History of manned space flights. Reference. Manned spacecraft Minutes that shook the world

New Russian ships: Soyuz TMA-MS, Progress MS, PPTS and PTK NP Rus.

New US ships: Signus, Dragon, CST-100, Orion.

Existing Russian ships: Progress M, Soyuz TMA-M.
Existing US ships: No.

Photo of Signus with Soyuz TMA-M

Soyuz TMA-MS is a Russian multi-seat spacecraft for flights in near-Earth orbit.

A new upgraded version of the Soyuz TMA-M spacecraft. The update will affect almost every system of the manned ship. The first launch is planned no earlier than 2016.

The main points of the spacecraft modernization program:

• the energy efficiency of solar panels will be increased through the use of more efficient photovoltaic converters;


• reliability of rendezvous and docking of the spacecraft with the space station by changing the installation of the approaching and orientation engines. The new scheme of these engines will make it possible to perform rendezvous and docking even in the event of a failure of one of the engines and to ensure the descent of a manned spacecraft in the event of any two engine failures;


• a new communication and direction finding system, which will allow, in addition to improving the quality of radio communications, to facilitate the search for a descent vehicle that has landed at any point on the globe;


• new rendezvous and docking system Kurs-NA;


• digital television radio link;


• additional meteorite protection.

The upgraded Soyuz TMA-MS will be equipped with GLONASS sensors. At the stage of parachuting and after landing of the descent vehicle, its coordinates obtained from GLONASS/GPS data will be transmitted via the Cospas-Sarsat satellite system to the MCC.

Soyuz TMA-MS will be the last modification of the Soyuz. The ship will be used for manned flights until it is replaced by a new generation ship.

Promising manned transport system(PPTS) Rus is a multi-purpose manned reusable spacecraft.

PPTS, as a key element of the Russian space infrastructure, is being created for the following tasks:

• ensuring national security;


• technological independence;


• unimpeded access of Russia to space;


• flight to the polar and equatorial orbit of the Moon, landing.

For PPTS, a modular construction of the base ship is adopted in the form of functionally complete elements - the return vehicle and the engine compartment. The ship will be wingless, with a reusable truncated-conical return part and a disposable cylindrical engine compartment. The maximum crew of the new ship will be 6 people (for flights to the Moon - up to 4 people), the mass of cargo delivered to orbit is 500 kg, the mass of cargo returned to Earth is 500 kg or more, with a smaller crew. The length of the spacecraft is 6.1 m, the maximum hull diameter is 4.4 m, the mass during near-Earth orbital flights is 12 tons (during flights into lunar orbit - 16.5 tons), the mass of the return part is 4.23 tons (including soft landing - 7.77 tons), the volume of the sealed compartment - 18 m³. The duration of the autonomous flight of the ship is up to a month. New structural materials based on aluminum alloys with improved strength characteristics and carbon plastics will reduce the mass of the spacecraft structure by 20-30% and will extend its service life. Household compartments will simply be docked, depending on the task that the PPTS will face.

NASA is dependent on its partners in the ISS program. In this regard, NASA leadership decided to start work on the COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation) program. The essence of the program is the creation by private companies of low-cost means of delivering cargo into orbit.

Signus "Cygnus" - a private transport automatic cargo supply spacecraft.

Dragon Dragon SpaceX is a private transport spacecraft designed to deliver payloads and, in the future, people to the International space station.

CST-100 (Crew Space Transportation) is a manned transport spacecraft developed by Boeing.

Orion, MPCV is a multi-purpose reusable manned spacecraft.

The purpose of this program was to return Americans to the moon, and the Orion spacecraft was intended to deliver people and cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) and for flights to the Moon, as well as to Mars in the future.

On this moment(2013) in space from the new ships Signus and Dragon, and so after 2020 real competition in space should begin and I hope the beginning of the dawn of the space age of mankind.

Dragon Dragon SpaceX - judging by the data and that it has already begun to fly, a very successful development and a serious competitor.

