The Origins and Evolution of the Energiya Rocket · PDF file243 The Origins and Evolution of the Energiya Rocket Family 3. Roots of Energiya/Buran 3.1 Reorganising the Korolyov Design

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Bart Hendrickx

1. Introduction

Energiya rose from the ashes of the cross-starredN-1/L-3 manned lunar programme as part of an

effort to develop a standardised family of launchvehicles for a variety of missions. Although the goalof sending Soviet cosmonauts to the Moon was not

immediately abandoned, the focus eventually shiftedto a reusable space transportation system thatwould provide a response to the military capabili-

ties of the US Space Shuttle. Unlike the US Shuttle,the Soviet Buran orbiter would be just one payloadof a heavy-lift launch vehicle that could be adapted

for a wide variety of other missions. AlthoughEnergiya and Buran did eventually fly successfully,the changing political climate gradually undermined

their very raison d’être. International détente obvi-ated the need for the military missions they hadbeen designed for and the disintegration of the

Soviet Union left no room in Russia�s shoestringspace budgets for any other payloads that Buranand the Energiya rocket family might carry. In a

bizarre repeat of history, Energiya ultimately metthe same fate as the N-1, being relegated to thescrapheaps of the space programme after a titanian

multi-billion ruble effort.

2. Naming the Rocket

Before delving into the history of the programme, itis necessary to point out that the name Energiya

was not coined until May 1987, when the Russiansneeded to make a public announcement about the

first launch. In contrast to earlier plans this was notflown with a shuttle orbiter, but with a quickly im-provised payload called Polyus. When the pro-

gramme was conceived in the mid-1970s, nameswere given only to the combinations of rocket andpayload and not to the rocket individually. The com-

bination of rocket and orbiter was known as 'MKSBuran' (short for Reusable Space System Buran),while the combination of the rocket and a large

unmanned payload canister (different in design fromthe improvised one launched in 1987) was calledBuran-T. There were individual designators for the

various elements in the Ministry of Defence, namely11K25 for Energiya and 11F35 for Buran, with thecombination of the two being known as 1K11K25,

but these were not intended for public consump-tion.

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachov visitedthe Baykonur cosmodrome in the final days prior tothe launch, Valentin Glushko proposed the name

Energiya, mainly because this was one of the buzz-words of Gorbachov�s policy of perestroyka. Thefact that it was also the name of the design bureau

that Glushko headed (NPO Energiya, the descend-ant of the OKB-1 Korolyov design bureau) musthave been in the back of his mind, but was probably

less convincing to Gorbachov [2].

Although the name Energiya was not introduceduntil 1987, it will be used throughout this paper toclearly distinguish between the rocket and the

orbiter, even when referring to events long beforethe maiden launch.

The Origins and Evolution of theEnergiya Rocket Family

BART HENDRICKXPrins Boudewijnlaan 25, 2600 Antwerpen, Belgium.

JBIS, Vol. 55, pp.242-278, 2002

Fifteen years have passed since the Soviet Energiya heavy-lift launch vehicle made its maiden flight. After afollow-on flight carrying an unmanned Buran orbiter the programme was faced with the budget realitiesresulting from the collapse of the Soviet Union, ultimately leading to its cancellation in the early 1990s. Thispaper will look at the origins of Energiya and Buran, the evolution of their design and the various launch vehiclesthat were derived from Energiya. One of the major sources used in this article are the recently publishedmemoirs of Boris Gubanov, who was Energiya�s chief designer from 1982 until 1992 [1].

Keywords: Soviet Union, space history, rocket technology, space shuttle

An abridged version of this paper was presented at the BritishInterplanetary Society Symposium "Soviet/CIS Space" held on 2June 2001.

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The Origins and Evolution of the Energiya Rocket Family

3. Roots of Energiya/Buran

3.1 Reorganising the KorolyovDesign Bureau

The year 1974 saw some drastic changes in theSoviet manned space programme. In May Vasiliy

Mishin was sacked as chief designer of the CentralDesign Bureau of Experimental Machine Building(TsKBEM), better known as the Korolyov design bu-

reau. He was replaced in that capacity by ValentinGlushko, who until that time had headed theEnergomash organisation, the main design bureau

for Soviet rocket engines. With Glushko�s arrival,Energomash was absorbed by the Korolyov bureau,which was renamed NPO Energiya. One of Glushko�s

first orders was to suspend all work on the N-1rocket programme, which was in deep crisis follow-ing four launch failures between 1969 and 1972,

dashing any hopes of sending Soviet cosmonautsto the Moon in the foreseeable future.

After his arrival at NPO Energiya Glushko started aone-year research programme (the 'Integrated Rocketand Space Programme') to map out a new course for

the Soviet manned space programme. Apart from theongoing Soyuz/Salyut effort, there was no consensuson what that future should be in the wake of the can-

cellation of the N-1. For this purpose NPO Energiya�scentral office was reorganised into five departments.Aside from the Soyuz and Salyut departments, headed

by Konstantin D. Bushuyev and Yuriy P. Semyonovrespectively, Glushko established a department thatwould study various concepts for a reusable space

transportation system akin to the American SpaceShuttle. This was headed by Igor N. Sadovskiy. A fourthdepartment, overseen by Ivan S. Prudnikov, would

focus on the establishment of a lunar base and a fifthdepartment, led by Yakob P. Kolyako, would study anew generation of heavy-lift launch vehicles to re-

place the N-1. The new structure was approved on 28June 1974 by Sergey Afanasyev, the head of the Min-istry of General Machine Building, which oversaw most

of the space and missile related enterprises in theSoviet Union [3].

3.2 The RLA Rocket Family

With Glushko�s background in engine development, it

was logical that his initial efforts at NPO Energiyafocused mainly on the heavy-lift launch vehicles. Ac-tually, Glushko had not come to NPO Energiya empty-

handed. He and his engineers at Energomash hadbeen hammering out plans for a new family of launchvehicles called RLA, which stands for 'Rocket Flying

Apparatus' (Raketnyy letatelnyy apparat), the same term

Glushko had used for some experimental liquid-fuelrockets he had developed way back in the 1930s while

working for the GDL and RNII rocket research insti-tutes. Glushko outlined his plans for the RLA family ata meeting on 13 August 1974, which was attended by

most of the chief designers and also by DmitriyUstinov, who was the Secretary of the CommunistParty�s Central Committee responsible for space and

defence affairs and the de facto head of the Sovietspace programme from 1965 until 1976 [4].

The RLA concept revolved around the use of stand-ard 6 m diameter rocket modules that could be as-sembled into different configurations tailored to the

payloads to be placed into orbit. The first stage woulduse liquid oxygen (LOX) and kerosene and the upperstages LOX in combination with an advanced syn-

thetic hydrocarbon fuel known as tsiklin or sintin. Basedon furfural and propylene, it had a specific impulsethat was five to eight times higher than that of ordi-

nary kerosene, but was also much more expensive[5]. In Glushko�s original plans liquid hydrogen (LH2),to which he had had an aversion since the early 1960s,

would not be introduced until a later stage.

3.2.1 Back to LOX/Kerosene

With a thrust of 1000 to 1200 tons, the first and sec-ond stage engines marked a major leap in technology.Moreover, they were to be the first LOX/hydrocarbonengines developed under Glushko in almost 15 years

time. In the mid to late 1950s Glushko had supervisedthe development of the RD-107/RD-108 engines forthe R-7 missile and derived launch vehicles (thrust

around 100 tons) and the RD-111 for the R-9 ICBM(sea-level thrust of 166 tons). All of these were four-chambered LOX/kerosine engines using an open com-

bustion cycle in which the gases used to drive theturbopumps are vented overboard. This system isalso known in Russian terminology as 'liquid-liquid',

because both the fuel and the oxidizer are injectedinto the combustion chamber in a liquid state. How-ever, the development of the RD-111 was plagued by

serious problems, including high-frequency oscilla-tions in the combustion chamber, intermittent com-bustion and the need to protect the chamber and

nozzle walls from overheating.

In the early 1960s Glushko turned his attention to

closed-cycle engines, in which the gases used fordriving the turbines are routed to the combustionchamber to take part in the combustion process. This,

together with the increased chamber pressure, pro-duced much higher specific impulses than had beenobtained earlier. One of the propellants entered the

combustion chamber in a liquid form and the other in

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Bart Hendrickx

a gaseous form (which is why this system is alsocalled the 'gas-liquid' system by the Russians). Given

the painful experience with the RD-111, Glushko waswary of using LOX/kerosene for these even more pow-erful engines. Instead he decided to concentrate on

storable propellants based on unsymmetrical dime-thyl hydrazine (UDMH), which he had already mas-tered while developing open-cycle engines for the R-

12, R-14 and R-16 missiles. In fact, Glushko�s prefer-ence for storable over cryogenic propellants can betraced back all the way to his years as a rocket pio-

neer at the GDL and RNII in the 1930s.

All this had dire implications for the N-1 programme.

Glushko�s reluctance to build closed-cycle LOX/kero-sene engines and Korolyov�s refusal to use the highlytoxic storable propellants for the rocket effectively

ended the cooperation between the two chief design-ers, forcing Korolyov to rely on the LOX/kerosene en-gines of the much less experienced OKB-276

Kuznetsov design bureau in Kuybyshev (which actu-ally were of the closed-cycle type). For the remainderof the 1960s, Glushko was mainly engaged in building

closed-cycle engines with storable propellants for avariety of missiles and launch vehicles such as theUR-100, R-36M and Proton.

It was not until the late 1960s that Glushko�s engi-neers began serious research on closed-cycle LOX/kerosene engines. The goal of these studies was to

come up with the most optimal design for an enginewith a thrust of at least 600 tons. According to onesource the plan was to mount five such engines on the

first stage of the N-1, replacing the cluster of thirtyNK-15 engines, but since this essentially would havemeant completely redesigning the rocket, the idea

was not further pursued [6]. It is also known that 600ton LOX/kerosene engines designed by Glushko�s bu-reau were considered for one of two variants of the

UR-700M rocket, a massive launch vehicle proposedby the Chelomey design bureau in the late 1960s andearly 1970s to send Soviet cosmonauts to Mars [7].

Despite these conceptual studies, the main focusat Energomash remained on engines burning storable

propellants. Apart from the R-7 derived rockets, allSoviet space launch vehicles that were operationalaround the turn of the decade (Cosmos, Tsiklon, Pro-

ton) relied on such engines. The obvious explanationfor this is that all of them had been derived fromnuclear missiles, which traditionally use storable pro-

pellants so that they can be launched at short notice.

3.2.2 Poisk

By the beginning of the 1970s plans were being drawn

up for new satellites with more complex on-boardequipment and longer lifetimes, requiring the use of

heavier, more capable launch vehicles. Respondingto this demand, the Ministry of Defence initiated aresearch programme called Poisk ('Search') to look

into future launch needs. Carried out by TsNII-50, theMinistry�s main space research institute, the studywas completed in early 1973 and concluded that it

was necessary to build a new family of dedicatedspace launch vehicles in four payload categories: lightrockets (payload up to 3 tons), medium-lift rockets

(10-12 tons), heavy-lift rockets (30-35 tons) andsuperheavy rockets (100 tons and more). This newfamily of launch vehicles was to have two key charac-

teristics. First, in order to cut costs to the maximumextent possible, it would use unified rocket stages andengines. Second, it would rely on non-toxic, ecologi-

cally clean propellants, with preference being givento liquid oxygen and kerosene. The reasoning behindthis reportedly was that �the number of launches of

[space rockets] would be much greater than thenumber of test flights of nuclear missiles with [stor-able] propellants� [8]. What also may have played a

role were a series of low-altitude Proton failures thathad contaminated wide stretches of land at or nearthe Baykonur cosmodrome [9]. The basic conclusions

of the study were approved on 3 November 1973 at ameeting of the Chief Directorate of Space Assets(GUKOS), the 'space branch' of the Strategic Rocket

Forces [10]. Although not stated specifically, the even-tual goal of the programme seems to have been tophase out all existing missile-derived launch vehicles.

In an apparent response to the Poisk studies,

Energomash began working in the first half of 1973on various concepts for LOX/kerosene engines witha thrust higher than 500 tons. At a critical meeting

in the middle of the year proposals were presentedfor single-chamber, two-chamber and four-cham-ber engines. There was serious debate between

the proponents of the single and four-chamber ver-sions, which both had their advantages and draw-backs. In the end the choice fell on the four-cham-

ber version. After all, Energomash had had experi-ence with multi-chamber engines since the 1950s.In addition, there had been numerous problems with

the development of a 600-ton single-chamber nitro-gen tetroxide/UDMH engine called the RD-270, whichhad been developed at the bureau for Chelomey�s

mammoth UR-700 Moon rocket. The meeting alsoapproved the modular principle, which made it pos-sible to develop a standardised family of launch

vehicles using unified rocket blocks [11]. A similarstrategy had already been suggested in the 1960sby Chelomey and Glushko for the UR family of launch

vehicles.

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LOX/kerosene engines known to havebeen studied by Energomash in 1973/74

were the RD-123 (thrust 800 tons) andthe RD-150 (thrust up to 1500 tons), al-though no applications for these have

been identified. Also studied were theRD-124 and RD-125, intended to be usedon an early version of the medium-lift

11K77 rocket, which later became knownas the Zenit (see section 7) [12].

3.2.3 The RLA Design

When Glushko disclosed his plans for theRLA family in August 1974, many of the

foundations had already been laid by thePoisk studies and the R&D work atEnergomash. The RLA family consisted

of the RLA-120, RLA-135 and RLA-150[13]. All these rockets were in the 'heavy'to 'superheavy' class (according to the

Poisk classification). In fact, a decisionseems to have been made at some pointto divide work on the various classes of

launch vehicles among different designbureaus. It was logical that NPO Energiyaassumed responsibility for the heavier

rockets, which after all were the onesthat were supposed to be used in thebureau�s future manned programmes (lu-nar and interplanetary expeditions, reus-

able spacecraft).

Little is known about the 1974 RLA rockets and

no drawings of them have ever been released bythe Russians. However, a reconstruction has beenmade based on the scarce details made available

(Fig. 1). The RLA-120 probably was a 'monoblock'rocket with the new 1000 ton thrust LOX/keroseneengine on the first stage and one LOX/tsiklin en-

gine on the second stage estimated to have had athrust of about 300 t. Expected to be ready in1979, it had a payload capacity of about 30 tons

and one of its tasks would have been to orbitmodules of a permanent space station. The RLA-135 is believed to have had two LOX/kerosene

first-stage modules strapped to an almost identi-cal LOX/tsiklin core stage, which was to be ignitedin flight. Carrying the same upper stage as the

RLA-120, it had a 100 ton payload capacity. InGlushko�s plans it could be used to orbit a reus-able spaceplane or elements of a lunar base and

was expected to make its debut in 1980. Finally,there was the massive RLA-150, with six first-stage modules built around the core stage. This

was capable of placing up to 250 tons into low

orbit and was seen by Glushko as the rocket that

would eventually send Soviet cosmonauts to Mars,although it was apparently also supposed to havebeen used in the lunar programme. Its first flight

was anticipated in 1982 [14].

At the 13 August 1974 meeting Glushkostressed the benefits of the modular principle,

underlining that 'the decisive advantage � is thepossibility to build each module at the factory andtransport it in an assembled form to the launch

site'. Strangely enough however, the RLA familywas supposed to use modules with a diameter of6 m, which was about 2 m wider than what could

be transported by rail. With no other viable op-tions available, it would therefore seem that thefinished rocket stages were to be ferried to the

launch site by air, flying piggyback on a carrieraircraft (as would be done with Buran and theEnergiya core stage later). The 6 m rocket mod-

ules were probably supposed to be built at NPOEnergiya�s 'Volga branch' in Kuybyshev, which wasapparently specially set up for this task on 30

July 1974 [15].

Fig. 1 Probable configuration of RLA boosters as proposed in August1974.RLA-50 not drawn to scale. (source: Mark Wade)

RLA-120 RLA-135 RLA-150

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Bart Hendrickx

3.3 The Buran Decision

3.3.1 A Lunar Base

Glushko�s mind was set on establishing a perma-nent base on the Moon, for which he had the sup-

port of Ustinov, a long-time ally of Glushko whoaccording to many had been instrumental in gettinghim the top job at NPO Energiya. Despite the can-

cellation of the N-1 programme, the idea of sendingSoviet cosmonauts to the Moon was not dead. Open-ing the 13 August 1974 meeting, Ustinov said:

�In recent days the Politburo has held seriousdiscussions on our space problems � It was saidat the Politburo that, taking into account thesuccessful landings of the Americans, the task ofconquering the Moon remains especially importantfor us. Whatever task we carry out, this will remainour main general task, but in a new [form] � [16].

By the end of the year Prudnikov�s department (incooperation with that of Bushuyev) completed plansfor a permanently manned lunar base called

Zvezda ('Star') that would see crews working on thesurface of the Moon for up to a year before beingchanged out. The scheme required multiple launches

of a rocket capable of putting 230 tons into low Earthorbit, 60 tons into lunar orbit and 22 tons on the lunarsurface. This is likely to have been the RLA-150 [17].

3.3.2 A Shuttle

In parallel with the Zvezda effort, studies were being

made of a Reusable Space System (MKS in Russianshort) similar to the US Space Shuttle, which hadbeen officially approved by President Nixon in Janu-

ary 1972. Some within the Soviet space communityhad become alarmed about the military capabilitiesof the Space Shuttle, which seem to have been the

major motive for developing an analogous system inthe USSR. Although there are few official documentsto back this up, it is repeated time and again by con-

temporaries recollecting the events of those days,which is the only thing to go by until the archives areopened. Typically, these personal accounts vary in

terms of timelines and the exact sequence of events,but taken together they make it possible to build up arough picture of how the Soviet response to the Space

Shuttle programme began [18].

