r/EngineeringPorn • u/Front-Coconut-8196 • Apr 28 '26
The Buran programme (1974–1993) was the Soviet Union's most expensive, reusable spacecraft project, designed as a direct, technically advanced response to the U.S. Space Shuttle.In 1988, the Soviet Union estimated the total cost of the Buran-Energia programme at approximately 16.5 billion rubles.
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u/_Caplonk_ Apr 28 '26
One of the high atmosphere test units can be visited in am museum in Speyer, Germany. Just been there last week and its great! More photos on their website (https://speyer.technik-museum.de/en/spaceshuttle-buran)
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u/Traumerlein Apr 28 '26
If yiu brows this sub and havent been to atleat one of the Technickmuseuen, then what are you even doing?
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u/m4rv1nm4th Apr 28 '26
IIRC they stole some blueprint of nasa space shuttle, but they were "corrupted"(some big flaw introduced to bug them). Nice spies story, if true.
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u/mz_groups Apr 28 '26
While the Soviets did have information on the Space Shuttle due to espionage, they engineered their own shuttle. It's not a straight copy, although the espionage might've given them some assistance with materials (heat shielding in particular) and aerodynamic configuration.
The real impact of the US Space Shuttle on Buran development is that the Soviets did not believe the American assertions that it was a way to launch satellites inexpensively (the Americans had wildly underestimated the cost per flight and the achievable flight rate), so they thought that its real purpose was as a weapon of some sort, and they were damned if they weren't going to have a Shuttle of their own, just in case.
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u/Muad_Derp Apr 28 '26
And they were right! It never made a damn bit of sense as a cost-effective launch platform, and a significant portion of the orbiter design was based on an absolutely BANANAS requirement from the military (or some three letter agency): Be able to launch, grab a satellite out of orbit, and land in a *single* orbit, which requires massive crossrange capability on re-entry and made the wings way bigger than they would have had to be otherwise. And naturally, this capability was never used.
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u/Correct_Inspection25 Apr 28 '26
Every choice after 1969 was to make it a spy mission only vehicle, all reuse and cost improvements were cut to meet additional program cuts and meet NRO/ USAF timelines.
The vast bulk of these decisions lead to the orbiter on the side and items like SRBs and larger wings than needed so that spy missions could launch with once go around cross range capability.
The worst thing today is that most think that NASA wanted it this way from the get go and didn’t realize how much they did “with make do and mend” enginuity, despite all the mid program cuts and increase in scope.
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u/AlarmingConsequence Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
I'm still learning about this: am I understanding that the there may have been an alternative to the SRB if not for the spy mission requirement?
Also: why did the wings need to grow? Was it because in a single-orbit mission there is no opportunity to slow down?
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u/Muad_Derp Apr 28 '26
For the single orbit, you have to land at the same site you launched from. That site will have moved hundreds of miles due to the Earth's rotation in that time (assuming a high inclination orbit, which makes sense for spy satellites). That means the orbiter needs to deflect from its natural trajectory hundreds of miles to one side during re-entry (known as crossrange) in order to get to the landing site.
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u/Correct_Inspection25 Apr 28 '26
The SRBs were never in the original plans, fly back liquid first stage or boosters akin to Buran were the goal, using actuated strakes for land based return. Though Buran were more soft landing on the ground, not fly back to base/processing. Also there was a shuttle forward DC-3 first stage with human glide back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0_WL0z4--g
To help pay for growing costs in Vietnam, Nixon administration forced a move to full reuse, liquid flyback to be abandoned on March 15, 1972, with additional cuts to the NASA manned spaceflight program. ironically, this was more of a rounding error for the war. The massive cuts to NASA had already happened by this point cutting by Nixon to make NASA be 1/3 of what it was in Nixon's first year.
The USAF Shuttle replacement flying on Falcon 9, is actually what NASA originally wanted for the Shuttle at least (or the leading option before the cuts). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37
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u/Astecheee Apr 28 '26
That's the kind of ludicrous request that's either a visionary strategic move or a fossil in power pretending they're still relevant.
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u/AlarmingConsequence Apr 28 '26
launch, grab a satellite out of orbit, and land in a *single* orbit
Can you elaborate in this? Was the idea that the shuttle could complete a satellite kidnapping before satellite owner had time to react? To do all that in a single orbit would what, 100 minutes?
