When the Soviet reusable spacecraft Buran touched the runway near the Baikonur cosmodrome, there was no limit to the jubilation of the MCC staff. It's no joke to say that the flight of the first Soviet "shuttle" was watched all over the world. The tension was outrageous, and no one could give a 100% guarantee of success, as it always happens when it comes to space.
On November 15, 1988, the Soviet unmanned aerial vehicle "Buran", having overcome the gravity and entered a given orbit, made two circles around the Earth in 3 hours 25 minutes, after which it calmly landed exactly in the indicated place, deviating from the given trajectory by only … by 5 m Truly filigree work that went down in the history of space exploration as a true triumph of Russian science and technology! Unfortunately, the first flight of "Buran" was also the last one.
… The idea of creating a reusable spacecraft has excited the minds of scientists since the dawn of astronautics. So, in June 1960, long before the first manned flight into space, a meeting of the Politburo took place, at which it was decided to start work on the creation of vehicles for orbital flights around the Earth with landing at a given airfield.
The development of such devices was undertaken by two leading design bureaus of the Soviet aviation industry: Mikoyan and Tupolev. And in 1966, specialists from the Gromov Flight Research Institute joined the work. As a result, by the mid-1970s, an experimental model of a manned orbital aircraft was created, which was named "Spiral". It is known that this predecessor "Buran" weighed 10 tons, could accommodate a crew of two, and very successfully passed the required flight test program.
It is also known that at about the same time the reusable aerospace system (MAKS) was created in the Soviet Union. An orbital aircraft in this system, starting from the An-225 carrier aircraft, could deliver two cosmonauts and a payload weighing up to 8 tons to near-earth orbit. Burlak . The rocket weighed no more than 30 tons and could be launched into outer space from the Tu-160 carrier aircraft.
Experimental orbital aircraft created under the Spiral program
So, work on the creation of a reusable spacecraft in our country has been carried out for a long time and very successfully. However, despite the obvious achievements, reusable spaceships in the USSR were not put into mass production for a long time. The reason for this was the fundamental disagreement among the leading designers of space technology. Not everyone considered the development of "shuttle traders" expedient. Among the principal opponents of reusable spaceships was, for example, the general designer of OKB-1, Sergei Korolev.
He considered the most promising in those conditions the accelerated development of rocketry - even to the detriment of other space programs. And there were reasons for that, because in the late 1950s - early 1960s, the forced development of powerful launch vehicles was dictated by military necessity: we desperately needed reliable means of delivering nuclear warheads. And Korolev and his comrades brilliantly accomplished this task. Thus, the country's leadership was able to solve two strategic problems at once: to start space exploration and to ensure nuclear parity with the United States.
And later, in the 1970s, the development of Russian cosmonautics, obviously, proceeded according to a well-established scenario. It was easier to improve the existing technology than to undertake radically new projects, the outcome of which was impossible to predict.
And yet, in the mid-1970s, at the highest level, they again returned to the idea of reusable spaceships. To develop the Soviet serial "shuttle" in 1976, NPO Molniya was formed. It included the eponymous design bureau, which was already engaged in the creation of reusable space systems, as well as the Tushino Machine-Building Plant and the Experimental Plant in the city of Zhukovsky. The association was headed by Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky, who by that time had vast experience in the design of reusable spacecraft.
The result of the ten-year work of Lozino-Lozinsky and his team was the Buran, a reusable winged orbital ship, or product 11F35, according to the secret terminology of those years. The "product" was intended to launch various space objects into low-earth orbit and to service them, to return faulty or exhausted satellites to Earth, as well as to perform other cargo and passenger transportation along the Earth-space-Earth route.
In order to launch Buran into orbit, a universal two-stage launch vehicle Energia was developed. The power of its engines is such that the rocket, together with the Buran, reaches a 150-kilometer height in less than eight minutes. After that, both stages of the launch vehicle are sequentially separated, and the engines of the space shuttle itself are automatically started. As a result, "Buran" in a matter of minutes rises another 100 km and goes into a given orbit. During the first flight, the maximum orbital altitude of the "shuttle" was 260 km. However, this is far from the limit. The design features of "Buran" are such that they can lift 27 tons of cargo to a height of 450 km.
In just ten years, under the Energia-Buran program, three reusable spacecraft were built, as well as nine technological models in various configurations for carrying out all kinds of tests. Two more ships, laid down at the Tushino machine-building plant, were never completed.
However, the next round of interest in reusable space systems again did not lead to tangible results. It was at this time that the Space Shuttle program was being actively developed in the United States, and free competition with the Soviet Buran was not part of the plans of the Americans. Therefore, the Yankees made unprecedented efforts to not only force the Russians to curtail their work in this area, but also to discredit the entire Soviet space program in general.
"Buran" at the launch site. Albert Pushkarev / TASS newsreel
Through their agents of influence, the Americans, starting in the mid-1980s, began to intensively instill in Soviet society views of space as the main brake on the country's socio-economic development. Say, why do we need space flights at all, and even more so such expensive projects as Buran, if there is not enough sausage in stores? And such "arguments", unfortunately, worked. And the timid explanations of scientists about the importance of fundamental space research, which even then brought a huge economic effect, were drowning in the general stream of "anti-space" psychosis. It is not surprising that in the conditions when even the obvious achievements of Soviet power (and space is one of them) in the era of Gorbachev's perestroika were perceived as a burp of the totalitarian regime, the Energia-Buran project found opponents of the highest political caliber.
Moreover, those who, on duty, were obliged to defend the interests of Russian cosmonautics, suddenly started talking about the uselessness of "Buran". The arguments given by Roscosmos officials were as follows. Say, the United States already has its own Shuttles. And we are friends with the Americans. Why do we need our own "Buran" when it is possible to fly on "Shuttles" together with American colleagues? The logic is amazing. If you follow it, it turns out like this: why do we need our own auto industry, when the Americans have Ford and General Motors? Or why do we need our own planes, if the USA produces Boeings? However, the "argument" turned out to be reinforced concrete: in the early 1990s, all work on the Energia-Buran project was curtailed. We voluntarily ceded leadership to the United States …
Gleb Evgenievich Lozino-Lozinsky in his office
The fate of the already built "Burans" turned out to be sad. Two of them practically rotted away at "Baikonur", unfinished "shuttles" and test samples were either sold for cheap for the cordon, or taken away for details. And only one "Buran" (numbered 011) was very lucky: for a long time it was used almost for its intended purpose. On October 22, 1995, an outstanding creation of Russian engineering and design thought was towed to the Gorky Park of Culture and Leisure in Moscow and a unique attraction was opened there. Anyone, having paid for an entrance ticket, could experience the complete illusion of space flight, including artificially created weightlessness.
The dream of the ideologues of "perestroika" and the reformers of the Gaidar Spill came true: space began to bring commercial income …