Indications are that several military institutes (prob-

ably within the Air Force) soon came to alarming con-clusions about the military potential of the Shuttle, butwhen their findings were reported to Defence Minis-

ter Grechko, he was not impressed. Neither weremany other members of the Politburo, who at a subse-quent meeting expressed their suspicion that the mili-

tary�s fears were exaggerated. Before embarking ona costly response to the Space Shuttle, they deemed it

necessary to have the conclusions of the military dou-ble-checked at an independent civilian research insti-tute. This task was assigned to the Academy of Sci-

ence�s Institute of Applied Mathematics (IPM). Headedsince 1953 by Mstislav Keldysh (President of the Acad-emy of Sciences from 1961 to 1975), this institute had

been involved in mission modelling and ballistics com-putations since the early days of the space programme(and was renamed the Keldysh Institute of Applied

Mechanics after Keldysh�s death in 1978). It appearsthat the IPM made two separate studies under theleadership of Yuriy Sikharulidze and Dmitriy

Okhotsimskiy, two of its leading scientists [19].

The studies performed at IPM seem to have fo-

cused on the Shuttle�s possible use as a bomber,more particularly its capability to deliver a nuclearfirst-strike to the United States. Efraim Akin, one of

the institute�s scientists, later recalled:

�When the US shuttle was announced we startedinvestigating the logic of that approach. Very earlyour calculations showed that the cost figures beingused by NASA were unrealistic. It would be betterto use a series of expendable launch vehicles.Then, when we learned of the decision to build aShuttle launch facility at Vandenberg for militarypurposes, we noted that the trajectories fromVandenberg allowed an overflight of the maincentres of the USSR on the first orbit. So ourhypothesis was that the development of the Shuttlewas mainly for military purposes. Because of oursuspicion and distrust we decided to replicate theShuttle without a full understanding of its mission.When we analysed the trajectories fromVandenberg we saw that it was possible for anymilitary payload to re-enter from orbit in three anda half minutes to the main centres of the USSR, amuch shorter time than [a submarine-launchedballistic missile] could make possible (ten minutesfrom off the coast). You might feel that this isridiculous but you must understand how ourleadership, provided with that information, wouldreact. Scientists have a different psychology thanmilitary. The military, very sensitive to the varietyof possible means of delivering the first strike,suspecting that a first-strike capability might bethe Vandenberg Shuttle�s objective, and knowingthat a first strike would be decisive in a war,responded predictably� [20].

Not only did the Shuttle have a first-strike capa-

bility when launched from Vandenberg, the IPM sci-entists concluded, even if it were launched intolower inclinations from Cape Canaveral, it could

reach Soviet territory. In that case it would re-enterthe atmosphere and use its cross-range capabilityof about 2500 km to deviate to the north of its

trajectory, drop its deadly cargo and subsequently

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return to orbit. Yuriy Koptev, the current head of theRussian Aviation and Space Agency, recalled in one

interview:

�[The studies showed that] the Shuttle, with itspayload capacity of 30 tons, could be equippedwith nuclear warheads. Flying outside the radiovisibility zone of our Air Defence Forces , it couldperform an aerodynamic manoeuvre, let�s say inthe region of the Gulf of Guinea, and drop themon the Soviet Union� [21].

Based on what has been revealed, one can onlyconclude that the IPM scientists either had a poor

understanding of the Shuttle�s capabilities or that theirconclusions have become blurred in the memories ofthose who recount them. Only the actual publication

of their findings could shed light on this issue.

Another study of the Space Shuttle was con-ducted by TsNIIMash, the main research institute ofthe Ministry of General Machine Building, although

it is not clear if it came before, during or after theIPM studies. As their IPM counterparts, TsNIIMashspecialists came to the conclusion that the Shuttle

would never become economically viable if it wereonly to be used for the goals that NASA officiallyannounced. In their opinion the Shuttle�s 30 ton

payload-to-orbit capacity and, more significantly,its 15 ton payload return capacity, were a clearindication that one of its main objectives would be

to place massive experimental laser weapons inspace that could destroy enemy missiles from adistance of several thousands of kilometres. Their

reasoning was that such weapons could only beeffectively tested in actual space conditions andthat in order to cut their development time and save

costs it would be necessary to regularly bring themback to Earth for modifications and fine-tuning [22].

The available accounts suggest that the IPM�sassessment of the Shuttle�s first-strike capability

was a decisive factor in convincing the Soviet lead-ership of the need to counter this perceived threat.Even though they bordered on paranoia, the insti-

tute�s conclusions were reportedly presented toGeneral Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. One version ofthis story goes as follows:

�Leonid Smirnov, former chairman of the MilitaryIndustrial Commission �, in his regular report toBrezhnev on the state of our space efforts, oncementioned in the end: The Americans areintensively working on a winged space vehicle.Such a vehicle is like an aircraft; it is capable,through a side manoeuvre, of changing its orbit insuch a way that it could find itself at the rightmoment right over Moscow � possibly with adangerous cargo. The news disturbed [Brezhnev]

very much � he contemplated it intensively andthen said: We are not country bumpkins here. Letus make an effort and find the money� [23].

Although the true course of events must havebeen more intricate than this, Brezhnev�s support

for a response to the Shuttle was a landmark event.Still, it did not necessarily represent a final commit-ment to build such a system, which could only come

in the form of a government and party decree. Whenexactly Brezhnev was informed about the SpaceShuttle�s military threat remains unclear, although it

was definitely before Glushko became head of NPOEnergiya in the spring of 1974 [24].

Concurrently with the assessments of the USSpace Shuttle, six Soviet military and civilian re-

search institutes had also begun preliminary re-search into the economic feasibility and the possi-ble configurations of a Soviet reusable space trans-

portation system. These were TsNIIMash and NIITP(The Scientific Research Institute for Thermal Proc-esses, the current Keldysh Research Centre) under

the Ministry of General Machine Building, TsAGI(the Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute) under theMinistry of the Aviation Industry, TsNII-30 and TsNII-

50 under the Ministry of Defence and IKI (the Insti-tute of Space Studies) under the Academy of Sci-ences. TsNIIMash and its Moscow affiliate (Agat)

were given the lead role.

Actually, the studies centred not solely on shut-tles, but on a wide array of expendable and reus-able launch vehicles that could provide the most

economical access to space in the future (Fig. 2).They also extended to various upper stages andreusable space tugs with either liquid or nuclear

rocket engines. As for spaceplanes, the institutesexplored two vehicle sizes, one able to accommo-date payloads of 30-40 tons (like the Space Shuttle)

and another for satellites weighing 3-5 tons.

The six institutes presented their joint findings in

June 1974. They concluded that the development ofa reusable launch vehicle was only economicallyjustified if the launch rate was very high, more par-

ticularly if the annual amount of cargo delivered toorbit would exceed 10,000 tons. However, it wasstressed that much also depended on the vehicle�s

capability of servicing satellites in orbit or return-ing them to Earth for repairs. The size of thespaceplane in itself would not determine its effec-

tiveness and would have to be adapted to thepayloads that needed to be launched or returned.Finally, it was recommended to perfect future reus-

able systems by developing first stages with air-

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Bart Hendrickx

Fig. 2 Various configurations for expendable and reusable launch vehicles studied by TsNIIMash and other research institutes(source: Ts. Solovyov)

breathing engines and eventually to introduce high-thrust nuclear engines for single-stage-to-orbit

spaceplanes.

From an economic standpoint of view, there was

clearly no immediate need for the Soviet Union tobuild a large shuttle, but in a time of almost limitlessbudgets for defence-related programmes any such

considerations were easily outweighed by military ar-guments. In December 1973, without even awaitingthe conclusions of the six research institutes, the Mili-

tary Industrial Commission (VPK), the top governmentbody for implementing space policy, issued an orderto prepare the so-called 'Technical Requirements' for

a Soviet shuttle. This traditionally was the first step inthe realisation of a Soviet space project, in which themanufacturers were given the objectives and the ba-

sic parameters (such as mass, payload capacity, or-bits, safety issues) of the vehicle. This served as thebasis for the next phase, the issuing of so-called 'Tech-

nical Proposals', in which various preliminary designsare worked out and compared in terms of their techni-cal and economic feasibility. This work did probably

not begin in earnest until the reorganisation of TsKBEMinto NPO Energiya in May 1974. NPO Energiya re-leased its Technical Proposals for the MKS in Octo-

ber/November 1974, guided by a requirement fromthe Ministry of Defence that the vehicle should becapable of placing 40 tons into orbit, which was actu-

ally 10 tons more than the US Space Shuttle [25].

3.3.3 The Final Decision

In 1975 NPO Energiya�s �Integrated Rocket and Space

Programme�, which included the plans for the RLArocket family, the Zvezda lunar base and the MKS,

was submitted for approval to the Ministry of GeneralMachine Building and the Ministry of Defence, in par-ticular to GUKOS, the primary client for the Soviet

space programme [26]. Apparently, the hope was thatall these elements would be approved. By this timehowever, Zvezda, Glushko�s pet project, stood little

chance of surviving. Not surprisingly, the lunar basereceived no support whatsoever from the military.Neither did it receive the blessing of the Academy of

Sciences (in the person of Keldysh) and Ustinov�sinitial support had dwindled 'for a variety of reasons'[27]. Clearly, many had been sobered up by the fact

that the estimated price-tag for the project was 100billion rubles [28]. In fact, very few people apart fromGlushko himself seem to have believed in the ambi-

tious plans he outlined after becoming chief of NPOEnergiya. In an ultimate attempt to keep his lunaraspirations alive, Glushko later tabled a proposal for a

more modest manned lunar project using the Energiyarocket, but this never saw the light of day either [29].

Glushko does not seem to have been a major sup-

porter of a Space Shuttle equivalent, at least not inthe beginning. At a meeting on the MKS issue shortlyafter his appointment as NPO Energiya general de-

signer, he had expressed the fear that such a pro-gramme would require so much effort that his lunarprojects and even the Salyut programme would be

jeapordised. Keldysh, on the other hand, defendingthe conclusions of his IPM institute, underlined thatwith the introduction of the Shuttle the US would gain

a 'decisive military superiority' by delivering a nuclear

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blow to key targets in the Soviet Union [30]. Actually,several sources agree that Keldysh played a key role

in the eventual decision to go ahead with the MKS. Hissupport as President of the Academy of Sciences fora system with little or no scientific value is strange to

say the least. One account claims he was in fact op-posed against reusable systems, 'but did not want toget into conflict with the military' and therefore did not

object to its development, while acknowledging it hadno scientific use [31]. What Keldysh�s real motivationwas remains a matter of conjecture.

In the course of 1975 a series of joint meetingswere held between officials of the Ministry of Gen-eral Machine Building and the Ministry of Defence

where the decision was eventually made to pressahead with the MKS. One source claims the deci-sion was made at the insistence of A.G. Karas, the

head of GUKOS [32]. Another speculates it wasmade under pressure from Ustinov, who reportedlyargued that while there was no immediate use for

such a system, it was necessary to develop it inorder not to be taken by surprise by the Americansin the future [33]. Possibly, Ustinov saw his support

for the military-oriented MKS as just another stepon the road to becoming Minister of Defence, a postto which he was eventually assigned in April 1976.

In June 1975 NPO Energiya sent updated pro-posals for the MKS to the Commander-in-Chief ofthe Strategic Rocket Forces, calling for a space-

craft capable of putting 30 tons into low Earth orbit(like the US Shuttle) and returning 20 tons to Earth.In September Ustinov convened a meeting at NPO

Energiya, where it was agreed to speed up the re-lease of a government and party decree on theMKS, seen as the official endorsal of the programme

and the go-ahead to actually design and build thehardware [34]. A draft government resolution onthe MKS had reportedly been in the works as early

as the middle of 1974, but the final version was notreleased until 17 February 1976 [35].

According to the decree (N° 132-51), the MKS wasto consist of 'a boost stage, an orbital aircraft and aninterorbital tug-ship', with the spaceplane being ca-

pable of placing 30 tons into low Earth orbit and re-turning 20 tons to Earth. The Draft Plan (the next stageafter the Technical Proposals) was to be worked out in

1976 and the first flight was set for 1983. The resolu-tion also called for working out Technical Proposalsby 1979 for heavy-lift launch vehicles based on the

MKS. In fact, the resolution was not just restricted tothe MKS and related launch systems, but also encom-passed the development of multimodular space sta-

tions (what would eventually become Mir) and a sys-

tem of geostationary data relay satellites calledGKKRS (Global Space Command-Relay System) (what

would eventually become Geyzer and Altair) [36].

The official approval of Energiya/Buran came more

than four years after President Nixon�s Space Shuttledecision. In some ways this slow response was remi-niscent of the Soviets� 1964 decision to go to the

Moon, which was made more than three years afterPresident Kennedy�s announcement of the Apollo pro-gramme. The official history of NPO Energiya gives

both political and strategic motives for the decision:

� � on the one hand [the MKS] was to consolidatethe leading position of the USSR in the explorationof space and on the other hand [it] was to excludethe possible technical and military [advantage],connected with the appearance among thepotential enemy of the � Space Shuttle, aprincipally new technical means of delivering tonear Earth orbit and returning to Earth payloadsof significant masses� [37].

While national prestige certainly played a role in

the Buran decision, it was not as dominant as it hadbeen in the Moon race. For one, there was no inten-tion to upstage the Space Shuttle, which in 1976

was expected to fly in 1979, four years before Buran.Clearly, the driving force behind Buran was the urgeto maintain strategic parity with the United States.As far as the Russians were concerned, Buran was

just another part of the Cold War. This was onceagain underscored when the updated Technical Re-quirements for the Energiya/Buran system were

approved on 8 November 1976 by none less thanDefence Minister Ustinov himself, reportedly thefirst time this had happened at such a high level.

The requirements stated that Buran needed to bebuilt

� to counteract the measures taken by the likelyenemy to expand the use of space for militarypurposes

� to solve purposeful tasks in the interests ofdefence, the national economy and science

� to carry out military applications research andexperiments enabling the development of bigspace systems with the use of weapons based onknown and new physical principles

� to put into orbit, service and return to Earthspacecraft, cosmonauts and cargo [38]

This is not to say there was unanimous supportfor the project among the military. It would seemthat the Poisk studies had been aimed mainly at light

and medium-lift rockets, for which there were con-crete payloads in the foreseeable future. Thepayloads for the MKS and the heavy-lift boosters

derived from it were much less clearly defined. With

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Bart Hendrickx

the benefit of hindsight, the official history of theMilitary Space Forces says:

�There was no well-founded need for the USSRMinistry of Defence [to develop] such a system.Buran�s main characteristics were close to thoseof the Space Shuttle and it had [the same]shortcomings, and moreover it was even lesseconomical� [39].

Despite all the similarities, there was also a basicdifference with the American Shuttle philosophy.The Space Shuttle was advocated as a system that

would replace all existing expendable launch vehi-cles and launch all types of payloads (both govern-ment and commercial), a decision for which NASA

had to pay dearly after the Challenger disaster in1986. In the Soviet Union the MKS was never in-tended to be a substitute for expendable launch

vehicles, but a system that would be used exclu-sively for tasks that could not be handled by con-ventional rockets, such as the launch of superheavy

payloads and the maintenance and retrieval of sat-ellites in orbit.

4. Evolution of theEnergiya/Buran Design

4.1 NPO Energiya�s Shuttle Proposals

According to published information NPO Energiya�sinitial research into heavy shuttles centred on a lifting

body to be placed atop Glushko�s RLA-135 booster.Called the Reusable Vertical Landing Transport Ship(MTKVP), it was to consist of three main sections: a

front section with the crew cabin, a mid-section con-taining a huge payload bay and an aft section withorbital manoeuvring engines. After using its limited

aerodynamic characteristics during the hypersonicstage of re-entry, the vehicle would make its finaldescent on parachutes, with soft-landing engines and

a ski landing gear further absorbing the shock oflanding. One of the big advantages of this design was

that the ship did not have to land on a prepared sur-face, obviating the need for high-precision landingsand expensive runways (although that would have

compounded the problem of transporting the shipback to the launch site after landing). The MTKVP�sshape would also facilitate the design of the heatshield.

Moreover, it could rely on proven technologies suchas other objects with slight aerodynamic characteris-tics (in particular the Soyuz descent capsule and nu-

clear warheads) and parachute and soft-landing sys-tems that had been used for some years by the air-borne troops to safely land heavy cargos.

However, a major disadvantage of the MTKVP wasits low cross-range capability, the ability to deviatefrom its ground track during re-entry. This was par-

ticularly important for the Russian orbiter, becauseunlike its American counterpart, it could only land onrunways in the Soviet Union. At a later stage in the

design process an attempt was made to improve thevehicle�s cross-range capability by giving the fuse-lage a slightly triangular shape (Fig. 3) [40].

The RLA/MTKVP concept was markedly differentfrom the Space Shuttle in several respects. Not onlywas the orbiter different in shape, it was just one of

several possible payloads for the RLA family and didnot require the use of cryogenic engines. As explainedearlier, Glushko�s initial position was to use tsiklin on

the RLA�s core stage and to introduce LOX/ LH2 only ata later stage, when the technology was ripe. Glushkohad always disliked liquid hydrogen. In the 1960s he

had opposed the use of liquid hydrogen on the upperstages of the N-1 rocket, arguing that the low densityof hydrogen required large tanks and worsened the

rocket�s weight characteristics. At the August 1974meeting where Glushko outlined his plans for the RLArocket family, several participants urged him to move

Fig. 3: The Reusable Vertical LandingTransport Ship. Key: 1. body flap, 2. aftattitude control thrusters, 3. liquid-rocketengines, 4. stabilisers with control surfaces,5. parachute compartment, 6. lateralextensions, 7. ski landing gear, 8. payloadbay, 9. crew cabin, 10. front attitude controlthrusters. (source: Igor Afanasyev)

251


to liquid hydrogen straightaway, but Glushko remainedadamant. At another meeting he reportedly said: �The

person who can find a way of building a rocket suitedfor the orbiter but with the use of oxygen-kerosenewill become my deputy� [41]. However, that plan hinged

entirely on the feasibility of developing the 1000+ tonLOX/kerosene-tsiklin engines that Glushko envisagedfor his RLA rockets. Engineers must have gradually

realised that the maximum thrust they could hope forin the near future was only around 700-800 tons. Bythe end of the year Glushko had to yield to the pres-

sure. On 30 November 1974 Sergey Afanasyev, theMinister of General Machine Building, signed an or-der to start work on powerful cryogenic engines [42].