Interesting video about the international space station / ISS

Who tends to: ESA, NASA, China, Japan

Both names - "Rosetta" and "Fila" - are related to the decoding of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. The name "Rosetta" comes from the famous Rosetta stone - a stone slab with three texts identical in meaning engraved on it, two of which are written in ancient Egyptian (one in hieroglyphs, the other in demotic writing), and the third in ancient Greek. Scientists used the Rosetta Stone to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs: ancient Greek was well known to them, and by comparing the texts, experts were able to read the new language.

Computer model of the Rosetta, photo: DLR German Aerospace Center. Rosetta Stone, photo: Hans Hillewaert

Hans Hillewaert

The name of the Philae lander was chosen during a competition held in 2004 among residents of the countries participating in the project. This is the name of an island on the River Nile where an obelisk was discovered with a hieroglyphic inscription mentioning King Ptolemy VIII and Queens Cleopatra II and Cleopatra III. The obelisk has also helped scientists decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

With the help of Rosetta and the lander, scientists hope to understand what happened to the universe in the first moments of its existence, hence the choice of names.

By the way, their mission to comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko was so successful that ESA extended it until the fall of 2016.

Tribute to ancient mythology is paid not only in Europe, but also in China. The Chang'e lunar module and its faithful companion, the six-wheeled Yutu lunar rover, descended to the lunar surface the year before last and told the world a lot of new things about our natural satellite. Chang'e is the name of a Chinese moon goddess, and Yutu (translated as "jade hare") is a strange creature that always accompanies Chang'e.

The Chang'e-3 lunar module with the Yutu lunar rover on board. Image: CNSA/SASTiND/Xinhua/Marco Di Lorenzo/Ken Kremer, Goddess Chang'e Flies to the Moon, art. Ren Shuaiying/Wikimedia

wikimedia

Other spacecraft China is also related to the mythology of this vast and incomprehensible country, and their names are very poetic: "Shenzhou" - "Heavenly Boat", "Tiangong" - "Heavenly Palace", "Shenlong" - "Divine Dragon" and, finally, a rocket- carrier "Changzheng", which means "Long March".

All names consist of two hieroglyphs and have a historical, and sometimes philosophical (and understandable only to the Chinese themselves) meaning. For example, "Shenlong" is the motto of the reign of the only empress in the history of China, Wu Zetian, as well as Emperor Zhong Zong.

The Japanese revere their mythology no less than their neighbors. Second Japanese artificial satellite The moon was given the name "Kaguya" (the name was traditionally chosen by the public) - that was the name of the moon princess from an old Japanese legend. And after two small satellites successfully separated from Kaguya, they were officially named Okina and Oyuna in honor of the old man and the old woman, who in the same fairy tale sheltered the moon princess.

Computer model of the Japanese Kaguya craft, image: JAXA. Still from the animated film "The Tale of Princess Kaguya"/Studio Ghibli

JAXA

Europeans are not alone in their love for their mythology. At the beginning of the space age, ships and missions were named after ancient Greek and Roman gods: the first US manned program was called Mercury, and during the Apollo program, American astronauts landed on the moon six times.

But NASA has since forgotten Greece and Ancient Rome.

Ancient European gods are sometimes remembered by other countries: the same Japanese gave their space sailboat the name IKAROS (Icarus), which is traditionally an English abbreviation: Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation Of the Sun (an interplanetary sailing vehicle moving due to solar radiation).

Ships in honor of ships

Who tends to: ESA, NASA

Often, when naming new vehicles, space agencies perpetuate significant sea vessels of the past. For example, the European lander "Beagle" is named after the ship on which it traveled. Unlike the “real” Beagle, the mission of his space follower failed: after an unsuccessful landing on Mars, he disappeared and was relatively recently found by orbiters.

Beagle lander leaving Mars Express, image: Medialab/ESA. The Beagle, on which Charles Darwin traveled, watercolor by Owen Stanley

ESA

The most consistent "admirers" of maritime transport are shuttles. All space shuttles are named after ships that have become famous for something.

