Until now, disputes have not subsided, but in general, was Buran needed "? There are even opinions that the Soviet Union was ruined by two things - the war in Afghanistan and the exorbitant costs of Buran. Is this true? Why and why was Buran created? ", and who needed it? Why is it so similar to the overseas "Shuttle"? How was it arranged? What is Buran for our astronautics - a "dead end branch" or a technical breakthrough that is far ahead of its time? Who created it and what is it could give to our country? And of course, the most main question Why doesn't he fly? We are opening a column in our journal in which we will try to answer these questions. In addition to Buran, we will also talk about other reusable spaceships, both those flying today and those that have not gone further than design drawing boards.

Vadim Lukashevich

Founder of Energia Valentin Glushko

"Father" of "Buran" Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky

This is how Buran could dock with the ISS

Estimated Buran payloads in the failed manned flight

Fifteen years ago, on November 15, 1988, the Soviet reusable Buran spacecraft made its flight, ending with a hitherto unrepeated automatic landing on the Baikonur runway. The largest, most expensive and longest project of the domestic cosmonautics was terminated after a triumphant single flight. In terms of the amount of material, technical and financial resources expended, human energy and intelligence, the Buran creation program surpasses all previous space programs of the USSR, not to mention today's Russia.

background

Despite the fact that for the first time the idea of ​​a spaceship-airplane was expressed by the Russian engineer Friedrich Zander in 1921, the idea of ​​winged reusable spaceships did not arouse much enthusiasm among domestic designers - the solution turned out to be excessively complex. Although for the first cosmonaut, along with the "Gagarin" "Vostok" OKB-256 Pavel Tsybin designed a winged spacecraft of the classical aerodynamic scheme - PKA (Planning Space Vehicle). The preliminary design approved in May 1957 provided for a trapezoidal wing and a normal tail unit. The PKA was supposed to start on the royal R-7 launch vehicle. The device had a length of 9.4 m, a wingspan of 5.5 m, a fuselage width of 3 m, a launch weight of 4.7 tons, a landing weight of 2.6 tons, and was designed for 27 hours of flight. The crew consisted of one cosmonaut who had to eject before landing. A feature of the project was the folding of the wing into the aerodynamic "shadow" of the fuselage in the area of ​​intense braking in the atmosphere. Successful tests of the Vostok, on the one hand, and unresolved technical problems with the cruise ship, on the other, caused the cessation of work on the PKA and determined the appearance of Soviet spacecraft for a long time.

Work on winged spaceships was launched only in response to the American challenge, with the active support of the military. For example, in the early 60s, work began in the United States on the creation of a small single-seat returnable rocket plane Dyna-Soar (Dynamic Soaring). The Soviet response was the deployment of work on the creation of domestic orbital and aerospace aircraft in aviation design bureaus. The Chelomey Design Bureau developed projects for the R-1 and R-2 rocket planes, and the Tupolev Design Bureau - Tu-130 and Tu-136.

But the greatest success of all aviation firms was achieved by OKB-155 Mikoyan, in which in the second half of the 60s, under the leadership of Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky, work was launched on the Spiral project, which became the forerunner of Buran.

The project involved the creation of a two-stage aviation space system, consisting of a hypersonic booster aircraft and an orbital aircraft, made according to the "carrying body" scheme, launched into space using a two-stage rocket stage. The work was completed by atmospheric flights of a manned aircraft-analogue of an orbital aircraft, called EPOS (Experimental Manned Orbital Aircraft). The Spiral project was far ahead of its time, and our story about it is yet to come.

As part of the Spiral, already in fact at the stage of closing the project, for field tests, rocket launches into orbit of artificial Earth satellites and suborbital trajectories of the BOR (Unmanned Orbital Rocket Plane) vehicles were performed, which at first were reduced copies of EPOS (BOR- 4"), and then scale models of the spacecraft "Buran" ("BOR-5"). The fall in American interest in space rocket planes led to the actual cessation of work on this topic in the USSR.

