6 ms·

It is really interesting how similar the Russian space shuttle is in design to the American space shuttle. Kinda like how all of China's latest generation fight

by dsl 9y ago

It is really interesting how similar the Russian space shuttle is in design to the American space shuttle. Kinda like how all of China's latest generation fighter jets look suspiciously similar to their American counterparts... https://www.defensetech.org/2015/09/29/lawmaker-chinese-j-31-j-20-mirror-american-f-35-f-22/ https://www.defensetech.org/2015/09/29/lawmaker-chinese-j-31...

justinjlynn 9y ago
It seems espionage is a recurring theme : http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/12/14/buran-shuttle-soviet-espionage/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/12/14/buran-shut...
sitharus 9y ago
That's because Buran was built as a direct response to the Space Shuttle. Apparently the Soviets couldn't imagine civilian uses for such a large reusable vehicle so built their own to find out what it was for. There are also significant differences though. Buran didn't carry its own engines, Energia provided all the launch thrust. The orbital manoeuvring system used LOX/Kerosene instead of MMH/N2O4. Also it was fully automated, its solo launch and landing happened under computer control.
- kobeya 9y ago
  It's a bit more than similarity. Watch the launch video of the Buran and you'll see it executes a roll shortly after take-off. Why does it do that? The American space shuttle performs that exact roll at that exact height because the orientation of pad 39A at Cape Canaveral is wrong and it corrects as soon as it clears the tower. The Buran launches from a different tower at a different latitude with a different height at a different orientation... but it performs _exactly_ the same roll. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
  - plugger 9y ago
    My conclusion is that you've got no idea what you're talking about! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_program
    - kobeya 9y ago
      From your link: > During the launch of a space shuttle, the roll program was simultaneously accompanied by a pitch maneuver and yaw maneuver. It's the STS-specific pitch and yaw I'm talking about. And specifically that it happened at the height it would happen at the Cape, whereas energia had a different tower design that would have allowed the roll to happen earlier, for better efficiency.
  - sitharus 9y ago
    That's not surprising at all, and would be required even if Buran was developed completely independently to STS. Without that manoeuvre the engines would thrust off-axis due to the side-mounted payload. It's easier to compensate for off-axis pitch than yaw when you have gravity to account for. For Soyuz launches on the other hand they physically rotate the launch pad.
  - exDM69 9y ago
    All space craft perform a roll program to align with the selected launch azimuth, which is chosen for a specific orbital inclination and launch site latitude. Without roll, all spacecraft from a launch site would be placed on similarly inclined orbits which would be useless.
  - exDM69 9y ago
    All space craft perform a roll program to align with the selected launch azimuth, which is chosen for a specific orbital inclination and launch site latitude. Without roll, all spacecraft from a launch site would be placed on similarly inclined orbits which would be useless.
  - dahauns 9y ago
    Which launch video are you talking about? The only ones I was able to find don't show enough material to see post-take-off maneuvers.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  Let's not get too cocky here. Copying went both ways: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/nasas-newest-cargo-spacecraft-began-life-as-a-soviet-space-plane/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/nasas-newest-cargo-s... And the pork barrel project extraordinaire: http://aviationintel.com/yak-141-freestyle-the-f-35b-was-born-in-moscow/ http://aviationintel.com/yak-141-freestyle-the-f-35b-was-bor... Lockheed entered into a "partnership" with Yakovlev, copied the blueprints, and dissolved the "partnership", while pocketing hundreds of billions in US government largesse. The end result even looks similar.
  - tim333 9y ago
    I didn't know that with the Yak. There's some footage of it flying / crashing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmoMOc1Z_KE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmoMOc1Z_KE
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      This is not very well known in the US, although the Russians were sore about it for quite a while. This was back in early 90s when the US was universally perceived as a "friend" by freshly ex-Soviet people for the first time in their lives, and such military cooperation was actually possible. Turns out this somewhat naive trust was misguided.
- ahoka 9y ago
  It was designed for the Air Force for delivering military satellites to polar orbit.
dbatten 9y ago
Fun fact... although the Soviets (obviously) never executed, they actually independently developed the exact same solution for going to the moon as the US used - lunar orbit rendezvous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_orbit_rendezvous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_orbit_rendezvous
lambdadmitry 9y ago
I believe this story runs deeper. See, there are only so many form-factors you can do given a particular set of requirements. In a lot of cases it's just one, this is why all modern passenger planes look very similar — aerodynamics dictate the form as soon as you accept the requirements (safely and cheaply transport people from A to B). The Shuttle had wings quite larger than the minimum necessary to land. Apparently the reason for that is military's requirement for "polar once around" capability: it had to be able to launch, do one polar orbit and land immediately [1]. Such a maneuver makes it impossible to predict when and where the Shuttle will overfly some (e.g. Soviet) territory. The problem is that while the Shuttle does that orbit, the Earth spins a bit and now you are over ocean. To compensate for that, Shuttle had to have large aerodynamic surfaces so it can fly sideways and land properly. If not for this requirement, Shuttle may had smaller and lighter wings and lower chance of damaging heat proof tiles. We know that requirement existed because nowadays Shuttle's design documents are declassified. However, I've not seen a single bit of rationale for Buran's shape/wing surface. So it may be the case that it's not just a copycat, but copying without for the sake of keeping up, with no purpose for the copy. [1]: http://www.airspacemag.com/space/secret-space-shuttles-35318554/ http://www.airspacemag.com/space/secret-space-shuttles-35318...