Possibly, the MTKVP survived for a while as a pay-load for a hydrogen-based RLA booster. However, bythis time the focus shifted to a configuration that had

possibly been under consideration for some time asan alternative to Glushko�s plan. This was a virtualcarbon copy of the US Space Shuttle, namely a delta-

wing orbiter with three LOX/LH2 main engines in theback and strapped to the side of an external fuel tank.The only basic difference was the use of liquid rather

than solid strap-on boosters, possibly the same LOX/kerosene strap-ons foreseen for the RLA family. Engi-neers did study the possibility of using solid rocket

motors, but that idea was abandoned because of theabsence of the necessary industrial basis for the de-velopment of large solid-fuel rockets and the equip-

ment to transport the loaded boosters to the launchsite [43]. A question that automatically arises iswhether this Space Shuttle look-alike also marked a

change in strategy towards having a single heavy-liftlaunch vehicle rather than a family of heavy-lift boost-ers with a shuttle as just one of its payloads. If not, the

idea must have been to develop cryogenic enginesthat could fly both on the delta-wing orbiter and on thecore stage of a heavy-lift rocket if another payload

were carried.

At any rate, if there was a plan to have the SpaceShuttle copy instead of a family of heavy-lift launch

vehicles, that idea was short-lived. If the cryogenicengines were going to be on the orbiter, they had to bemade reusable, which was a task the Russians were

hardly up to at the time (they have not even demon-strated that capability until the present day). Anotherproblem with this configuration was that it made the

orbiter too heavy to be transported by the carrieraircraft under consideration at the time. These air-craft were needed to ferry the orbiter from the manu-

facturer to the cosmodrome and at that point werealso intended to be used for atmospheric landing testslike those performed by NASA with Enterprise and the

Boeing 747 [44].

The obvious solution was to move the main en-gines to the external fuel tank, which thereby was

transformed into a rocket that could launch otherpayloads than the reusable orbiter as well. Thisdecision was probably made sometime in 1975.

When comparing Energiya/Buran to the US Shuttle,this was justifiably described by the Russians asbeing one of their system�s main advantages, al-

though it was rarely or never pointed out that theywere more or less forced into this design philoso-phy.

The resulting configuration was a core stage(�Blok-Ts�) with liquid oxygen/hydrogen main en-gines flanked on each side by boosters (�Blok-A�)

burning liquid oxygen and kerosene, which is in factpretty similar to what Glushko had been aiming forwith the RLA family in the long run. The 740 ton

thrust LOX/kerosene engines, known as RD-170,were to be developed by Energomash, which coulddraw on the experience it had gained with such

engines since beginning the implementation of thePoisk plan. LOX/kerosene engines in this thrust rangewere simultaneously being studied for the 11K77, a

medium-lift launch vehicle under development atNPO Yuzhnoye in Dnepropetrovsk and a decisionwas made to unify the design of their first stages

(see section 7). In the original plans, the RussianSpace Shuttle copy probably had two liquid-fuelstrap-on boosters, but once the 1000+ ton engines

were abandoned, the number was changed to four.

The task to develop the LOX/ LH2 engines (the RD-0120) was entrusted to the KB Khimavtomatiki (KBKhA)

in Voronezh (the former 'Kosberg bureau'). This wasnot an obvious choice. First, the only space-relatedengines developed by KBKhA before this had been

LOX/kerosene upper stages for R-7 derived launchvehicles and engines burning storable propellants forthe second and third stages of the Proton rocket.

Second, there were two design bureaus in the SovietUnion which did have experience with liquid oxygenand hydrogen, namely KB Khimmash (the 'Isayev bu-

reau') and KB Saturn (the 'Lyulka bureau'). These haddeveloped cryogenic engines for the upper stages ofthe N-1 (the 7.5 ton thrust 11D56 of KB Khimmash and

the 40 ton thrust 11D54 and 11D57 of KB Saturn).

Not only was KBKhA a newcomer to the field of

LOX/LH2, it was now supposed to build from scratch acryogenic engine several times more powerful thanany developed in the Soviet Union before (with a thrust

of around 200 tons). Kuznetsov�s design bureau inKuybyshev had performed studies of a 200-ton thrustliquid hydrogen engine for the second stage of the N-

1 and even Glushko himself is said to have suggested

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Bart Hendrickx

a 200 to 250 ton liquid hydrogen engine around 1968,but neither of these two efforts ever went beyond the

conceptual stage [45]. All in all, the choice of KBKhAwas a risky move. One can only speculate that Glushkowas wary of relying on design bureaus that had been

involved in the ill-fated N-1. Still, KBKhA engineersbegan their research into LOX/LH2 engines by con-sulting specialists from KB Khimmash and KB Saturn.

They also extensively analysed the data available onthe Space Shuttle Main Engines [46].

The original specifications, which were ready inDecember 1974 (shortly after Minister Afanasyev�s

order), called for engines with a vacuum thrust of250 tons, which was still based on the assumptionthat three of them would be mounted on the back of

the orbiter (and hence be reusable). This was ahigher thrust value than that of the US Space Shut-tle Main Engines (about 210 tons), which may have

had something to do with the Ministry of Defence�srequirement at the time to have a 40-ton payloadcapacity. A Draft Plan and early Design Documenta-

tion for such engines were released by KBKhA in1975-76. However, by April 1976 the design bureaureceived updated specifications for an engine with

a nominal vacuum thrust of just 190 tons. Accord-ing to KBKhA�s official history, this was a result ofNPO Energiya�s decision to move the engines from

the orbiter to the external fuel tank and increasetheir number from three to four. The additional en-gine provided extra redundancy in case of a main

engine failure during the climb to orbit [47].

As for the orbiter itself, it eventually became al-most identical in dimensions and shape to its UScounterpart. The similar dimensions were a logical

result of the requirement to match the payload ca-pacity of the Space Shuttle. As for the strikinglysimilar shape, when asked about this, Soviet offi-

cials usually responded along the lines that the lawsof aerodynamics left little room for other designs.However, the numerous orbiter outlines studied by

NASA in the late 1960s and early 1970s disprovethis claim. Undoubtedly, by copying many aspectsof the Space Shuttle orbiter design, the Russians

could take advantage of the American experience,saving them a lot of research and development time.As one veteran recalled:

�The deciding factor was not aerodynamics. Wewere in a position of having to play catch-up [withthe Americans] � This is where the, unfortunately,classical opinion in our defence industry surfaced:the Americans aren�t dummer, do it the way theydo !� [48].

Of course, there were basic differences between

the Russian and US orbiters, the most notable onebeing the absence of main engines on the Russian

vehicle. This caused a significant difference in thevehicle�s centre of gravity and required variouschanges to its general outlines. The Russians also

elected to use LOX/tsiklin for the orbital manoeu-vring and attitude control engines, as opposed tonitrogen tetroxide/UDMH on the Space Shuttle.

Another important difference was that Buran wassupposed to be equipped with turbojet engines to

make a powered approach to the runway, somethingwhich NASA had opted not to do with the Shuttle(although the possibility was considered). Mounted

on either side of the vertical stabiliser, the two AL-31Lyulka turbojet engines would have allowed the orbiterto make small flight path modifications on the

glideslope during final approach, but not to make ago-around for another landing attempt. The decisionto install these engines was made in 1976 and pro-

duction of the engineering and flight models of Buranbegan with this design in mind. Eventually, the atmos-pheric landing tests performed with Buran vehicle

002 (which had two additional turbojet engines withafterburners to allow it to take off on its own power)showed that control was sufficient without these en-

gines. They were dropped from the design in late1987/early 1988, less than a year before Buran madeits first space mission [49].

4.2 Alternative Proposals

It should be noted that the Soviet Union weighedseveral other responses to the US Space Shuttle.

Before the February 1976 government decree therewere at least three competing proposals for reus-able spaceplanes from other design bureaus, two

with much more modest characteristics than theSpace Shuttle. One was the Spiral programme, whichhad actually been underway since 1966 at a spe-

cially created space branch of the Mikoyan bureauin Dubna under the leadership of Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy. The eventual goal of this project was to

launch a 10-ton spaceplane from a supersonic air-craft (to be developed by the Tupolev bureau), al-though in the early stages it would be launched by a

standard Soyuz rocket. Payload capacity of the air-launched vehicle would be 1.3 tons to a 200 km 51°inclination orbit. Unfortunately, limited interest from

Defence Minister Grechko had largely stifled workon the project in the early 1970s.

A direct response to Buran came from VladimirChelomey�s NPO Mashinostroyeniya, which had al-ready conducted significant spaceplane research in

the early 1960s. Chelomey was reportedly offered to

253


participate in NPO Energiya�s effort, but declined onthe grounds that it would be economically disadvanta-

geous. In June 1974 he convened a meeting of hissenior staff where he outlined his ideas for a LightSpace Plane (LKS) weighing about 20 tons, which is

one of the two shuttle sizes that had been explored inthe TsNIIMash-led studies. In the following monthsvarious configurations were analysed, some involving

a launch by the Proton rocket and others using avariety of winged flyback vehicles. Eventually,Chelomey�s team opted for a Proton-launched 25-ton

spaceplane capable of placing 4-5 tons into orbit andwith a cross-range capability of up to 2000 km. Asidefrom performing various military tasks, it could also

be used for space station resupply missions.

A more exotic plan came from the Experimental

Machine Building Factory (EMZ) of VladimirMyasishchev, which proposed the M-19, a horizontaltake-off and landing single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane

powered by a nuclear engine (on the basis of liquidhydrogen) and capable of placing 40 tons into orbit,which coincidentially or not was the Ministry of De-

fence�s payload requirement for the MKS in late 1974.Research on the M-19 started following an order is-sued by the Ministry of the Aviation Industry (MAP)

and the Air Force Commander-in-Chief on 10 October1974 under a programme called Kholod-2. AlthoughMyasishchev estimated it would take 15 years to buildsuch a vehicle, he seems to have seen it as a serious

competitor to Buran.

Actually, Myasishchev�s project, which did not in-corporate any conventional rocket technology, may

have been an attempt by the MAP to gain full controlover the Soviet shuttle programme. Even after it be-came clear that NPO Energiya�s Buran would come

out on top, there seems to have been continuing de-bate over whether the leading ministry for the projectshould be the Ministry of General Machine Building

(MOM) or MAP. In the end, a compromise was reachedin which the MOM�s NPO Energiya became the 'primecontractor' for Energiya/Buran, while a new organisa-

tion to be set up under the MAP would be the leadingsubcontractor for Buran�s airframe, that is to say allairplane-related elements of the orbiter. This organi-

sation, created in the Moscow suburb of Tushino onthe basis of MAP orders dated 24 February and 15March 1976, was named NPO Molniya, which was an

amalgam of three existing design bureaus: KB Molniya,KB Burevestnik and Myasishchev�s EMZ.

Remarkably, Myasishchev�s organisation was theonly of the three with any previous shuttle experienceand had therefore expected to get the contract alone.

However, some leading specialists of the Mikoyan

bureau�s space branch were also transferred to NPOMolniya, including Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy, who became

the new organisation�s director and chief designer.Still, much of the experience in spaceplane researchthat several other Soviet design bureaus had accu-

mulated over the previous 25 years or so was largelythrown overboard. Just as with the Energiya booster,it was as if the Russians wanted to start with a clean

slate and forget the lessons of the past.

This is not to say that after the February 1976 gov-

ernment decree the choice of the orbiter�s configura-tion had been finally settled. That very same monthYuriy Blokhin, the head of the Mikoyan bureau�s space

branch, wrote a report for the Central Committee stat-ing that the 75 million rubles invested in Spiral werethe only practical basis in the USSR for the creation of

a reusable space transportation system. In the follow-ing weeks NPO Energiya�s delta-wing orbiter and a�modified version� of Spiral were the subject of a

comparative analysis carried out by NPO Energiya,NPO Molniya, TsAGI and TsNIIMash. There seems tohave been division within the newly created NPO

Molniya itself, with the former Mikoyan people stronglylobbying for the Spiral-based system (code-named305-1) and the Myasishchev branch supporting the

delta-wing orbiter (code-named 305-2).

Little is known about the modified Spiral. Compar-ing it to Buran in one interview, Lozino-Lozinskiy saidit had the same general outlines as Spiral (with folded

wings) and had a 'larger useful volume'. If this is takento mean that it could carry more payload than NPOEnergiya�s orbiter, the vehicle could no longer have

been a small air-launched spaceplane, but a muchenlarged version of Spiral launched vertically, pre-sumably by Energiya. After all, by this time the design-

ers were bound by the payload requirements andmission goals for the MKS set out in the February 1976government decree and the small air-launched Spiral

was way below specifications. However, whatever itwas that the former Mikoyan people exactly proposed,in the end it was considered safer to rely on the delta-

wing configuration of the US orbiter, even though thathad not yet been proven in flight. The final decisioncame at a meeting of the Council of Chief Designers

on 11 June 1976.

Despite these developments work on the alterna-

tive proposals continued in the background, albeit at aslow pace. Drop tests in the framework of the air-launched Spiral were performed in 1977-1978

and several ¼ scale-models of the Spiral spaceplane(BOR-4) were launched on orbital missions between1982 and 1984 to test thermal protection materials for

Buran. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s

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Bart Hendrickx

NPO Molniya carried on with work on air-launchedspaceplanes (Projects 49, 49M, Bizan), which would

eventually result in the proposed MAKS project basedon the Mriya carrier aircraft. NPO Molniya�s EMZbranch pressed on with preliminary research on the

M-19 SSTO by drawing up plans to fly an experimentalLyulka liquid hydrogen engine on an IL-76 plane, butafter Myasishchev�s death in 1978 this work was trans-

ferred to the Tupolev bureau (where it was success-fully completed using the Tu-154). Finally, Chelomey�steam built a full-scale model of the LKS spaceplane

before the project was definitively shelved in the early1980s [50].

4.3 Freezing the Energiya Design

While the basic design of the orbiter was settled on 11June 1976, it was not until 12 December 1976 thatGlushko placed his signature under the Draft Plan for

the entire Energiya/Buran system. However, Glushkodid not have the final say. The Draft Plan was reviewedby an Interdepartmental Expert Commission chaired

by TsNIIMash director Yuriy Mozzhorin. Even at thatpoint, almost a year after the February 1976 govern-ment resolution, there was no consensus on the need

to build a heavy-lift shuttle. Several members of thecommission spoke out in favour of Chelomey�s 20-tonspaceplane, which could solve practical tasks like

servicing space stations. Others called for the devel-opment of both a small and a large shuttle. In the endthough, the commission�s recommendation was to

press ahead with NPO Energiya�s big orbiter, mainlyin order to have a deterrent to the US system in thelong run [51].

The findings of Mozzhorin�s commission were dis-cussed at a joint meeting of the Ministries of Defence,

the Aviation Industry and General Machine Building inMarch 1977, which recommended to make someamendments to the Draft Plan. These were finished in

July 1977 and called for some significant changes tothe core stage. In the original plan the core stage wasa single element with one LOX and one LH2 tank and a

diameter of 8.2 m (comparable to the Space ShuttleExternal Tank�s 8.4 m diameter). Now its diameterwas reduced to 7.7 m and it was lengthened by 7.9 m.

More importantly, the core stage was now to consistof two separate sections, each having its own LOXand LH2 tanks (four tanks in all). This was mainly

dictated by the fact that the carrier aircraft beingstudied at the time could not transport the stage inone piece. It also was supposed to improve the stabil-

ity of the rocket by keeping its centre of gravity ashigh up as possible. During the initial stages of theascent the engines would consume the propellants in

the lower section and as the tanks emptied they would

gradually be refilled with propellants from the uppersection through a special cross-feed system. Once

the upper section ran out of propellant, it would bejettisoned, as a result of which the rocket shedded asignificant amount of dead weight during the final

phase of the launch [52].

The amendments formed the basis for a new gov-

ernment decree (N° 1006-323) on Energiya/Buran on21 November 1977, which gave the go-ahead for thenext step in the design phase, namely the completion

of the Technical Plan in the first quarter of 1978. Thiswas to be followed by the release of Design Docu-mentation for the rocket in 1978 and for the orbiter in

1980, usually the last step before the construction ofactual flight hardware begins. The first flight ofEnergiya/Buran remained optimistically targeted for

1983. The same government decree also gave thefinal approval for transforming Myasishchev�s 3M stra-tegic bomber into the carrier aircraft for Buran and

Energiya�s core stage, although it was seen only as aninterim solution until a more capable aircraft becameavailable. Renamed 3M-T and later VM-T/Atlant, it had

been under consideration for some time along withthe Il-76, Tu-95 and the Antonov bureau�s An-22('Antey') and An-124 ('Ruslan'). Myasishchev�s engi-

neers studied the possibility of dropping Buran fromthe 3M-T for approach and landing tests, but thatscheme was later dropped in favour of the Buran 002atmospheric test model with its four jet engines.

There were more organisational changes withinNPO Energiya in December 1977. Sadovskiy, who

had headed the MKS department since 1974, wasnow named chief designer of the Energiya/Buransystem as a whole, with Kolyako, the former head of

the heavy-lift launch vehicle section, becoming sub-ordinate to him. In late 1981 responsibility for Buranwas transferred to Semyonov�s department.

Sadovskiy was replaced as chief designer ofEnergiya by Boris Gubanov in 1982.

In 1978 it was decided to return the core stage to

its original configuration, although it retained the 7.7m diameter and was now even a bit shorter than theversion originally proposed in 1976. Disadvantages

of the dual-element design had been the need to de-velop a complex propellant cross-feed system andthe requirement to find safe impact zones for the

upper section, which imposed further restrictions onthe rocket�s possible trajectories. Still, the return tothe single-element design did not really solve the trans-

portation problem. The core stage still had to be flownto the cosmodrome in two sections, with the LH2 andLOX tanks being ferried separately before being joined

together at the launch site (Fig. 4). The later An-225

255


'Mriya' was capable of carrying the core stage (andthe strap-ons) in one piece, although it was never

used in that capacity. The final amendments to theTechnical Plan were completed in June 1979, whichcan be considered the date that the design of the

Energiya/Buran system was frozen (Fig. 5) [53].