Fear of the unknown

By the 70s, it became completely clear that the military confrontation would be transferred to space. There was a need for funds not only for the construction of orbital systems, but also for their maintenance, prevention, and restoration. This was especially true of orbital nuclear reactors, without which the combat systems of the future could not exist. Soviet designers leaned towards well-established disposable systems.

But on January 5, 1972, US President Richard Nixon approved a program to create a reusable space system (ISS) Space Shuttle, developed with the participation of the Pentagon. Interest in such systems automatically woke up in the Soviet Union - already in March 1972, the discussion of the ISS took place at the Commission of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on military-industrial issues (MIC). At the end of April of the same year, an extended discussion of this topic was held with the participation of chief designers. The general conclusions were as follows:

- The ISS for launching payloads into orbit is not effective and is significantly inferior in cost to disposable launch vehicles;

- there are no serious tasks requiring the return of cargo from orbit;

- the ISS created by the Americans does not pose a military threat.

It became obvious that the United States was creating a system that did not pose an immediate threat, but could threaten the country's security in the future. It was the uncertainty of the future tasks of the Shuttle, with a simultaneous understanding of its potential, that further determined the strategy of copying it to provide similar opportunities for an adequate response to the future challenges of a potential adversary.

What were the “future challenges”? Soviet scientists gave free rein to their imagination. Research conducted at the Institute of Applied Mechanics of the USSR Academy of Sciences (now the Institute named after M.V. Keldysh) showed that the Space Shuttle makes it possible by performing a return maneuver from a semi-or single-turn orbit along the traditional by that time route passing from the south over Moscow and Leningrad, having made some decrease (dive), drop a nuclear charge in their area and paralyze the combat control system of the Soviet Union. Other researchers, analyzing the size of the shuttle's transport compartment, came to the conclusion that the shuttle could "steal" entire Soviet space stations from orbit, just like in the James Bond films. Simple arguments that to counteract such a “theft” it is enough to place a couple of kilograms of explosives on a space object did not work for some reason.

The fear of the unknown turned out to be stronger than real fears: on December 27, 1973, the military-industrial complex decided to develop technical proposals for the ISS in three versions - based on the N-1 lunar rocket, the Proton launch vehicle, and on the Spiral base. "Spirals" did not enjoy the support of the first persons of the state who oversaw cosmonautics, and were actually curtailed by 1976. The same fate befell the N-1 rocket.

rocket aircraft

In May 1974, the former royal design bureaus and factories were merged into the new NPO Energia, and Valentin Glushko was appointed Director and General Designer, burning with the desire to put a winning point in the long-standing dispute with Korolev over the design of the “lunar” superrocket and take revenge, going down in history as the creator of the moon base.

Immediately after being approved in the position, Glushko suspends the activities of the ISS department - he was a principled opponent of the “reusable” topic! They even say that immediately after arriving in Podlipki, Glushko spoke specifically: “I don’t know yet what we will do with you, but I know exactly what we will NOT do. Let's not copy the American "Shuttle"!" Glushko rightly believed that work on a reusable ship would close lunar programs(which subsequently happened), will slow down work on orbital stations and prevent the creation of his family of new heavy rockets. Three months later, on August 13, Glushko offers his space program, based on the development of a series of heavy rockets that received the RLA index (Rocket Aircraft), which were created by parallel connection of a different number of unified blocks with a diameter of 6 m. It was supposed to install a new powerful four-chamber oxygen-kerosene rocket engine with a thrust of more than 800 tf in empty space. The missiles differed from each other in the number of identical blocks in the first stage: RLA-120 with a payload capacity of 30 tons in orbit (first stage - 2 blocks) for solving military problems and creating a permanent orbital station; RLA-135 with a carrying capacity of 100 tons (first stage - 4 blocks) to create a lunar base; RLA-150 with a carrying capacity of 250 tons (first stage - 8 blocks) for flights to Mars.

