Author Topic: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?  (Read 49217 times)

Offline Lobo

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #40 on: 03/31/2013 04:42 am »
Does anyone know when the Soviets could have had a real working version of that carbon-dioxide laser loaded into a production model Polyus weapons platform?  I always got the impression the Soviets were not that far away from sending up the real deal had the US gone ahead with SDI. 


I have no idea.  I'm going to make an assumption that they did not.  I don't know how powerful the Polyus laser was supposed to be, but to make a laster powerful enough it could be put on a satillite and shoot down other satillites, with the power it'd need and the precision guidence it would need, seems a fair bit ahead of the Soviets at that time.  It was probably a fair bit ahead of us then.   Maybe they had a working laser of sufficient power in a lab as part of the total project, and the Polyus mockup was a test bed for the satillite that they hoped would eventually carry it.  I'd be surprised if it was ay more than that at that time. 

But that assumption is just based on an educated guess.  If I weren't lazy I'd probably research it.  :-)

Two decades later we spend a lot of money on the Airborne laser system we put in the 747 that was cancelled.  And it doesn't sound like even that would have been powerful enough to really shootdown missles ICBM's (from what I heard).  A satillite is more fragile, so perhaps it's an easier deal to do.  But still, seems like a much tougher task than the Soviets could have mustered in the 80's.


The Energia M may be a clumsy solution, but I really doubt the US could've created a down-sized version of the STS stack like the Soviets could with the Energia stack.  More design flexibility certainly would be a point in the Energia's favor over STS.  Obviously we never created a full-on LV from the shuttle's SRBs like the Soviets did with the Energia's boosters, though we did get close before spiraling costs and delays axed the project.  Though the Zenit is not exactly a world-beater in reliability, it still bests a non-existent LV for derived utility. 

Just curious, but if the Energia M is a clumsy solution, what would a better solution be for using Energia-derived parts on smaller rockets?  A Zenit Heavy?  Trimming back the Energia to 2 boosters and launching that? 


Not sure, but Jim might mean that Energia M would still be a pretty big and expensive LV, but fairly under performing with just two two Zenits.  Sort of like how ESAS looked at some 8.4m hydrolox cores with just a pair of Atlas V boosters.  They were pretty under performing.  They evaluated them with RS-68's and J2S powered hydrolox upper stages and they were still not very impressorve.
The Soviets didn't have hydrolox powered upper stages then either apparently.

Or, maybe Jim didn't mean that, and he can explain what he meant.  ;-)

Anyway, a  3 core Zenit would do the same thing or better, and probably be a good deal cheaper.  A two core variant (with just one outboard booster.  I think they looked at that to uprate Sealaunch.)  could go inbetween the 1 core and 3 core.




There is one Energia-inspired solution I think might work well.  Let's say the Soviets are looking to either upgrade the Proton or replace it in the late 1980s.  They make the decision to upgrade it to what we know today as the Proton M (more thrust, less dry mass, more payload, etc).  I'd have the first stage upgraded in both thrust and propellant load, its dry mass % trimmed, and then scrap the 2nd and 3rd stages.  I'd replace them both with a single hydrolox stage powered by an RD-0120.  That should up both payload and reliability considerably and get better economies of scale.  If need be you'd add on a 4th stage for deep space missions or GEO comsats.  That should be a better solution than the Energia M, no?   

Could the RD-0120 be air-started?  I don't know.  I think RS-25 was looking to be expensive to make air-startable, and then it only could be once.  That would have worked ok for Ares 1, but not for Ares V as it would have needed to do the final ascent burn, and EDS burn.  Which I think was part of the problem with that route, not just price of the development.
Would there have been similar issues with RD-0120?

If so, that should have given Proton better performance surely.

Offline Hyperion5

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #41 on: 03/31/2013 07:36 am »

The Energia M may be a clumsy solution, but I really doubt the US could've created a down-sized version of the STS stack like the Soviets could with the Energia stack.  More design flexibility certainly would be a point in the Energia's favor over STS.  Obviously we never created a full-on LV from the shuttle's SRBs like the Soviets did with the Energia's boosters, though we did get close before spiraling costs and delays axed the project.  Though the Zenit is not exactly a world-beater in reliability, it still bests a non-existent LV for derived utility. 