4.4 RD-170 Crisis

In the early 1980s the Energiya programme facedanother possible redesign as the RD-170 first stageengine and the almost identical RD-171 for the first

stage of Zenit went through a serious crisis. The firstsixteen test firings of the RD-170 (the first one on 25August 1980) ended in failure, mainly due to problems

with the LOX turbopump, which suffered from highvibrations and was susceptible to burn-throughs. Sub-sequently, it was decided to test the engine at a lower

thrust of 600 tons, which resulted in a first successfultest on 9 June 1981. Unfortunately, another majorsetback came on 26 June 1982 during the first test

firing of a complete Zenit first stage at the facilities ofNIIKhimMash in Zagorsk near Moscow. Its RD-171engine exploded six seconds into the test, completely

destroying the test stand.

All these problems sparked an effort to come up

with alternative propulsion systems for the first stage.One idea, proposed by I.A. Klepikov at Energomash,was to equip each combustion chamber with its ownturbopump assembly, essentially transforming the RD-

170 into four engines with 185 tons thrust each. Theseindividual engines became known as MD-185 (andwere to be essentially identical to the RD-191 now

being developed for the Angara family of rockets).Minister of General Machine Building SergeyAfanasyev set up a special team at Energomash to

look into this possibility. The order for this was signedas early as 11 October 1980, some two months afterthe test firings had begun.

Another option was to use the NK-33 enginesdeveloped by the Kuznetsov design bureau (under

the Ministry of the Aviation Industry) for a modifiedversion of the N-1 rocket. Energiya�s new chief de-signer Boris Gubanov flew to Kuznetsov�s plant in

Kuybyshev, where he was shown more than 90 suchengines lying in storage. Although the N-1 had beencancelled before the NK-33 engines ever had a

chance to fly, 40 of these reusable engines hadundergone an extensive series of test firings until1977, proving their reliability. By making small modi-

fications to the turbopumps, Kuznetsov�s engineershad managed to uprate the NK-33�s thrust fromabout 170 tons to just over 200 tons, meaning that

four would be sufficient to replace the RD-170.

Fig. 5 Energiya/Buran on the launch pad.(source: Russian Space Bulletin)

Fig. 4 VM-T/Atlant carrying Energiya liquid oxygen tank (top)and liquid hydrogen tank (bottom). (source: RKK Energiya)

The most radical alternative studied was to re-place the strap-ons with solid-fuel boosters. That

task was assigned to NPO Iskra in Perm (chief de-signer Lev Lavrov), an organisation specialised insolid-fuel motors that had split off from the Makeyev

256

Bart Hendrickx

bureau in 1978. It was also responsible for the solid-fuel motors needed to separate the strap-on boost-

ers and Buran from Energiya�s core stage. NPOIskra devised a plan for a 44.92m high booster con-sisting of seven segments. Weighing 520 tons (460

tons of which was propellant), the booster wouldproduce an average thrust of 1050 tons (specificimpulse 263 s) and operate for 138 seconds before

separating from the core stage.

In the end, none of the three proposals was ac-

cepted. Although the MD-185 was probably the leastradical proposal, research showed that it would notsolve the turbopump burn-through problems (be-

cause the temperature of the generator gas wouldessentially be the same). A major problem with boththe MD-185 and NK-33 was that they increased the

number of engines on Energiya from eight to twenty,leaving more room for failure.

One can also safely assume that Glushko had sec-

ond thoughts about using the NK-33 engines. After allhis efforts to erase the N-1 from history, it is hard toimagine he would have accepted using engines that

had originally been built for this rocket. What�s more,in 1977 Glushko had secured a decision from theCouncil of Ministers to ban all work on powerful liquid-

fuel rocket engines not only at Kuznetsov�s designbureau, but at any organisation under the Ministry ofthe Aviation Industry. Understandably, Kuznetsov was

not about to come to Glushko�s rescue just like that.One of the conditions he laid down for participating inthe Energiya programme was that his team be offi-

cially rehabilitated after the abrupt and humiliatingcancellation of its efforts several years earlier

It was even easier to find arguments against NPO

Iskra�s solid rocket motors. Aside from the safetyand ecological concerns inherent to solid-fuel rock-ets, the Soviet Union had no experience in building

boosters of this size. Moreover, they would not havebeen reusable and it would have been difficult tooperate them in the temperature extremes of

Baykonur. It would have taken an estimated 8 yearsto get them ready for flight.

In fact, all the three alternative proposals wouldhave delayed the first flight of Energiya by manyyears and would only have added to the already

soaring cost of the programme. The wisest thing todo was to try and work out the problems with theRD-170, on which both Glushko and NPO Yuzhnoye�s

Vladimir Utkin (chief designer of Zenit) are said tohave insisted. The following months modificationswere made to the engine which made it less sus-

ceptible to turbopump burn-throughs and high vi-

brations. Those efforts paid off with the first testfiring of the RD-170 at nominal thrust in May 1983

and the first successful test firing of a completeZenit first stage at the refurbished test stand ofNIIKhimMash on 1 December 1984 [54].

By contrast, the testing of the seemingly morecomplex RD-0120 engine of KBKhA went relatively

smoothly, although it also ran into significant de-lays. The first test engine was delivered toNIIKhimMash as early as the autumn of 1978 and

underwent a first brief test firing (4.58 s) at lowthrust in March 1979. The first test firing at 100 %thrust was conducted in May 1984. Tests took place

not only in Zagorsk, but also at the facilities of an-other organisation called NIIMash in NizhnyayaSalda north of Yekaterinburg [55].

5. Cargo Versions of Energiya

As pointed out earlier, the decision to launch Buran as

a passive payload on Energiya made it possible to usethe same rocket in various configurations to orbit heavyunmanned payloads. Although this was one of the

main advantages of the Soviet system as comparedto the Space Shuttle, the development of these cargoversions of Energiya always took a backseat to that of

the main Energiya/Buran system. One of the mainreasons for this must have been that there were fewpayloads in the given mass range that stood any

chance of flying soon. The February 1976 govern-ment resolution on the MKS merely called for NPOEnergiya to come up with Technical Proposals for

such systems by 1979-1980 and the final go-aheadseems to have been given by the government decreeon Buran issued on 21 November 1977 [56].

5.1 Early Proposals

The first known proposal for a cargo version of

Energiya came in June 1976, just four months afterthe government resolution on the MKS. A suggestionwas made to begin test flights of Energiya with two

rather than four strap-ons in order to cut costs. Thepayload, weighing between 45 and 50 tons, was to bestrapped to the side of the core stage in a cargo

container, simulating the presence of a Buran orbiter.The core stage itself would remain unchanged fromthe basic version, with four RD-0120 engines and a

propellant mass of 790 t. At that stage of the Energiyadesign the core stage was 0.5 m wider and also slightlyhigher than the one eventually selected for develop-

ment, explaining the larger amount of propellant. Theproposed rocket was called RLA-125, although itseems to have had little or nothing in common with the

RLA family put forward by Glushko in 1974.

257


In 1978 several Energiya-derived launch vehi-cles were proposed that were all based on the

Energiya design with the dual-element core stage.In one category the payload was placed on top,replacing the upper section of the core stage, while

in the other it was strapped to the side like Buran.

An unnamed vehicle with the payload on top hadthree RD-0120 engines and an unspecified amount

of strap-ons, although the announced masses indi-cate there were just two. The core stage carried460 tons of propellant (as compared to 700 tons

when carrying both sections). It had a launch massof between 1260 and 1280 tons, depending on thepayload�s orbital inclination and the presence or

absence of an upper stage. Payload capacity was45 to 59.5 tons to a 200 km orbit, 5.5-6 tons togeostationary orbit, 14.5-15 tons to the Moon and

12-12.5 tons to Venus. The plan was to fly a cryo-genic upper stage with the 11D57M engine, a modi-fied version of the 11D57 engine developed for the

N-1 by the Lyulka design bureau. In order to savemass the strap-on boosters would not be recover-able in case an upper stage was flown. Three other

rockets have been identified in the first category, avariant with four strap-ons called RLA-131 and twovariants with eight strap-ons called RLA-132 and

133. No further details on these are available

In the other category, where the payload wasstrapped to the side in a Cargo Transport Container

(GTK), the core stage seems to have had both ele-ments. Two vehicles have been identified here,namely GTK-4 with four strap-ons and GTK-6 with

six strap-ons [57].

All these designs were abandoned together withthe four-tank basic version of Energiya later in 1978.Once the final Energiya/Buran design was frozen in

1979, designers began drawing up plans for de-rived cargo versions known as Groza (with two strap-ons), Buran-T (with four strap-ons) and Vulkan (with

eight strap-ons).

5.2 Buran-T

5.2.1 The Standard Configuration

The most straightforward way of transformingEnergiya/Buran into an unmanned cargo carrier was

to keep the rocket in exactly the same configuration(with four strap-ons) and simply replace the orbiterby a large unmanned payload housed in a GTK Cargo

Transport Container known as 14S70 (Fig. 6). Thisconfiguration was known as Buran-T ('T' standingfor 'transport ') before the name Energiya was

adopted in 1987. The interfaces between the rocket

Fig. 6 Comparative view of Buran-T and Buran. (source: RKK Energiya)

258

Bart Hendrickx

and the payload would be virtually identical to thoseon Energiya/Buran. Two diameters were studied for

the GTK, namely 5.5 m and 6.7 m, with the finalchoice falling on the latter, which turned out to bethe most favourable in terms of aerodynamic and

other characteristics. The length of the containerwas to be 42 m and it had an internal volume ofabout 1000 m³. The two main sections of the con-

tainer were to be jettisoned after the rocket passedthrough the thickest layers of the atmosphere.

Since the core stage was suborbital, another el-ement that needed to be developed for Buran-Tbesides the GTK were upper stages to place the

payload into orbit. One of these was a modificationof the Proton rocket�s Blok-DM upper stage (Fig. 7).Having a diameter of 3.7 m and a length of 5.56 m, it

was to carry between 11 and 15 tons of LOX/kero-sene. Its engine was to have a thrust of up to 8.5tons and have the capability of being ignited up to 7

times. It could also act as a retro- and correctionstage for long-duration deep space missions, inwhich case it would need a special propellant cool-

ing system. The other upper stage, known as 14S40or Smerch ('Tornado'), was to use liquid oxygen andhydrogen (Fig. 8). It was 5.5 m wide and 16 m long

with a propellant mass of up to 70 tons. Its enginewas required to provide a thrust of up to 10 tonsand was to be capable of being ignited up to 10

times.

Initially, three upper stage configurations were

studied for Buran-T: only the Blok-DM derived stagefor low-orbiting payloads (up to 1000 km), only theSmerch for payloads destined for geostationary or-

bit, the lunar libration points and lunar orbit and thetwo stages combined for lunar landing missions,flights to Mars and Jupiter (Figs. 9 and 10) [58].

5.2.2 The Polyus Launch

The original idea was that the cargo versions ofEnergiya would fly well after Buran. Although work on

such systems had been sanctioned by the govern-ment decree of 21 November 1977, it seems that littleor no work on them was performed in the following

years. Follow-up government decrees in February andMay 1983 once again called for speeding up work onthese systems. A government resolution in February

1985 set the vague goal of developing Buran-T andVulkan between 1986 and 1995, while setting themaiden flight of Energiya (vehicle 1L) with the Buran

orbiter for the fourth quarter of 1986. The 1L launchwas to be preceded by a series of fuelling tests withvehicle 4M and static test firings with vehicles 5S and

6S. For this purpose a special test stand had been

built at Baykonur known as the UKSS, which wascapable of supporting full-scale test firings of theboth the core stage and the strap-ons. Only at a later

stage it was planned to be modified for launches.

However, in 1984 Energiya chief designer Boris

Gubanov hatched a plan to turn vehicle 6S into aflightworthy rocket and launch it on a test mission thatwould precede the maiden flight of Buran. Rather

than test the rocket on the ground, it would simply betest-fired in flight, the big advantage being that ifsomething went catastrophically wrong, the test stand

would not be destroyed. Gubanov first proposed hisidea at government level in January 1985, but it tookhim several months to get it accepted. One of the

Fig. 7 Blok-DM derived upper stage for Buran-T.(source: RKK Energiya)

Fig. 8 Smerch cryogenic upper stage for Buran-T.(source: RKK Energiya)

~550

0

Ø3700

Truss

Oxidizer Tank

Refrigerator

Fuel Tank

Auxiliary Propulsion (AP)

1647

0

Auxiliary Propulsion

Ø5700

Oxidizer Tank

Fuel Tank

Truss

259


Fig. 10 Buran-T launch profiles. CC = cargo container. (source: RKK Energiya)

reasons why the idea received approval was that theBuran orbiter was running into serious delays, mean-ing the rocket would be ready long before the orbiter.

Fig. 9 Buran-T upper stage configurations and payload capacity. (source: RKK Energiya)

SpaceTransportation

Aids PayloadArea

(RCS)

Payload Area

Payload Area

Upper Stage (US)

Upper Stage (US)

Retro- andCorrectionStage (RCS)

Spacecraft (S/C)Performance

(S/C) Mass, tons

Dimensions =(Length+Diameter)

88 81.5 18 - 19

35 x 5.5 23.5 x 5.5 19.5 x 5.5

9 - 10 10+3 (MarsOrbit)

23 - 29 21.5 - 23 5 - 6

EarthOrbit

200 km

EarthOrbit

600 km

GeostationaryOrbit

LunarLibration

Points

LunarOrbit

Moon MarsTo Sun

(With JupiterFlyby)

The programme of static test firings at Baykonurwas severely curtailed. Originally, the core stage en-gines were to undergo a total of 17 test firings on the

SolarProbe

Mars

Moon

Insertionto the

ReferenceOrbit

SecondStage

Separation

(t = 450 s)

Separationof the CCStrucrureElements(t = 225 s)

BoosterStaging

(t = 140 s

Launch

(t = 0 s BoosterDisposal

Area(Distancefrom the

Launch Site400 km)

CC Disposal Area(Distance from theLaunch Site 650 km)

Second StageDisposal Area

(Distance from theLaunch Site19,200 km)

Earth Orbit(Alt. 200-1,000 km)

GeosynchronousOrbit (GEO)

(Alt. 36,000 km)

FlightTime

SpacecraftMass

EarthOrbit

1.5 h

Up to88 tons

GEO

6-12 h

18-19tons 9-10 tons

5-7 days

13 (10 + 3)tons

5-6 tons

Moon Mars SolarProbe

up to1 year

3 years

260

Bart Hendrickx

UKSS totalling 3700 seconds. Also planned were so-called Technological Test Firings (OTI) in which the

core stage and strap-on engines would burn simulta-neously for 30 seconds. Eventually, only two statictest firings of the core stage engines were carried out

on the UKSS, both using the 5S vehicle. The first one,on 22 February 1986, was supposed to last 20 sec-onds but was aborted after just 2.5 seconds. The

second one, carried out on 25 April 1986, was suc-cessful and lasted 370 seconds. Of course, the statictests on the UKSS had been preceded by a long string

of test firings of individual RD-170 and RD-0120 en-gines at test stands in Zagorsk and Nizhnyaya Salda.By the time of the maiden Energiya launch in May

1987 a total of 148 RD-170 engines had undergone473 test firings totalling 51845 seconds and a total of103 RD-0120 engines had performed 523 test firings

lasting 73891 seconds in all. Moreover, the Blok-A hadperformed flawlessly during nine Zenit launches. Thefinal go-ahead for the Energiya test launch using vehi-

cle 6S came after lengthy high-level discussions inlate 1986 and early 1987. The 6S vehicle wasredesignated 6SL.

When the idea to launch 6S on a shakedown flightwas proposed in 1985, the question also arose whatpayload to strap to the side of the rocket. Work on

Buran-T with its GTK payload canister and upperstages had not yet started in earnest. An early sug-gestion was to fly an empty steel canister about the

size of Buran�s cargo bay (4 m in diameter and 25 mlong) which would remain attached to Energiya andsplash down together with it. This was somewhat

reminiscent of the very first Energiya schedules ofthe mid-1970s, which had envisaged two suborbitaltest flights with full-scale Buran mock-ups (ML-1

and ML-2) in 1983 before beginning orbital test flightsin 1984. However, Glushko and the Ministry of Gen-eral Machine Building insisted on flying some kind

of operational payload on 6SL. In the summer of1985 the choice fell on an existing design for a100-ton spacecraft to test laser weapons in space.

The history of this project can be traced back to1976, when NPO Energiya was tasked by the gov-ernment to start research on various types of 'Star

Wars' technology. Not coincidentially, this wasaround the same time that the Energiya/Buran pro-gramme was initiated. Early efforts at NPO Energiya

focused on two types of Salyut-derived anti-satel-lite �battle stations�, initially to be launched by Pro-ton and later in the cargo bay of Buran. One of

these was to use laser-type weapons to destroylow-orbiting satellites, the other missiles to destroysatellites in medium and geostationary orbits. Be-

cause of the heavy workload at NPO Energiya the

laser project was transferred to the Salyut DesignBureau (KB Salyut) in 1981 [59]. KB Salyut came up

with an entirely new design, namely a 40 m long 95ton object called Skif that was to be built at theKhrunichev plant and was to be launched by

Energiya. The laser payload was to be provided byNPO Astrofizika, an organisation which had beeninvolved in developing ground-based laser weap-

ons. After President Reagan�s announcement of theSDI programme in 1983 a new mission of Skif be-came the destruction of ballistic missiles. A 60 ton

experimental laser installation was flown on an Il-76MD aircraft starting in 1983 in support of Skif.

