OK-GLI

The OK-GLI (Russian: Орбитальный корабль для горизонтальных лётных испытаний, ОК-ГЛИ, romanized: Orbital'nyy korabl' dlya gorizontal'nykh lotnykh ispytaniy, lit. 'Orbital ship for horizontal flight tests'), also known as Buran Analog BTS-02 (Russian: БТС-02, Большой транспортный самолёт второй, romanized: bolshoi transportny samolyot vtoroi, lit. 'big transport aircraft, the second'), was a test vehicle ("Buran aerodynamic analogue") in the Buran programme. It was constructed in 1984, and was used for 25 test flights between 1985 and 1988 before being retired. It is now an exhibit at the Technik Museum Speyer in Germany.

OK-GLI ("Buran aerodynamic analogue")
Atmospheric Buran testbed currently on display in Technik Museum Speyer
CountrySoviet Union
StatusOwned by the Technik Museum Speyer, Germany. Serving as walk-in exhibition.
First flightTaxi test 1
29 December 1984
Last flightTaxi test 9
29 December 1989
No. of missions25 test flights
Time spent in spacenever flew in space

Construction

The development of the Buran began in the late 1970s as a response to the U.S. Space Shuttle program. The construction of the orbiters began in 1980, and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first suborbital test flight of a scale-model took place as early as July 1983. As the project progressed, five additional scale-model flights were performed.

The OK-GLI (Buran Analog BST-02) test vehicle ("Buran aerodynamic analogue") was constructed in 1984. It was fitted with four AL-31 jet engines mounted at the rear (the fuel tank for the engines occupied a quarter of the cargo bay). This Buran could take off under its own power for flight tests, in contrast to the American Enterprise test vehicle, which was entirely unpowered and relied on an air launch.

The jets were used to take off from a normal landing strip, and once it reached a designated point, the engines were cut and the OK-GLI glided back to land. This provided invaluable information about the handling characteristics of the Buran design, and significantly differed from the carrier plane/air drop method used by the US and the Enterprise test craft.

Test flights

Nine taxi tests and twenty-five test flights of the OK-GLI were performed,[1] after which the vehicle was "worn out". All tests and flights were carried out at Baikonur.

Date Description Maximum speed Maximum altitude Time Crew/notes[2]
29 December 1984Taxi test 145 km/h5 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
2 August 1985Taxi test 2200 km/h14 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
5 October 1985Taxi test 3270 km/h12 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
15 October 1985Taxi test 4300 km/hRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
10 November 1985Flight 1480 km/h1500 m12 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
15 November 1985Taxi test 5170 km/h12 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
3 January 1986Flight 2520 km/h3000 m36 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
26 April 1986Taxi test 614 minutesAnatoli Levchenko, Alexandr Shchukin
27 May 1986Flight 3540 km/h4000 m23 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
11 June 1986Flight 4530 km/h4000 m22 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
20 June 1986Flight 5600 km/h4500 m25 minutesAnatoli Levchenko, Alexandr Shchukin
28 June 1986Flight 6650 km/h5000 m23 minutesAnatoli Levchenko, Alexandr Shchukin
10 December 1986Flight 7700 km/h4000 m24 minutesFirst automatic landing Rimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
23 December 1986Flight 8750 km/h6000 m17 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
29 December 1986Flight 917 minutesAnatoli Levchenko, Alexandr Shchukin
16 February 1987Flight 1028 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
25 February 1987Flight 1119 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
29 March 1987Taxi test 72 minutesAnatoli Levchenko, Alexandr Shchukin
30 March 1987Taxi test 825 minutesAnatoli Levchenko, Alexandr Shchukin
21 May 1987Flight 1220 minutesAnatoli Levchenko, Alexandr Shchukin
25 June 1987Flight 1319 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
5 October 1987Flight 1421 minutesAutomatic landing Shchukin, Igor Volk
15 October 1987Flight 1519 minutesIvan Bachurin, Alexei Borodai
16 January 1988Flight 16Rimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
24 January 1988Flight 17Ivan Bachurin, Alexei Borodai
23 February 1988Flight 1822 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
4 March 1988Flight 1932 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
12 March 1988Flight 20Ivan Bachurin, Alexei Borodai
23 March 1988Flight 21Ivan Bachurin, Alexei Borodai
28 March 1988Flight 22Ivan Bachurin, Alexei Borodai
2 April 1988Flight 2320 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
8 April 1988Flight 24Rimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
15 April 1988Flight 2519 minutesRimantas Stankevičius, Igor Volk
29 December 1989Taxi test 9Rimantas Stankevičius, Viktor Zabolotski

Post-retirement

Zhukovsky Air Base
OK-GLI at MAKS-1997
OK-GLI in Sydney

After the program was cancelled, the OK-GLI was stored at Gromov Flight Research Institute, near Moscow, where it was displayed during the annual MAKS air show.

