Misplaced Pages

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81-410: The Mil Mi-26 (Russian: Миль Ми-26 , NATO reporting name : Halo ) is a Soviet / Russian heavy transport helicopter . Its product code is Izdeliye 90 . Operated by both military and civilian operators, it is the largest helicopter to have gone into serial production . Following the incomplete development of the heavier Mil Mi-12 (prototypes known as Mil V-12 ) in the early 1970s, work began on

162-627: A 23-tonne (25-short-ton) block of frozen soil encasing a preserved, 23,000-year-old woolly mammoth ( Jarkov Mammoth ) from the Siberian tundra to a lab in Khatanga , Russia . Due to the weight of the load, the Mi-26 had to be returned to the factory afterward to check for airframe and rotor warping caused by the potential of structural over-stressing. In early 2002, a civilian Mi-26 was leased to recover two U.S. Army MH-47E Chinook helicopters from

243-678: A 40-ton next-generation heavy helicopter. Rostvertol , the Russian helicopter manufacturer, was contracted to refurbish and upgrade the entire fleet of Mi-26s serving in the Russian Air Force , estimated to be around 20 helicopters. The upgraded aircraft is comparable to a new variant, the Mi-26T. Contract completion was planned for 2015. The contract also covered the production of 22 new Mi-26T helicopters. Eight new-built helicopters were delivered to operational units by January 2012. Under

324-479: A Russian company called Sportsflite that operated three civilian Mi-26 versions called "Heavycopters". One of the aircraft, aiding in construction and firefighting work in neighboring Tajikistan, was leased for $ 300,000; it lifted the Chinook, flew it to Kabul , then later to Bagram Air Base , Afghanistan to ship to Fort Campbell , Kentucky , U.S. for repairs. Six months later, a second U.S. Army CH-47 that had made

405-490: A clear indication that one of its main objectives would be to place massive experimental laser weapons into orbit that could destroy enemy missiles from a distance of several thousands of kilometres. Their reasoning was that such weapons could only be effectively tested in actual space conditions and that to cut their development time and save costs it would be necessary to regularly bring them back to Earth for modifications and fine-tuning. Soviet officials were also concerned that

486-524: A delta-winged orbiter equipped with two Soloviev D-30 turbofan jet engines for autonomous atmospheric flight, launched to space from a rocket stack made of a core stage with three cryogenic engines, and four kerosene-fueled boosters, each with four engines. By 1978, the OK-92 design was further refined, with its final configuration completed in June 1979. Soviet engineers were initially reluctant to implement

567-544: A detachable external tank and four liquid fuel boosters (NPO Energiya even considered the use of solid propellant rocket boosters, further imitating the US Shuttle's configuration). A compromise between these two proposals was achieved by NPO Energiya in January 1976 with the OK-92 ( Russian : ОК-92, «Орбитальный Корабль» , romanized :  Orbital'niy Korabl' , lit.   'Orbital Ship–92 tons'),

648-466: A different series of numbers with a different suffix (i.e., SA-N- versus SA-) for these systems. The names are kept the same as a convenience. Where there is no corresponding system, a new name is devised. The Soviet Union did not always assign official "popular names" to its aircraft, but unofficial nicknames were common as in any air force . Generally, Soviet pilots did not use the NATO names, preferring

729-436: A hard landing 160 kilometres (100 mi) north of Bagram at an altitude of 1,200 metres (3,900 ft) was recovered by another Sportsflite-operated Mi-26 Heavycopter. On 19 August 2002, Chechen separatists hit an overloaded Mi-26 with a surface-to-air missile , causing it to crash-land in a minefield , killing 127 of the people on board – the greatest loss of life in the history of helicopter aviation. As

810-461: A heavy-lift helicopter for military and civil use, having twice the cabin space and payload of the Mi-6, then the world's largest and fastest production helicopter. The primary purpose of the Mi-26 was to transport military equipment such as 13-tonne (29,000 lb) amphibious armored personnel carriers and mobile ballistic missiles to remote locations after delivery by military transport aircraft such as