By mid-1985 KB Salyut had already done some

work on a 'dynamic analogue' of the spacecraft calledSkif-D which did not carry any complex weapons sys-tems. When the order came to modify the vehicle in

time for the maiden Energiya launch, the upper stagesfor Buran-T were only in the planning stage. There-fore, it was decided to attach an available FGB engine

section (originally built for a cancelled Mir module) tothe Skif-D and also to borrow various systems fromBuran. This version of Skif-D was dubbed Skif-DM and

after reaching orbit was to be announced to the worldas Polyus (�Pole�), which is the name that was paintedon the side [60]. The spacecraft weighed 80 tons and

was 37 m long and 4.1 m wide, much more slenderthan the standard Buran-T (Figs. 11 and 12).

Aside from several geophysical and technical ex-

periments, one of the payloads was supposed to bea series of targets that would be released from Skif-DM and subsequently be destroyed by it, but that

part of the mission was scrapped for political rea-sons in early 1987, presumably under pressure fromMikhail Gorbachov. Amazingly, the spacecraft was

built in just about a year�s time and delivered toBaykonur in July 1986, where it was further outfittedwith equipment until January 1987. Roll-out to the

UKSS, which had been quickly modified to serve asa launch pad, took place on 4 February 1987. Thelaunch was originally planned for 12 May and was

to be attended by Gorbachov, but four days beforethe launch the State Commission in charge of themission decided to delay it three days, by which

time the General Secretary would be off to theUnited States to appear at the UN. Officially,Gorbachov was told the delay was for technical

reasons, but the real reason reportedly was thatspace officials did not want to take the risk of hav-ing Gorbachov witness a costly launch failure. In

the end the Energiya performed flawlessly, but dueto a navigation error the Polyus was pointed in thewrong direction when the FGB engines were fired

and ended up on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

261


Had the launch been successful, Polyus would have

spent about a month in a 280 km circular orbit withan inclination of 64.6° [61].

5.2.3 Lack of Support

Even though Polyus was an improvised payload, it diddemonstrate that Energiya was capable of being used

as a heavy cargo carrier. Essentially, it had been aBuran-T with its own orbit insertion system. Neverthe-less, Buran-T failed to gain impetus, mainly due to a

lack of interest from the military, who were supposed

to be the main customers for the system. A govern-ment resolution in August 1985 had ordered the Minis-try of Defence to work out Technical Requirements

for Buran-T and Vulkan in a three-month period andNPO Energiya to prepare a draft government resolu-tion on these systems in the first quarter of 1986,

outlining their objectives and setting a timeline fortheir development. The draft was sent for review tothe VPK by July 1986 and called for starting Buran-T

flights in 1988, with the introduction of the Smerchcryogenic upper stage expected in 1995. It was notuntil December 1987, one and a half years later, that

the VPK responded by rejecting the draft, claiming ithad not been agreed upon with the military. For themilitary a rocket could only be 'taken up in the

armaments' if there was a concrete payload for it,which was not the case for Buran-T. Eventually, themilitary even withdrew their Technical Requirements

for Buran-T [62].

Also reflecting the lack of interest in Buran-Twas the struggle by NPO Energiya to get approval

for a suitable cryogenic upper stage, a key elementof the future rocket. In December 1984 a govern-ment resolution had tasked KB Salyut with develop-

ing a unified series of cryogenic upper stages for awide variety of rockets: Shtorm ('Gale') for the Pro-ton, Vikhr ('Whirlwind') for Groza and a heavy Zenit

called 11K37, Smerch ('Tornado') for Buran-T andVezuviy ('Vesuvius') for Vulkan. Manufacturing was

Fig. 11 The Skif-DM/Polyus spacecraft. Key: 1. nose fairing,2. solar arrays, 3. working-medium, 4. exhaust system, 5.experimental approach and docking system, 6. radar antenna,7. targets, A. FGB propulsion system, B. FGB instrument andpayload section, C. upper structural adapter, D. gas tanks, E.energy section, F. special equipment section, G. bottom fairing,H. lower structural adapter, I. section with deployable targets.(source: “Zemlya i vselenneya” magazine)

Fig. 12 Energiya/Polyus on the launch pad.(source: Boris Gubanov)

262

Bart Hendrickx

to take place at the Krasnoyarsk Machine BuildingPlant. By late 1985 KB Salyut came up with a plan

for using improved versions of the 11D56 engine,developed back in the 1960s by KB Khimmash forthe N-1 rocket. With its thrust of 7.1 tons and spe-

cific impulse of 461 s, it was well suited for KBSalyut�s own Proton, but did not meet the require-ments that NPO Energiya had set out for Smerch.

In August 1987 the Minister of General MachineBuilding Oleg Baklanov gave the go-ahead only for theShtorm upper stage of Proton and in July 1988 his

successor Vitaliy Doguzhiyev directed NPO Energiyato propose its own upper stages for Buran-T and Vulkanand have them built at NPO Energiya�s Volga branch

in Kuybyshev, which was also responsible for con-structing Energiya�s core stage. NPO Energiya set itssights on the RO-95, an open-cycle LOX/LH2 engine

under development at KBKhA in Voronezh. With athrust of 10 tons and a specific impulse of 475 s, itoutperformed the 11D56M by a considerable margin

and was also optimised for use in Vulkan�s Vezuviyupper stage. Unlike the upper stage that KB Salyuthad proposed, NPO Energiya�s Smerch had the LOX

tank on top, which was more favourable in terms ofcentre-of-gravity requirements and also made it easierto ignite the engine in zero gravity. Technical Require-

ments for the RO-95 were sent to KBKhA in December1988 and test firings of the engine were expected tobegin in 1991-1992. Yet in February 1989 Doguzhiyev

seems to have turned around his earlier decision bylimiting work on cryogenic upper stage engines to KBKhimmash�s 11D56U, arguing that there were no

payloads in the pipeline for Buran-T and Vulkan thatjustified the development of an entirely new engine[63].

5.2.4 GK-199 and Globis

Meanwhile, on 15 November 1988 Energiya vehicle

1L had launched Buran on a successful maidenunmanned test flight. Even though the assembly ofEnergiya vehicle 2L was nearing completion, the next

Buran flight was not scheduled until 1991. Therefore,engineers tabled a stopgap proposal to launch 2Lwith two satellites that would usually be orbited sepa-

rately by the Proton rocket, an unidentifiedgeostationary communications satellite and an Uragannavigation satellite for the Glonass network. Few de-

tails have been released about this configuration,known as GK-199, only that the satellites would havebeen housed in a a Polyus type canister with the nose

shroud of the Proton rocket. Two Blok-DM upper stageswere probably required to inject the satellites intotheir proper orbits. One other objective of the launch

was to test the parachute recovery of Energiya�s strap-

on boosters. A Draft Plan was drawn up for the GK-199 mission and approved at meetings of the Council

of Chief Designers in March and May 1989. The 2Lvehicle was expected to be ready for roll-out to thepad by March 1990. However, the project received

only lukewarm support from the Ministry of GeneralMachine Building, which argued there was no room inits budget for such a flight [64].

An ultimate appeal to get approval for the missionwas made in early May 1989 at a critical meeting of

the Council of Defence devoted to the future of theEnergiya/Buran project. Chaired by Gorbachov, theCouncil accepted the GK-199 proposal and also de-

cided to cut back the amount of orbiters from five tothree and reduce the number of Buran test flightsfrom ten to five, with the next one taking place in the

first quarter of 1991. The decisions of the Councilwere consolidated by a government decree in July1989. Meanwhile, however, some important changes

were taking place at NPO Energiya. On 21 August1989, some seven months after the death of Glushko,Yuriy P. Semyonov was officially named the new gen-

eral designer of the organisation. Evidently, Semyonovwas not a supporter of the GK-199 plan. The followingmonth he ordered preparations for the mission to be

stopped and reorient the Energiya 2L vehicle to thelaunch of a giant prototype geostationary communi-cations satellite.

The idea to use Energiya to launch heavy comsatplatforms had originated in 1988 as a result of ef-forts to find useful payloads for Energiya, the exist-

ence of which could no longer be justified on thebasis of Buran alone. Studies showed that a smallnetwork of such platforms could vastly improve com-

munications links over the vast territory of the So-viet Union and eliminate the need to regularly launchsmaller communications satellites, thereby prevent-

ing overcrowding of the geostationary belt. It wasestimated that three such satellites could replace32 conventional communications satellites. Origi-

nally known as the 'Universal Space Platform' (UKP),the satellites were later renamed Globis (Fig. 13).

Semyonov showed himself a staunch supporter

of the idea even before being assigned to the toppost at NPO Energiya, defending the need to buildsuch satellites at the May 1989 meeting of the Coun-

cil of Defence and several days later at the Councilof Ministers. This resulted in a decision to hold acompetition on developing future communications

satellite systems, which also involved NPO PM inKrasnoyarsk, which had had a monopoly in the fielduntil then and naturally was vigorously opposed

against the Globis concept, which it saw as a case

263


of inventing a payload to fit a rocket. Theoriginal plan was to launch a prototype

satellite weighing 13-15 tons on theEnergiya 2L rocket in late 1992-1993(probably to be preceded by one or more

Buran flights using Energiyas with subse-quent serial numbers). It would be deliv-ered to geostationary orbit by a duo of

modified Blok-DM stages known togetheras 204GK. The first generation of opera-tional satellites, weighing 16-18 tons,

would be launched using the same 204GKupper stage combination in 1994-1995 andthe second generation, weighing 21-23

tons, would be launched beginning in 1996using a cryogenic upper stage. Severalprofiles were studied to place the satel-

lites into geostationary orbit, including oneusing a circumnavigation of the Moon (atechnique used in 1998 to place the

stranded Asiasat-3 communications sat-ellite into its proper orbit).

After much lobbying the project was

sanctioned by a decree of Gorbachovsigned on 5 February 1991. In May of thatyear Semyonov approved a new deploy-

ment plan, with the first generation satel-lites to fly in 1996-1998 (mainly servingthe Soviet Union) and the second genera-

tion (to be used for global communica-tions) to follow in 1999-2000. Prospectsfor Globis seemed relatively good and it was the

only payload other than Buran that stood a goodchance of flying on Energiya in the near future.However, after the failed August 1991 coup and the

resulting collapse of the Soviet Union, work on theproject slowed down as the money ran out. On 1July 1992 the government of the Russian Federa-

tion approved a plan to continue work on Globis ona commercial basis, but the necessary financialsupport was not found and the project was closed

down along with Energiya in mid-1993 [65].

Other payloads considered for Energiya in the late1980s and early 1990s were large 90-ton modules for

the Mir-2 space station and an 88-ton space factoryknown as TMP. The Mir-2 modules were to be orbitedwith the help of a Blok-DM derived upper stage in a

configuration of Buran-T called 14A10. In 1991 budgetcuts forced these plans to be cancelled in favour of adownsized Mir-2 with 20-ton modules [66]. The TMP, a

KB Salyut design incorporating an FGB section (likePolyus), was a giant automatic materials processingfacility to be periodically visited by cosmonauts for

repair and maintenance [67].

5.3 Vulkan

The modular design of the Energiya rocket familymade it possible to increase the number of strap-onsto six and eight. As described earlier, initial plans for

such rockets (RLA-132, RLA-133, GTK-6) were workedout in 1978 based on the Energiya design with thedual-element core stage. After the basic Energiya de-

sign was frozen in 1979, planning for such superheavyversions of Energiya continued, albeit at a slow pace.A standard Energiya with six strap-ons was appar-

ently considered, although it was hardly ever openlydiscussed by Russian officials [68]. Such a configura-tion also appeared in a joint Soviet/American Interna-

tional Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle studied in the early1990s. This would have had six Energiya strap-onsattached to a core stage using six STME engines, then

being developed for America�s National Launch Sys-tem. This IHLLV would have had the payload mountedon top [69].

A vehicle that was regularly mentioned was anEnergiya with eight strap-ons, known as Vulkan (�Vol-

cano�). With the lower section of the core stage

Fig. 13 One configuration studied for the Globis communications platform.(source: RKK Energiya)

Space Platform for IntegratedSatellite Information System

• Mass 17.8 t• Payload Module Mass 7.6 t• Electric Power Supply System

Total Power 15 kWPower forPayload Module 12 kW

• Board Antenna OrientationAccurcy 0.1 o

• Accuracy of AttitudeControl System 0.1 o

• Life Time 10 years• Ecological Data Gathered from 100000

Groud-Based Transducers

Solar Panels

Multipurpose Space Platform

Thermal Control System Radiator

Antenna for L5/L6 and 4/6 GHzBands (Diameter 8.5 m)

Payload Module

Antenna for 11/14 GHzBands (Diameter 3.5 m)

Antenna for 12 GHzBands (Diameter 1.5 m)

Antenna for 18 GHzBands (Diameter 1 m)

Phased Array for11/14 GHz Bands

Secondary Antenna Reflectorfor L5/L6 and 4/6 GHz(Diameter 2.5 m)

264

Bart Hendrickx

completely surrounded by four pairs of strap-ons,the payload and upper stage were mounted atop

the core stage as in a conventional rocket. The strap-on and core-stage tanks were stretched and thestrap-ons did not have the parachute recovery sys-

tems of the standard Energiya. Vulkan would haverequired the development of a new adapter plat-form to place it on the launch pad. Launches would

only have taken place from the UKSS pad, whichwas built from the beginning with a view to support-ing Vulkan launches in the future.

Two slightly different versions of Vulkan have beendescribed in Russian literature. One used the same

RD-0120 and RD-170 engines as the standard Energiyaand was capable of placing 170 tons into a low 50.7°orbit. Equipped with an 11D57M cryogenic upper stage

engine of the KB Saturn/Lyulka design bureau (vacuumthrust 42 tons, specific impulse 460s), it could inject a28 ton payload into geostationary orbit. This version

of Vulkan is shown in Fig. 14 [70].

The other version carried uprated first and second

stage engines and the Vezuviy cryogenic upper stage,probably outfitted with the RO-95 engine of KBKhA.The uprated first stage engines were known as RD-

179 and had a sea-level thrust of 860 t (as comparedto 740 t for the RD-170), while the core stage enginesretained the RD-0120 designator and had a sea-level

thrust of 175 t (as compared to 147.6 t for the stand-ard RD-0120). The following payload capacities aregiven: 200 tons in a low 50.7° orbit, 172 tons in a 97°

orbit, 36 tons to geostationary orbit, 43 tons to lunarorbit and 52 tons to Mars [71]. Although this cannot beconfirmed, it would seem the first version was an

early proposal that was later superseded by the morecapable one.

The development of Vulkan seems to have beenset in motion by a government decree released in July1981, which called for making Technical Proposals

for the rocket within the next five years. The TechnicalRequirements that formed the basis for these propos-als were issued in July 1982. With a payload capacity

of around 200 tons, Vulkan was seen by the Russiansas a rocket that could play a crucial role in futuremanned missions to Mars and other planets of the

solar system. It was the subject of further govern-ment resolutions between 1983 and 1986, but timelinesfor its development remained vague as no concrete

payloads were ever defined for it.

5.4 Groza and Energiya-M

In the course of Energiya�s history several studies

were made of configurations in which the core stage

was flanked by just two strap-ons, providing LEO ca-pacities of between about 30 and 60 tons. As pointed

out earlier, the first such proposals were submitted in1976-1978 based on the preliminary designs ofEnergiya then being considered. However, planning

for a lightweight version of Energiya does not seem tohave begun in earnest until the early to mid-1980s. Itwas mentioned along with Buran-T and Vulkan in gov-

ernment resolutions in February and May 1983, butthe most important milestone came on 25 December1984, when the Soviet government released a major

resolution on rocket and space systems to be devel-oped in the period 1986-1995. One of these was to bea series of rockets with payload capacities of be-

tween 30 and 60 tons, although it is not clear whatpayloads exactly were being eyed. Three systemswere adopted for parallel studies: a modernised ver-

sion of the Proton rocket, several heavier versions ofthe Zenit called 11K37 and an Energiya with two strap-

Fig. 14 The Vulkan rocket. (source: RKK Energiya)

View A

16500

8800

052

000

A

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ons called Groza ('Thunderstorm'). As mentioned ear-lier, these boosters were to use a standardised series

of cryogenic upper stages, Shtorm for Proton andVikhr for the 11K37 and Groza.

The Draft Plan for Groza was completed in De-

cember 1985. Essentially, all that designers had todo was to dust off the 1976 plans for the RLA-125.In fact, some sources make no distinction between

the names RLA-125 and Groza. The only significantdifference with the 1976 version was that the corestage had the somewhat smaller dimensions of the

post-1978 Energiya design. Strangely enoughthough, Groza had a reported LEO capacity of up to63 tons, more than the 1976 design. The Cargo

Transport Container strapped to the side would bea donwsized version of that being developed forBuran-T. Groza required virtually no modifications

to the existing Energiya pads. All that needed to bedone was to bolt the strap-ons more firmly to thepad because the rocket would be more susceptible

to high winds. Because of this the launch weatherrules were also tightened.

On 18 August 1988 the Ministry of General Ma-

chine Building ordered NPO Energiya to modify theDraft Plan for Groza in order to make it compatiblewith more realistic payloads of between 25 and 40

tons in mass. This made it necessary to reduce thenumber of RD-0120 engines to one or two and hencemake the core stage smaller. The first idea was to

reduce the diameter of the core stage to 4.1 m or5.5 m and lower the propellant mass to between200 and 450 tons. However, since this would have

required different manufacturing techniques, it wasdecided to retain the standard Energiya core stagediameter of 7.7 m. By late 1989 engineers were

focussing on a version with one RD-0120 engineand a propellant mass of around 240 tons. With thecore stage (called Blok-V) only about half as high as

that of Energiya, the payload had to be stacked ontop rather than strapped to the side. At the intersec-tion between the core stage and the payload bay

the rocket would taper off to a diameter of 6.7 m,the same as that of the 14S70 Cargo TransportContainer of Buran-T, although it would only be

25 m high (it probably was almost identical in di-mensions to the GTK for Groza) (Fig. 15). The con-cept was approved by the Council of Chief Design-

ers on 19 July 1990. First called Neytron ('Neutron'),the new rocket eventually became known asEnergiya-M.