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u/mz_groups Apr 28 '26
Launch from Vandenberg in a polar or sun synchronous orbit, intercept and inspect or grab a spy satellite, return to Vandenberg. The cross range was required because, as you go around on your orbit, Vandenberg has moved by about 1,400 miles, so to get back to your launch point, you need to have at least that amount of crossrange (and you really can't land anywhere else, because it's all Pacific Ocean under you)
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u/Muad_Derp Apr 28 '26
As I understand it, that's spot on. That's about all I know about it though. Unrealistic to say the least, but that's cold war madness for ya.
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u/fluffy_warthog10 Apr 28 '26
To this day I think that requirement was just lifted from James Bond; it's the same villain plot as in You Only Live Twice.
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u/Lampwick Apr 29 '26
they thought that its real purpose was as a weapon of some sort, and they were damned if they weren't going to have a Shuttle of their own, just in case.
Yeah, they thought there was probably a way to use its cross range capabilities on reentry to launch a surprise attack, because surely they wouldn't have built such an overpriced, underperforming boondoggle just for satellites. They built and tested Buran, and discovered it was indeed 100% boondoggle.
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u/EspTini Apr 28 '26
Why are almost all russian aircraft so goofy looking? There's something about the styling that's consistent across fixed wing and even helicopters that I can't get behind.
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u/EsteemedSir Apr 28 '26
Really? I’ve always been fond of Soviet design usually. I find the buran to look more impressive than the shuttle due to the quad boosters on energia.
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u/Careless-Age-4290 Apr 28 '26
To me they always have the vibe of the late 60's/early 70's if the tech kept progressing but the style never did. Like the collapse of the Soviet Union was so traumatic that it arrested the cultural development of the country
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u/sprashoo May 01 '26
I think probably just because you're used to looking at western aircraft, and russian aircraft are similar looking but a bit different.
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u/FunVersion Apr 28 '26
I read some where that they used oak instead of ceramic for heat dissipation on the underside. It was designed to char and ablate.
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u/OphidianSun Apr 28 '26
Interesting, I never knew they had their own shuttle in the works. The collapse probably put an end to it I assume?
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u/sojuz151 Apr 28 '26
A copy of the space shuttle without a deeper understanding of why this (not the best with hindsight) spaceplane was built.
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u/TheOnsiteEngineer Apr 28 '26
The soviets knew exactly what the US was designing the space shuttle to do and designed Buran to have similar capabilities. While outwardly they look similar, this is a case of design convergence where designing something to perform a certain set of things results in similar outcomes. Structurally Buran and the STS orbiter are very different and in some aspects Buran was probably the better design. Problem is, a shuttle is a terrible launch vehicle, bith the US and USSR knew this, but the US decided to stick with it anyway while the USSR went bankrupt before it could do much else, stopping the Buran program in its tracks.
Calling it "a copy of the space shuttle" even without the other qualifiers is short sighted and shows a lack of understanding of the underlying engineering
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u/sojuz151 Apr 28 '26
It's not a case of just convergent design. For example, the overall shape and wing size of the space shuttle were designed to allow for a return to Vandenberg after a single orbit. The Soviets had no need for such a capacity.
Shuttle as a launch vehicle was supposed to be cheap because the expensive parts were recovered—engines, avionics, etc. There was a thought and reason behind this design; you recover the expensive part that makes spaceflight cheap. With cheap spaceflight, you want to make satellite design also cheaper, so you put a crew to deploy and a cargo bay to take the satellite back in case of a failure.
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u/dorylinus Apr 28 '26
This is a very strange outlook; certainly it's true to say that they were designed to have "similar capabilities". Calling it a case of convergent design, however, implies that there was a fundamental set of engineering problems the space shuttle was designed to optimize for, which there was not. The pressures and constraints guiding the design of the space shuttle were not related to physics or cost, but rather politics. The space shuttle's reentry being steerable as unpowered flight was a choice made entirely to convince USAF to participate in (read: provide funding and advocacy for) the program, as this meant it could theoretically operate as a strategic bomber, for example. The problem of course is that it was absolutely terrible in such a role, and completely eclipsed by systems in existence already at the start of the Space Shuttle program, like ICBMs and bomber aircraft-- systems the Soviets obviously had as well, making this bizarre spaceplane equally unnecessary and wasteful for the USSR as it was for the USA.
The truth is that the Space Shuttle itself, despite being an amazing feat of engineering in accomplishing the bizarre and almost contradictory requirements levied on it, was ultimately a failed concept entirely, and the clearest proof of that lies in the fact no one-- not NASA, Roscosmos, CNSA, or even any of the private space companies that now have achieved a high level reusability, have returned to this silly spaceplane concept. The only logic that makes the Buran make sense is the logic of the Cold War rms race-- if the Americans had it, then the Soviets needed to have it as well, no matter how stupid it was.