The first shuttle, the Columbia, was named after the sailboat on which Captain Robert Gray explored the inland waters of British Columbia (today Washington and Oregon) in 1972. The Challenger following it was named after the sea vessel that made the first global oceanic scientific expedition in the 70s of the last century. Both of these shuttles crashed and exploded. The Discovery shuttle bears the name of one of the two ships of the famous British captain. Cook's second ship, the Endeavor, gave its name to the last of the shuttles. The fourth shuttle has a loud and seemingly meaningless name "Atlantis" (Atlantis), was named after the first American sailing ship, which was specially built in 1930 to study the biology, geology and physics of the sea.

It is curious that the very first, trial shuttle, a prototype of future shuttles that never left the earth's atmosphere, was originally supposed to be pathetically called "Constitution" in honor of the 200th anniversary of the US constitution. However, according to the results of voting by the audience of the terribly popular Star Trek series at that time, it was called the Enterprise (initiative) - this was the name of the fictional starships of the universe of the series.

"Star Wars" also "participated" in the name of real spaceships. Their famous Millennium Falcon (Millenium Falcon) became the prototype for the Falcon series of launch vehicles created by the American private space industry.

Launch vehicle "Falcon-9", photo: CRS-6. The Millennium Falcon, still from the Star Wars/Lucasfilm franchise

Lucasfilm

Romantic titles

Featured: NASA, Japan, USSR/Russia

Very often ships have romantic names. For example, Nozomi (hope), the Japanese probe sent to Mars in 1998, the famous American rovers Spirit (spirit), Opportunity (opportunity). The last two flew in pairs - in 2003 they came up with names as part of the traditional NASA competition, 9-year-old girl Sophie Collins. By the way, she was born in Siberia and was adopted by an American family from Arizona.

Right now, the Mars-crawling Curiosity (curiosity) craft has been named in an internet vote. The proposed options were entirely poetic: Adventure (adventure), Journey (journey), Pursuit (aspiration), Perception (perception), Wonder (miracle) and so on.

The romantic flair is also captured in the names of both Voyagers (travelers) who went abroad solar system 30 plus ago. Moreover, this name was chosen by the organizers of the mission from NASA themselves - it was not customary then to hold a competition of names among citizens.

man and telescope

Featured: NASA and ESA

In cosmonymy (the non-existent science of the names of spacecraft), there is another trend that is gaining momentum - to assign the names of great people to ships. The Cassini Saturnian probe is named after the French astronomer, the names of Planck, Hubble, Herschel and Kepler NASA named the most famous space observatories and is going to continue this tradition further: in 2018, another American space telescope, James Webb, named after the second leader .

Europeans prefer artists to scientists. Thus, the space probe "Giotto", which was created to fly past Halley's comet, is named after the Renaissance artist Giotto di Bondone, who depicted this comet on the fresco "Adoration of the Magi". The European cargo ship Jules Verne is in the same trend.

Computer model of the Giotto probe, image: Andrzej Mirecki/Wikimedia, Giotto di Bondone Adoration of the Magi

Model of the Vostok ship, photo: Georgy Elizarov/Wikimedia

wikimedia

China is also suffering from the virus of patriotism. Take, for example, the launch vehicle of the seventieth year "Dongfanghong" ("Red East") and the already mentioned "Changzheng" ("Long March"), although there are some doubts about the latter due to the ambiguity of the name.

bureaucratic

Featured: USSR / Russia; ESA, India

Russia, Europe, and partly India, often call their spacecraft dry and bureaucratic. Sending the next device to the Moon, in the USSR it was often called simply "Moon" with the corresponding number. Russia continued the tradition: "Mars" ("Mars-96") tried to fly to Mars, "Phobos" ("Phobos-Grunt") tried to fly to Phobos, and so on. Europeans are also prone to official names: suffice it to recall the Venera-Express and Mars-Express probes. India, which has recently entered the pool of space powers, also does not shy away from this tradition and names its ships without frills, but in Hindi, which gives the names a national flavor - "Chandrayan" (lunar ship) and "Mangalyaan" (Martian ship).