Four configurations were considered for the pay-load bay, one in which the satellite would occupy the

entire bay and have its own engine system (N11) andFig. 15 Cut-away drawing of Energiya-M with payload.

(source: RKK Energiya)

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Bart Hendrickx

Fig. 17 Energiya-M with winged flyback boosters andspaceplane. ( source: RKK Energiya)

Fig. 16 Various upper stage/payload configurations for Energiya-M.(source: RKK Energiya)

three where the satellite would be attached to various

upper stages (N12, N14 and N15) [72] (Fig. 16). TheN12 was a Blok-DM modification with an engine knownas the 11D58MF and was also planned for use on

Zenit, Proton and the original Angara. It allowed therocket to place 29 tons into low Earth orbit or up to 3tons into geostationary orbit. The N14 was a Blok-DM

modification with the standard 11D58M engine andwas identical to the second stage of the 204GK upperstage combination planned for Buran-T. It was capa-

ble of delivering a 5.5 ton payload to geostationaryorbit. The N15, able to launch 6.5 tons intogeostationary orbit, was a LOX/LH2 upper stage but

no further information on this is available. It is knownthat in 1992 work got underway on a LOX/LH2 upperstage known as Yastreb carrying the RO-97 engine of

KBKhA. This stage was primarily intended for Proton,Zenit and Angara, but with slight modifications couldalso be mounted on Energiya-M. However, it was

smaller than the N15 and also had its propellant tanksconfigured differently.

As early as 1990 a mock-up of Energiya-M was

built and rolled out to the pad at Baykonur. It wasactually placed on both the UKSS pad and one of theEnergiya/Buran pads, demonstrating it was compat-

ible with both. It was only afterwards, on 8 April 1991,that the government issued a decree ordering NPOEnergiya, NPO Yuzhnoye and KB Salyut to come up

with competing proposals for boosters in the 25 to 40ton payload range. This basically was a repeat of theorder given in the 25 December 1984 resolution, al-

though in a somewhat lighter payload class. KB Salyutand NPO Yuzhnoe had apparently also been optimisingtheir Proton and 11K37 designs. Eventually, on 6 July

1991 the Ministry of General Machine Building opted

for Energiya-M. Between 1991 and 1993 preparationswere made for starting production of flight models.

During that period NPO Energiya worked out plansto launch a 35 ton spaceplane (OK-M2) atop the rocketand also to turn the two strap-ons into reusable fly-

back boosters, something which appears to have beenstudied as early as 1989 (Fig. 17). Another idea was tolaunch the rocket from an ocean-based platform near

the equator. This would not only allow Energiya-M to

N11 N12 N14 N15

267


loft heavier payloads, but would also resolve the politi-cal problems associated with flying it from Baykonur,

which became foreign territory after the collapse ofthe Soviet Union. One exotic mission considered forthe ocean-launched Energiya-M was to deposit radio-

active waste into heliocentric orbits, eliminating therisks involved in launching such dangerous payloadsover populated territories. These studies formed the

basis for the creation of the international Sea Launchventure, which would eventually use the three-stageZenit rocket.

Despite the fact that Energiya-M used existinghardware and infrastructure and outperformed rock-

ets like the Titan-4 and Ariane-5, it was ahead of itstime. At the time there was simply no demand forthe type of satellites that the rocket could place into

orbit. On 15 September 1992 the Russian govern-ment started yet another competition to develop afamily of even lighter rockets, which would eventu-

ally evolve into the Angara series. By late 1993 gov-ernment funding for Energiya-M was stopped, withRussian Space Agency officials stating there was

no demand for the rocket on the market. The follow-ing year NPO Energiya made an ultimate attempt tointerest Western customers in Energiya-M and other

Energiya variants, but without success [73].

6. Making Energiya Reusable

The ultimate dream of the Energiya designers was

to develop a rocket that would be fully reusable. Ofcourse, one of the things that made it so expensivewas the fact that the core stage and strap-ons were

expendable. The plan was to achieve full reusabilityin various steps.

6.1 Reusable Strap-ons

In the first step the Blok-A strap-on boosters were

to be recovered and reused after their separationfrom the core stage. This was actually foreseen bythe original Energiya plans drawn up in 1976. One

of the requirements for the RD-170 engine was thatit could be ignited 20 times, 10 times for test firingsand 10 times in flight. Several techniques were stud-

ied for recovering the strap-ons, including para-chutes, aerodynamic surfaces and jet engines orcombinations of those. Both horizontal and vertical

landings were considered on runways, specially pre-pared surfaces or in the nominal Blok A landingzone. Another topic of discussion was whether to

bring the strap-ons down in pairs or individually.

In the end preference was given to a horizontal

Fig. 18 Recovery of Blok-A strap-on boosters. Key: 1. T-0: liftoff, 2. T+135s: separation of two pairs of strap-ons (altitude 52 km),3. T+150-160s: strap-ons separate from one another (altitude 63-70 km), 4. T+220s: orientation prior to re-entry (altitude 82 k m),5. T+285s: drag chute deployment (altitude 58 km), 6. T+300-400s: descent on drag chute (altitude 50-5 km), 7. T+450-500s: mainchute deployment (altitude 5 km), 8. T+490-540s: main chute repositioned (altitude 3-4 km), 9. T+650-750s: soft-landing enginesignited. (source: Boris Gubanov)

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Bart Hendrickx

Fig. 19 The winged core stage with standard strap-onboosters. (source: “Science in the USSR” magazine)

landing system using parachutes, soft-landing en-gines and a set of shock absorbers. The strap-ons

would separate from the core stage in pairs andthen separate from each other 15 to 30 secondslater to begin their descent back to Earth individu-

ally. The plan had much in common with the landingof the giant MTKVP lifting body that had been stud-ied before the delta-wing concept of Buran was

picked. A detailed scheme of the separation anddescent sequence is shown in Fig. 18.

The strap-ons were designed from the beginningwith special compartments in their nose and bot-tom sections to house the parachutes, other recov-

ery systems and control equipment. On the twoEnergiya missions that were flown (6SL and 1L) norecovery system was carried and the compartments

were stowed full with instrumentation instead. How-ever, there were plans to demonstrate the recoverytechnique on the 2L mission with the GK-199 pay-

load.

The parachute recovery of the strap-ons was

only seen as an interim solution. The system im-posed a heavy weight penalty on the Energiyarocket, causing it to lose six tons of payload capac-

ity. Moreover, the recovery of the strap-ons fromthe distant impact zones would have been a labori-ous and costly undertaking [74].

6.2 Energiya-2/GK-175

In early 1987 the first engineering proposals for afully reusable Energiya (Energiya-2/GK-175) were

finished and sent to the organisations involved. InDecember of that year the VPK gave the go-aheadto start work on the Technical Proposals for such

a system, which were finished in November 1988and approved by the Council of Chief Designersin January 1989. The ultimate goal was to develop

a system consisting of a first and second stagethat would both be equipped with aerodynamicsurfaces, enabling them to return to the Buran

runway at Baykonur for later reuse. The first stagewould consist of a single module equal in diam-eter to the second stage (7.7 m) and be equipped

with four RD-170 engines, thereby replacing thefour strap-ons in the standard Energiya design.The second stage, outfitted with three RD-0120

engines, would enter orbit, deploy its payload andreturn to Earth like Buran. Besides ensuring fullreusability, such a system would no longer make

it necessary to find safe impact zones for bothstages and therefore allow the use of an almostunlimited range of launch azimuths. It was ex-

pected to reduce launch costs 5 to 7 times.

The building of the second stage would be muchmore challenging than that of the first stage be-cause it needed to enter orbit and afterwards sur-

vive the searing heat of re-entry. Designers optedto develop the more complex second stage first andthen use that experience to build the equally-sized

269


first stage later on. Therefore, before the introduc-

tion of the flyback first stage, Energiya-2 would flywith a flyback core stage and four standard Energiyastrap-on boosters (Fig. 19).

In order to cut costs, the core stage would inheritas many systems from Buran as possible (wings,vertical stabilizer, landing gear, avionics and hy-

draulics systems). It was not considered expedientthough to cover the stage with Buran�s heat-resist-ant tiles and efforts focused instead on using inno-

vative non-ablative and active cooling thermal pro-tection systems. Of course, all the hardware neededto return the core stage back to Earth would make it

far too heavy if it were to carry the same amount ofpropellant as a standard Energiya core stage. Cal-culations showed that in the configuration with four

standard Blok-A strap-ons, the propellant mass ofthe core stage would have to be lowered by 220tons and the number of RD-0120 engines reduced

from four to three accordingly. With the overall di-mensions of the core stage remaining the same,some 610 m³ of volume became available on top for

mounting the payload, which compared favourablyto the 350 m³ offered by Buran�s cargo bay. Themassive nose fairing would not separate during as-

cent, but open in space, somewhat like the forwardcargo door of a Lockheed C-5 transport aircraft,allowing it to be reused on subsequent flights

(Fig. 20).

Wind tunnel tests at TsAGI showed that with thegiven aerodynamic surfaces and angles of attack

of 35-40° it would be very difficult to keep the 60 mlong core stage stable at the hypersonic speeds ofre-entry. Engineers devised an original solution to

this problem. After deployment of the payload, thefairing would slide down over the LOX tank so that

the core stage would shrink in size from 60 to 44 m,

just about 8 m longer than Buran and enough toprevent the stability problems during re-entry. Land-ing mass and velocity of the core stage would be

roughly similar to Buran. It had a cross-range capa-bility of 1250 km, about 750 km less than Buran.There were plans to drop a flyback core stage from

a Mriya transport aircraft from an altitude of 7-8 kmto study its behaviour at low speeds.

Designers planned to begin the flight tests with

unmodified RD-170 and RD-0120 engines and todetermine on a flight-to-flight basis if the RD-0120engines could be reused. This configuration was

capable of orbiting 29 tons, just about the same asBuran. However, there were plans to uprate theRD-170 engines from 806 to 850 tons vacuum thrust

(a version known as 14D20) and the RD-0120 from200 to 230 tons vacuum thrust with the necessarymodifications to reuse it ten times (a version known

as RD-0122 or 14D12). If all those modified engineswere carried, payload capacity would grow to 40tons.

The launch profile called for the core stageto place itself in an initial elliptical orbit of about110 x 200 km, with an auxiliary engine unit circular-

ising that orbit about 40 minutes later. The auxiliaryunit housed 12 low-thrust LOX/kerosene engines witha pressure-feed system which drew their oxidizer

from the core stage�s main LOX tank (and had noapparent relation to Buran�s orbital manoeuvringengines). There were also plans for a LOX/LH2 sys-

tem that would completely rely on the core stage�spropellant supplies. The payload was supposed tobe deployed on the very first orbit, although there

were back-up opportunities on orbits 2 and 3, afterwhich the core stage could still return to Soviet

Fig. 20 Cut-away drawing of thewinged core stage.


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Bart Hendrickx

territory. After the retraction of the nose fairing theauxiliary engine system would provide a 70 m/s ret-rofire burn to drop the stage out of orbit.

Around 1989 it was decided to perform a secondintermediate step. Early plans for the Energiya-M

booster included a concept with two flyback boostersabout the size of the standard Blok-A strap-ons. Engi-neers thought it made sense to make those boosters

compatible with Energiya-2 and use them until theintroduction of the big first stage (Fig. 21). The strap-ons would be equipped with long foldout wings, a V-

shaped tail and a small jet engine enabling them to flyback to the launch site after separation from the corestage. The jet engine could be mounted either on a

pylon near the stage�s centre of gravity or inside afairing in the booster�s nose, which would house atoroidal kerosene tank (Fig. 22). Although the idea

was tempting, the landing of four strap-ons in quicksuccession on the single Baykonur runway would prob-ably have caused tremendous logistical problems.

In the final stage the four flyback strap-ons wouldthen be replaced by a first stage equal in size to the

second stage and with similar landing systems, butwithout thermal protection and equipped with fourRD-170 engines. This vehicle would have a payload

capacity of between 30 and 50 tons. By using twosuch first stages it would be possible to increasepayload capacity to 200 tons, about the same as the

Vulkan with its eight strap-ons. There was even anin idea to use four of the large first stages andlengthen the second stage to reach a phenomenal

payload capacity of 500 tons. Despite the impres-sive prospects, any of those three variants wouldprobably have required major modifications to the

existing Enerigya launch pads.

Also planned was a switch to tripropellant en-

Fig. 21 The winged core stage withflyback boosters.


gines which would burn oxygen and kerosene dur-ing the initial stages of the launch and then switchto oxygen and hydrogen. Although primarily intended

as an unmanned cargo carrier, Energiya-2 could inprinciple also have carried big manned spacecraftin its huge payload bay. Provisions were even made

for equipping the core stage with jet engines so thata crew could fly it from the manufacturer to thecosmodrome and back as an ordinary aircraft.

Not surprisingly, all these bold proposals faced anuphill battle as the budgets for the space programme

became ever tighter towards the end of the 1980s.Cost estimates performed by the Ministry of GeneralMachine Building in the middle of 1989 produced far

less optimistic results than the Technical Proposalsput forward several months earlier. Work on Energiya-2 was officially cancelled at an NPO Energiya meeting

held on 31 August 1989, just days after Yuriy Semyonovwas named the organisation�s new general designer.Boris Gubanov, who by that time was trying to set up

an independent design bureau to work on heavy-liftrockets, continued to promote the Energiya-2 idea,but to no avail. The only spin-off from the Energiya-2

studies is Baykal, a reusable flyback booster nowbeing proposed as a first stage for the Angara rocketfamily. This incorporates many ideas that had origi-

nally been conceived for Energiya-2�s flyback strap-ons [75].

7. The Zenit Family

7.1. The 11K77

Also usually classified as a member of the Energiyafamily is the medium-lift Zenit rocket. Developed by

the NPO Yuzhnoye in Dnepropetrovsk, it uses a modi-fied Energiya strap-on booster as its first stage. Theimpression has often been created that the Zenit

271


rocket originated as a means to test the first stagestrap-ons of Energiya. However, new evidence that

has emerged in recent years clearly shows thatZenit was conceived well before Energiya and that itwas only in a later stage of its development that the

decision was made to unify their first stages. Ini-tially, the rocket was simply known as the 11K77and the name Zenit did not appear until much later.

The roots of the Zenit programme can be tracedback to the late 1960s/early 1970s, when Mikhail

Yangel, the chief designer of NPO Yuzhnoye, accepteda proposal from A.A. Maksimov, the first deputy com-mander of TsUKOS (the forerunner of GUKOS), to

begin studies of a medium-lift launch vehicle that couldorbit future military satellites [76]. Initial planning fo-cused on a rocket based on the R-36M ICBM. This

followed a tradition at Yuzhnoye of converting nuclearmissiles into space launch vehicles (as had been donewith the R-12, R-14 and R-36). Design work on the R-

36M had begun in 1964 and the government had givenits official go-ahead for the ICBM in September 1969.The rocket used Energomash closed-cycle engines

burning nitrogen tetroxide/UDMH. Several optionsseem to have been studied for R-36M based launchvehicles, one of them having a first stage consisting

of two R-36M first stages and with a payload capacityof 10 tons to low orbit [77].

When the results of the Poisk studies were ap-proved by the Ministry of Defence in late 1973,Yuzhnoye was forced to abandon the R-36M based

Fig. 22 Cut-away drawing of a flyback booster. (source: RKK Energiya)

launch vehicle with its toxic propellants and switchto LOX/kerosene. The reincarnated version of the

11K77 had two first-stage modules each equippedwith three single-chamber RD-124 engines and asecond stage with a single RD-125 engine. The three

RD-124 engines had a combined ground thrust of337 tons and a specific impulse of 302.4 s and theRD-125 was a high-altitude version of the RD-124

with a vacuum thrust of 130.2 tons and a specificimpulse of 350 s. Experimental work on these closed-cycled engines seems to have begun at Energomash

in late 1973, with the Ministry of General MachineBuilding giving the go-ahead for their developmenton 13 September 1974.

Despite the switch to the new propellant combina-tion, Yuzhnoye tried to retain many of the ideas used

in the R-36M derived launch vehicle. The basic con-figuration (two first stage modules, one second stagemodule) remained the same and the individual rocket

modules had the same 3.0 m diameter as those of theR-36M, so that no principally new manufacturing tech-niques were required. Also, the configuration of the

combustion chambers was largely similar to those ofthe R-36M, which had roughly the same parameters.An initial Draft Plan for the 11K77 is known to have

been completed in December 1974 and this is likely tohave involved this particular configuration of the11K77. Even though the Poisk studies had recom-

mended a maximum standardisation of rocket stagesand engines, there seems to have been no talk at thispoint of unifying the first stage of the 11K77 with that

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Bart Hendrickx

of the RLA family, which was to use 1000+ t LOX/kerosene engines. In Glushko�s mid-1974 plans it was

the RLA-120 that was supposed to act as a test bedfor the superheavy launchers [78].

By early 1975 NPO Energiya�s Energomash branch

was working on a four-chamber LOX/kerosene enginewith a thrust of 680 tons, almost exactly twice that ofthe RD-124. This made it possible to replace the two

modules of the first stage by a single module, al-though its diameter would have to be increased to 3.9m, which was the maximum that could be transported

by rail. It was at this stage that the 11K77 becamewhat the Russians call a 'monoblock' booster [79]. Acrucial question is whether the 680 ton engine was

originally developed for the 11K77, for NPO Energiya�sheavy-lift boosters or for both. Although the jury is stillout on this, there are indications that the design of this

engine was originally geared to the medium-lift boosterand was later modified for Energiya. Possibly, thedecision to use the same type of engine on the first

stage of the heavy-lift rocket did not come until it wasrealised that the 1000-1200 t thrust engines earmarkedfor the RLA rockets could not be built with the technol-

ogy available at the time.

Glushko is known to have visited NPO Yuzhnoye

in the middle of 1975 to agree on the level to whichthe first stages of 11K77 and Energiya would beunified, an idea which many at Yuzhnoye are said tohave greeted with little enthusiasm. Anyway, Glushko

and Yuzhnoye chief designer Vladimir Utkin (whoreplaced Yangel after the latter�s death in October1971) agreed that Yuzhnoye would only develop the

hardware for Energiya�s first stage that was identi-cal to that of the 11K77 and that all modificationsnecessary for Energiya would be the responsibility

of NPO Energiya [80].

