View Full Version : Should NASA study Buran's design a little more?
Personally I think the US has been pretty obstinent about the potential of the Energia rocket system... but to boot, there are some other differences from the NASA shuttle design that could have, um, made re-entry a little safer...
click on the "buran orbiter" in the site...
http://www.buran.ru/htm/molniya.htm
"Each of almost forty thousand tiles of ceramic thermal protection had its original geometry differing from the others by plane form, side surfaces view and inside and outside surfaces curvature, availability of cuts and notches."
"The measurements of a real frame surface geometry under each tile in more than 100 points were made to ensure the tiles fitting closely. To execute all this manually was impossible. The special software was developed and as a result form building, manufacturing and installation of tiles were carried out completely on paperless technology without drawings and templates, using the bank data. The bank data is based on the interface between a design office and plants. The data bank information describtes the geometry, technology parameters and materials. More than one billion manufacturing control and testing programmes are automatically generated on the plant."
... It was/is quite a bit stronger than our fleet... We should've taken some pointers... to bad perestroika(sp?) doomed the buran...
1stFlight
06-05-03, 12:37 PM
One question...
Has it flown yet?
It was launched once back in the late 80's... unmanned... Orbited twice, and landed on autopilot within 2 feet of specified landing area...
Google "Buran" and you'll find a lot of cool tidbits...
Heck, the energia rocket system could easily power the manned moon mission!! But NASA wants to spend their own money on a new design... what a waste of resources...
...bollocks!
1stFlight
06-05-03, 03:15 PM
It may well be neat, but I'd say it needs a bit more legwork before comparing to the years of operation our shuttles have.
It is neat though :)
Originally posted by ragejg
It was launched once back in the late 80's... unmanned... Orbited twice, and landed on autopilot within 2 feet of specified landing area...
Google "Buran" and you'll find a lot of cool tidbits...
Heck, the energia rocket system could easily power the manned moon mission!! But NASA wants to spend their own money on a new design... what a waste of resources...
...bollocks!
NECRO-POST. :D
http://news.discovery.com/space/frankenshuttle-space-shuttle-space-rocket.html
I have no idea why they're not looking at the Energia system. It's nice to consider that some of the shuttle parts could get re-used, but the rocket system is clearly outdone by the Energia system in terms of weight carrying capacity/range.
Key differences from the NASA Space Shuttle
Buran was not an integral part of the system, but rather a payload for the Energia launcher. The orbiter had no main rocket engines, freeing space and weight for additional payload; the largest cylindrical structure is the Energia carrier-rocket, not just a fuel tank. In contrast, in the American Space Shuttle system, the three main engines on the rear of the orbiter comprise the second stage launch propulsion system, and the External Tank and twin boosters are not used to launch anything except an orbiter.[citation needed]
The main engines were mounted on the core Energia stage and thus destroyed when it burns up in the atmosphere, unlike the U.S. Space Shuttle which has reusable main engines in the orbiter. Both designs feature reusable boosters (although reusability was not demonstrated on Energia). There were some plans for constructing a fully reusable Energia carrier, but funding cuts meant that this was never completed.[citation needed]
The boosters used liquid propellant (kerosene/oxygen). The Space Shuttle's boosters use solid propellant.[citation needed]
Buran's equivalent of the shuttle's Orbital Maneuvering System used GOX/Kerosene propellant, with lower toxicity and higher performance (a specific impulse of 362 seconds)[citation needed] than the Shuttle's hydrazine OMS engines.
Energia was designed from the start to be configured for a variety of uses, rather than just a shuttle launcher. Other payloads than Buran, with mass as high as 80 metric tons, could be lifted to space by Energia, as was the case on its first launch. The heaviest configuration (never built) would have been able to launch 200 tons into orbit. (The Shuttle-C concept was a similar proposal to the Energia system, envisaged to complement the space shuttle by adapting its boosters and external tank for use with other vehicles, but it never moved beyond the experimental mock-up stage. The NASA Ares V rocket, in development, is a similarly "shuttle-derived" idea.)[citation needed]
The Energia launch rocket was also capable of delivering a payload to the Moon. However, this configuration was never tested. The Space Shuttle was never intended to go beyond Low Earth orbit.[citation needed]
As Buran was designed to be capable of both manned and robotic flight, it had automated landing capability; the manned version was never operational. The Space Shuttle was later retrofitted with an automated landing capability; the equipment to make this possible was first flown on STS-121, but is intended only as a contingency, and has never been used on any flight.[17]
The orbiters were designed to carry two jet engines for increased return capability. Although they were not installed in the first orbiter for reason of weight limits on the first Energia launcher, provisions exist in the structure for later retrofit.[18] Although early designs of the NASA Space Shuttle also incorporated jet engines, the operation version landed as an unpowered glider, relying entirely on management of descent energy for landing.
The nose landing gear is located much farther down the fuselage rather than just under the mid-deck as with the NASA Space Shuttle.
Buran could lift 30 metric tons into orbit in its standard configuration, comparable to the early Space Shuttle's original 27.8 metric tons[19][20]
Buran was designed to return 20 metric tons of payload from orbit, compared to 15 metric tons for the Space Shuttle orbiter.[citation needed]
The lift-to-drag ratio of Buran is cited as 6.5,[21] compared to a subsonic L/D of 4.5 for the Space Shuttle.[22]
The thermal protection tiles on the Buran and U.S. Space Shuttles are laid out differently. Soviet engineers believed their design to be thermodynamically superior.[20]
Buran was designed to be moved to the launch pad horizontally on special train tracks, and then erected at the launch site. This enabled a much faster rollout than the US Space Shuttle, which is moved vertically, and as such must be moved very slowly (less than one mile per hour, typically taking about 6 hours to move the Mobile Launch Platform supporting the Shuttle stack from the VAB to the launch pad on a Crawler-Transporter.)[citation needed]
The booster rockets were not constructed in segments vulnerable to leakage through O-rings, which caused the destruction of Challenger. (Their liquid-fueled nature would make this design inapplicable.) However, the liquid fuel for the booster rockets (see above) would have made them less easy to prepare - and hold ready - for flight than solid rocket fuel in the Shuttle boosters and in addition represented a potential explosive hazard on the ground.[citation needed]
The manned version was intended to have a crew of ten as opposed to seven.[20]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_program
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