by dsl 9y ago

justinjlynn 9y ago

It seems espionage is a recurring theme : http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/12/14/buran-shuttle-soviet-espionage/ http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2016/12/14/buran-shut...

sitharus 9y ago

That's because Buran was built as a direct response to the Space Shuttle. Apparently the Soviets couldn't imagine civilian uses for such a large reusable vehicle so built their own to find out what it was for. There are also significant differences though. Buran didn't carry its own engines, Energia provided all the launch thrust. The orbital manoeuvring system used LOX/Kerosene instead of MMH/N2O4. Also it was fully automated, its solo launch and landing happened under computer control.

kobeya 9y ago
It's a bit more than similarity. Watch the launch video of the Buran and you'll see it executes a roll shortly after take-off. Why does it do that? The American space shuttle performs that exact roll at that exact height because the orientation of pad 39A at Cape Canaveral is wrong and it corrects as soon as it clears the tower. The Buran launches from a different tower at a different latitude with a different height at a different orientation... but it performs _exactly_ the same roll. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
- plugger 9y ago
  My conclusion is that you've got no idea what you're talking about! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_program
  - kobeya 9y ago
    From your link: > During the launch of a space shuttle, the roll program was simultaneously accompanied by a pitch maneuver and yaw maneuver. It's the STS-specific pitch and yaw I'm talking about. And specifically that it happened at the height it would happen at the Cape, whereas energia had a different tower design that would have allowed the roll to happen earlier, for better efficiency.
- sitharus 9y ago
  That's not surprising at all, and would be required even if Buran was developed completely independently to STS. Without that manoeuvre the engines would thrust off-axis due to the side-mounted payload. It's easier to compensate for off-axis pitch than yaw when you have gravity to account for. For Soyuz launches on the other hand they physically rotate the launch pad.
- exDM69 9y ago
  All space craft perform a roll program to align with the selected launch azimuth, which is chosen for a specific orbital inclination and launch site latitude. Without roll, all spacecraft from a launch site would be placed on similarly inclined orbits which would be useless.
- exDM69 9y ago
  All space craft perform a roll program to align with the selected launch azimuth, which is chosen for a specific orbital inclination and launch site latitude. Without roll, all spacecraft from a launch site would be placed on similarly inclined orbits which would be useless.
- dahauns 9y ago
  Which launch video are you talking about? The only ones I was able to find don't show enough material to see post-take-off maneuvers.
0xbear 9y ago
Let's not get too cocky here. Copying went both ways: https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/nasas-newest-cargo-spacecraft-began-life-as-a-soviet-space-plane/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/nasas-newest-cargo-s... And the pork barrel project extraordinaire: http://aviationintel.com/yak-141-freestyle-the-f-35b-was-born-in-moscow/ http://aviationintel.com/yak-141-freestyle-the-f-35b-was-bor... Lockheed entered into a "partnership" with Yakovlev, copied the blueprints, and dissolved the "partnership", while pocketing hundreds of billions in US government largesse. The end result even looks similar.
- tim333 9y ago
  I didn't know that with the Yak. There's some footage of it flying / crashing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmoMOc1Z_KE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmoMOc1Z_KE
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    This is not very well known in the US, although the Russians were sore about it for quite a while. This was back in early 90s when the US was universally perceived as a "friend" by freshly ex-Soviet people for the first time in their lives, and such military cooperation was actually possible. Turns out this somewhat naive trust was misguided.
ahoka 9y ago
It was designed for the Air Force for delivering military satellites to polar orbit.

dbatten 9y ago

Fun fact... although the Soviets (obviously) never executed, they actually independently developed the exact same solution for going to the moon as the US used - lunar orbit rendezvous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_orbit_rendezvous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_orbit_rendezvous

lambdadmitry 9y ago

I believe this story runs deeper. See, there are only so many form-factors you can do given a particular set of requirements. In a lot of cases it's just one, this is why all modern passenger planes look very similar — aerodynamics dictate the form as soon as you accept the requirements (safely and cheaply transport people from A to B). The Shuttle had wings quite larger than the minimum necessary to land. Apparently the reason for that is military's requirement for "polar once around" capability: it had to be able to launch, do one polar orbit and land immediately [1]. Such a maneuver makes it impossible to predict when and where the Shuttle will overfly some (e.g. Soviet) territory. The problem is that while the Shuttle does that orbit, the Earth spins a bit and now you are over ocean. To compensate for that, Shuttle had to have large aerodynamic surfaces so it can fly sideways and land properly. If not for this requirement, Shuttle may had smaller and lighter wings and lower chance of damaging heat proof tiles. We know that requirement existed because nowadays Shuttle's design documents are declassified. However, I've not seen a single bit of rationale for Buran's shape/wing surface. So it may be the case that it's not just a copycat, but copying without for the sake of keeping up, with no purpose for the copy. [1]: http://www.airspacemag.com/space/secret-space-shuttles-35318554/ http://www.airspacemag.com/space/secret-space-shuttles-35318...