 18 m. The launch mass of the orbital vehicle is up to 105 tons, the mass of cargo delivered into orbit is up to 30 tons, returned from orbit is up to 15 tons. The maximum fuel supply is up to 14 tons.

The large overall dimensions of the Buran make it difficult to use ground means of transportation, so it (as well as the launch vehicle units) is delivered to the cosmodrome by air by a VM-T aircraft modified for these purposes from the Experimental Machine-Building Plant named after. V.M. Myasishchev (in this case, the keel is removed from the Buran and the weight is increased to 50 tons) or by the An-225 multi-purpose transport aircraft in fully assembled form.

Injection into orbit

The Buran is launched using a universal two-stage launch vehicle Energia, to the central block of which the Buran is attached with pyrolocks. The engines of the 1st and 2nd stages of the launch vehicle are launched almost simultaneously and develop a total thrust of 34840 kN with a launch weight of the rocket with Buran of about 2400 tons (of which about 90% is fuel). In the first test launch of an unmanned version of the orbital ship, which took place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on November 15, 1988, the Energia launch vehicle launched Buran in 476 seconds. to an altitude of about 150 km (the blocks of the 1st stage of the rocket separated at 146 seconds at an altitude of 52 km). After the orbital vehicle separated from the 2nd stage of the rocket, its engines were fired twice, which provided the necessary increase in speed before reaching the first space speed and entering the reference circular orbit. The estimated altitude of the Buran reference orbit is 250 km (with a load of 30 tons and refueling of 8 tons). In the first flight, Buran was launched into an orbit at an altitude of 250.7/260.2 km (orbital inclination 51.6╟) with an orbital period of 89.5 minutes. When filled with 14 tons of fuel, it is possible to transfer to an orbit at an altitude of 450 km with a load of 27 tons.

If one of the main rocket engines of the 1st or 2nd stage of the launch vehicle fails at the stage of launching, its computer “selects”, depending on the altitude gained, either options for launching the orbital vehicle into a low orbit or onto a single-orbit flight path with subsequent landing on one of the spare ones airfields, or the option of launching the launch vehicle with the spacecraft onto a return trajectory to the launch area with the subsequent separation of the orbital vehicle and landing it at the main airfield. During a normal launch of an orbital vehicle, the 2nd stage of the launch vehicle, the final speed of which is less than the first cosmic speed, continues to fly along a ballistic trajectory until it falls into the Pacific Ocean.

Return from orbit

To deorbit, Buran is rotated by gas-dynamic control engines 180º (tail first), after which the main rocket engines are turned on for a short time and provide it with the necessary braking impulse. Buran switches to a descent trajectory, again turns 180º (nose forward) and glides with a high angle of attack. Up to an altitude of 20 km, joint gas-dynamic and aerodynamic control is carried out, and at the final stage of the flight only aerodynamic controls are used. The aerodynamic design of the Buran provides it with a sufficiently high aerodynamic quality, allowing it to carry out a controlled gliding descent, perform a lateral maneuver along the descent route of up to 2000 km to reach the landing airfield area, perform the necessary pre-landing maneuvers and land at the airfield. At the same time, the aircraft configuration and the adopted descent trajectory (gliding steepness) allow aerodynamic braking to reduce Buran's speed from close to orbital speed to landing speed, equal to 300 - 360 km/h. The length of the run is 1100 - 1900 m; a braking parachute is used during the run. To expand the operational capabilities of Buran, it was envisaged to use three regular landing airfields (at the cosmodrome (landing complex runway 5 km long and 84 m wide, 12 km from the launch), as well as in the eastern (Khorol, Primorsky Territory) and western (Simferopol) parts of the country ). The complex of radio engineering equipment at the airfield creates radio navigation and radar fields (the radius of the latter is about 500 km), providing long-range detection of the ship, its deployment to the airfield and all-weather high-precision (including automatic) landing on the runway.