Assembling the Mars Express apparatus. Photo: ESA

ESA

Manned spacecraft Soyuz-TMA

A manned spacecraft is a manned spacecraft designed to carry out flights of people in outer space and, in particular, to deliver people into space for their safe return to (or another//space station).

In his work "Spaceship" in 1924, Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky, speaking of an apparatus designed for manned flight into space, basically called it differently: - a heavenly ship.

The first manned spacecraft was the Soviet ship Vostok-1, on which Yuri Gagarin made the first full-fledged space flight, circling the Earth at the first cosmic speed.

One of the main problems in the design of this class of spacecraft is the creation of a safe, reliable and accurate system for returning the crew to earth's surface in the form of a wingless descent vehicle (SA) or spaceplane. In addition, an important feature is the presence of an emergency rescue system (SAS) on initial stage launch vehicle (LV). Projects of spacecraft of the first generation did not have a full-fledged rocket SAS - instead of it, as a rule, ejection of crew seats was used, winged spaceplanes are also not equipped with a special SAS. Also, the spacecraft must be equipped with a life support system (LSS) for the crew.

In view of highest complexity creation of the PAC, only three countries have them - the USSR / Russia, the USA, China. At the same time, Chinese spacecraft largely repeat the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft.

Launch of the Soyuz-TMA manned spacecraft to the International Space Station

Including only in the USA and the USSR, reusable systems with PKK spaceplanes were created (at the moment they are decommissioned). Also India, Japan, Europe/ESA, Iran, North Korea have plans to establish a PAC.

Spaceships 1st generation:

Vostok (6 flights, project completed)
Voskhod (2 flights, project completed)
Mercury (6 flights, project completed)
Gemini (12 flights, project completed)
Shuguang and manned FSW (projects stopped)

Spaceships of the 2nd generation:

Soyuz (108 flights, 2 crashes, 2 accidents without casualties (including 1 suborbital flight), (continues to fly)
L1/Zond (the project was stopped at the stage of unmanned flight tests)
L3 (the project was stopped at the stage of unmanned flight tests)
Apollo (21 flights, project completed)
TKS - Transport supply ship (the project was stopped at the stage of unmanned flight tests with visits to the ship by people in orbit after docking)
Shenzhou (4 flights, flying)
Fuji (project on hold)
OV (project under development)
CRV (manned ATV) (project under development)
manned HTV (project under development)

Shuttle with space equipment on board

Reusable transport spacecraft

X-20 Dyna Soar (project not realized)
Spiral (project stopped)
LKS (project not implemented)
Space shuttle (135 flights, 2 crashes (including 1 at launch), project completed)
X-30 NASP (project on hold)
VentureStar (project on hold)
ROTON (project suspended)
Delta Clipper (project)
Kistler K-1 (project on hold)
Dream Chaser (project)
Silver Dart (project)
Dawn (project stopped)
Buran (1 flight, project stopped)
Hermes (project stopped)
Zenger-2 (project stopped)
HOTOL (project stopped)
HOPE (project stopped)
ASSTS (project stopped)
Kanko-maru (project)
Shenlong (project under development)
MAKS (project stopped)
Clipper (project stopped)

Partially reusable spacecraft:

Dragon SpaceX (unmanned flight test project)
PTK NP (Rus) (project under development)
CST-100 (project under development)
ACTS (project under development)
Orion (project under development)