Volitional decision

However, the disgrace of reusable systems continued at Energia for less than a year. Under pressure from Dmitry Ustinov, the direction of the ISS reappeared. The work was started as part of the preparation of the "Integrated Rocket and Space Program", which provided for the creation of a unified range of rocket aircraft for the landing of a manned expedition to the moon and the construction of a lunar base. In an attempt to maintain his heavy rocket program, Glushko proposed using the future RLA-135 rocket as a carrier for a reusable spacecraft. New volume program - 1B - was called "Buran Reusable Space System".

From the very beginning, the program was torn apart by opposing demands: on the one hand, the developers were constantly under severe pressure “from above” aimed at copying the Shuttle in order to reduce technical risk, time and cost of development, on the other hand, Glushko tried hard to maintain his program of unified missiles.

When shaping the appearance of the Buran, at the initial stage, two options were considered: the first was an aircraft scheme with a horizontal landing and the location of the second-stage sustainer engines in the tail section (similar to the Shuttle); the second is a wingless scheme with a vertical landing. The main expected advantage of the second option is the reduction of development time due to the use of Soyuz spacecraft experience.

The wingless ship variant consisted of a flight deck in the forward conical section, a cylindrical cargo compartment in the central section, and a conical tail section with a supply of fuel and a propulsion system for maneuvering in orbit. It was assumed that after launch (the ship was located on top of the rocket) and work in orbit, the ship enters the dense layers of the atmosphere and makes a controlled descent and parachute landing on skis using powder soft landing engines. The problem of planning range was solved by giving a triangular (in cross section) shape to the ship's hull.

As a result of further research for the Buran, an aircraft layout with a horizontal landing was adopted as the most suitable for the requirements of the military. In general, for the rocket, they chose the option with a lateral location of the payload when placing unrescued sustainer engines on the central block of the second stage of the carrier. The main factors in choosing such an arrangement were the uncertainty about the possibility of developing a reusable hydrogen rocket engine in a short time and the desire to maintain a full-fledged universal launch vehicle capable of independently launching into space not only a reusable orbital ship, but also other payloads of large masses and dimensions. Looking ahead, we note that such a decision justified itself: Energia ensured the launch into space of vehicles weighing five times more than the Proton launch vehicle, and three times more than the Space Shuttle.

Works

Large-scale work began after the release of a secret decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR in February 1976. In the Ministry of Aviation Industry, NPO Molniya was organized under the leadership of Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky to create a spacecraft with the development of all means of descent in the atmosphere and landing. The manufacture and assembly of the Buranov airframe was entrusted to the Tushino Machine-Building Plant. The aviation workers were also responsible for the construction of the landing complex with the necessary equipment.

Based on his experience, Lozino-Lozinsky, together with TsAGI, proposed for the ship to use the “carrying hull” scheme with a smooth pairing of the wing with the fuselage based on the enlarged Spiral orbital aircraft. And although this option had obvious layout advantages, they decided not to risk it - on June 11, 1976, the Council of Chief Designers "volitionally" finally approved the version of the ship with a horizontal landing - a monoplane with a cantilever low-wing double-swept wing and two air-jet engines in the tail section, providing deep maneuvering during landing.

Characters decided. It remained only to make a ship and a carrier.

Space exploration and penetration into its space is the eternal goal of scientific and technological progress and a completely logical stage of progress. The era, which is commonly called the space era, was opened on October 4, 1957 at the time of the launch of the first artificial satellite Soviet Union. Just three years later, Yuri Gagarin was looking at the Earth through a window. Since that time, man has been going exponentially. People's interest in everything cosmic is growing. And the Progress space truck family is no exception.

Deliver the cargo

Stations in orbit "Salyut" were operated for a short time. And the reasons for this were the need to deliver fuel, life support elements, consumables and repair equipment to them in case of breakdowns. For the third generation of Salyuts, it was decided to include a cargo element in the design of the Soyuz manned spacecraft, later called the Progress cargo spacecraft. The permanent developer of the entire Progress family still remains the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation named after Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, located in the city of Korolev, in the Moscow Region.