The first test flight of the unmanned version of Buran ended after completing a little more than two orbits around the Earth with a successful automatic landing at the airfield in the vicinity of the cosmodrome. The braking impulse was given at an altitude of H = 250 km, at a distance of about 20,000 km from the landing airfield, the lateral range on the descent route was about 550 km, the deviation from the calculated touch point on the runway turned out to be 15 m in the longitudinal direction and 3 m from the runway axis .

The development of the Buran orbital vehicle lasted more than 10 years.

The first launch was preceded by a large volume of research and development work to create an orbital vehicle and its systems with extensive theoretical and experimental studies to determine the aerodynamic, acoustic, thermophysical, strength and other characteristics of the orbital vehicle, modeling the operation of systems and the flight dynamics of the orbital vehicle on full-size equipment stand and on flight stands, development of new materials, development of methods and means of automatic landing on airplanes - flying laboratories, flight tests in the atmosphere of a manned analogue aircraft (in the motor version) BTS-02, full-scale thermal protection tests on experimental BOR-4 devices and BOR-5, launched into orbit and returned from it using the aerodynamic descent method, etc.

In total, under the Energia-Buran program, three flight ships were built (the third was not completed), two more were laid down (the backlog for which was destroyed after the closure of the program), and nine technological mock-ups in various configurations for conducting various tests

Reusable orbital ship (in the terminology of the Ministry of Aviation Industry - orbital aircraft) "Buran"

(product 11F35)

"B Uranus"is a Soviet reusable winged orbital ship. Designed to solve a number of defense tasks, launching various space objects into orbit around the Earth and servicing them; delivering modules and personnel for assembling large-sized structures and interplanetary complexes in orbit; returning faulty or exhausted ones to Earth satellites; development of equipment and technologies for space production and delivery of products to Earth; performance of other cargo and passenger transportation along the Earth-space-Earth route.

Internal layout, design. In the bow of the "Buran" there is a sealed insert cabin with a volume of 73 cubic meters for the crew (2 - 4 people) and passengers (up to 6 people), compartmentson-board equipment and the nose block of control engines.

The middle part is occupied by the cargo compartmentwith doors opening upwards, which houses manipulators for loading and unloading, installation and assembly work and variousoperations for servicing space objects. Under the cargo compartment there are units of power supply and temperature control systems. The tail compartment (see figure) contains propulsion units, fuel tanks, and hydraulic system units. Aluminum alloys, titanium, steel and other materials are used in the design of the Buran. To resist aerodynamic heating during descent from orbit, the outer surface of the spacecraft has a heat-protective coating designed for reusable use.

A flexible thermal protection is installed on the upper surface, which is less susceptible to heating, and other surfaces are covered with heat-protective tiles made on the basis of quartz fibers and withstanding temperatures up to 1300ºС. In especially heat-stressed areas (in the fuselage and wing toes, where the temperature reaches 1500º - 1600ºС), a carbon-carbon composite material is used. The stage of the most intense heating of the vehicle is accompanied by the formation of a layer of air plasma around it, but the design of the vehicle does not warm up to more than 160ºC by the end of the flight. Each of the 38,600 tiles has a specific installation location, determined by the theoretical contours of the OK body. To reduce thermal loads, large values ​​of the blunting radii of the wing and fuselage tips were also chosen. The design life of the structure is 100 orbital flights.

The internal layout of the Buran on a poster of NPO Energia (now Rocket and Space Corporation Energia). Explanation of the designation of the ship: all orbital ships had the code 11F35. The final plans were to build five flying ships, in two series. Being the first, "Buran" had the aviation designation (at NPO Molniya and the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant) 1.01 (first series - first ship). NPO Energia had a different designation system, according to which Buran was identified as 1K - the first ship. Since in each flight the ship had to perform different tasks, the flight number was added to the ship’s index - 1K1 - first ship, first flight.