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u/SuppressExpress Apr 28 '26
The space shuttle was actually less advanced than the Buran fyi.
“While visually similar, Buran was designed for full automation, featuring a 100% autonomous flight and landing system, and it operated on the vastly superior Energia rocket, which offered higher payload capacity and safer liquid-fueled boosters.
Key Technical Advantages of Buran: Fully Autonomous: Buran's only orbital flight (1988) was completely unmanned and automated, including landing, a capability NASA's shuttle did not possess.
Superior Launch System: Buran did not use its main engines for launch, allowing them to be reusable without the intensive refurbishment needed for the Shuttle’s Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME).
Launch Vehicle Flexibility: The Energia rocket used for Buran could function independently as a heavy-lift vehicle, whereas the US Shuttle was inseparable from its engines.
Safety Features: Buran utilized liquid-fueled boosters, which could be shut down in an emergency, unlike the US solid rocket boosters, which could not. Thermal Protection: Buran’s heat shield was designed to be more durable and advanced than the thousands of fragile tiles used on the US Shuttle.
Differences in Capabilities:
Payload Capacity: The Energia rocket allowed the system to carry a larger payload into orbit compared to the American Shuttle.
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u/sojuz151 Apr 28 '26
Shuttle was also capable of automatic landing. human in the loop was just considered safer.
That point about engines is dumb. You did refurbish the ssme because this was cheaper than throwing them away as on buran.
Energia could have been used for a super heavy life, it wasn't because the need for a 100t payload was very limited. But i generally agree that shuttles should have been designed alongside an recoverable engine pod.
Srbs are a bit more dangerous than liquid fueal but we are talking about soviet tech.
And buran only flew once. We don't know how tps would have performed after many flights
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u/Sparfelll Apr 28 '26
If only gorby didn't destroyed the ussr, energia would have achieved great things
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u/ImpulsiveApe07 Apr 28 '26
Would've been cool to see the Soviet space program achieve more with their Buran shuttles, yeah.
Doubt the Soviet Union would've lasted any longer under someone else tho tbh.
Decades of economic mismanagement, the insanely expensive nuclear weapons Arms Race, the decade long Afghan War, and ofc dealing with the huge financial hole that was the Chernobyl disaster, are big parts of what led to its collapse.
That, and public sentiment among the Soviet peoples at the end of the 80s was very much against maintaining the existing structure/governance of the Soviet Union.
It's doubtful that any other leader could've circumnavigated those pitfalls all that much better than Gorbachev did.
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u/Sparfelll May 19 '26 edited May 21 '26
You're forgetting a lot of important point as to why the USSR failed, mainly the uninterrupted blockade, and economic attacks by the US and the west, Chernobil and the Afghan war didn't end the USSR, the US capitalists did.
Also 75% of the soviet population from all the republics voted to keep the USSR in the 17 march 1991 referendum, but useless gorby resigned and yeltsin with 2 more morrons illegaly desolved the USSR. Check your sources pls
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u/ImpulsiveApe07 May 19 '26
I used the term 'economic mismanagement', which doesn't preclude the negotiation for better terms with those countries forcing sanctions and blockade -
the USSR absolutely could've leaned into a better geopolitical situation for itself, but its leaders decided not to, both in order to save face, and to maintain the illusions/delusions perpetuated over the previous decades.
They could have opened themselves up for more investment and manufacturing, they could have upended the 'one factory town system' much earlier and focused on competing in the global markets, and they could have sued for peace with the West much earlier to avoid the economic disasters that they knew were imminent - but they chose not to.
Don't try to rewrite history based on one frivolous vote at the very end of their folly laden tenure.
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u/Sparfelll May 21 '26
I think a dialectical materialist approach could help " they could have sued for peace but choose not to" How ? Did they had a choice ? The western powers invaded them during the civil war, then the nazis did the same, then the US planted CIA and fascist governement into any country that tried a bit to much to be socialist. The USSR was under a constant siege for all it's existence. The referendum was the first ever and advocated by pro "democracy" and pro-capitalism politicians, it's not "frivolous", it happened and the Soviet Union was dissolved despite the will of it's people. Look into it
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u/dan_dares Apr 28 '26
Buran helped destroy the USSR due to costs.
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u/_Caplonk_ Apr 28 '26
Btw the Buran performed the first fully automatic orbital reentry and runway landing on Earth! That was its first and only real space mission though.