History

The project has been developed under the code 7K-TG since 1973. On the base manned spacecraft of the Soyuz type, it was decided to provide for the design of an automatic transport spacecraft that would deliver up to 2.5 tons of cargo to the orbital station. The Progress cargo spacecraft went on a test launch in 1966, and the following year - on a manned one. The tests were successful and justified the hopes of the designers. The first series of Progress cargo ships remained in operation until 1990. A total of 43 ships took off, including an unsuccessful launch called Kosmos-1669. Further modifications of the ship were developed. The cargo spacecraft Progress M carried out 67 takeoffs during 1989-2009. From 2000 to 2004, Progress M-1 made 11 takeoffs. And the cargo ship Progress M-M” was launched until 2015 29 times. The latest modification of Progress MS is still relevant today.

How it all goes

The Progress cargo ship is an automatic unmanned vehicle that is launched into orbit, then turns on the engines and rendezvous with. After 48 hours, it must dock and unload. After that, what is no longer needed at the station is placed in it: garbage, used equipment, waste. From that moment on, it is already an object that litters the near-Earth space. It is undocked, with the help of engines it moves away from the station, slows down, enters the Earth's atmosphere, where the Progress cargo ship burns out. It happens in given point over the Pacific Ocean.

How does it work

All modifications of the Progress cargo ship are generally of the same type. Differences in the filling and specific supporting systems are clear only to specialists and are not the subject of the article. In the structure of any modification, several significantly different compartments are distinguished:

• cargo;
• refueling;
• instrument.

The cargo compartment is sealed and has a docking unit. Its purpose is to deliver the goods. The refueling compartment is not sealed. It contains toxic fuel and it is the lack of tightness that protects the station in case of its leakage. Aggregate or instrument compartment allows you to control the ship.

The very first

The Progress-1 cargo spacecraft soared into space in 1978. Checking the operation of control systems, rendezvous and docking equipment showed the possibility of rendezvous with the station. He made a docking with the Salyut-6 orbital station on January 22. Cosmonauts Georgy Grechko and Yuri Romanenko supervised the work of the spacecraft and supervised the process.

Latest

The latest modification of the Progress MS has a number of significant differences that have improved the functionality and increased the reliability of the cargo ship. In addition, it is equipped with more powerful protection against meteorites and space debris, has redundant electric motors in the docking device. It is equipped with a modern Luch command and telemetry system that maintains communication at any point in the orbit. Launches are carried out using Soyuz launch vehicles from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The crash of the ship "Progress MS-4"

On the eve of the new year, on December 1, 2016, the Soyuz-U launch vehicle launched from Baikonur, which carried the Progress MS-4 cargo ship into orbit. He brought New Year's gifts to the cosmonauts, the Lada-2 greenhouse, spacesuits for working in the open space"Orlan-MKS" and other cargo with a total weight of 2.5 tons for the astronauts of the International Space Station. But at 232 seconds into the flight, the ship disappeared. Later it turned out that the rocket exploded and the ship did not reach orbit. The wreckage of the ship fell in the region of the mountainous and deserted territory of the Republic of Tyva. Various reasons have been proposed for the crash.

"Progress MS-5"

This disaster did not affect further space work. On February 24, 2017, the Progress MS-5 cargo ship entered orbit, which reported part of the equipment that had been lost in the previous disaster. And on July 21, it was disconnected from and safely flooded in that part of the Pacific Ocean, which is called the "cemetery of spaceships."

Future plans

The Rocket and Space Corporation Energia announced its plans to create a reusable manned transport spacecraft Federation, which will replace unmanned progress. The new "truck" will be more load-bearing, have more advanced on-board and navigation systems. But most importantly, he will be able to return to Earth.