Propulsion system and on-board equipment. The integrated propulsion system (UPS) ensures additional insertion of the orbital vehicle into the reference orbit, performance of inter-orbital transitions (corrections), precise maneuvering near the serviced orbital complexes, orientation and stabilization of the orbital vehicle, and its braking for deorbiting. The ODU consists of two orbital maneuvering engines (on the right), running on hydrocarbon fuel and liquid oxygen, and 46 gas-dynamic control engines, grouped into three blocks (one nose block and two tail blocks). More than 50 onboard systems, including radio engineering, TV and telemetry systems, life support systems, thermal control, navigation, power supply and others, are combined on a computer basis into a single onboard complex, which ensures the Buran's stay in orbit for up to 30 days.

The heat generated by the on-board equipment is supplied with the help of a coolant to radiation heat exchangers installed on the inside of the cargo compartment doors and radiated into the surrounding space (the doors are open during flight in orbit).

Geometric and weight characteristics. The length of the Buran is 35.4 m, height 16.5 m (with the landing gear extended), wingspan is about 24 m, wing area is 250 square meters, fuselage width is 5.6 m, height is 6.2 m; The diameter of the cargo compartment is 4.6 m, its length is 18 m. The launch mass is OK up to 105 tons, the mass of cargo delivered into orbit is up to 30 tons, returned from orbit is up to 15 tons. The maximum fuel supply is up to 14 tons.

The large overall dimensions of the Buran make it difficult to use ground means of transportation, so it (as well as the launch vehicle units) is delivered to the cosmodrome by air by a VM-T aircraft modified for these purposes from the Experimental Machine-Building Plant named after. V.M. Myasishchev (in this case, the keel is removed from the Buran and the weight is increased to 50 tons) or by the An-225 multi-purpose transport aircraft in fully assembled form.

The ships of the second series were the crown of engineering art of our aircraft industry, the pinnacle of domestic manned cosmonautics. These ships were intended to be truly all-weather, 24/7 manned orbital aircraft with improved performance and significantly increased capabilities through a variety of design changes and modifications. In particular, the number of shunting engines has increased due to the new -You can learn much more about winged spaceships from our book (see cover on the left) “Space Wings”, (M.: LLC “LenTa Strastviy”, 2009. - 496 pages: ill.) To date, this is the most complete Russian-language an encyclopedic narrative about dozens of domestic and foreign projects. Here's how the book's blurb says it:
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The history of the creation of aerospace vehicles in the world is described in detail - from the first aircraft with rocket engines during World War II to the beginning of the implementation of the Space Shuttle (USA) and Energia-Buran (USSR) programs.
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Almost everyone who lived in the USSR and who is even slightly interested in astronautics has heard about the legendary Buran, a winged spacecraft launched into orbit in conjunction with the Energia launch vehicle. The pride of Soviet space rocketry, the Buran orbiter made its only flight during perestroika and was severely damaged when the roof of a hangar at Baikonur collapsed at the beginning of the new millennium. What is the fate of this ship, and why the program of the reusable space system "Energia-Buran" was frozen, we will try to figure it out.

History of creation

The first Buran projects, which appeared in 1975, were almost identical to the American shuttles not only in appearance, but also in the structural arrangement of the main components and blocks, including propulsion engines. After numerous modifications, Buran became the way the whole world remembered it after its flight in 1988.

Unlike the American shuttles, it could deliver a larger weight of cargo into orbit (up to 30 tons), and also return up to 20 tons to the ground. But the main difference between the Buran and the shuttles, which determined its design, was the different placement and number of engines. The domestic ship did not have propulsion engines, which were transferred to the launch vehicle, but there were engines for further launching it into orbit. In addition, they turned out to be somewhat heavier.

It is sad that this particular ship, which made an “independent” triumphant flight, was buried in 2002 under the rubble of a collapsed hangar roof.

Ship structure

The bow of the hull structurally consists of a bow cooker, a pressurized cabin and an engine compartment. The interior of the cabin is divided by floors that form decks. Decks together with frames provide the necessary strength to the cabin. In the front part of the cabin there are windows on top.