891-599: A mountain in Afghanistan. The Chinooks, operated by the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment , had been employed in Operation Anaconda , an effort to drive al Qaeda and Taliban fighters out of the Shahi-Kot Valley and surrounding mountains. They found themselves stranded on the slopes above Sirkhankel at altitudes of 2,600 metres (8,500 ft) and 3,100 metres (10,200 ft). While

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972-522: A native Russian nickname. An exception was that Soviet airmen appreciated the MiG-29 's codename "Fulcrum", as an indication of its pivotal role in Soviet air defence. To reduce the risk of confusion, unusual or made-up names are allocated, the idea being that the names chosen are unlikely to occur in normal conversation and are easier to memorise. For fixed-wing aircraft, the number of syllables indicates

1053-536: A new heavy-lift helicopter, designated as the Izdeliye 90 ("Project 90") and later allocated designation Mi-26 . The new design was required to have an empty weight less than half its maximum takeoff weight . The helicopter was designed by Marat Tishchenko , protégé of Mikhail Mil , founder of the OKB-329 design bureau . The Mi-26 was designed to replace earlier Mi-6 and Mi-12 heavy lift helicopters and act as

1134-472: A result of the magnitude 8.0 earthquake in Sichuan province of China on 12 May 2008, many rivers became blocked by landslides, resulting in the formation of so-called quake lakes: large amounts of water pooling up behind the landslide-formed dams . These dams eventually broke under the weight of the water, endangering those downstream. At least one Mi-26 belonging to a branch of China's civil aviation service

1215-616: A reusable Soviet spacecraft was the 1954 Burya , a high-altitude prototype jet aircraft/cruise missile. Several test flights were made before it was cancelled by order of the Central Committee . The Burya had the goal of delivering a nuclear payload, presumably to the United States, and then returning to base. The Burya programme was cancelled by the USSR in favor of a decision to develop ICBMs instead. The next iteration of

1296-548: A reusable spacecraft was the Zvezda design, which also reached a prototype stage. Decades later, another project with the same name would be used as a service module for the International Space Station . After Zvezda, there was a hiatus in reusable projects until Buran. The Buran orbital vehicle programme was developed in response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program, which raised considerable concerns among

1377-579: A spacecraft design with so many similarities to the US Space Shuttle. Although it has been commented that wind tunnel testing showed that NASA's design was already ideal, the shape requirements were mandated by its potential military capabilities to transport large payloads to low Earth orbit, themselves a counterpart to the Pentagon 's initially projected missions for the Shuttle. Even though

1458-581: A stack of kerosene-fueled strap on boosters; and the OS-120 ( Russian : ОС-120, «Орбитальный Самолет» , romanized :  Orbital'niy Samolet , lit.   'Orbital Spaceplane–120 tons'), a close copy of the US Space Shuttle based on US Space Shuttle documentation and designs obtained through the VPK and KGB. The OS-120 was a delta-winged spaceplane based heavily on the US Space Shuttle design, equipped with three liquid hydrogen engines, strapped to

1539-609: A week later on Soyuz TM-3 . His mission is sometimes called Mir LII-1 , after the Gromov Flight Research Institute shorthand. When Levchenko died the following year, it left the back-up crew of the first Buran mission again without spaceflight experience. A Soyuz spaceflight for another potential back-up commander was sought by the Gromov Flight Research Institute, but never occurred. Maintenance, launches and landings of

1620-460: A week. Levchenko died of a brain tumour the year after his orbital flight, Bachurin left the cosmonaut corps because of medical reasons, Shchukin was assigned to the back-up crew of Soyuz TM-4 and later died in a plane crash, Stankevičius was also killed in a plane crash, while Borodai and Zabolotsky remained unassigned to a Soyuz flight until the Buran programme ended. Igor Volk was planned to be

1701-456: Is not made for helicopters. Before the 1980s, reporting names for submarines were taken from the NATO spelling alphabet . Modifications of existing designs were given descriptive terms, such as " Whiskey Long Bin ". From the 1980s, new designs were given names derived from Russian words, such as " Akula ", or "shark". These names did not correspond to the Soviet names. Coincidentally, "Akula", which

