Buran Space Shuttle

The Buran spacecraft (Буран, "snowstorm" or "blizzard"), serial number 11F35 K1, was the only fully completed and operational space shuttle from the Soviet Union's Buran program. It had only one (unmanned) spaceflight, in 1988, before the program was cancelled in 1993. It was destroyed by a hangar collapse in 2002. Like its American counterpart, the Buran, when in transit from its landing sites back to the launch complex, was transported on the back of a large jet airplane. It was piggy-backed on the Antonov An-225 aircraft, which was designed for this task and remains the largest powered aircraft in the world.The first and only orbital launch of the (unmanned) shuttle Buran 1.01 was at 3:00 UTC on 15 November 1988. It was lifted into orbit by the specially designed Energia booster rocket. The life support system was not installed and no software was installed to run the computer display screens.The shuttle orbited the Earth twice in 206 minutes of flight. On its return, it performed an automated landing on the shuttle runway at Baikonur Cosmodrome, where despite a lateral wind speed of 17 metres/second it made a successful landing only 3 metres laterally and 10 metres longitudinally from the target.Part of the launch was televised, but the actual liftoff was not shown. This led to some speculation that the mission may have been fabricated, and that the subsequent landing may not have been from orbit but from a shuttle-carrying aircraft, as with the Space Shuttle Enterprise. Since then, the launch video has been released to the public, confirming that the shuttle did indeed lift off, with the poor weather conditions described by the Soviet media at the time easily seen.As of 1989, it was projected that Buran would have an unmanned second flight in 1993, with a duration of 15-20 days.Due to the cancellation of the project, this never took place.On May 12, 2002, a hangar housing a Buran 1.01 orbiter (possibly the actual Buran that flew in 1988) collapsed due to incomplete maintenance. The collapse killed eight workers and destroyed the orbiter as well as a mockup of an Energia booster rocket.Maximum mass at the start (1st flight), t 105 (79.4) Stock of oxygen, t 10.4 Stock of kerozen, t 4.1 Payload mass H=200km Slope of 50.7°, t 30 Slope of 97°, t 16 Landing mass Nominal, t 82 Maximum, t 87 Crew During flight tests 2 Maximum (without ejector seats) 10 Volume of the crew cabine, m³ 73 Flight duration Nominal, days 7 Maximum (with full tanks), days 30 Possible slopes of the orbits, in degrees 50.7 à 110 Orbits altitudes Circular work orbit, km 250 to 500 Maximum (with full tanks), km 1000 Accelerations During re-entry (maximum), g 2.95 During going down through the atmosphere, g 1.6 Landing speed Average (with a mass of 82 t), km/h 312 Maximum, km/h 360 For the first flight, km/h 263 Dimensional specifications Overall length, m 36.37 Length of the fuselage, m 30.85 Width of the fuselage, m 5.5 Wingspan, m 23.92 Wings surface, m² 250 Height from the ground, m 16.35 Length of the payload bay, m 18.55 Diameter of the payload bay, m 4.7? Quantity of flight:100 Mass of the structure m:62 Minimal duration between 2 consecutive flights days:20

Channel: Autos & Vehicles
Uploaded: October 16, 2007 at 10:20 pm
Author: zeoul001

Length: 01:11
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Tags: antonov  boeing  Buran  cold  lockheed  mig  nasa  program  raytheon  reusable  russian  shuttle  sky  space  spacecraft  sukhoi  war  

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