To accommodate cargo on the Buran, a spacious cargo compartment with a total volume of approximately 350 m3, a length of 18.3 m and a diameter of 4.7 m is provided. For example, the Kvant module or the main unit of the Mir station would fit here, and this The compartment also allows you to service placed cargo and monitor the operation of on-board systems until the very moment of unloading from the Buran.
The total length of the Buran ship is 36.4 m, the fuselage diameter is 5.6 m, the height on the chassis is 16.5 m, the wingspan is 24 m. The chassis has a base of 13 m, a track of 7 m.

The duration of the flight is determined by a special program, the maximum time is set to 30 days. In orbit, good maneuverability of the Buran spacecraft is ensured thanks to additional fuel reserves of up to 14 tons, the nominal fuel reserve is 7.5 tons. The integrated propulsion system of the Buran vehicle is a complex system that includes 48 engines: 2 orbital maneuvering engines for placing the vehicle into orbit with a thrust of 8.8 tons, 38 propulsion control jet engines with a thrust of 390 kg and another 8 engines for precision movements ( precise orientation) with a thrust of 20 kg. All these engines are powered from single tanks by hydrocarbon fuel “cycline” and liquid oxygen.

Buran engines make it possible to perform the following main operations: stabilization of the Energia-Buran complex before its separation from the second stage, separation and removal of the Buran spacecraft from the launch vehicle, its final insertion into the initial orbit, formation and correction of the working orbit, orientation and stabilization, inter-orbital transitions, rendezvous and docking with other spacecraft, deorbiting and braking, controlling the position of the vehicle relative to its center of mass, etc.

Our machine was much more maneuverable, more complex, “smarter” than its American predecessors and could automatically perform a wider range of functions.

For the first time in rocket science, a diagnostic system was used on a spacecraft, covering all systems of the spacecraft, connecting backup sets of equipment or switching to a backup mode in case of possible malfunctions.

The present

Where are now the famous Burans of the past, on which the best minds, thousands of workers worked, and on which so much effort was spent and so much hope was placed?

1.01 "Buran" - carried out the only unmanned space flight. It was stored at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the installation and testing building. At the time of destruction during a roof collapse in May 2002, it was the property of Kazakhstan.

1.02 – the ship was intended for a second flight in autopilot mode and docking with the Mir space station. It is also owned by Kazakhstan and installed in the Baikonur Cosmodrome Museum as an exhibit.

2.01 – the ship’s readiness was 30 - 50%. He was at the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant until 2004, then spent 7 years at the pier of the Khimki Reservoir. And finally, in 2011, it was transported for restoration to the Zhukovsky airfield.

2.02 - 10-20% readiness. Partially dismantled on the stocks of the Tushinsky plant.

2.03 - the reserve was completely destroyed.

Possible prospects

Work on the Energia-Buran program began in 1976.

86 ministries and departments and 1286 enterprises throughout the USSR (about 2.5 million people in total) took part in the creation of this system.

The lead developer of the ship was the specially created NPO Molniya. Production has been carried out at the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant since 1980; by 1984 the first full-scale copy was ready. From the plant, the ships were delivered by water transport to the city of Zhukovsky, and from there (from the Ramenskoye airfield) by air (on a special VM-T transport aircraft) to the Baikonur cosmodrome.

Buran made its first and only space flight on November 15, 1988. The spacecraft was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome using the Energia launch vehicle and, after flying around the Earth, landed at the specially equipped Yubileiny airfield at Baikonur. The flight took place without a crew, in fully automatic mode, unlike the shuttle, which can only land using manual control.

In 1990, work on the Energia-Buran program was suspended, and in 1993 the program was finally closed. The only Buran to fly into space (1988) was destroyed in 2002 by the collapsed roof of the hangar of the installation and testing building at Baikonur.

During the work on the Buran project, several prototypes were made for dynamic, electrical, airfield and other tests. After the program was closed, these products remained on the balance sheet of various research institutes and production associations. It is known, for example, that the Rocket and Space Corporation Energia and NPO Molniya have prototypes.

