The OK-GLI (), also known as Buran Analog BTS-02 (), was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

atmospheric

test Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film) ...

vehicle ("Buran aerodynamic analogue") of the orbital Buran spacecraft. It was constructed for the

Buran programme The ''Buran'' programme (, , "Snowstorm", "Blizzard"), also known as the "VKK Space Orbiter programme" (), was a Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began in 1974 at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute in Moscow and w ...

in 1984, and was used for 25 test flights between 1985 and 1988 before being retired. The aircraft was subsequently put on exhibit in Australia (2000), Bahrain (2002) and since 2008 has been on exhibit at the Technik Museum Speyer in Germany.

Construction

The development of the Buran vehicles by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

began in the late 1970s as a response to the

Space Shuttle program The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its ...

of the United States. The construction of the orbiters began in 1980, and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. The first

suborbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will no ...

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 Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterpris ...

'' test vehicle, which was entirely unpowered and relied on an air launch. The jet engines were used to take off from a normal landing strip, and once it reached a designated point, the engines were shut down and the OK-GLI glided back to land. This provided valuable test data about the handling characteristics of the Buran design. The powered-engine approach significantly differed from the carrier plane/air drop method used by the US and the ''Enterprise'' test craft.

Test flights

Until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, seven

cosmonaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a List of human spaceflight programs, human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member of a spa ...

s were allocated to the Buran programme. All had experience as test pilots and flew on the OK-GLI test vehicle. They were: Ivan Bachurin, Alexei Borodai, Anatoli Levchenko, Aleksandr Shchukin,

Rimantas Stankevičius Rimantas Antanas Stankevičius (, ; 26 July 1944 in Marijampolė, Lithuania – 9 September 1990 in Salgareda, Italy) was a Lithuanian test pilot and cosmonaut in the Soviet space shuttle Buran programme. He was killed in a crash of his Su-27 ...

, Igor Volk and Viktor Zabolotsky. In total, nine taxi tests and twenty-five test flights of the OK-GLI were performed, after which the vehicle was "worn out". All tests and flights were carried out at the Zhukovsky Air Base, outside Moscow.

Post-retirement

Zhukovsky Air Base

After the program was cancelled, the OK-GLI was stored at Gromov Flight Research Institute, near

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

, where it was displayed during the annual

MAKS air show MAKS (, ) is an international air show held at Zhukovsky International Airport, the home of the Gromov Flight Research Institute in Zhukovsky, Moscow Oblast, Zhukovsky, southeast of Moscow, Russia. The event was organized by the Russian Ministr ...

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 Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, Australia, via

Gothenburg Gothenburg ( ; ) is the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, second-largest city in Sweden, after the capital Stockholm, and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated by the Kattegat on the west coast of Sweden, it is the gub ...

, Sweden; arriving on 9 February 2000 and appeared as a static tourist attraction under a large temporary structure in

Darling Harbour Darling Harbour is a harbour and neighborhood adjacent to the city centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, that is made up of a large recreational and pedestrian precinct that is situated on western outskirts of the Sydney central busines ...

for a few years. Upon reassembly, the OK-GLI was put on display in a temporary enclosure for the

2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, officially branded as Sydney 2000, and also known as the Games of the New Millennium, were an international multi-sport event held from 15 September to 1 October ...

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. 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 , however it did not receive any genuine bids.

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

Technik Museum Speyer, Germany

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. 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.

References

External links

OK-GLI
at Buran-Energia.com

at

Encyclopedia Astronautica The ''Encyclopedia Astronautica'' is a reference web site on Space exploration, space travel. The encyclopedia includes 79,433 articles with 13,741 illustrations, a comprehensive catalog of missiles, spacecraft, space technology, astronauts, an ...

OK-GLI
at K26.com
OK-GLI
at Technik Museum Speyer {{USAF/DoD reporting names Buran-class orbiters Individual aircraft