The BOR-4 (''БОР-4'' russian: Беспилотный Орбитальный Ракетоплан 4, , "Unpiloted Orbital Rocketplane 4") flight vehicle is a scaled (1:2) prototype of the Soviet Spiral

VTHL Aircraft can have different ways to take off and land. Conventional airplanes accelerate along the ground until sufficient lift (force), lift is generated for takeoff, and reverse the process to landing, land. Some airplanes can take off at low spe ...

(vertical takeoff, horizontal landing)

spaceplane A spaceplane is a vehicle that can fly and glide like an aircraft in Earth's atmosphere and maneuver like a spacecraft in outer space. To do so, spaceplanes must incorporate features of both aircraft and spacecraft. Orbital spaceplanes te ...

. An uncrewed, subscale

spacecraft A spacecraft is a vehicle or machine designed to fly in outer space. A type of artificial satellite, spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, space colonization, p ...

, its purpose was to test the heatshield tiles and reinforced carbon-carbon for the Buran space shuttle, then under development. Several of them were built and flown between 1982 and 1984 from the

Kapustin Yar Kapustin Yar (russian: Капустин Яр) is a Russian rocket launch complex in Astrakhan Oblast, about 100 km east of Volgograd. It was established by the Soviet Union on 13 May 1946. In the beginning, Kapustin Yar used technology, material ...

launch site at speeds of up to Mach 25. After reentry, they were designed to parachute to an ocean splashdown for recovery by the Soviet Navy. The testing was nearly identical to that carried out by the

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sig ...

ASSET program in the 1960s, which tested the heatshield design for the

X-20 Dyna-Soar The Boeing X-20 Dyna-Soar ("Dynamic Soarer") was a United States Air Force (USAF) program to develop a spaceplane that could be used for a variety of military missions, including aerial reconnaissance, bombing, space rescue, satellite maintena ...

. On 16 March 1983 a

Royal Australian Air Force "Through Adversity to the Stars" , colours = , colours_label = , march = , mascot = , anniversaries = RAAF Anniversary Commemoration ...

P-3 Orion reconnaissance aircraft captured the first Western images of the craft as it was recovered by a Soviet ship near the

Cocos Islands ) , anthem = "''Advance Australia Fair''" , song_type = , song = , image_map = Australia on the globe (Cocos (Keeling) Islands special) (Southeast Asia centered).svg , map_alt = Location of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands , map_caption = ...

Flights

Seven BOR were built, and four confirmed flights took place: * n/a – 5 December 1980 – BOR4S nº401 - suborbital flight * Cosmos-1374 – 4 June 1982 – BOR4 nº404 – orbital flight, splashed down into the Indian Ocean. Orbit: 158 x 204km. Inclination: 50.7 degrees. Weight: possibly about 1 tonne. Number of orbits: 1. * Cosmos-1445 – 15 March 1983 – BOR4 nº403 – orbital flight, splashed down into the Indian Ocean. * Cosmos-1517 – 27 December 1983 – BOR4 nº405 – orbital flight, splashed down into the Black Sea. * Cosmos-1614 – 19 December 1984 – BOR4 nº406 – orbital flight. Orbit: 176 x 223 km. Inclination: 50.7 degrees. Weight: possibly 1 tonne. Recovered after splashed down in the Black Sea.

Current locations

*BOR-4S nº401 –

Zhukovsky, Moscow Oblast Zhukovsky (russian: link=no, Жуковский, ) is a city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, located on the Moskva River, southeast of Moscow. Population: History The urban-type settlement of Stakhanovo was founded in 1935 from the dacha settlement ...

, Russia *BOR-4 –

, Russia

References

External links

Detailed page on BORs
Buran program Crewed spacecraft Spacecraft launched in 1982 {{USSR-spacecraft-stub

Flights

Current locations

See also

References

External links