Sources tend to be biased on the question as to

who exactly took the initiative to unify the first stages.An official biography of Glushko states: �� Glushkorealised his idea of developing an � intermediate

rocket to test the first stage engine of the Energiyain flight. For this purpose a medium-class rocketwas thought up, called the Zenit� [81]. Utkin claims

that the initiative came from him: �We agreed withGlushko that we have to go from simple to complexsystems, from a medium class booster, which was

Zenit, to Energiya and use for it as a booster thefirst stage of Zenit. Unfortunately, Glushko and evenone of my deputies later began to say that Energiya

appeared first and that only thereafter I proposedZenit. Perhaps the documents [proving that Zenitwas first] have not been kept, but I remember very

well how I tried to convince Glushko: we�ll launch

ten to fifteen Zenits and by the time Energiya comesalong the first stage will have been tested� [82].

The 11K77 was not the only medium-lift launchvehicle proposed in the mid-1970s. According to Utkinthere were three competing proposals [83]. One of

these was the UR-500MK of Chelomey�s TsKBM de-sign bureau, which actually was a common designa-tor for two rockets known as the 11K98 and 11K99. In

accordance with the recommendations of the Poiskplan, these were modifications of the UR-500K Protonrocket with modified NK-33 and NK-43 LOX/kerosene

engines of the Kuznetsov bureau. Actually, they hadvery little in common with the standard Proton, exceptfor the fact that the dimensions of the stages and

propellant tanks were roughly similar. Unlike the Pro-ton, they used parallel staging, having a central corewith a single NK-43M surrounded by boosters carry-

ing one NK-33M each. The 11K98 had three suchstrap-ons and with its payload capacity of up to 15tons was in the same class as the 11K77. The 11K99

was to carry six strap-ons and could orbit around 30tons, placing it in the same category as the smallestversion of the 11K37, an upgraded Zenit. The Ministry

of General Machine Building issued an order to startthe design of these rockets on 29 April 1975, but theproposal eventually lost out to the Zenit family. Pre-

sumably, the need to make serious modifications tothe existing Proton launch facilities was one of themajor drawbacks [84].

There are indications that another contender wasa rocket with NK engines put forward by the Kuybyshevbranch of the Korolyov bureau (headed by Dmitriy

Kozlov) in the early 1970s. The decision to unify thefirst stages of Zenit and Energiya undoubtedly madethe Yuzhnoye booster much more attractive than its

competitors. If Utkin really took the initiative to unifythe designs, one could even speculate this was thevery reason why he decided to do so. At any rate, the

apparently long road to the unification of the mediumand heavy-lift launch vehicles shows that the stand-ardisation of rockets advocated by the Poisk studies

was seriously hampered by design bureau interests.

An updated Draft Plan for the 11K77 was com-

pleted in December 1975 [85]. This was followed by agovernment resolution on 16 March 1976, which gavethe final go-ahead for the development of the 11K77

rocket, with the maiden launch expected in the sec-ond quarter of 1979. Coming just about a month afterthe government resolution on Energiya-Buran, it for-

malised agreements that had been made in the previ-ous months on unifying the Zenit and Energiya de-signs. Still in March Yuzhnoe gave Energomash the

required parameters for the first and second stage

273


engines. The first stage engine, the RD-171, was al-most identical to the RD-170 of Energiya with the

exception that it could be gimballed in only one axisrather than two. Actually, Yuzhnoye seems to havemade some concessions in agreeing to unify the first-

stage design, because the 740 ton thrust of the en-gine was said to be not ideal for Zenit [86]. Moreover,the requirements for Energiya stipulated that the first

stage (and hence) the engines be reusable, whichmust have placed additional demands on the enginethat were not relevant to the Zenit version.

The second stage was to be powered by the single-chamber RD-120 LOX/kerosene engine. Originally, thesecond stage engine was to have been developed by

KBKhA in Voronezh, but because that bureau was toopreocuppied with the development of the RD-0120LOX/LH2 engine for Energiya�s core stage, the task

was assigned to a team at Energomash headed byV.K. Chvanov. One of the reasons was that the devel-opment of this engine should get underway as soon

as possible so that engineers might learn the neces-sary lessons for the larger RD-170/171. Another im-portant factor was that Energomash had already de-

veloped a prototype LOX/kerosene engine based onthe RD-268 nitrogen tetroxide/UDMH engine, whichwas being serially produced for the first stage of

Yuzhnoye�s MR-UR-100 ICBM. This had characteris-tics that were very similar to those required for Zenit�ssecond stage. Although the RD-120�s vacuum thrust

of 85 tons was lower than that of the earlier proposedRD-125, its specific impulse of 350s was identical.Finally, the second stage was also to carry a four-

chamber vernier engine for thrust vector control. Thiswas developed in-house by NPO Yuzhnoye under theleadership of A.V. Klimov [87].

Clearly, the Zenit was primarily conceived for mili-tary missions. The payload that it was initially tailoredto was Tselina-2, a second-generation electronic in-

telligence satellite that was included for studies in thegovernment�s five-year plan for 1971-1975 and was tobe built by NPO Yuzhnoye (just like the 1st generation

Tselina-D satellites). Work on this system began inMarch 1973, with an early Draft Plan being completedin the first quarter of 1974. However, it is also possi-

ble that at this stage Tselina-2 was supposed to beorbited by the Tsiklon-3 rather than one of the early11K77 versions then being considered. When the fi-

nal, more capable version of Zenit appeared in 1976,the Ministry of General Machine Building offered it upfor launching Tselina-2, allowing the satellite�s mass

to be increased. That proposal was accepted by theVPK in April 1979 and made it possible to install asatellite data relay system aboard the satellites [88].

By May 1977 Zenit was also being considered to orbit

future generations of photographic reconnaissancesatellites [89]. Plans to launch civilian satellites (Okean-

O, Resurs-O) and manned spacecraft (such as NPOEnergiya�s 14F70/Zarya) on Zenit did not emerge untilmuch later.

Military considerations were also behind the choiceof the Zenit�s highly automated launch facilities, de-veloped by the Design Bureau of Transport Machine

Building (KBTM). These enabled several rockets to beplaced on stand-by and be launched in quick succes-sion from the two available Baykonur pads. The idea

was that Zenit could be used to swiftly replenish con-stellations of military satellites in case of an impend-ing conflict or if some of them were knocked out by

the enemy [90]. Actually, the decision to build Zenitlaunch pads at Baykonur seems to have been anotherconcession resulting from the decision to unify the

Energiya and Zenit designs. Originally, the 11K77 wassupposed to have flown only from Plesetsk, whichbecause of its northern location is ideally suited to

place military satellites into polar orbits. However,because all the Energiya-related infrastructure wasat Baykonur, it made more sense to build the Zenit

facilities there (even though processing of Energiyaand Zenit took place in different areas of thecosmodrome) [91]. A Zenit pad was later nearly com-

pleted at Plesetsk, but it never reached operationalstatus and is now being modified for launches of theAngara rockets.

The final Draft Plan for the 11K77 was completedin February 1977 (Fig. 23). By November 1977 early

development problems with the RD-170/171 forceda delay in the maiden Zenit launch to the third quar-ter of 1980. While testing of the RD-120 seems to

have proceeded smoothly (with a first test firing on31 January 1979), continuing problems with the firststage engines caused the launch date to slip re-

peatedly. The switch to the single-chamber MD-185engines considered for Energiya was also weighedfor Zenit. Eventually, Zenit made its maiden flight on

13 April 1985, almost six years later than originallyplanned. It continues to be used today, mainly in thethree-stage configuration for Sea Launch, which

carries a Blok-DM upper stage. Actually, plans forlaunching the 11K77 from an ocean-based platformoriginated at the KBTM as early as 1981, more than

a decade before the international Sea Launch ven-ture was established [92].

7.2 The 11K55, 11K66 and 11K37

Zenit was seen by NPO Yuzhnoye as just one rocketin its own family of launch vehicles. Proposals were

made for two light boosters (11K55 and 11K66) and

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Bart Hendrickx

a series of heavy-lift boosters (common designator11K37) which were all to be built on the basis ofZenit�s first stage. Along with Energiya, these would

have covered the complete spectrum of payloadmasses that featured in the Poisk studies.

Very little is known about the light boosters. The11K55 is known to have been proposed jointly dur-ing the 1980s by Yuzhnoye and PO Polyot in Omsk,

which in 1983 became responsible for the serialproduction of RD-170 and 171 engines (althoughnowadays the production line is at Energomash). It

was seen as a successor of PO Polyot�s Kosmos-

3M rocket [93]. A drawing has been released of anEnergiya/Zenit derived launch vehicle with a launchmass of 220 tons and a payload capacity of 4.7 kg

and this may either be the 11K55 or 11K66 (Fig. 24)[94].

NPO Yuzhnoye seems to have devised plans forheavy-lift versions of Zenit as early as the mid-1970s. There were two options. One was to mount

two RD-171 engines on the first stage, but that wouldhave required increasing the diameter of the stagebeyond the 3.9 m limit imposed by railroad trans-

port. The other solution was to work with multiple

Fig. 23 The Zenit rocket. (source: RKK Energiya) Fig. 24 Light booster based on Zenit.(source: RKK Energiya)

275


first stage modules joined together. Since eitheroption necessitated the building of a new launch

pad, these plans were considered very expensive,but they appear to have received the support ofVPK chairman L.V. Smirnov and one of his deputies

B.A. Komissarov. Early plans for the 11K77 launchfacilities at Baykonur took into account the need tobuild an additional pad for the 11K37 [95].

According to a history of NPO Yuzhnoye launchvehicles �the 11K37 launcher was offered as a multi-

variant launcher, adapted to the payload needed.This launcher could inject 30-60 tons into orbit, us-ing a group of two, three or four basic modules as

the first stage� [96]. One source describes the ver-sion with three first-stage modules as being builtaround a core stage carrying three LOX/kerosene

engines and a number of vernier engines. The LOX/kerosene engines have only been identified as11D18. With an estimated thrust of around 170-200

tons, the 11D18 may have been a cluster of two RD-120 or RD-146 engines or possibly a single-cham-ber version of the RD-170. Payload capacity for the

version with three strap-ons is given as 40 tons tolow orbit, 35 tons to polar orbit and about 5 tons togeostationary orbit [97].

As mentioned earlier, the 11K37 was later pro-posed by NPO Yuzhnoye in a competition started in

1984 to develop boosters in the 30-60 ton range.Other candidates were an uprated Proton rocketand Groza, the Energiya with two strap-ons. Also

put forward was a standardised family of cryogenicupper stages, with Groza and the 11K37 to use aversion known as Vikhr. In 1988/89 the Ministry of

General Machine Building approved a modified DraftPlan for the 11K37, but recommended to make therocket compatible with Energiya�s UKSS launch pad

at Baykonur [98]. It appears that around the sametime a decision was made to lower the payloadrange to 20-40 tons, with a new official competition

getting underway in early 1991. This involvedEnergiya-M and boosters developed by KB Salyutand Yuzhnoye, with the latter likely to have pro-

posed the 11K37 again. In July 1991 the choice fellon Energiya-M, which must have been the deathblow for the 11K37.

8. Conclusion

In retrospect, the only survivor of the unified family ofdedicated space launch vehicles recommended bythe Poisk studies in the early 1970s is Zenit, although

even that had its roots in the missile programme. Theheavy-lift Energiya vehicle was successfully devel-oped and flown and there is little doubt that its many

proposed derivatives would have followed suit hadthe money and the political will been available. How-ever, not only were these rockets prohibitively expen-

sive, the heavy payloads they were intended to orbitnever materialised, although they may do so at somepoint in the future. In many ways, the Energiya rocket

family was way ahead of its time.

Although the Russian rocket scene continues to be

dominated by ICBM-derived launch vehicles intro-duced in the 1960s, there is now a move towards anew family of unified launch vehicles called Angara.

The competition to develop this new class of rocketswas kicked off by the Russian government in 1992,before the United States announced the analogous

Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) pro-gramme. It was won by the Khrunichev Centre in 1994.After several design changes Khrunichev is now pro-

posing a wide array of rockets expected to make theirdebut in the course of this decade. They will be gearedto payloads of between 2-4 tons and 13-30 tons, which

still leaves several payload niches to be filled by otherrockets such as Soyuz. Interestingly, the engine to beused in Angara�s universal core module is the RD-

191, which is a single-chamber version of Energiya�sRD-170. Moreover, the RD-180, the two-chamber ver-sion of this engine, is now flying on the US Atlas-3 and

will also be used on the Atlas-5 EELV. Therefore it canbe said that Energiya at least to some degree lives onin the rocket programmes of the 21st century.

9. Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Phillip Clark, AsifSiddiqi and Timothy Varfolomeyev for supplyingmaterial for this article and for their comments.

Special thanks also to Nina V.Gubanova, the widowof Boris Gubanov, for providing copies of her hus-band�s memoirs.

References

1. Gubanov�s memoirs consist of four volumes, only thelast two of which deal with the Energiya/Buranprogramme: B. Gubanov, 'Triumf i tragediya Energii ,tom 3: Energiya-Buran', Izdatelstvo Nizhegorodskogoinstituta ekonomicheskogo razvitiya, Nizhniy Novgorod,1998 ; B. Gubanov, 'Triumf i tragediya Energii, tom 4:

Polyot v nebytiye', Izdatelstvo Nizhegorodskogoinstituta ekonomicheskogo razvitiya, Nizhniy Novgorod,1999. These will further be referred to as B. Gubanov,3, and B. Gubanov, 4. Gubanov�s memoirs are now alsoon-line on a Russian-language Buran website (homepage: http://www.buran.ru/)

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2. Y. Semyonov (ed.), �Raketno-kosmicheskayakorporatsiya Energiya imeni S.P. Korolyova 1946-1996�,RKK Energiya, Moscow, p.362, 1996; B. Gubanov, 3,pp.41-42, 279. Interestingly, the name Buran somehowleaked to the West in the early 1980s, see e.g.: C.Peebles, �The Soviet Space Shuttle�, Spaceflight, 36,p.196, 1994. One source suggests the first orbiter hadthe name Baykal painted on its side, but that Glushkoordered it to be renamed Buran not long before launch,see: M. Rebrov, �The Moor Has Done His Duty� (inRussian), Krasnaya Zvezda, 29 November 1997. It isknown that the name Baykal was painted on the side ofa full-scale mock-up of Buran (No. 004/OK-MT). Notethat Buran was also the name of a cancelled cruisemissile designed by the OKB-23 Lavochkin bureau inthe 1950s.

3. Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p.288; V.M. Filin, �Put k Energii�,Mashinostroyeniye, Moscow, pp.40-41, 1996.; B.Chertok, �Rakety i lyudi: lunnaya gonka�,Mashinostroyeniye, Moscow, p.467, 1999.

4. An account of this meeting is given in: B. Chertok, op.cit., pp. 472-488.

5. Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p.229; B. Gubanov, �Triumf itragediya Energii , tom 1: Letyashchiy ogon�,Izdatelstvo Nizhegorodskogo institutaekonomicheskogo razvitiya, Nizhniy Novgorod, p.332,2000. Experiments with this fuel had begun as early as1958 and were given fresh impetus by Korolyov in 1964/1965. Tsiklin was later used in the Blok-DM upper stageand the core stage of the Soyuz U2 rocket.

6. V. Rakhmanin and L. Sternin (ed.), �Odnazhdy inavsegda�, Mashinostroyeniye, Moscow, p.602, 1998.

7. I. Yevteyev, �Operezhaya vremya�, Bioinformservis,Moscow, pp.475-483, 1999; A. Siddiqi, �Challenge toApollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974�, NASA, Washington DC, p.752, 2000.

8. B. Gubanov, 3, p.56.9. A particularly bad accident occurred on 2 April 1969,

when a Proton carrying a Mars probe caught fire duringliftoff and impacted some three kilometres from thelaunch pad.

10. V. Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-kosmicheskiye sily, kniga 1�, Izdatelstvo Sankt-Peterburgskoi tipografii, Moscow, pp.237-239, 1997.

11. V. Rakhmanin and L. Sternin, op. cit., p.603.12. B. Gubanov, 3, p.56, 92.13. It is possible that they were also named Groza

('Thunder '), Grom ('Thunderstorm') and Vulkan('Volcano'), although these have been associated witha different series of launch vehicles. See: G.S. Vetrov,'Development of the Heavy Launch Vehicles in theUSSR', paper presented at the 10th InternationalSymposium on the History of Astronautics andAeronautics at Moscow State University, 20-27 June1995. In a summary made by Peter Gorin in September1995, Vetrov is quoted as saying: 'When Glushko cameto NPO Energiya, he proposed three projects to replacethe N-1 �. Groza with two first-stage blocks, Grom withfour first-stage blocks and Vulkan with eight first-stageblocks'. The names Groza (or RLA-125) and Vulkan wereindeed used for versions of Energiya carrying two andeight strap-on boosters respectively, but these launchvehicles did not yet exist in 1974. It is therefore possiblethat these names were originally used for the RLA-120and RLA-150 and were later retained for Energiya-derived boosters having roughly the same payloadcapacity. For some reason Grom was later not used forthe standard Energiya with four strap-on boosters.

14. The reconstruction of the RLA rockets is from MarkWade�s on-line Encyclopedia Astronautica (home page:http://www.astronautix.com) using data from B.

Chertok, op. cit., pp. 472-488. Calculations made byTimofey Varfolomeyev show that with the 1000-1200thrust engines the ratio between the launch mass andfirst-stage thrust was probably too low. It is possiblethat Glushko was actually counting on the RD-150,which was to have a thrust of up to 1500 t. TechnicalProposals for this engine were finished in June 1974,which coincided with Glushko�s arrival at NPO Energiya(e-mail correspondence between TimothyVarfolomeyev and the author, 14 September 2001).

15. Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p. 540, 639. Later it would buildEnergiya�s core stage.