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1782-537: Is only slightly higher than the Mi-6's, the Mi-26 has a payload of up to 20 tonnes (44,000 lb). It is the second largest and heaviest helicopter ever constructed, after the experimental Mil V-12. The tail rotor has about the same diameter and thrust as the four-bladed main rotor fitted to the MD Helicopters MD 500 . The Mi-26's unique main gearbox is relatively light at 3,639 kg (8,023 lb) but can absorb 14,700 kilowatts (19,725 shp), which

1863-659: Is thought to have contributed to the collapse, together with heavy rainfall in the days preceding the collapse. Five orbiters were planned to be built (designated 1K-5K, K stands for Корабль , 'craft, flying article'), with hull numbering starting with 1 or 2 (e.g. 1.01), two originally ordered in 1970s and three ("second series") additionally ordered in 1983. For research and testing purposes, several test articles were produced, designated 1M-8M (M stands for Макет , 'mock-up'), with hull numbering starting with 0 (e.g. 0.02). The programme prefix OK stands for Орбитальный Корабль , 'Orbital Vehicle' and carries

1944-863: The Antonov An-124 or "Candid" for the Ilyushin Il-76 . The initial letter of the name indicates the use of that equipment. The alphanumeric designations (eg AA-2) are assigned by the Department of Defense . The first letter indicates the type of aircraft, e.g., "Bear" for a bomber aircraft refers to the Tupolev Tu-95 , or "Fulcrum" for the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-29 fighter aircraft. For fixed-wing aircraft, one-syllable names are used for propeller aircraft and two-syllable names for aircraft with jet engines. This distinction

2025-638: The Antonov An-22 or Ilyushin Il-76 . The first Mi-26 flew on 14 December 1977 and the first production aircraft was rolled out on 4 October 1980. Development was completed in 1983 and by 1985, the Mi-26 was in Soviet military and commercial service. The Mi-26 was the first factory-equipped helicopter with a single, eight-blade main lift rotor . It is capable of flight in the event of power loss by one engine (depending on aircraft mission weight) because of an engine load sharing system. While its empty weight

2106-496: The Antonov An-225 Mriya (the heaviest airplane ever) was designed and used to ferry the shuttle. The flight and ground-testing software also required research. In 1983 the Buran developers estimated that the software development would require several thousand programmers if done with their existing methodology (in assembly language), and they appealed to Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics for assistance. It

2187-577: The British Interplanetary Society magazine Spaceflight , to ask why a test pilot was occupying a Soyuz seat usually reserved for researchers or foreign cosmonauts. Anatoli Levchenko was planned to be the back-up commander of the first crewed Buran flight, and in March 1987 he began extensive training for his Soyuz spaceflight. In December 1987, he occupied the third seat aboard Soyuz TM-4 to Mir, and returned to Earth about

2268-602: The GRAU index number 11F35. By 1991 two operational vehicles were delivered to Baikonur, three others were under construction at the Tushino Machine-Building Plant (TMZ) near Moscow. Most of the geo-locations below show the orbiter bodies on the ground; in some cases Google Earth 's History facility is required to see the orbiter within the dates specified. Ptichka 1.02 Baikal 2.01 Over time, several scientists looked into trying to revive

2349-462: The KGB of the unclassified US Space Shuttle program, resulting in many superficial and functional similarities between American and Soviet Shuttle designs. Although the Buran class was similar in appearance to NASA 's Space Shuttle orbiter , and could similarly operate as a re-entry spaceplane , its final internal and functional design was different. For example, the main engines during launch were on

2430-725: The Shuttle–Mir missions. The cost of a Buran launch carrying a 20-ton payload was estimated at 270 million roubles, vs 5.5 million roubles on the Proton rocket. On 12 May 2002, a hangar roof at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan collapsed because of a structural failure due to poor maintenance. The collapse killed eight workers and destroyed one of the Buran-class orbiters ( Buran , orbiter 1K ), which flew