Good evening, dear readers of the Sprint-Answer website. Today is Saturday, which means that the weekly intellectual TV game "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" is on air on Channel One. with host Dmitry Dibrov. In the article you can find out all the questions and answers in the game "Who wants to be a millionaire?" for June 24, 2017 (06/24/2017).

So, the players are at the gaming table: Olga Pogodina and Alexey Pimanov. Participants of the TV game "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" on 06/24/2017 they chose a fireproof amount of 200,000 rubles.

1. How does the proverb end: "And the wolves are full ..."?

• and grandfather Mazai is glad
• and lost the prize
• and the shepherds were fired
• and the sheep are whole

2. Who came to the father in Mayakovsky's poem "What is good and what is bad"?

• baby son
• Little Raccoon
• Smesharik Krosh
• Tiny-havroshechka

3. What will the superstitious hunter answer to the question where he is going?

• to hell on the cobwebs
• on Kudykina mountain
• to the distant kingdom
• to the seventh heaven

4. What was the name of Tarapunka's colleague in the popular Soviet pop duet?

• knife switch
• The wire
• Plug
• Connector

5. How to finish the line of the song: "The world is not simple, not at all simple, I'm not afraid ..."?

• no laughter, no tears
• no bullets and no roses
• neither storms nor thunderstorms
• no dreams and no dreams

6. Under what pseudonym did Igor Lotarev write poetry?

• Siberian
• Polar explorer
• Northerner
• snowman

7. What is the name of the oldest botanical garden in Russia, which is run by Moscow State University?

• "Hospital Garden"
• "Apothecary Garden"
• "Hospital garden"
• "Sanitary Garden"

8. What is the name of one of the characters in Gorky's play "At the Bottom"?

• Prince
• Baron
• Prince

9. In what year did Switzerland become a member of the UN?

• 2002

10. How do the heroes of the film "Window to Paris" return to St. Petersburg?

• through the magic window
• breakthrough tunnel
• hijacking a plane
• contacting the embassy

Unfortunately, the players answered this question incorrectly and won 0 rubles. Their places in the chairs of the players were taken by other participants in the game "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" June 24, 2017: Natalie and Mitya Fomin. The players chose the standard fireproof amount of 200,000 rubles.

1. What are souvenir magnets usually attached to?

• to the iron
• to the car
• to the pan
• to the fridge

2. What happened to a computer program that does not respond to keystrokes?

• fell asleep
• stuck
• stuck
• flew into

3. Where does chamber music sound most often?

• in prison
• in a photo studio
• at the conservatory
• in the storage room

4. Who uses Planck's constant in calculations?

• carpenters
• physics
• tailors
• high jumpers

5. Who begged: "Give it to houses for homeless piglets!"?

• Piglet
• Piggy
• Funtik
• Peppa Pig

6. Which playground only uses straight lines?

• basketball
• handball
• volleyball
• hockey

7. What Soviet spacecraft was cargo and unmanned?

• "East"
• "Sunrise"
• "Union"
• "Progress"

8. Which of the actors does not have the title of martial arts master?

• Jackie Chan
• Steven Seagal
• Bruce Willis
• Jean-Claude Van Damme

9. What city is in Belgorod Oblast?

• Stary Oskol
• Old Kupavna
• Staraya Russa
• Staritsa

10. To whom do we owe the appearance of the phraseologism "tyutelka to tyutelka"?

Unmanned ship

An unmanned spacecraft is a spacecraft that carries out its flight in automatic mode. On August 19, 1960, the first successful launch of an unmanned spacecraft took place. On board were experimental dogs Belka and Strelka, mice, insects and other biological objects. The spacecraft's descent vehicle successfully returned to Earth. On March 9, 1961, the launch of the ZKA spacecraft, which was developed for human flight, took place. The flight was completed successfully, and the experimental animals and the human dummy returned to Earth. In the mid 1970s. in the Soviet Union began a project to develop a reusable spacecraft. On November 15, 1988, the Buran spacecraft, having launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, made its first and only unmanned flight. During the flight, he carried out three turns and a landing near the launch pad. In many ways, the Soviet ship was similar to the American version of the Space Shuttle, but had some differences that can be considered fundamental. Instead of solid-fuel boosters, the Soviet ship used four powerful liquid rocket engines. The engines were located at the bottom of the external fuel tank. The orbiter housed only the thrusters of the maneuvering system. The flight was the only one, because due to lack of funding, the project was closed. Japan in the 80s. 20th century National Agency space research worked on an experimental orbital aircraft "HOPE", at the initial stage it was planned to use it as an unmanned cargo ship.