Just curious, but if the Energia M is a clumsy solution, what would a better solution be for using Energia-derived parts on smaller rockets?  A Zenit Heavy?  Trimming back the Energia to 2 boosters and launching that? 


Not sure, but Jim might mean that Energia M would still be a pretty big and expensive LV, but fairly under performing with just two two Zenits.  Sort of like how ESAS looked at some 8.4m hydrolox cores with just a pair of Atlas V boosters.  They were pretty under performing.  They evaluated them with RS-68's and J2S powered hydrolox upper stages and they were still not very impressorve.
The Soviets didn't have hydrolox powered upper stages then either apparently.

Or, maybe Jim didn't mean that, and he can explain what he meant.  ;-)

Anyway, a  3 core Zenit would do the same thing or better, and probably be a good deal cheaper.  A two core variant (with just one outboard booster.  I think they looked at that to uprate Sealaunch.)  could go inbetween the 1 core and 3 core.

You know, that reminds me of how much more widespread the tech gained from the development of the Energia rocket is than STS.  The RD-170 family has grown from one variant to at least five production models, and has powered, is powering or about to lift 5 different rockets off the pad (Energia, Zenit, Atlas V, Naro & Angara).  The Zenit boosters are the basis of the cheap Zenit rockets we know today.  The RD-0120 is no longer in production, the but the experience with it has led KBKhA to develop the RD-0146 hydrolox engine family.  The contrast with the non-use of SRBs outside of STS & its engine tech spreading is rather telling. 

The ironic thing about the Soviets is they could have made the Energia family the basis of everything they flew given enough time.  They could have replaced the Soyuz & Soyuz spaceship with the Zenit & Zarya spaceship, replaced the Proton to GTO with a 3-stage Zenit, replaced it to LEO with a Zenit Heavy, bridged the Zenit-Energia capacity gap with a 5-core Zenit, and then had the Energia as the top of the line.  You simply cannot match that level of versatility with anything derived from STS.  Heck, given enough budget, they could have even produced the Vulkan and Vulkan Herkules inline versions of the Energia.  Thus they'd have 3-4 rocket engines and 2 cores covering all their needs between 10 and 200 mt.  Not shabby at all. 


Offline fregate

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #42 on: 03/31/2013 09:43 am »
RD-0146 engines has legacy within RL-10 family rather than with RD-0120 engine.
RD-0148 family of LREs would use legacy of RD-0120 and RD-0146.
« Last Edit: 04/01/2013 07:49 am by fregate »
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Offline Dmitry_V_home

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #43 on: 04/01/2013 04:32 pm »
Speaking about the Zenit, here is a proposal in the 1980s for a tri-core heavy Zenit, the 11K37 (performance is reportingly to be about 40 tonnes LEO): http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/forum9/topic10895/

There is also an article about it in the November 2010 issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki - any Russian members here can check out what it is about?  :)

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27034.0

Offline Hyperion5

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #44 on: 04/01/2013 05:09 pm »
Speaking about the Zenit, here is a proposal in the 1980s for a tri-core heavy Zenit, the 11K37 (performance is reportingly to be about 40 tonnes LEO): http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/forum9/topic10895/

There is also an article about it in the November 2010 issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki - any Russian members here can check out what it is about?  :)


http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27034.0



Dmitry, you might know, but what was the plan for the Soviets if there was a problem with the Energia while the Buran was on it?  Would they abort the boosters first and then shut down the central core, then eject the Buran?  Would the pilots simply eject via ejection seats?  Or would the Buran use its remaining thrusters to fly itself away from the Energia and then to re-orient itself for an emergency landing at Baikonur?  Was there ever any talk of doing an abort-to-orbit should the central core have an engine shutdown later in the flight? 

