Thread by @ClosertoSpace

[Thread] - 🇬🇧

Each program has an official story, but also many anecdotes, references or very little known information.

The Energiya/Buran program is not an exception, so let's talk about some anecdotes and stories of the program!

First of all, why is this shuttle called Buran?
And by the way, is this the name of the shuttle program or only the first of the shuttles?

Buran is obviously a Russian word, which could be translated as: "a blizzard in the steppe". But why did they choose this name?

To understand, we have to go back 30 years. Buran was partly developed by Lavochkin. But it turns out that in the 1950s, Lavochkin developed two rather strange ballistic missiles, called Burya and Buran.

Unfortunately, only Burya flew, Buran remaining in draft form. During studies on the Soviet space shuttle, Lavochkin proposed the name of Buran for the program, which name was retained.
Note that at this time, Buran was the name of the program, and not a particular shuttle.

Besides, the first shuttle was originally called Baikal, and the second Burya.
Finally, Baikal was renamed Buran, like the program.
Burya was never officially named, this name being mentioned only a few times in the official papers.

Note the irony.
In the 50s Burya flew where Buran never did.
In the 80s, Buran flew, Burya forever stuck in Baikonur.
So that's the origin of the name!

Another anecdote, the Buran / Energiya launch complex was called "Raskat", which could be translated as "peal of thunder" in English.
Moreover this pad was a giant puzzle for the engineers, who had to make fit a rectangle in a triangle...

The pad 37 (the 38 never used for Energiya) was one of the N-1 rocket, which had three flamme trenchs arranged in a triangle.
But look at the shape of Energia's launch plateform...
So they have made the pad so that the 20 flames in total divide into 3!

The pad had another peculiarity. The failures of the N-1 rocket were still in the memories, the engineers designed a system that surrounded the RD-0120 of the 1st stage, and which, in case of leakage, projected freon and nitrogen to extinguish the engine!

The crew had a rather special way of getting on "Raskat", they used a small train, located in the top pipe, a real roller coaster!
Moreover, some sections of rails were taken from a funfair in Irkoustk to be installed there.

In case of emergency, the descent wasn't made by this train, but by a giant slide of more than 200m long which led to a large inflatable mattress of 10m, located in a bunker at 6m deep.
The toboggan was located in the bottom pipe.

This toboggan was one of the favorite hobbies of the workers on the site, judging by the hundreds of footprints that were found on the mattress every week during inspections!
The record was 11 people simultaneously in the toboggan.

During the flight, several solutions were present to save the crew in case of problem on Energia. First of all, the ejection seats, 4 in all, were first tested on a model of the cockpit mounted on rails to simulate its displacement.

The seats being designed to be lit up to Mach 4.2, so they also boarded several Progress cargo ships, where they were lit at this speed.
Instead of activating the seats, Buran was also able to light 4 little powder boosters that kept the shuttle away from Energia quickly.

In case of problem, when the astronauts had ejected, it was expected that the shuttle, if it did not explode, come back to land!
For that, the old version OK-92 of Buran had to be equipped with two plane engines!
(These are the two engines on the sides)

Moreover, the big central engine was a powder booster, activated in case of emergency, serving as a giant rescue tower!
The design of OK-92 was nevertheless abandoned, thus returning to the ejection seat system present on Buran, more "classic".

Energiya was such a big rocket that it posed a huge challenge to the engineers. How to transport his tank to Baikonur?
Before opting for Atlante and Mriya (An-225), they first tested... The helicopter!
It must have been pretty impressive...

Finally they designed the An-225 for Energiya and Buran. Moreover, during the flight of Buran in Paris, we were amazed at his ability to fly in the rain and in the clouds, things impossible for his American equivalent and his Boeing-747, which didn't fly in the rain.

Energiya made two flights. And during its 2 flights, the engines of its 1st stage (RD-0120) were lit 14 seconds before liftoff. Nevertheless they had to be able to light up in 7 seconds. It was a chief engineer who decided on this increase in duration, to test them.

He argued this decision by: "Anyway we don't need all this fuel, Energia is powerful enough to launch Buran".
Moreover, the RD-0120 and RD-170 engines were designed to be reusable 10 times, remember that Energia had to be reused!

The boosters were ejected not one by one, but in pairs. It was a minute after their separation from Energiya that the pairs were separated!
Then they used a parachute to stabilize, small engines to brake and landing legs to land.

During his first flight, Energiya had no parachutes. On the 2nd, still today, we don't know if the recovery was attempted or not.
On his first flight, it was planned to send a simple simulation mass filled with water, before being replaced by Polyus.

This simulation mass should have been opened in orbit to study the behavior of fluids in a vacuum.
They would have ended up with a giant water bubble of 8t in orbit! Finally, launching Polyus might be a better idea 😅

Now let's talk about some systems created for Buran.
First of all, a Soviet robotic arm, which could be controlled manually, but also completely independently, something the Canadarm couldn't do.

Also, the Soviet MMU was created and even tested in space for cosmonauts EVA on Buran!
Unfortunately, he didn't really live longer than the Buran program and was quickly canceled.

It was also developed intra-vehicular combinations for Buran, Strizh ("fast" in English).
Unfortunately, Strizh will never fly in space.

(Personally, I find these combinations pretty ugly...)

Let's go back to the architecture of Buran, which has peculiarities. Already, you may have noticed, but the white areas of Buran were covered with tiles, where the Shuttle wasn't! They were supposed to better protect from solar radiation.

You can see the areas covered with tiles from those that aren't on landing, you see the "dirty" area along the shuttle?
Just behind the USSR flag, the area changes color in a straight line, here is the delimitation of these tiles!

In all, Buran was covered with more than 40,000 tiles, 10,000 more than his American conterpart!
In addition, the thermal tiles were placed on a sub-layer, so that if one of them fell during re-entry, the shuttle would have resisted.

Another anecdote, the Buran entrance "door", once closed, was also used in orbit... as a thermal radiator to dissipate heat. A radiator-door!
(A radiadoor? ^^)

Buran also had the distinction of using for its two orbital engines and its RCS liquid oxygen and syntin, fuel also used on Soyuz-U2 at the time.
This was a disadvantage, the engine could not light, and Buran was stuck in orbit!

Let's finish with the flying demonstrations of the landing of a space shuttle. Before the creation of OK-GLI, the Soviets decided to use many different aircraft to test the landing, including a certain Tupolev Tu-144 (alias Concordski), used twice.

They had the plane go up to 10km high, then cut all engines before stinging almost 60° to the ground!
Many other planes were used, Sukhoï-27, Tupolev Tu-22, Ilyushin-62 ...

I'm done with these Buran anecdotes, but I still have others for future threads!
I have done so far two other threads on the Buran program:
- Summary of the program's history:

https://twitter.com/ClosertoSpace/status/1167597380767756288

- History of Polyus:

https://twitter.com/ClosertoSpace/status/1168546791748460544

I can only encourage you to learn more about Soviet space program, or space program in other countries! (China, USA, France...)
If Buran interests you, go to Buran.ru!

See you soon!

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