Sydney, Australia

In 2000, the OK-GLI was sold to an Australian company called the Buran Space Corporation, owned by Australian astronaut Paul Scully-Power. It was disassembled and transported by ship to Sydney, Australia, via Gothenburg, Sweden;[3] arriving on 9 February 2000 and appeared as a static tourist attraction under a large temporary structure in Darling Harbour for a few years.[4][5]

Upon reassembly, the OK-GLI was put on display in a temporary enclosure for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Visitors could walk around and inside the vehicle (a walkway was built along the cargo bay), and plans were in place for a tour of various cities in Australia and Asia. The owners went into bankruptcy after the Olympics, and the vehicle was moved into the open air and stored for a year, in a fenced-in parking lot and protected by nothing more than a large tarpaulin, where it suffered deterioration and repeated vandalism.[6]

The OK-GLI was then offered for sale, including by a radio auction on the American News 980 KFWB-AM with a starting price of US$6 million,[7] however it did not receive any genuine bids.[8]

Bahrain

In September 2004 a team of German journalists found the OK-GLI in Bahrain, having been abandoned after it was on display as an attraction of the 2002 "Bahrain Summer" festival.[9][10]

It was then bought by the Sinsheim Auto & Technik Museum, to be transported to Germany in 2005.[11] Due to legal issues, it remained in Bahrain for several years, pending settlement of an international court case over fees.[12]

Technik Museum Speyer, Germany
OK-GLI on the Rhine
OK-GLI at Technik Museum Speyer

On 4 March 2008 the OK-GLI began its journey by sea to the Technik Museum Speyer where it was refurbished and serves as a walk-in exhibit.[13]

The journey got off to an inauspicious start when, during the transfer from the storage barge to the ship, there was a failure of the aft spreader (part of the lifting mechanism) and the tail of the vehicle dropped from just above deck height to the bottom of the hold. No one was hurt and both the ship and vehicle seemed to suffer only minor damage.

See also

References
  1. "Buran Energia Timeline History". Krzys Kotwicki. Retrieved 4 August 2006.
  2. "Buran Analogue Chronology". Encyclopedia Astronautica. Retrieved 5 August 2006.
  3. "Transporting the Russian Space shuttle Buran". ProCargo. Archived from the original on 10 February 2006. Retrieved 2 July 2006.
  4. "Buran Analogue/002 in Sydney". Suburbia.com.au. Retrieved 2 July 2006.
  5. Pearlman, Robert Z. (10 February 2000). "Russian shuttle lands down under". collectSPACE. Retrieved 2 July 2006.
  6. "Analog Buran Test Vehicle". Aerospaceweb.org. Retrieved 15 June 2009.
  7. Banke, Jim (9 May 2002). "Russian Shuttle Buran, Slightly Used, Goes Up for Auction Today". Space.com. Archived from the original on 15 November 2006. Retrieved 3 July 2006.
  8. Banke, Jim (23 May 2002). "Auction Fails to Sell Buran, Russian Shuttle Remains Available". Space.com. Archived from the original on 29 August 2008. Retrieved 3 July 2006.
  9. "Analog shuttle, OK - GLI". Buran-energia.com. Retrieved 28 February 2016.
  10. Becker, Markus (22 September 2004). "Kurioser Fund: Sowjet-Shuttle am Persischen Golf aufgetaucht" [Strange find: Soviet shuttle found in the Persian Gulf]. Der Spiegel. Retrieved 5 August 2006.
  11. Becker, Markus (23 September 2004). "Überraschender Handel: Sinsheimer Museum kauft den Sowjet-Shuttle" [Surprising trade: Sinsheimer museum buys the Soviet shuttle]. Der Spiegel. Retrieved 5 August 2006.
  12. "Touchdown at Technical Museum: Russian Space Shuttle Navigates Rhine River". Der Spiegel. Reuters. 7 April 2008. Retrieved 7 April 2008.

Further reading
  • Elser, Heinz; Elser-Haft, Margrit; Lukashevich, Vladim (2008). History and Transportation of the Russian Space Shuttle OK-GLI to the Technik Museum Speyer. Technik Museum Speyer. ISBN 978-3-9809437-7-2.
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