The length of the Buran is 36.4 m, the wingspan is about 24 m, the height of the ship when it is on the chassis is more than 16 m, the launch weight is more than 100 tons. The cargo compartment can accommodate a payload weighing up to 30 tons. In the bow The compartment contains a sealed all-welded cabin for the crew and people to carry out work in orbit (up to 10 people) and most of the equipment to support flight as part of the rocket and space complex, autonomous flight in orbit, descent and landing. The cabin volume is over seventy cubic meters.

It has a delta wing with variable sweep, as well as aerodynamic controls that operate during landing after returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere - a rudder, elevons and an aerodynamic flap.

“Baikal” is the name of the Soviet reusable transport spacecraft created as part of the Energia-Buran program. The launch took place on February 4, 1992. The flight program included a seven-day stay in space and docking with the Mir station. Unfortunately, at the very beginning of the flight, an emergency situation occurred and “Baikal” made an emergency landing. This served as the basis for curtailing the Russian program to create reusable ships.

In fact, the inscription “Baikal” (in red in a straight font like “Arial”) adorned the side of the first flight prototype of the Buran MTKK for almost the entire time of ground tests. However, shortly before launch, the name “Buran” was written on board the MTKK in black, slanted font, under which it took off and became known throughout the world. The name of the ship and the entire program - “Buran” - was known to everyone who had at least some connection to them (including outside the USSR) from the very beginning of the development of the program. However, due to the all-encompassing secrecy, this word was not recommended to be used openly, and therefore “Baikal” was born (and later the open name of the Energia launch vehicle, known to specialists as product 11K25, was put into circulation).

The story about the flight of the spaceship "Baikal" is an April Fool's joke (2000), created by the administrator of the website www.buran.ru Vadim Lukashevich. The joke was performed at the highest professional level, and if it weren’t for special hints that this is a joke (the background of the article is made in the form of a low-contrast repeating pattern consisting of a silhouette of a ship and the inscription “Happy April Fools”), even specialists in the field of astronautics would have thought It's hard to explain that this is a joke.

A total of 6 people were enrolled in the first group on July 12, 1977:
Volk, Igor Petrovich
Kononenko, Oleg Grigorievich
Levchenko, Anatoly Semenovich
Sadovnikov, Nikolai Fedorovich
Stankevicius, Rimantas Antanas
Shchukin, Alexander Vladimirovich

A video published on the YouTube channel Exploring the Unbeaten Path is gaining popularity on the Internet. Its authors, residents of the Netherlands, managed to enter the hangar on the territory of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which houses the Soviet reusable spacecraft Buran.

The fifteen-minute video shows adventurers sneaking into an abandoned hangar and exploring a spacecraft that is slowly collapsing. “Our craziest and most dangerous adventure,” is how the creators themselves described the video.

“These hangars belong to no one”

The penetration of the Dutch into Buran is by no means the first such case. In 2015, pictures of this hangar and the device located in it were posted online by a user Ralph Mirebs. And in May 2017, a whole group from Russia, Ukraine and Great Britain entered the hangar and was detained by cosmodrome security officers.

“It turns out that these hangars do not belong to anyone. They are located, as it were, on the territory of the cosmodrome, but there is nothing secret or important there, the FSB has no interest in these hangars,” wrote one of the participants in the May penetration, a roofer, on his social network page Vitaly Raskalov. At the same time, according to him, the existing launch pads of the cosmodrome are carefully guarded.

Abandoned hangars at Baikonur are a memory of one of the most ambitious space programs of the USSR.

"Energy - Buran"

Construction of the Soviet reusable spacecraft began back in the seventies, in response to a similar American Space Shuttle program. The ship was supposed to carry out tasks both for peaceful space exploration and as part of military programs.

As part of the project, the most powerful Soviet launch vehicle, called “Energia,” was created. The carrier, capable of launching up to 100, and in the future, 200 tons of payload into orbit, could lift into space not only a reusable ship, but also heavy space stations. In the future, it was planned to use “Energy” to prepare an expedition to the Moon.

