Energia

The Energia (or Energiya, Энергия in Russian, meaning Energy) rocket was a Soviet rocket that was designed by NPO Energia to serve as a heavy-lift expendable launch system as well as a booster for the Buran Space Shuttle. It had the capacity to place around 100 metric tons in Low Earth orbit.

History

Development

Work on the Energia/Buran system began in 1976 after the decision was made to cancel the unsuccessful N1 rocket. The cancelled N1 rocket-based Manned Lunar Launch Facilities and Infrastructure were used for Energia (notably the huge horizontal assembly building)ndash just as NASA reused infrastructure designed for the Saturn V in the Space Shuttle program. Energia also replaced the "Vulkan" concept, which was a design based on the Proton rocket and using the same toxic hypergolic fuels, but much larger and more powerful. The "Vulkan" designation was later given to a variation of the Energia which has eight boosters and multiple stages.

First launch

The Energia was first test-launched 15 May 1987 21:30 with Polyus (UKSS military payload), where the Energia itself functioned well, but the Polyus did not reach orbit due to a mishap of its own attitude control system after separation from Energia.

Second launch

The only other flight to orbit has been the successful mission in which the unmanned Shuttle Buran was brought to orbit, in 1988. Both the Energia and Buran programs were designed to maintain strategic parity with the United States.

Discontinuation

Production of Energia rockets ended with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Buran shuttle project. Ever since, there have been persistent rumors of the renewal of production, but given the current political realities, that is highly unlikely. While the Energia is no longer in production, the Zenit boosters are still in production and in use. The four strap-on liquid-fuel boosters, which burned kerosene and liquid oxygen, were the basis of the Zenit rocket which used the same engines. The engine is the RD-170: a powerful, modern, and efficient design. It derivative, RD-171, still used on Zenit rocket. A half sized derivative of the engine, the RD-180, powers Lockheed Martin's Atlas V, one of the two new U.S. EELV rockets (the other being the Boeing Delta IV). The quarter size derivative of the engine, the RD-191 would be used in the Russian Angara rocket.

Variants

Three major variants were planned after the original configuration, each with vastly different payloads.

Energia M

The Energia M was the smallest design configuration. The number of Zenit boosters was reduced from four to two, and instead of four RD-0120 engines in the core, it had only one. It was designed to replace the Proton rocket, but lost the 1993 competition to the Angara rocket.

Energia II ("Uragan")

Energia II, named "Uragan" ("Hurricane" in Russian), was a rocket planned to be fully reusable and would be able to land on a conventional airfield. Unlike the Energia, which was planned to be semi-reusable (like that of the U.S. Space Shuttle), the "Uragan" design would have allowed the complete recovery of all Buran/Energia elements, like that of the original totally reusable Orbiter/Booster concept of the U.S. Shuttle. The Energia II core would be capable of re-entering and gliding to a landing, presumably using technology developed for the Buran.

Vulkan-Hercules

The final unflown configuration was also the largest. With eight Zenit booster rockets and an Energia-M core as the upper stage of it, the "Vulkan" (which was interestingly the same name of another Soviet heavy lift rocket that was cancelled years earlier) or "Hercules" (which is the same name designated to the N-1 rockets) configuration could have launched up to 175 tonnes into orbit. [cite book
last=Godwin
first=Robert
title=Russian Spacecraft
publisher=Apogee Books
series = Space Pocket Reference Guides
year=2006
isbn=1-894959-39-6
pages=59 ]

ee also

* Comparison of heavy lift launch systems

Footnote references

External links

* [http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/energia.htm Encyclopedia Astronautica: Energia]
* [http://www.energia.ru/english/energia/launchers/vehicle_energia.html Official energia.ru page]
* [http://www.buran-energia.com/energia/energia-desc.php Detailed site about Energia]
* [http://k26.com/buran/index.html K26 Energia page]
* [http://www.buran.ru/htm/rocket.htm ru_icon A page about Energia rocket on a site about Buran spacecraft] - [http://google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.buran.ru%2Fhtm%2Frocket.htm&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=ru&tl=en English translation]