Offline Dmitry_V_home

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #45 on: 04/01/2013 07:55 pm »
Dmitry, you might know, but what was the plan for the Soviets if there was a problem with the Energia while the Buran was on it?  Would they abort the boosters first and then shut down the central core, then eject the Buran?  Would the pilots simply eject via ejection seats?  Or would the Buran use its remaining thrusters to fly itself away from the Energia and then to re-orient itself for an emergency landing at Baikonur?  Was there ever any talk of doing an abort-to-orbit should the central core have an engine shutdown later in the flight? 

Unfortunately, my English is too bad for detailed explanations. I will tell only that at failure of engines at the initial stage of flight the rocket had to bring Buran into such kinematic conditions that it could return on airfield. It is possible to look here in more detail: http://www.buran.ru/htm/rocket.htm

Offline Hyperion5

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #46 on: 04/01/2013 09:58 pm »
Dmitry, you might know, but what was the plan for the Soviets if there was a problem with the Energia while the Buran was on it?  Would they abort the boosters first and then shut down the central core, then eject the Buran?  Would the pilots simply eject via ejection seats?  Or would the Buran use its remaining thrusters to fly itself away from the Energia and then to re-orient itself for an emergency landing at Baikonur?  Was there ever any talk of doing an abort-to-orbit should the central core have an engine shutdown later in the flight? 

Unfortunately, my English is too bad for detailed explanations. I will tell only that at failure of engines at the initial stage of flight the rocket had to bring Buran into such kinematic conditions that it could return on airfield. It is possible to look here in more detail: http://www.buran.ru/htm/rocket.htm


Alright, but let me put it another way.  Let's say the USSR wasn't collapsing, it's the early 1990s, and the US & USSR are sending up astronauts and cosmonauts on each others' LVs.  You're a cosmonaut offered a choice of riding in either.  Which would you have felt safer going up in, the Buran or the Shuttle? 

Offline Lobo

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #47 on: 04/02/2013 02:23 am »

This is Wikipedia, so for whatever it's worth, it said the Titan 401A that exploded in [1998] cost $1.4 billion.  I'm sure the flights after that must have cost similar.  That's right in the range of STS launches, if not more expensive.

That included the payload

Ahhh...ok, that maks more sense.  Seemed like a heck of a price tag for a launcher of its class...

Sounds like the price was spendy for it though, hence why it was replaced with the EELV program?
I would guess the fact that the Titan core was no longer being produce for the DoD and so here was no cost sharing any more had a part to pay in that?

Offline Lobo

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #48 on: 04/02/2013 02:29 am »
Speaking about the Zenit, here is a proposal in the 1980s for a tri-core heavy Zenit, the 11K37 (performance is reportingly to be about 40 tonnes LEO): http://novosti-kosmonavtiki.ru/forum/forum9/topic10895/

There is also an article about it in the November 2010 issue of Novosti Kosmonavtiki - any Russian members here can check out what it is about?  :)

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=27034.0


Interesting, thanks Dmitri.  Guess I wasn't the first to wonder about a "Zenit Heavy" after all!
;-)

No big surprise there though.

Offline Dmitry_V_home

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #49 on: 04/02/2013 03:12 pm »
....  You're a cosmonaut offered a choice of riding in either.  Which would you have felt safer going up in, the Buran or the Shuttle? 

Soyuz :D

Offline Lar

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #50 on: 04/02/2013 03:32 pm »
....  You're a cosmonaut offered a choice of riding in either.  Which would you have felt safer going up in, the Buran or the Shuttle? 

Soyuz :D
What if that wasn't a choice, though. Me, I'd have a hard time picking (for lack of data)
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Offline Dmitry_V_home

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #51 on: 04/04/2013 01:15 pm »

No big surprise there though.

Oh, yeah...

Offline Jim

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #52 on: 04/04/2013 01:36 pm »

Sounds like the price was spendy for it though, hence why it was replaced with the EELV program?
I would guess the fact that the Titan core was no longer being produce for the DoD and so here was no cost sharing any more had a part to pay in that?