2511-572: The Soviet Union . In 2010 the director of Moscow's Central Machine Building Institute said the Buran programme would be reviewed in the hope of restarting a similar crewed spacecraft design, with rocket test launches as soon as 2015. Russia also continues work on the PPTS but has abandoned the Kliper program, due to differences in vision with its European partners. Due to the 2011 retirement of

Mil Mi-26 - Misplaced Pages Continue

2592-553: The " VKK Space Orbiter programme " ( Russian : ВКК «Воздушно-Космический Корабль» , lit.   'Air and Space Ship'), was a Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began in 1974 at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute in Moscow and was formally suspended in 1993. In addition to being the designation for the whole Soviet/Russian reusable spacecraft project, Buran

2673-549: The 2010 contract, 17 new-production helicopters were delivered by 2014. In all, Rostvertol delivered fourteen Mi-26s to domestic and foreign customers in the period 2012‑14 and six helicopters in 2015. Deliveries to the Russian Aerospace Forces were continued in 2016, 2017 and 2019. In 2016, Russia started development of PD-12V a variant of the Aviadvigatel PD-14 turbofan engine to power

2754-649: The Air Standardization Coordinating Committee (ASCC), which is separate from NATO . Based in Washington DC, AFIC comprises representatives from the militaries of three NATO members (Canada, the United Kingdom and United States) and two non-NATO countries (Australia and New Zealand). When the system was introduced in the 1950s, reporting names also implicitly designated potentially hostile aircraft. However, since

2835-577: The American Space Shuttle and the need for STS-type craft in the meantime to complete the International Space Station, some American and Russian scientists had been mulling over plans to possibly revive the already-existing Buran shuttles in the Buran programme rather than spend money on an entirely new craft and wait for it to be fully developed but the plans did not come to fruition. On the 25th anniversary of

2916-702: The Buran flight in November 2013, Oleg Ostapenko , the new head of Roscosmos , the Russian Federal Space Agency, proposed that a new heavy-lift launch vehicle be built for the Russian space programme. The rocket would be intended to place a payload of 100 tonnes (220,000 lb) in a baseline low Earth orbit and is projected to be based on the Angara launch vehicle technology. Energia ( Russian : Энергия , romanized :  Energiya , lit.   'Energy'; GRAU 11K25)

2997-437: The Buran orbital vehicle was designed for the delivery to orbit and return to Earth of spacecraft, cosmonauts, and supplies. Both Chertok and Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy (General Designer and General Director of NPO Molniya ) suggest that from the beginning, the programme was military in nature; however, the exact military capabilities, or intended capabilities, of the Buran programme remain classified. Like its American counterpart,

3078-532: The Buran orbital vehicle, when in transit from its landing sites back to the launch complex, was transported on the back of a large jet aeroplane – the Antonov An-225 Mriya transport aircraft, which was designed in part for this task and was the largest aircraft in the world to fly multiple times. Before the Mriya was ready (after the Buran had flown), the Myasishchev VM-T Atlant , a variant on

3159-540: The Buran programme, especially after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster . The 2003 grounding of the U.S. Space Shuttles caused many to wonder whether the Energia launcher or Buran shuttle could be brought back into service. By then, however, all of the equipment for both (including the vehicles themselves) had fallen into disrepair or been repurposed after falling into disuse with the collapse of

3240-530: The Buran-class orbiters were to take place at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the Kazakh SSR . Several facilities at Baikonur were adapted or newly built for these purposes: An aerodynamic testbed, OK-GLI , was constructed in 1984 to test the in-flight properties of the Buran design. Unlike the American prototype Space Shuttle Enterprise , OK-GLI had four AL-31 turbofan engines fitted, meaning it

3321-640: The Energia rocket and were not taken into orbit by the spacecraft. Smaller rocket engines on the craft's body provided propulsion in orbit and de-orbital burns, similar to the Space Shuttle's OMS pods . Unlike the Space Shuttle whose first orbital spaceflight was accomplished in April 1981, Buran, whose first and only spaceflight occurred in November 1988, had a capability of flying uncrewed missions, as well as performing fully automated landings. The project

