Energia - Buran Space Transportation System

I had forgotten about this image before coming across it again today in the Transport Amphibious Platforms (TAP) concepts thread over in Naval Projects:
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(h/t borovik)

A Soviet Navy TAP-30 'small landing craft', presumably being used to transport a Buran back from one of the more remote back-up landing sites.
(Though for a while, I was wondering if it was actually an illustration of the OK-92 precursor design being transported.)
 
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I had forgotten about this image before coming across it again today in the Transport Amphibious Platforms (TAP) concepts thread over in Naval Projects:
al8-jpg.110600

(h/t borovik)

A Soviet Navy TAP-30 'small landing craft', presumably being used to transport a Buran back from one of the more remote back-up landing sites.
(Though for a while, I was wondering if it was actually an illustration of the OK-92 precursor design being transported.)

Ekranoplans and space shuttles, what's not to like ? add a zeppelin and a battleship in the background maybe ? :p
 
I came across another photo of the Yamal mockup next to the Buran-Analogue 002
taken in 1999, at Zhukovsky, via this blog post on the excellent "Drew Ex Machina" spaceflight and astronomy blog
 
Many tests of elements of rocket and space technology are carried out in flying laboratories. This happened most fully during the creation of the Buran orbiter in the 1980s. In particular, the MiG-25 and Tu-154 laboratory aircraft were used to test the ship's automatic landing system.

For the final testing of the final stage of the Buran's flight and its landing, including in automatic mode, a full-size analogue aircraft BTS-002 was built. Its tests were carried out in Zhukovsky near Moscow - at the Gromov Flight Research Institute together with the Experimental Machine-Building Plant named after V.M. Myasishchev. It flew for the first time on November 10th, 1985, piloted by Gromov Flight Research Institute test pilots Igor Volk and Rimantas Stankevicius. They were originally planned as the crew for the first manned flight of the Buran.

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ORIGINAL CAPTION; Photo: Aktug Ates / wikimedia.org

 
 
I keep pushing for SLS to evolve into Shuttle II if Starship doesn’t work out. With hydrogen engines off the orbiter, it can have better handling characteristics.
 
I keep pushing for SLS to evolve into Shuttle II if Starship doesn’t work out. With hydrogen engines off the orbiter, it can have better handling characteristics.
And even worse economics!

Oh, boy, a reusable payload shroud sucking up the payload potential of a launch vehicle that costs a quarter billion dollars a pop!
 
It is still simpler part count wise. It just needs some backers to get it away from Boeing
 
A bit off topic, but kinda on topic; Bald is a rapist and a sex tourist. Used to watch him before but not ever since finding that out. In general he is a tool and a creep as well.

On topic; Personally i have never cared about Buran but Energiya is an engineering marvel. Such a shame it only flew twice and never got close to its true potential.
 
On topic; Personally i have never cared about Buran but Energiya is an engineering marvel. Such a shame it only flew twice and never got close to its true potential.
Same feelings overall, albeit mixed. My POV is that the very concept of space shuttles was deeply flawed, but the Russian take at it was interesting nonetheless. Not only an orbiter (Buran) but also the full and entire family of rockets spun out of it: Energiya, Zenit, and all the others.
Something the US Shuttle could not do, because the mix of SSME and SRB and ET could not make interesting ELVs (SRB-X, Jarvis, Ares 1, Ares V, SLS... meh). Except perhaps DIRECT's Jupiter 120.
 
In File 29 about air transport of loads, what are the longer boosters/Blok A without recovery systems under the name 23/25 GT ? they're a good 7-8m longer than the Block A used for Energia.
 
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"Blocks A of the Vulcan launch vehicle are not equipped with recovery means and associated elements. Compared to blocks A of the Energia rocket, the volume of fuel tanks has been increased due to cylindrical inserts 7 m long."

Ah so Vulcan boosters were indeed longer, thanks

An upgraded Zenit based on Vulcan!Block A with RD179 would have be interesting.
 
Energia Rocket was also design to launch other payload (source X)

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«Biser-4» (SH16M), the Buran's digital on-board computer

✔ Developed by the Pilyugin Center NPTsAP (Moscow), it had the structure of the American IBM 360 computer.

✔ Eight of these computers were planned to be used on the Buran, forming two identical computer systems of four synchronized computers each (Central System and Peripheral System). On the first (and last Buran flight) only four Biser-4 computers were used. These computers provided redundancy to all Buran control operations, and were synchronized by hardware. The computer system had a single quartz oscillator that supplies all eight Biser-4 computers with a single sequence of clock pulses with a frequency of 4 MHz and an interrupt period of 32.8 ms. Since the reference oscillator also had to meet the requirement of “reliable operation under two faults”, it had five redundancy channels, and at the output of which the “three out of five” voting scheme was installed.

✔ The Buran computer system had three magnetic tape memory units (MMUs) with a capacity of 819 KB (32-bit words) each for storing software and loading it into the computers' RAMs during flight. In addition to the onboard programs, the MMUs could also store information useful for the onboard displays used during manned flights. To ensure reliability, the information for each ML was duplicated.

Main characteristics:

Frequency, MHz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Processor name. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582 IK1 Series
Number of I/O processors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Form of number representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fixed comma
Bit depth, bits:
commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16, 32
operands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8, 16, 32, 64
Short operation execution time
(in RR and RX formats), µs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Computing performance, op/s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370.000
RAM capacity, KB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
ROM capacity, KB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
RAM semiconductor name . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . 537RU9 Series
ROM semiconductor name . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . 556RT7 Series
Name of other semiconductor elements . . . . . . . . 134, 106, 533,1533 TTL Series
Number of galvanically isolated serial interface
communication lines for connection
of exchange controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . 21
Throughput capacity of the I/O system, Kbaud . . . 1000
Real time duty cycle, ms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Supply Voltage, V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23-34
Operating temperature range, °С . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . -10...+50
Power consumption, W . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Dimensions, mm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 660×240×310
Weight, kg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33,6
 

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Diagram of the Biser-4's structure, and images of its supposed motherboard (4 x 582 IK1 Series processor).
 

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The Buran computer system had three magnetic tape memory units (MMUs) with a capacity of 819 KB (32-bit words) each for storing software and loading it into the computers' RAMs during flight. In addition to the onboard programs, the MMUs could also store information useful for the onboard displays used during manned flights. To ensure reliability, the information for each ML was duplicated.
 

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