A spacecraft is an aircraft designed to fly people or transport goods in outer space. Spacecraft for flying in near-Earth orbits are called satellites, and for flying to other celestial bodies - interplanetary ships. The main features of spacecraft can be seen on the example of the well-known Soyuz spacecraft. "Unions" - a generation of spacecraft that replaced the well-known "Vostok", on one of which the first messenger of the Earth, the Soviet citizen Yu. A. Gagarin, and "Voskhod", the first multi-seat spacecraft, went up into space The Soyuz was the first to carry out maneuvering in space, manual docking, the transfer of two cosmonauts from ship to ship, the control system for descents from orbit, and much more. Subsequently, the Soyuz repeatedly cruised to the Salyut orbital stations and back, the Soyuz crew made the first docking with the US spacecraft, on the Soyuz the cosmonauts repeatedly performed Scientific research and delivered from orbit the information needed by various sectors of the national economy of the country. The Soyuz spacecraft has impressive dimensions. Its length is about 8 m, the largest diameter is about 3 m, and the mass before launch is almost 7 tons. All compartments of the ship are covered on the outside with a special heat-insulating “blanket” that protects the structure and equipment from overheating in the sun and too much cooling in the shade. The ship has 3 compartments: orbital, instrumentation and descent vehicle. In the orbital compartment, astronauts work and rest during their orbital flight. It houses scientific equipment, crew berths, and various household appliances. If the ship is intended for docking with an orbital station or another ship, a docking port is installed on the orbital compartment. A round hatch connects the orbital compartment with the descent vehicle. This is the main workplace of the crew when controlling the ship in flight. The astronauts are in the descent vehicle during launch into orbit, docking and descent to Earth. They are placed in cushioned seats in front of the control panels. Outside, the descent vehicle has a heat-shielding coating that protects it from excessive heating during the flight in the atmosphere. The special shape and control microjet engines installed on the descent vehicle allow it to make a gliding descent in the atmosphere along a relatively gentle trajectory. At the same time, the crew does not experience too much overload. In the third compartment of the ship - instrumentation and assembly - there are its main service systems. Here are installed: small jet engines that provide various movements and orientation of the ship in outer space, equipment and units of the thermal control system that maintains the set temperature in the ship; radio equipment, with the help of which data of various measurements are transmitted to Earth, commands from the Control Center are received and negotiations are conducted with specialists. The main propulsion system of the ship is located in the same compartment. It consists of two powerful liquid propellant rocket engines. One of them is the main, the other is the backup. With the help of these engines, the ship can move to another orbit, approach or move away from the orbital station, slow down its movement to switch to a descent trajectory. After braking in orbit, the compartments of the ship are separated from each other. The orbital and instrument-aggregate compartments burn out in the atmosphere, and the descent vehicle descends to a given landing area. When 9-10 km are left to the Earth, the parachute system is triggered. First, the brake parachute opens, and then the main one. On it, the descent vehicle makes a smooth descent. Just before landing at a height of 1 m, soft landing engines are switched on. Following the Soyuz, improved Soyuz T and Soyuz TM spacecraft were created in our country, which significantly expanded the capabilities of manned flights and servicing orbital scientific stations. The Progress transport spacecraft is designed to deliver various cargoes and fuel to the Salyut and Mir orbital stations for refueling the station's propulsion system. Although it resembles the Soyuz in many ways, there are significant differences in its design. This ship also consists of 3 compartments, but their purpose and, therefore, the design is different. The transport ship must not return to Earth. Naturally, it does not include a descent vehicle. Instead, there is a compartment for transporting fuel - fuel and oxidizer, and the orbital compartment in Progress has turned into a cargo one. In it, supplies of food and water, * scientific equipment, replaceable blocks of various systems of the orbital station are delivered into orbit. All this is more than 2 tons of cargo. The instrument-aggregate compartment of the Progress is similar to the similar compartment of the Soyuz spacecraft. But it also has some differences. After all, Progress is an automatic ship, and therefore all systems and units here work only independently or on commands from the Earth. Spaceships are also being built in the USA. The most famous among them is the Apollo ship. In addition to the main (orbital) block, which consisted of the crew compartment and the engine compartment, it included a lunar cabin, divided into 2 stages - landing and takeoff. The lunar cabin was designed to land astronauts on the moon and return them back to lunar orbit. The octagonal base is supported by four spindle-shaped legs. On this foundation, a structure was placed that vaguely resembles a human head ... The hatch looks like a human mouth, and the triangular portholes look like two eyes, ”one of the American newspapers described the lunar cabin. Apollo (left) and Soyuz-19 spacecraft before docking. July 1975 In July 1969, a carrier rocket with the Apollo 11 spacecraft was launched to the Moon. There are three astronauts on board - N. Armstrong, M. Collins and E. Aldrin. After entering the lunar orbit and maneuvers on it, the lunar cabin "Eagle" with N. Armstrong and E. Aldrin on board separated from the ship and landed on the Moon. On July 21, at 05:56, N. Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon. Then E. Aldrin joined him. Having installed scientific instruments on the Moon and collected soil samples, the crew returned to the cabin. A few hours later, the takeoff stage of the Eagle broke away from its landing section and entered orbit around the moon. After docking with the ship, the takeoff stage of the lunar cabin separated from it and remained in space. After leaving the circumlunar orbit, Apollo 11 headed for the Earth... The crews of the next spacecraft set off along the path blazed by the first crew of the lunar explorers. In the early 1980s In the United States, a transport spacecraft was created, called the Space Shuttle (space shuttle). It is designed to launch various satellites and small orbital stations into low Earth orbit. At the same time, it can return to Earth and be repeatedly used for flights into space. The second stage of the spacecraft is an orbital aircraft with a large tank of liquid propellant. It is connected to the first stage by two blocks of solid propellant engines. When launching a ship into space, the engine blocks with solid propellant work first, then they are separated and parachuted into the ocean. Next, the engines of the orbital plane are turned on, which are fed with liquid fuel from a large external tank. After all the fuel from it is used, the tank separates and, entering the atmosphere, collapses and burns. An orbital plane carries various cargoes into orbit, it can approach a spacecraft or station in distress and provide assistance to astronauts or evacuate them. The Space Shuttle crew (up to 7 people) can service satellites directly in space and troubleshoot. Having finished its business in orbit, the "shuttle" returns to Earth. It passes through the atmosphere like a high-speed glider, and lands like an airplane - on a special landing strip. (Unfortunately, more and more often this ship is used not for peaceful purposes, but for military research in space.) With all the variety of already known types of spacecraft, one should not forget that this is only the beginning. Undoubtedly, the new ships will be more advanced, and their flights will be even more complex and interesting.

