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Soviet space shuttle sails up the Rhine |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
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 Buran is the Russian word for snowstorm or blizzard, and the name of the Soviet Union’s only space shuttle. The Buran 002 space shuttle, long moth-balled, was recently acquired by the Technikmuseum Speyer in Speyer, Germany. Buran 002 was carried via barge up the Rhine to the Technikmuseum Speyer, which houses historical automobiles, marine craft, and aircraft.
The old USSR space program spurred on the space race with the United State’s NASA. While the Soviets took many of the early leads, including the first satellites and manned spaceflights, the US soon caught up and exceeded the USSR with the Apollo-program moon landings and the reusable space shuttle, which launched in 1981. The Soviet answer to the space shuttle was the Buran program, a craft that looked remarkably similar to the US shuttle. The similarity was pushed by Soviet politicians that wanted to maintain an international parity with NASA.
Buran’s first and only launch was on November 15, 1988. It was an entirely automated unmanned flight and orbited the Earth twice in three hours. Buran returned to Earth an performed an autopilot landing, making a near perfect landing without human intervention. While the USSR had planned more missions for Buran, the Soviet Union was already beginning to collapse and money was in short supply. The entire Buran fleet was put into storage and the one shuttle that flew into space was destroyed during a hanger collapse in 2002.
A number of atmospheric testbeds had been built, and much like the US space shuttle Enterprise, never flew into space. One of these was Buran 002, which was built in 1984. Designated a Buran aerodynamic analogue, Buran 002 was fitted with four jet engines mounted around where the rocket engines would be placed, with a large fuel tank that took up a quarter of the cargo bay. Unlike the Enterprise, Buran 002 was capable of horizontal launching from a runway; Enterprise could not be self-powered and had to be launched from an already-airborne carrier jet.
Buran 002, officially titled OK-GLI made twenty-five test flights at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in what is now Kazakhstan. The shuttle would use its jet engines to fly to an altitude of 16,000 ft, after which point it would turn off the engines and glide to a landing just like the US space shuttle. After the cancellation of the Buran program, shuttle 002 was stored at Zhukovsky Air Base, near Moscow. In 1998, Russia attempted to sell Buran 002 for $10 million, and later through eBay, but failed to receive any serious bids. Finally, in 2000, Russia sold the shuttle to Australia-based Buran Space Corporation.
BSC brought Buran 002 to Sydney for the 2000 Olympics. It was put on display under a temporary in Darling Harbor where visitors could freely walk into the shuttle. BSC had been planning on taking Buran 002 on a multi-city pan-Asian tour, but went bankrupt only a few months after the shuttle went on display in Sydney.
With BSC unable to complete payment for the shuttle, ownership reverted back to NPO Molniya, the formerly state-owned Russian company that was created with to build the Buran shuttles. Molniya lacked the funds to transport Buran 002 back to Moscow and contracted with American international auction company First FX in 2002 to sell the shuttle. First FX partnered with Los Angeles radio station News 980 KFWB-AM to auction Buran 002, with a minimum asking price of $6 million. Several prank bids were received and the shuttle again did not sell.
Buran 002 was moved from the temporary shelter to a parking lot in Sydney. It was protected by a tarp over the main body and a chain link fence. The shuttle remained there for a year exposed to both the elements and vandals. Finally, in 2002, Molniya found a buyer in Singapore-based Space Shuttle World Tour. SSWT moved the shuttle to Bahrain for display during the 2002 Summer Festival, and like Buran Space Corporation before it, went bankrupt, owing NPO Molniya $320,000.
Molniya brought a lawsuit against SSWT in Bahraini courts to prevent the transfer of Buran 002 to Thailand for further display. In July 2002, the shuttle was disassembled and placed in the Sitra storage yard in Bahrain. Buran 002 sat in the yard in multiple pieces, reportedly even being used as housing for illegal immigrant workers in the facility. Two years later, it was rediscovered by German reporters and the Technikmuseum Speyer offered to purchase Buran 002, but the ongoing legal battle between Molniya and SSWT prevented the shuttle from being sold by either party. Finally, late last year SSWT had exhausted all of its appeals and Buran 002’s ownership was transferred back to Molniya, which promptly sold it to Technikmuseum Speyer for an undisclosed six-figure amount.
Buran 002’s various pieces were loaded onto a ship that transported it through the Suez Canal, around Europe, and to the Dutch port city of Rotterdam, the mouth of the Rhine. At Rotterdam it was loaded onto a barge for transport up the river to Speyer. The shuttle arrived in the city on Saturday. It will require extensive rehabilitation before it will be close to its former glory and suitable for display. Technikmuseum Speyer plans to put Buran 002 on walk-in display in June 2008.
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