[FPSPACE] more shots of Buran vehicles at Baikonur

[Bart Hendrickx]

More pictures of Energiya/Buran hardware at Baikonur have been posted by
Vadim Lukashevich on his website at www.buran.ru

 

http://www.buran.ru/htm/foto7.htm

 

Here are 20 pictures showing the scene inside the Energiya assembly building
shortly after the roof over the high bays collapsed in May 2002. Most of
them show the remains of a mock-up Energiya vehicle (11F36MD) on which the
only flown Buran vehicle was sitting when the roof came tumbling down.
Orbiter debris is visible in six of the images. At the bottom of the page
are three pictures of RD-0120 liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen engines that
survived the roof collapse relatively intact. According to reliable sources
at Baikonur all three engines were cut in two and sold to China in what
Lukashevich literally calls "an act of paid espionage in favour of another
state".

 

http://www.buran.ru/htm/1-02.htm

 

Here are nearly 50 inside shots of the second flight vehicle, which now
resides in the abandoned Assembly and Fueling Building (MZK). The ship was
reportedly more than 90 % ready when the Energiya/Buran programme was closed
down in 1993 and was being prepared for an ambitious flight that would have
featured a docking with the Mir space station and with a Soyuz spacecraft.
Taken in January 2007, the pictures show the vehicle's flight deck, middeck
as well as portions of the payload bay, which houses an airlock, a small
module as well as a mechanical arm. 

 

Bart Hendrickx