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Crazy Ship Roman (1930) Writers, artists, musicians lived in this house of Elizabethan times and almost Biron. However, co-workers, and tailors, and workers, and former servants lived here ... So it was later, and not only in the border with the NEP and the first NEP

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SHIP OF FOOLS Petersburg group of the late 60s, in which the future leader of ST. PETERSBURG Vladimir Rekshan gained his first musical experience, SHIP OF FOOLS was created at the Faculty of History of the University in September 1967 by three first-year students, although

Almost everyone who lived in the USSR and who is at least a little interested in astronautics has heard of the legendary Buran, a winged spacecraft that was launched into orbit in combination 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 the Baikonur hangar collapsed at the beginning of the new millennium. What is the fate of this ship, and why the Energia-Buran reusable space system program was frozen, we will try to figure it out.

History of creation

"Buran" is a winged reusable spacecraft of an aircraft configuration. Its development began in 1974-1975 on the basis of the "Integrated Rocket and Space Program", which was the answer Soviet cosmonautics to the news in 1972 that the United States had embarked on the Space Shuttle program. So the development of such a ship was at that time a strategically important task for deterring a potential enemy and maintaining the positions of a space superpower by the Soviet Union.

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

Unlike the American shuttles, it could deliver a greater weight of cargo (up to 30 tons) into orbit, as well as return up to 20 tons to the ground. But the main difference between the Buran and the shuttles, which determined its design, was a different placement and number of engines. On the domestic ship there were no sustainer engines that were transferred to the launch vehicle, but there were engines to bring it into orbit. In addition, they turned out to be somewhat heavier.

The first, only and completely successful flight of Buran took place on November 15, 1988. The Energia-Buran ISS was launched into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 6:00 am. It was a completely autonomous flight, not controlled from Earth. The flight lasted 206 minutes, during which the ship took off, went into earth orbit, circled the Earth twice, returned safely and landed at the airfield. It was an extremely joyful event for all developers, designers, everyone who somehow participated in the creation of this technical miracle.

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

In the 90s public funding space development began to decline sharply, and in 1991 the Energia-Buran ISS was transferred from the defense program to the space program to solve national economic problems, after which, in the following 1992, the Russian Space Agency decided to stop work on the Energia-Buran reusable system project. Buran", and the created backlog was mothballed.

Ship device

The ship's fuselage is conditionally divided into 3 compartments: nose (for the crew), middle (for payload) and tail.

The nose of the hull structurally consists of a bow spinner, a pressurized cockpit 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 front of the cab, there are portholes on top.

The cabin is divided into three functional parts: the command compartment, where the main crew is located; household compartment - to accommodate an additional crew, spacesuits, berths, a life support system, personal hygiene products, five blocks with control system equipment, elements of a thermal control system, radio engineering and telemetry equipment; an aggregate compartment that ensures the operation of thermoregulation and life support systems.

To place cargo on the Buran, a capacious 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. The compartment also allows you to serve the placed cargo and monitor the operation of the 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 main crew was planned from 2-4 people, but the spacecraft can take on board an additional 6-8 researchers to carry out in orbit various works, that is, "Buran" can actually be called a ten-seat apparatus.