Mil Mi-26 - Misplaced Pages Continue

3402-504: The Mi-26 still holds the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world record for the greatest mass lifted by a helicopter to 2,000 metres (6,562 ft) – 56,768.8 kilograms (125,000 lb) on a flight in 1982. In July 2010 a proposed Russian-Chinese development of a 33-ton heavy-lift helicopter was announced. In early 2019, Russia's state corporation Rostec inked a landmark agreement on developing

3483-582: The Mi-26. The developers of the Buran space vehicle programme considered using Mi-26 helicopters to "bundle" lift components for the Buran spacecraft , but test flights with a mock-up showed this to be risky and impractical. The Mi-26S was a disaster response version hastily developed during the containment efforts of the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986. Thirty Mi-26 were used for radiation measurements and precision drops of insulating material to cover

3564-588: The Molniya Scientific Production Association proposed its Spiral programme design (halted 13 years earlier), it was rejected as being altogether dissimilar from the American shuttle design. The construction of the shuttles began in 1980, and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first suborbital test flight of a scale-model ( BOR-5 ) took place as early as July 1983. As the project progressed, five additional scale-model flights were performed. A test vehicle

3645-626: The Red Crescent Society helicopters with night vision and new navigation. Data from Jane's All the World's Aircraft 2003–2004 General characteristics Performance Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era NATO reporting name The assignment of reporting names is managed by the Five Eyes Air Force Interoperability Council (AFIC), previously known as

3726-515: The Soviet Myasishchev M-4 Molot (Hammer) bomber (NATO code: Bison), fulfilled the same role. The development of the Buran began in the early 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. Soviet officials were concerned about a perceived military threat posed by the U.S. Space Shuttle. In their opinion, the Shuttle's 30-ton payload-to-orbit capacity and, more significantly, its 15-ton payload return capacity, were

3807-472: The Soviet military and especially Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov . An authoritative chronicler of the Soviet and later Russian space programme, the academic Boris Chertok , recounts how the programme came into being. According to Chertok, after the U.S. developed its Space Shuttle program, the Soviet military became suspicious that it could be used for military purposes, due to its enormous payload, several times that of previous U.S. launch vehicles. Officially,

3888-479: The U.S. Space Shuttle could make a sudden dive into the atmosphere to drop nuclear bombs on Moscow. In 1974, Valentin Glushko 's design bureau, OKB-1 (later NPO Energiya), proposed a new family of heavy-lift rockets called RLA ( Russian : РЛА, «Ракетные Летательные Аппараты» , romanized :  Raketnyye Letatel'niye Apparaty , lit.   'Rocket Flying Apparatus'). The RLA concept included

3969-509: The U.S. Space Shuttle program, including resupply of the Mir space station, which was launched in 1986 and remained in service until 2001. When Mir was finally visited by a spaceplane, the visitor was a Space Shuttle orbiter , not a Buran-class orbiter. The Buran SO, a docking module that was to be used for rendezvous with the Mir space station, was refitted for use with the U.S. Space Shuttles during

4050-565: The US. On 11 December 2012, a Westland Sea King from No. 330 Squadron RNoAF experienced undisclosed technical issues and made an emergency landing on Mount Divgagáisá. The landing caused parts of the landing gear to break. The Sea King was prepared by removing rotor blades and fuel before it was airlifted to Banak Air Station by a Russian Mil Mi-26 on 23   December 2012. During the 2022 Ukrainian Kharkov counteroffensive , Russian Mi-26s helicopters were involved in transfer of reinforcements on

4131-470: The auspices of the KGB, the VPK was able to amass documentation on the American shuttle's airframe designs, design analysis software, materials, flight computer systems and propulsion systems. The KGB targeted many university research project documents and databases, including Caltech, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and others. The thoroughness of the acquisition of data was made much easier as the U.S. shuttle development

