Buran

back in the day the Soviets made a space shuttle, Buran. It never got to fly with astronauts. It had only one mission, totally automated, but was somewhat spectacular. I've seen other Buran videos on YouTube but I think this one is new.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• buran
• space
• shuttle
• soviet
• union
• ussr
• cccp

[smartalpha]

Incredible how russians has courage to launch it into clouds! :D Sounds like the "Virgilio" earthcraft in the film "The Core" penetrating in the Marianas Fossis

[singedrac]

Well it was unmanned so it's not like anybody's life was on the line.

[gadinaaa]

@av8n4life Talking about aerodynamic designs we should not forget that an alternative to Buran was Spiral orbiter that was completely different even in shape (you can Google it). It was proposed to scale it up into 30t payload capacity, but the Soviet militaries wanted a functional equivalent to Shuttle, so they insisted on the Shuttle-inspired design.

[gadinaaa]

@av8n4life I agree with your technical analysis. Some Russian sources explicitly state that Buran replicated aerodynamic shape of the Shuttle in order to save development costs.

Ability of the Shuttle orbiter to change orbit inclination and dive in the atmosphere over unexpected places (e.g. Moscow) forced Russian militaries to initiate the Buran program as a response.

Replicating design features of competitors is a widespread industrial practice (e.g. among car manufacturers), nothing special

[av8n4life]

@gadinaaa Internal structures are different, yes, but the outer mold line is almost identical. The Soviets used the Americans' advanced knowledge of aerodynamics in the hypersonic regime by lifting the OML of the Space Shuttle orbiter. The internals are Shuttle-inspired but completely different. And I think the word you're looking for is "illiterate." It's not an outright copy, but it stole a lot of intellectual property from the US program.

[gadinaaa]

5. Your count of US-purchased NK-33 engines as well as its future prospectives are not consistent with other trusted sources:

Overall impression: your arrogance is waaay ahead of your technical competence.

[gadinaaa]

4. Buran's airframe cannot be a copy of the Shuttle for a simple reason. Shuttle has its lift engines in the tail and pushes the external fuel tank. Buran was designed to be a payload attached to the rocket. As a result, forces applied to the airframe are completely different. If you do not see that difference it means that you are either technically illiteral or deliberatly misleading others.

[gadinaaa]

2. RD-170 is not a Ukranian design. It was designed by a Russian manufacturer NPO Energomash:

3. Nobody in the rocket engine industry considers RD-170 to be "four engines with common turbopump". It is single engine with multiple chambers no matter how often you state the opposite.

[gadinaaa]

Your false sense of pride makes you blind and deluded even when information is just a few clicks away. (web links are not accepted here, but they can be easily googled)

1. The Shuttle's automated landing system has never been tested (which means "god knows if the design really works"):

As a result, remote landing capability has been implemented instead which is not an automated landing by any stretch of mind:

[Plutoplatter]

Bombarder, the presence of 'burn marks' on Buran proves nothing. Since the supposed Buran 'flight' was conducted in secrecy, that fact alone leaves the Soviets open to a conclusion that the Buran failed to make it into orbit. For all we know, the 'burn marks' were made with blowtorches. Energia also was a dud. It was too expensive to use routinely, and never demonstrated any actual reusability. Lastly, good luck with Angara. Given the poor Russian history with BIG rockets, luck will be needed.

[bombarderoazul]

When the cold war ended the soviets revealed all their secrets, there is footage of buran returning and you can clearly see it has been burned during reentry, the soviets did admit that the first launch of energia was succesful but that the 100 ton polyus weapon package failed to reach orbit., I am waiting for russias newest rocket the Angara heavy lift system, I read there is one configuration that will give it the ability to lift 175 tons!