The duration of the flight is determined by a special program, maximum time installed up to 30 days. In orbit, good maneuverability of the Buran spacecraft is ensured by additional fuel reserves of up to 14 tons, the nominal fuel reserve is 7.5 tons. The combined propulsion system of the Buran apparatus is complex system, including 48 engines: 2 orbital maneuvering engines for bringing the device into orbit with a thrust of 8.8 tons, 38 motion 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 fed from single tanks with hydrocarbon fuel "cycline" and liquid oxygen.

Orbital maneuvering engines are located in the tail compartment of the Buran, and control engines are located in the blocks of the nose and tail compartments. Early designs also called for two 8-ton thrust jet engines to enable deep lateral maneuver flight in landing mode. These engines did not make it into later ship designs.

The 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 Burana spacecraft from the launch vehicle, bringing it to the initial orbit, formation and correction of the working orbit, orientation and stabilization, interorbital transitions, rendezvous and docking with other spacecraft, deorbit and deceleration, control of the spacecraft's position relative to its center of mass, etc.

At all stages of the flight, the Buran is controlled by the electronic brain of the ship, it also controls the operation of all on-board systems and provides navigation. In the final ascent phase, it controls the entry into the reference orbit. During orbital flight, it provides orbit correction, deorbiting and immersion into the atmosphere to an acceptable height with subsequent return to the working orbit, program turns and orientation, interorbital transitions, hovering, rendezvous and docking with a cooperating object, spinning around any of the three axes. During descent, it controls the ship's deorbit, its descent in the atmosphere, the necessary lateral maneuvers, arrival at the airfield and landing.

The basis of the automatic ship control system is a high-speed computing complex, represented by four interchangeable computers. The complex is capable of instantly solving all tasks within the framework of its functions and, first of all, linking the current ballistic parameters of the ship with the flight program. The Buran's automatic control system is so perfect that during future flights the ship's crew in this system is considered only as a link that duplicates the automation. This was the fundamental difference between the Soviet shuttle and the American shuttles - our Buran could perform the entire flight in automatic unmanned mode, go into space, safely return to earth and land at the airfield, which was clearly demonstrated by its only flight in 1988. The landing of the American shuttles was carried out entirely on manual control with idle engines.

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

In addition, Buran developed an emergency crew rescue system in case of emergency. At low altitudes, a catapult for the first two pilots was intended for this; in the event of an emergency at a sufficient height, the ship could disconnect from the launch vehicle and make an emergency landing.

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

The device is designed for 100 flights in both autonomous and manned modes.

The present

The winged spacecraft "Buran" did not find peaceful use, since the program itself was defense and could not be integrated into the peaceful economy, especially after the collapse of the USSR. Nevertheless, it was a big technological breakthrough, dozens of new technologies and new materials were worked out at Buran, and it is a pity that these achievements were not applied and developed further.

Where are the famous Buranas in the past, on which the best minds, thousands of workers worked, and on which so much effort was spent and so many hopes were placed?

In total, there were five copies of the Buran winged ship, including unfinished and started vehicles.

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

1.02 - the ship was intended for the second flight in autopilot mode and docking with space station"Peace". It is also owned by Kazakhstan and installed in the museum of the Baikonur Cosmodrome as an exhibit.

2.01 - the readiness of the ship was 30 - 50%. He was at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant until 2004, then spent 7 years on 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 Tushino plant.

2.03 - the backlog was completely destroyed.

Possible perspectives

The Energia-Buran project was closed, among other things, due to the unnecessary delivery of large cargoes into orbit, as well as their return. Being built more for defense than for peaceful purposes, in the era of "star wars", the domestic space shuttle "Buran" was far ahead of its time.
Who knows, maybe his time will come. When space exploration becomes more active, when it will be necessary to frequently deliver cargo and passengers to orbit and vice versa.

And when the designers finalize that part of the program that concerns the preservation and relatively safe return to earth of the stages of the launch vehicle, i.e., they make the system for launching into orbit more convenient, which will significantly reduce the cost and make reusable not only the use of a cruise ship, but also the system " Energy-Buran" in general.