The first launch of the Energia launch vehicle took place in 1987. On November 15, 1988, Energia lifted the Buran reusable spacecraft into orbit.

"Buran" was superior to its American counterparts in many respects. Its first flight was completely automatic, including landing.

2 trillion down the drain?

The Energia-Buran program was the largest and most expensive in the history of Russian cosmonautics. At the 2016 exchange rate, its cost is approximately 2 trillion rubles. For Buran landings, a reinforced runway was specially equipped at the Yubileiny airfield in Baikonur. In addition, two more main reserve landing sites for the Buran were seriously reconstructed and fully equipped with the necessary infrastructure - the military airfields Bagerovo in Crimea and Vostochny in Primorye - and runways were built or strengthened at another 14 reserve landing sites, including outside the territory THE USSR. The An-225 Mriya was created specifically for transportation from alternate airfields. A special detachment of cosmonauts was prepared who were to pilot the Buran.

According to the developers' plan, Buran was to carry out 1-2 more flights in automatic mode, after which its operation in a manned version would begin.

However Mikhail Gorbachev considered that the project was too expensive, and in 1990 ordered the suspension of work on the program. In 1993, after the collapse of the USSR, the Energy-Buran program was completely closed.

"Buran" was lost, "Storm" and "Baikal" remained

It should be clarified: the ship that adventure lovers enter is not the Buran.

The real Buran, which flew into space, was completely destroyed on May 12, 2002 when the roof of the installation and testing building of the cosmodrome collapsed. Eight workers who were repairing the roof died under the rubble. The remains of the Buran were cut into pieces by cosmodrome workers and subsequently sold as scrap metal.

The ship standing in the assembly and refueling building (or on site 112 A), which was filmed by bloggers, is the so-called “product 1.02,” that is, the second flight prototype of the Soviet reusable ship. The “product” also had a proper name: “Storm”.

The fate of "Storm" is no less sad. The ship was about 95 percent complete and was scheduled to fly in 1992. But the closure of the program put an end to these plans.

The ship changed ownership several times, and currently the owner of the Tempest is unknown. The hangar where it is located is periodically raided by hunters for non-ferrous metals.

“Product 2.01” (ship “Baikal”) was approximately 50 percent ready by the time the program was closed. Until 2004, the ship was in the workshops of the Tushinsky Machine-Building Plant, then it changed its “registration” several times, in 2011 reaching Zhukovsky near Moscow, where, after reconstruction, it was supposed to become an exhibit at the air show.

Two more copies, laid down at the Tushino plant, were dismantled there after the program was closed.

What is at VDNKh?

In addition, as part of the Buran program, several prototypes were created for dynamic, electrical, airfield and other tests. Many people still mistake these models for real ships.

BTS-002 OK-GLI or “product 0.02”, on which atmospheric tests and testing in real conditions of the most critical flight sections were carried out, after long wanderings around the world in 2008, for 10 million euros, was acquired by the owner of a private Technical Museum Herman Leir and is on display in the German city of Speyer.

BTS-001 OK-ML-1 or “product 0.01” was an attraction in Moscow’s Gorky Park for many years after the program was closed. In 2014, he changed his registration and was transported to VDNKh, where he is now.

One of the models, OK-MT, is the Buri’s “neighbor” in the hangar, which bloggers are so fond of getting into.

A model of the Buran spacecraft on the territory of VDNKh. Photo: RIA Novosti / Alexey Kudenko

Is there a future for the great past?

In 2016, it became known that Roscosmos decided to create a department for reusable launch vehicles at one of its enterprises. Veterans of the Energia-Buran project were assembled into the department’s team. This time, the tasks for the developers are not so ambitious: we are talking about creating a flight model of the returnable first stage of the launch vehicle, which should provide a significant reduction in the cost of domestic space programs.

As for large-scale projects like the Energy-Buran program, they are a thing of the future.