Titan II cores (as in ICBM's) production was concluded in the mid 60's.  All subsequent production was for launch vehicles.

Offline Patchouli

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #53 on: 04/04/2013 03:43 pm »
In some ways Energia/Buran was a superior system to STS.

The Buran had a non toxic RCS and less issues with lost tiles then STS did but it also got to benefit from being built with newer technology.

But the real advantage was the fact Energia could be used with out a crew as an LV pretty much equal to the two stage variant of the Saturn V.

The in line version of Energia with eight Zenit boosters would have been more capable then the Saturn V and similar in capability to Ares V.

But STS did have one big advantage over Buran it's reoccuring or per missions costs should be lower since less was thrown away.
I'm not sure if Energia/Buran could have ever matched the STS flight rates of 6 to 9 times a year though for jobs like station assembly it would not have to.

An ISS class station would have only required 4 Energia cargo only flights and maybe 5 or 6 flights with Buran.
It definitely could have built ISS faster and maybe cheaper then STS.
« Last Edit: 04/04/2013 03:58 pm by Patchouli »

Offline Lobo

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #54 on: 04/04/2013 04:24 pm »

Sounds like the price was spendy for it though, hence why it was replaced with the EELV program?
I would guess the fact that the Titan core was no longer being produce for the DoD and so here was no cost sharing any more had a part to pay in that?

Titan II cores (as in ICBM's) production was concluded in the mid 60's.  All subsequent production was for launch vehicles.

Good point.  Titan III was initially relatively cost effective because the core was in production for DoD.  Otherwise, why use a core with toxic hypergolic propellants???
Why?  Because it existed and was available then.

Was Titan IV only incrementally more expensive than Titan III?  Or was ita  big jump in price?  I believe I remember price as being a reason it was finally cancelled and replaced with the EELV program.  But if Titan cores weren't being made for ICBM's after the mid 60's, why even develop a Titan IV?  Why not have the EELV program to replace Titan III? I think I remember that the Titan III program used a lot of retired Titan cores.  (Martin Mariette refurbished 14 of them in the late 80's for government launch requirements I think) So I got the impression new cores weren't actually being built for it.  They were just using old ICBM's.  The SRB's were the production element.
Titan IV was a stretched core (so I'm assuming a newly build core) with non-optional boosters. So a new developemnt, and new cores.  So why develop it?

But perhaps I don't understand the history correctly.

Offline Hyperion5

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Re: Energia/Buran--superior design to STS/Shuttle?
« Reply #55 on: 04/04/2013 04:30 pm »

Sounds like the price was spendy for it though, hence why it was replaced with the EELV program?
I would guess the fact that the Titan core was no longer being produce for the DoD and so here was no cost sharing any more had a part to pay in that?

Titan II cores (as in ICBM's) production was concluded in the mid 60's.  All subsequent production was for launch vehicles.

Good point.  Titan III was initially relatively cost effective because the core was in production for DoD.  Otherwise, why use a core with toxic hypergolic propellants???
Why?  Because it existed and was available then.

Was Titan IV only incrementally more expensive than Titan III?  Or was ita  big jump in price?  I believe I remember price as being a reason it was finally cancelled and replaced with the EELV program.  But if Titan cores weren't being made for ICBM's after the mid 60's, why even develop a Titan IV?  Why not have the EELV program to replace Titan III? I think I remember that the Titan III program used a lot of retired Titan cores.  (Martin Mariette refurbished 14 of them in the late 80's for government launch requirements I think) So I got the impression new cores weren't actually being built for it.  They were just using old ICBM's.  The SRB's were the production element.
Titan IV was a stretched core (so I'm assuming a newly build core) with non-optional boosters. So a new developemnt, and new cores.  So why develop it?

But perhaps I don't understand the history correctly.

Lobo, if you want to talk about Titan family, I suggest adding a thread for that purpose.  This is way off-topic in a thread about the Energia & STS stacks. 

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