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4212-471: The carrier plane/air drop method used by the United States and the Enterprise test craft. Twenty-four test flights of OK-GLI were performed by the Gromov Flight Research Institute test pilots and researchers after which the shuttle was "worn out". The developers considered using a couple of Mil Mi-26 helicopters to "bundle" lift the Buran, but test flights with a mock-up showed how risky and impractical that was. The VM-T ferried components and

4293-488: The commander of the first crewed Buran flight. There were two purposes of the Soyuz T-12 mission, one of which was to give Volk spaceflight experience. The other purpose, seen as the more important factor, was to beat the United States and have the first spacewalk by a woman. At the time of the Soyuz T-12 mission the Buran programme was still a state secret . The appearance of Volk as a crew member caused some, including

4374-408: The damaged No.   4 reactor. It was also equipped with a deactivating liquid tank and underbelly spraying apparatus. The Mi-26S was operated in immediate proximity to the nuclear reactor, with a filter system and protective screens mounted in the cabin to protect the crew during delivery of construction materials to the most highly contaminated areas. In October 1999, an Mi-26 was used to transport

4455-489: The end of the Buran programme, with PROL2 being extended into SIPROL, and eventually all three languages developed into DRAKON which is still in use in the Russian space industry. A declassified May 1990 CIA report citing open-source intelligence material states that the software for the Buran spacecraft was written in "the French-developed programming language known as Prolog ", possibly due to confusion with

4536-517: The end of the Cold War, some NATO air forces have operated various aircraft types with reporting names (e.g. the "Fulcrum" Mikoyan MiG-29 ). The United States Department of Defense (DOD) expands on the NATO reporting names in some cases. NATO refers to surface-to-air missile systems mounted on ships or submarines with the same names as the corresponding land-based systems, but the US DOD assigns

4617-420: The failed Soyuz 25 mission of 1977, stipulated that all Soviet space missions must contain at least one crew member who has been to space before. In 1982, it was decided that all Buran commanders and their back-ups would occupy the third seat on a Soyuz mission, prior to their Buran spaceflight. Several people had been selected to potentially be in the first Buran crew. By 1985, it was decided that at least one of

4698-575: The frontline, namely in the vicinity of towns Izium and Kupiansk . In September 2024, it was announced that the Red Crescent Society of the Islamic Republic of Iran will bring this helicopter to Iran for two months in a memorandum of understanding with a Russian company, in order to purchase two Mi-26 after that if approved. Also, an understanding has been reached for the purchase of 20 new helicopters, which, if operational, will be delivered within 2 years. The Russian side has promised to equip

4779-693: The initial test configuration, in which the Polyus system was used as a final stage intended to put the payload into orbit, and Energia-Buran, in which the Buran orbiter was the payload and the source of the orbit insertion impulse. The launch vehicle had the capacity to place about 100 tonnes in Low Earth orbit , up to 20 tonnes to geostationary orbit and up to 32 tonnes by translunar trajectory into lunar orbit . The Antonov An-225 Mriya ( Ukrainian : Антонов Ан-225 Мрія , lit.   'dream' or 'inspiration'; NATO reporting name : Cossack)

4860-616: The name PROLOGUE. Until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, seven cosmonauts were allocated to the Buran programme and trained on the OK-GLI ("Buran aerodynamic analogue") test vehicle. All had experience as test pilots. They were: Ivan Ivanovich Bachurin , Alexei Sergeyevich Borodai , Anatoli Semyonovich Levchenko , Aleksandr Vladimirovich Shchukin , Rimantas Antanas Stankevičius , Igor Petrovich Volk , and Viktor Vasiliyevich Zabolotsky . A rule, set in place for cosmonauts after

4941-450: The second craft was too badly damaged to recover, the first was determined to be repairable and estimated to weigh 12 tonnes (26,000 lb) with fuel, rotors, and non-essential equipment removed. That weight exceeded the maximum payload of 9.1 tonnes (20,000 lb) at an altitude of 2,600 metres (8,500 ft) of the U.S. military's Sikorsky CH-53E . The Mi-26 was located through Skylink Aviation in Toronto , which had connections with

