Discovery lands safely

[Check 6]

Discovery is safely on the deck at Edwards AFB, California.

Check 6

:ok:

[Bearcat]

your'll alright for the height skip....83000ft, 80nm to touchdown, 2000mph! astonishing. well done

[alexban]

Good. Now,I guess it's time to retire the good old shuttles.A bit early,but they did an outstanding job.
And after that,what? Maybe NASA will borrow the rusian Buran shuttle,which rests somewhere,in a hangar ,after doing only one flight,fully automated though!

[Tolsti]

I thought the Buran was sitting in Gorky Park, Moscow near the ferris wheel? Or is that just a mockup?

[angelorange]

Did some of my flight training (first solo stapped to Yak 52) in Crimea in 1992 - why? well it was fun and £30 an hr wet incl DOSAFF instructors


Anyway - Buran - the mechanics for the Yaks were originally aeronautical engineers on the Buran project but earnt more money fixing Yakolev and PZL light aircraft!

Twin turbine Mil helicopter was 100USD an hr dual - but that instructor spoke no english!

[Jordan D]

Watched the landing with about 5 other people in the office today ... top notch stuff.

Well done to all the boys & girls at the KSC, JSC & Edwards AFB for getting them down in once piece.

Jordan

[perky35]

Just watched the landing on bbc website, is it common for the shuttle to land in the dark? i would have thought they would do it when the runway is clearly visible by the eye???

[Avman]

Some diversion though. Hell of a bus ride for the crew from Edwards AFB to Cape Canaveral :D

[Rainboe]

I've sat in the Buran- the front windows were completely obscured by instrumentation for the 4 jet engines that were installed for flight testing- just a tiny little hole left for looking ahead. Watching the thing get airborne thrashing at enormous speed down the runway must have been a spectacle. My impression of the construction was 'if you told a home handyman to make a space shuttle in his garage, this was it.'. There was no sophistication at all- just aluminium bent into shape and rivetted. No wonder nobody went into space in it- I can't imagine how it ever flew.

What surprises me is this- they did not have a thermal tile arrangement- I think it was beyond their technology. So what did they use to stop it burning up? And could it carry over to the space shuttle?

[sir]

Rainboe - the space-going Buran did have a thermal tile protection layer. A really big difference is that the Buran didn't have its own main engines. Only an OMS. The energia booster was powerful enough to lift Buran to orbit.

This gave Buran a higher capacity for cargo.

[alexban]

check this out:
Shuttle - Buran Comparison
Shuttle Buran
Mass Breakdown (kg):
Total Structure / Landing Systems 46,60 42,000
Functional Systems and Propulsion 37,200 33,000
SSME 14,200
Maximum Payload 25,000 30,000

Total 123,000 105,000

Dimensions (m):
Length 37.25 36.37
Wingspan 23.80 23.92
Height on Gear 17.25 16.35
Payload bay length 18.29 18.55
Payload bay diameter 4.57 4.65
Wing glove sweep 81 deg 78 deg
Wing sweep 45 deg 45 deg

Propulsion
Total orbital maneuvering engine thrust 5,440 kgf 17,600 kgf
Orbital Maneuvering Engine Specific Impuse 313 sec 362 sec
Total Maneuvering Impulse 5 kgf-sec 5 kgf-sec
Total Reaction Control System Thrust 15,078 kgf 14,866 kgf
Average RCS Specific Impulse 289 sec 275-295 sec
Normal Maximum Propellant Load 14,100 kg 14,500 kg
Schedule:
Go-ahead Jul 26 1972 Feb 12 1976
Years after go-ahead:
Delivery to launch complex 6.6 9.3
Flight Readiness Firing 8.5 10.3
First launch vehicle flight 8.7 11.2
First orbiter flight 8.7 12.7



e Buran orbiter was designed for 100 flights. Optimum crew was four, a pilot, co-pilot, and two cosmonauts specialising in EVA and payload operation. These four crew members were on the upper deck and all were provided with ejection seats. However up to ten crew could be carried by using additional seats on the lower deck. Four to six of these would be researchers, depending on the mission. Buran could achieve a 1,700 km cross range on re-entry, protected by 39,000 tiles of two types. Synthetic quartz fibre tiles were used in low temperature areas, and black high-temperature organic fibre tiles were used on high temperature areas. Carbon-carbon material was used for the nose and wing leading edges.


also,interesting to note ,the weather conditions in which it did it's only orbital flight:
weather was snow flurries with 20 m/s winds. Launch abort criteria were 15 m/s. The launch director decided to press ahead anyway. After 12 years of development everything went perfectly. Buran touched down at 260 km/hr in a 17 m/s crosswind at the Jubilee runway, with a 1620 m landing rollout.
The autopilot that landed the shuttle was able to overcome a 34 mph crosswind to land within 5 feet of the runway center line. Also, of the 38,000 heat shield tiles that covered Buran, only 5 were missing.
The completely automatic launch, orbital manoeuvre, deorbit, and precision landing of an airliner-sized spaceplane on its very first flight was an unprecedented accomplishment of which the Soviets were justifiably proud.

rainboe, at 2002 May 12 the flight version of the Buran orbiter was destroyed in the roof collapse at Site 112 in Baikonur.
The shuttle was launched using the biggest rocket ever build,Energia.It doesn't take off like a plane,it does not even have engines like the NASA shuttle-a bigger payload.It has orbital engines,more than 3 times powerfull than the us shuttle.

Also:
Buran's maximum payload was 30 tonnes to a 250 km 50.7 degree orbit with 8 tonnes or propellant loaded. 27 tonnes could be placed into a 450 km with the maximum 14.5 tonne propellant load. Supplementary propellant tanks, fitted in the payload bay, would allow the orbiter to achieve orbital apogees of up to 1000 km. Maximum landing mass was 87 tonnes with a 20 tonne payload; nominal landing mass was 82 tonnes with a 15 tonne payload. Normal flight duration was 10 days, which could be extended to 30 days with extra consumable tanks and supplies. G-loads on the crew were no greater than 3.0 G on ascent and 1.6 G on re-entry. The Buran had a lift-to-drag ratio of 1.5 hypersonic and 5.0 subsonic. Landing speed was 312 km/hour nominal and 360 km/hr with maximum payload. Landing run with three drag chutes was 1100 to 2000 m.

Crew Cabin - The Buran crew cabin had a total habitable volume of 73 cu. m and consisted of two sections. The upper command module had two crew positions (RM-1 and RM-2) for the pilot and co-pilot equipped with [B] ejection seats.[B] There was also an emergency evacuation hatch in the cabin ceiling from which exit could be made by ropes in case of a crash landing or ditching at sea. A later variant would provide two double ejection seats for four crew.


regarding the shuttle you've stayed in,that wasa full scale mock-up,used for tests.Six were build,I think you've seen this one:
OK-GLI for horizontal flight tests. This Buran BST-02 'analogue' had the same aerodynamic, centre of gravity, and inertial characteristics as the orbiter. It differed in being equipped with four AL-31 turbojet engines, mounted at 4 degrees off the horizontal axis. These allowed the analogue to fly from conventional air fields and conduct the repetitive tests necessary to develop the automated landing system. The analogue was equipped with the same essential systems as the orbiter, including the RM-1 and RM-2 ejection seats, the GSP and VIU navigation systems; the landing gear, landing system antennae, thermal sensors, and first and second group accelerometers