16. B. Chertok, op. cit., p.473. Other sources also confirmthat a lunar base was seen as the main goal:Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p.288, 362 ; B. Gubanov, 3, p.38.

17. The Zvezda plans are outlined in detail by the followingsources: I. Afanasyev, �Unknown Ships� (in Russian),Astronomiya, Kosmonavtika (Znaniye), 12/1991, pp.60-62 (complete issue translated in, JPRS Report, 27 May1992); I. Afanasyev, �The Lunar Theme After N-1/L-3�(in Russian), Aviatsiya i kosmonavtika, 2/1993, pp.42-44;Y. Semyonov, op. cit., pp.281-286. For a summary see:L. Van Den Abeelen, �The Persistent Dream: SovietPlans For Manned Lunar Missions�, JBIS, 52, pp.123-126, 1999. All these sources refer to the launch vehicleas Vulkan, but this must have been the early version ofthe rocket (the RLA-150), not the Energiya-based rocketwith eight strap-on boosters.

18. Some of these accounts must be taken with a grain ofsalt. For instance, some sources rather simplisticallycreate the impression that Buran was a response tothe Strategic Defence Initiative, not taking into accountthat SDI was started in 1983, seven years after Buran.See for instance: V. Filin, op. cit., pp. 40-41.

19. Y. Golovanov, �Just Where Are We Flying To ?� (inRussian), Izvestiya, 12 December 1991 (translated inJPRS Report, 27 January 1992, pp.42-44); A. Sarfonovand E. Pavlov, �The Expendable Reusable Buran� (inRussian), Kommersant, 14 November 1998, p.8.;B. Gubanov, 3, p.33; K. Feoktistov, �Trayektoriyazhizni �, Vagrius, Moscow, p.295, 2000.

20. J. Harford, �Korolev�, John Wiley, New York, p.314, 1997.21. V. Baberdin, �We Cannot Allow Russia To Have Its Space

Initiative Taken Away From It� (interview with Koptev)(in Russian), Krasnaya Zvezda, 25 October 1997, p.5.

22. S. Aleksandrov, �Who Needs It, This Buran ?� (interviewwith TsNIIMash head Y. Mozzhorin) (in Russian),Propeller/Apogey, June 1995, p.1; Y. Mozzhorin, �Tak etobylo�, ZAO Mezhdunarodnaya programmaobrazovaniya, Moscow, pp.340-341, 2000.

23. B. Olesyuk, �The Buran Blind Alley� (in Russian), Kuranty,21 December 1991, p.8 (translated in JPRS Report, 27January 1992, pp.65-68).

24. B. Chertok, op. cit., pp.469-470 Chertok mentioned thestory when he convened a meeting at NPO Energiya inthe early summer of 1974, shortly after Glushko�sappointment.

25. Ts. Solovyov, �Work In The USSR On Reusable SpaceTransportation Systems (1972-1975)� (in Russian),Trudy XXV chteniy, posvyashchonnykh razrabotkenauchnogo naslediya i razvitiyu idey K.E. Tsiolkovskogo(Kaluga, 15-18 September 1992), Moscow, 1994; V.Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, op. cit., p.241; V.Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-kosmicheskiye sily, kniga 2 �, Izdatelstvo Sankt-Peterburgskoy tipografii, Moscow, 1998, p.54, 292. Thevarious preparatory stages of Soviet space projectsare described in: V. Mishin and V. Karrask, �Osnovykonstruirovaniya raket-nositeley kosmicheskikhapparatov�, Mashinostroyeniye, Moscow, pp.391-397,1991.

277


26. B. Gubanov, 3, p.38.27. Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p.288 ; R. Sagdeyev, �The Making

of a Soviet Scientist�, New York, John Wiley, pp.183-184, 1994.

28. G. Nazarov, �You Cannot Paper Space With Rubles� (inRussian), Molodaya Gvardiya, April 1990, pp.192-207(translated in JPRS Report, 30 July 1990, pp.51-61)

29. This used much hardware similar to that proposed inthe original Zvezda plan, see: Y. Semyonov, op. cit.,p.285. Glushko once again tried to revive interest in alunar base in the early 1980s. See: V. Shevchenko,�Lunar Base� (in Russian), Kosmonavtika, Astronomiya(Znaniye), 6/1991, pp.15-17 ; R. Sagdeyev, op. cit., p.184.

30. B. Chertok, op. cit., p. 470.31. R. Sagdeyev, op. cit., p. 213.32. B. Gubanov, 3, p. 38.33. R. Sagdeyev, op. cit., p. 213.34. V. Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-

kosmicheskiye sily, kniga 2�, pp. 54- 55.35. B. Chertok, op. cit., p. 470.36. details of the government resolution are from: Y.

Semyonov, op. cit., p.339, 362; B. Gubanov, 3, p.40; V.Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-kosmicheskiye sily, kniga 2�, p.21, 55.

37. Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p.362.38. B. Gubanov, 3, pp.40-41.39. V. Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-

kosmicheskiye sily, kniga 1�, p.240.40. I. Afanasyev, �Unknown Ships�, op. cit., pp.57-60;

M. Rebrov, �Predecessor of Buran� (in Russian),Krasnaya Zvezda, 1 July 1995; Y. Semyonov, op. cit.,p.379; V. Filin on website http://www.buran.ru/.According to I. Afanasyev the 'triangular' versionappeared as late as May 1976, but this is contradictedby other information.

41. V. Filin, �Put k Energii�, p.39.42. �KB Khimavtomatiki, stranitsy istorii, tom 1�, KBKhA,

Voronezh, 1995, p.125.43. I. Afanasyev, �Unknown Ships�, op. cit., p.57;

Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p.363, 379.44. B. Gubanov, 3, pp.38-39.45. Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p.262; A. Siddiqi, op. cit., p.649.46. �KB Khimavtomatiki, stranitsy istorii, tom 1�, op. cit.,

p.72.47. Ibid, p.72, 125. The switch from three to four engines

for extra redundancy is also described in: B. Gubanov,3, p.39.

48. V. Filin on website http://www.buran.ru/49. �Government Production Decision Awaited On

Additional Space Shuttle Orbiters�, Aviation Week andSpace Technology, 5 June 1989, pp.94-95 ; B. Gubanov,3, p.39.

50. This section compiled from: A. Batashev, 'Spiral',Sovetskiy Soyuz, 3/1990, pp.31-33 ; V. Kazmin, �TheQuiet Tragedy of EPOS� (in Russian) Krylya Rodiny,January 1991, pp.4-5 (translated in JPRS Report, 22November 1991, p.31); I. Afanasyev, �Unknown Ships�,pp.16-21, 55-56 ; M. Rudenko, �'Star Wars': The Historyof the Death of a Unique Space Plane� (in Russian),Trud, 26 August 1993 (translated in JPRS Report, 5October 1993, pp.32-34); A. Batashev, �Steep Turns ofthe Spiral� (in Russian), Trud, 30 June 1994, p.4(translated in JPRS Report, 9 August 1994, pp. 28-30);A. Kirpil and O. Okara: �Designer of Space Planes� (inRussian), Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 5 July 1994, p.6(translated in JPRS Report, 9 August 1994, pp.14-15) ;M. Rudenko, �The Rocket Planes of Designer Chelomey�(in Russian), Vozdushnyy Transport, 2/1996, p.11;Y. Semyonov, op. cit., p.380; G. Lozino-Lozinskiy (ed.),�Aviatsionno-kosmicheskiye sistemy: sbornik statey�,Izdatelstvo MAI, Moscow, 1997, pp.15-16, 292-295, 297;

A. Bruk et. al., �Illyustrirovannaya entsiklopediyasamolyotov EMZ im. V.M. Myasishcheva, tom 3 chast1�, Aviko Press, Moscow, pp.26-31, 209, 1999;I. Yevteyev, op. cit., pp.52-58 ; Y. Mozzhorin, op. cit.,pp.342-343 ; interview with G. Lozino-Lozinskiy on http://www.buran.ru/

51. S. Aleksandrov, op. cit.; Y. Mozzhorin, op. cit., pp.342-343.

52. This idea was in fact borrowed from early ballisticmissiles such as the R-14, where the tanks were dividedinto two sections to ensure that the engines firstconsume the propellants from the lower ones. Thehigher the centre of gravity, the less corrections arerequired from the flight control system to keep therocket stable in flight.

53. Y. Semyonov, op. cit., pp.362-363; B. Gubanov, 3, pp.43-44, 193; V. Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-kosmicheskiye sily, kniga 2�, pp.56-57; A. Bruk et. al.,op. cit., p. 210, 213, 217.

54. I. Afanasyev, �N-1: Absolutely Secret� (in Russian),Krylya Rodiny, 11/1993, p.5; V. Filin, �Put k Energii �,p.46; B. Gubanov, 3, pp.96-104; V. Rakhmanin and L.Sternin, op. cit., pp.359-360, 621-622; V. Sudakovet. al., �Pamyatnye daty iz istorii NPO Energomash imeniakademika V.P. Glushko�, NPO Energomash, Moscow,p.32, 1999.

55. �KB Khimavtomatiki, stranitsy istorii, tom 1�, op. cit.,pp.74-75; B. Gubanov, 3, p.132.

56. B. Gubanov, 3, p.40, 47.57. All details on these proposals are from B. Gubanov, 3,

p.334.58. B. Gubanov, 3, pp.329-331.59. KB Salyut originated as OKB-23 (the Myasishchev

design bureau) in 1951. In October 1961 OKB-23 wastransformed into Branch No. 1 of the OKB-52 Chelomeydesign bureau, where it became responsible for thedevelopment of the Proton rocket. In June 1981 thisbranch was incorporated into NPO Energiya andbecame known as KB Salyut. It became part of yetanother organisation (NPO EM) in June 1988 and waseventually united with the Khrunichev factory in June1993 to form the Khrunichev State Space ScientificProduction Centre.

60. Painted on the front was the name �Mir-2�, althoughthe spacecraft had nothing to do with the mannedspace programme. The only possible link was that thecore module of the Mir-2 station at that time wassupposed to be a 100 ton class Energiya-launchedvehicle which may have had much in common with thePolyus design.

61. This section compiled from: Y. Kornilov, �The Little-Known Polyus� (in Russian), Zemlya i Vselennaya, July-August 1992, pp.18-23 (translated in JPRS Report, 25March 1993, pp.21-25); K. Lantratov, �What Was HiddenOn The Dark Side of Energiya� (in Russian), RossiyskayaGazeta, 16 May 1997; V. Sorokin, �10 Years Since TheFirst Launch of Energiya� (in Russian), NovostiKosmonavtiki, 11/1997, pp.38-44; A. Borisov, �Buran:Flight To Nowhere ?� (in Russian), Novosti Kosmonavtiki,23-24/1998, pp.68-69; A.V. Karpenko, �Anti-Missile andAnti-Space Defence�, Nevskiy Bastion (4), pp.42-43,1998; Y. Semyonov, op. cit., pp.368-369, 419-420;S. Zhiltsov (ed.), �Gosudarstvennyy kosmicheskiynauchno-proizvodstvennyy tsentr imeni M.V.Khrunicheva � 80 let�, Russlit, Moscow, pp.117-119,1996; V. Filin, �Put k Energii �, p.103, 134, 137;B. Gubanov, 3, p.271, 273-281, 287, 309-310.

62. B. Gubanov, 3, pp.393-395.63. Ibid, pp. 388-393.64. B. Gubanov, 4, pp.18-20.65. V. Nelyubin, �King of Satellites� (in Russian),

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Komsomolskaya Pravda, 15 February 1991 (translated inJPRS Report, 16 April 1991, pp.95-96); Y. Semyonov,op. cit., pp.476-478, 486; B. Gubanov, 4, pp.23-25, 47-55, 179-180.

66. K. Lantratov, �Zvezda: The Road To Space� (in Russian),Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 9/2000, pp.4-5.

67. See for instance: V. Pallo, �KB Salyut�s Programme:The Reaches Of Space Or Just Space Mirages ? � (inRussian), Zemlya i vselennaya, March-April 1992, pp.18-25 (translated in JPRS Report, 25 March 1993, pp. 25-30).

68. An Energiya with six boosters is mentioned in anuntitled paper by B. Gubanov dated 9 October 1989. Atthat point he expected the versions with 2 and 6 strap-ons to be introduced in 1995. Such a vehicle wasreportedly also studied at TsNIIMash. See: A. Zak, �InThe Space Cradle: History And The Present Status ofthe Central Machine Building Scientific ResearchInstitute at Kaliningrad� (in Russian), NezavisimayaGazeta, 13 April 1993 (translated in JPRS Report, 28June 1993, pp.35-36).

69. B. Gubanov, 4, pp.144-149.70. This is the version described in: Y. Semyonov, op. cit.,

p.366. This source gives a launch mass of 3810 t, whichis probably wrong.

71. This version is described in: B. Gubanov, 3, pp.336-337.

72. The actual upper stages themselves are also referredto as N12R or N12RA, N14B and N15DB.

73. This section based on: V. Filin, �The Energiya-M BoosterRocket: Prospects of Using it for Dumping ofRadioactive Waste in Outer Space�, Aviation and SpaceNews, 1/1993, pp.31-34; �Russia Abandons Plans forEnergiya-M Launcher�, Space News, 29 November-5December 1993, p.2; J. Lenorovitz, �NPO Energiaassures users of heavy booster�s viability�, AviationWeek and Space Technology, 24 January 1994, p.59;V. Makarychev, �From Sea Wave Into Orbit�, AerospaceJournal, September-October 1997, pp.44-45;Y. Semyonov, op. cit., pp.407-408, 470-474, 486-488,522; B. Gubanov, 3, pp.268, 334-336, 400 ; B. Gubanov,4, op. cit., pp.55-57.

74. B. Gubanov, 3, p.39, 50, 116-117.75. Information on Energiya-2/GK-175 is from the following

sources: B. Gubanov, �The Immediate Prospect of theReusable Space Transport Systems�, paper presentedat the Space Studies Institute in Princeton, New Jersey,1990; C. Covault, �USSR Conducts Extensive DesignWork on Large, Unmanned Flyback Booster�, AviationWeek and Space Technology, 19 November 1990, pp.23-24; �KB Khimavtomatiki, stranitsy istorii, tom 1�, p.80;B. Gubanov, 3, pp.367-388, 395; B. Gubanov, 4, p.22,179.

76. V. Solovyov and N. Kozhukhov, �Launch Pads DesignedBy KBTM� (in Russian), Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 6/2001,p.60.

77. S.N. Konyukhov and V.A. Pashchenko, �History of SpaceLaunch Vehicles Development�, paper IAA-95-IAA2.2.09 presented at the 46th International AstronauticalCongress in Oslo, October 1995; B. Gubanov, 3, p.55.

78. It should be noted though that according to B. Gubanov

the RD-124 and RD-125 at some point were alsointended for the RLA-120. Possibly, there was an earlyidea to build the RLA-120 on the basis of an 11K77with four rather than two first-stage modules, whichwould have given about the same launch mass andthrust. This idea was then abandoned when the 1000+LOX/kerosene engine appeared (e-mailcorrespondence with Timothy Varfolomeyev, 14September 2001).

79. B. Gubanov, 3, p.57.80. Ibid, p.105.81. V. Rakhmanin and L. Sternin, op. cit., pp.606-607.82. V. Gubarev, �Southern Start� (in Russian) (interview

with Utkin), Nauka i zhizn, 2/1998, p.53.83. Ibid, p.54; M. Rebrov, �A Rocket Named Zenit� (in

Russian), Krasnaya Zvezda, 27 May 1995.84. V.M. Petrakov, �Soviet Rockets for Space Apparatus�,

JBIS, 49, p.279, 1996; I. Afanasyev, �Rocket CarrierProton: Unflown Variants� (in Russian), NovostiKosmonavtiki, 11/1998, p.47; I. Yevteyev, op. cit., pp.447-449.

85. B. Gubanov, 3, p.58.86. Ibid. Apparently, this was related to the impact zones

for the first stage.87. V. Rakhmanin and L. Sternin, op. cit., pp.610-615.88. V. Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-

kosmicheskiye sily, kniga 1�, p.203, 209; V. Favorskiyand I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-kosmicheskiye sily,kniga 2�, pp.19-20 ; K. Lantratov, �Zenit Lifts Tselina�(in Russian), Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 4/2000, pp.18-19.

89. V. Favorskiy and I. Meshcheryakov, �Voenno-kosmicheskiye sily, kniga 2�, p.16; K. L a n t r a t o v ,�Orlets on Zenit� (in Russian), Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 11/2000, pp.36-37.

90. V. Gubarev, �Marshal�s Baton for Mum� (in Russian)(interview with Gherman Titov, who was the chairmanof the Zenit State Commission), Nauka i zhizn, 6/2000,p.72; I. Afanasyev, �Reincarnation of Yamal� (inRussian), Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 8/2001, p.36.

91. Y. Pavutnitskiy et. al., �Otechestvennye rakety-nositeli�,Izdatelstvo tsentr SPbGMTU, St. Petersburg, p.119,1996.

92. V. Makaryvech, op. cit., p.44; I. Chornyy, �LaunchComplex for Sea Launch� (in Russian), NovostiKosmonavtiki, 3/2001, p. 58. KBTM had worked outproposals for ocean-based launches of the Tsiklon asearly as the mid 1960s.

93. I. Chornyy, �The Kosmos-3M Rocket Carrier� (inRussian), Novosti Kosmonavtiki, 1/2001, p. 33.

94. G. Kustova (ed.), From First Satellite To Energia-Buran AndMir, Moscow, RKK Energiya, p.118, 1994. Even thoughthe 11K55 and 11K66 are said to have been based onthe first stage of Zenit, the payload capacity given forthis particular rocket did not require the muscle of theRD-170. With an estimated thrust of about 300 tons,the first stage may have been equipped with a clusterof four RD-120K engines.

95. B. Gubanov, 3, pp.58-59.96. S.N. Konyukhov and V.A. Pashchenko, op. cit.97. B. Gubanov, 3, p.335.98. Ibid, p.400.

(Received 15 October 2001)

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