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5022-409: The test flight in 1988, as well as a mock-up of an Energia booster rocket. It was not clear to outsiders at the time which orbiter was destroyed and the BBC reported that it was just "a model" of the orbiter. It occurred at the MIK RN/MIK 112 building at Site 112 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome , 14 years after the only Buran flight . Work on the roof had begun for a maintenance project, whose equipment

5103-456: The time of its cancellation, 20 billion roubles had been spent on the Buran programme. Commenting on the discontinuation of the programme in his interview to New Scientist , Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov described the project's end: "We had no civilian tasks for Buran and the military ones were no longer needed." The programme was designed to boost national pride, carry out research, and meet technological objectives similar to those of

5184-442: The truck inside caused an imbalance of the helicopter and led to the crash. The Mi-26 had been carrying machines from Konkan Railway to Jammu–Baramulla line project. The Indian Air Force later retired its three remaining Mi-26s, as two needed a very expensive overhaul (quite frequent, as the machine is near the strength limits of the materials used), and there was little need for them, and decided to obtain Chinook helicopters from

5265-418: The two crew members would be a test pilot trained at the Gromov Flight Research Institute (known as "LII"), and potential crew lists were drawn up. Only two potential Buran crew members reached space: Igor Volk , who flew in Soyuz T-12 to the space station Salyut 7 , and Anatoli Levchenko who visited Mir , launching with Soyuz TM-4 and landing with Soyuz TM-3 . Both of these spaceflights lasted about

5346-528: The type of the aircraft's engine. Single-syllable code names denote reciprocating engine or turboprop , while two-syllable code names denote jet engine . Bombers have names starting with the letter "B", and names like "Badger" ( Tupolev Tu-16 ), "Blackjack" ( Tupolev Tu-160 ) and "Bear" ( Tupolev Tu-95 ) have been used. "Frogfoot", the reporting name for the Sukhoi Su-25 , references the aircraft's close air support role. Transports have names starting with "C" (for "cargo"), resulting in names like "Condor" for

5427-409: The use of kerosene and liquid hydrogen as fuel, and liquid oxygen as oxidizer (both new technologies in the Soviet space programme), with the shuttle orbiter being one possible payload. While NPO Molniya conducted development under the lead of Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy , the Soviet Union's Military-Industrial Commission, or VPK, was tasked with collecting all data it could on the U.S. Space Shuttle. Under

5508-432: Was a strategic airlift cargo aircraft designed and produced by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union . It was originally developed during the 1980s as an enlarged derivative of the Antonov An-124 airlifter for transporting Buran spacecraft . On 21 December 1988, the An-225 performed its maiden flight ; only one aircraft was ever completed, although a second airframe with a slightly different configuration

5589-589: Was a 1980s super-heavy lift launch vehicle . It was designed by NPO Energia of the Soviet Union as part of the Buran program for a variety of payloads including the Buran spacecraft . Control system main developer enterprise was the Khartron NPO "Electropribor". The Energia used four strap-on boosters each powered by a four-chamber RD-170 engine burning kerosene / LOX , and a central core stage with four single-chamber RD-0120 (11D122) engines fueled by liquid hydrogen /LOX. The launch vehicle had two functionally different operational variants: Energia-Polyus,

5670-411: Was able to fly under its own power. Following a series of atmospheric test flights using the jet-powered OK-GLI prototype, the first operational spacecraft ( Buran , orbiter 1K ) flew one uncrewed test mission. At 03:00  UTC on 15 November 1988, Buran and the Energia carrier rocket lifted off from pad 110/37 in Baikonur. The life support system was not installed for the flight and no data

5751-450: Was accomplished using a non-planetary, split-torque design with quill shafts for torque equalization. The Mil Design Bureau designed the VR-26 transmission itself, due to Mil's normal gearbox supplier not being able to design such a gearbox. The gearbox housing is stamped aluminum. A split-torque design is also used in the 5,670 kg (12,500 lb) gearbox assembly on the American three-engine Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion . As of 2024,

5832-495: Was also the name given to orbiter 1K , which completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988 and was the only Soviet reusable spacecraft to be launched into space. The Buran-class orbiters used the expendable Energia rocket as a launch vehicle . The Buran programme was started by the Soviet Union as a response to the United States Space Shuttle program and benefited from extensive espionage undertaken by

5913-465: Was assigned to an attack submarine by NATO, was the actual Soviet name for the ballistic missile submarine NATO named " Typhoon-class ". The NATO names for submarines of the People's Republic of China are taken from Chinese dynasties . Buran programme Download coordinates as: The Buran programme ( Russian : Буран , IPA: [bʊˈran] , "Snowstorm", "Blizzard"), also known as

5994-432: Was changed in 1991 to the following: After the first flight of a Buran shuttle, the project was suspended due to lack of funds and the political situation in the Soviet Union. The two subsequent orbiters, which were due in 1990 (Orbiter 2K) and 1992 (Orbiter 3K) were never completed with other articles being scrapped (see next section). The project was officially terminated on 30 June 1993, by President Boris Yeltsin . At

6075-425: Was constructed with four jet engines mounted at the rear; this vehicle is usually referred to as OK-GLI , or as the "Buran aerodynamic analogue". The jets were used to take off from a normal landing strip, and once it reached a designated point, the engines were cut and OK-GLI glided back to land. This provided invaluable information about the handling characteristics of the Buran design, and significantly differed from

6156-409: Was decided to develop a new high-level "problem-oriented" programming language. Researchers at Keldysh developed two languages: PROL2 (used for real-time programming of onboard systems) and DIPOL (used for the ground-based test systems), as well as the development and debugging environment SAPO PROLOGUE. There was also an operating system known as Prolog Manager. Work on these languages continued beyond

6237-647: Was displayed on the CRT displays in the Command Compartment. The shuttle orbited the Earth twice, travelling 83,707 kilometres (52,013 mi) in 3 hours and 25 minutes (0.14 flight days). On its return, it performed an automated landing on the shuttle runway (Site 251) at Baikonur Cosmodrome . The planned flights for the shuttles in 1989, before the downsizing of the project and eventual cancellation, were: The planned uncrewed second flight of orbiter 2K

6318-517: Was partially built. After a brief period of use in the Soviet space programme, the aircraft was mothballed during the early 1990s. Towards the turn of the century, it was decided to refurbish the An-225 and reintroduce it for commercial operations, carrying oversized payloads for the operator Antonov Airlines . Multiple announcements were made regarding the potential completion of the second airframe, though its construction largely remained on hold due to

6399-410: Was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration . The Soviet reusable spacecraft programme has its roots in the late 1950s, at the very beginning of the space age. The idea of Soviet reusable space flight is very old, though it was neither continuous nor consistently organized. Before Buran, no project of the programme reached operational status. The first step toward

6480-461: Was unclassified. By 1975, NPO Energiya had come up with two competing designs for the orbiter vehicle: the MTKVP ( Russian : МТКВП, «Многоразовый Транспортный Корабль Вертикальной Посадки» , romanized :  Mnogorazoviy Transportniy Korabl' Vertikal'noy Posadki , lit.   'Reusable Vertical Landing Transport Ship'), a 34-meter-long lifting body spaceplane launched on top of

6561-737: Was used to bring heavy earth moving tractors to the quake-lakes at Tangjiashan mountain , located in difficult terrain and accessible only by foot or air. In July 2009, a Moldovan Mi-26 was shot down in Helmand province with the loss of six Ukrainian crew members. The aircraft, belonging to Pecotox Air , was said to be on a humanitarian mission under NATO contract. On 14 December 2010, an Indian Air Force Mi-26 crashed seconds after taking off from Jammu Airport , injuring all nine passengers. The aircraft fell from an altitude of about 15 metres (50 ft). The Indian Institute of Flight Safety released an investigation report that stated improper fastening of

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