A reusable spacecraft is a vehicle whose design allows the entire spacecraft or its main parts to be reused. The first experience in this area was the "space shuttle" Space Shuttle. Then the task of creating a similar apparatus was assigned to Soviet scientists, as a result of which the Buran appeared.

Other devices are also being designed in both countries. At the moment, the most notable example of this type of project is the partially reusable Falcon 9 from SpaceX with a returnable first stage.

Today we will talk about why such projects were developed, how they showed themselves in terms of efficiency, and what are the prospects for this area of ​​cosmonautics.

The history of space shuttles began in 1967, before the first manned flight under the Apollo program. On October 30, 1968, NASA approached American space companies with a proposal to develop a reusable space system in order to reduce the cost per launch and per kilogram of payload put into orbit.

The government was offered several projects, but each of them cost at least US$5 billion, so Richard Nixon rejected them. NASA's plans were extremely ambitious: the project involved the operation of an orbital station, to which, and from which, shuttles would constantly carry payloads. The shuttles were also supposed to launch and return satellites from orbit, maintain and repair satellites in orbit, and conduct manned missions.

The final requirements for the ship looked like this:

• Cargo compartment 4.5x18.2 meters
• Possibility of horizontal maneuver for 2000 km (aircraft maneuver in the horizontal plane)
• Payload capacity 30 tons to low Earth orbit, 18 tons to polar orbit

The solution was to create a shuttle, the investment in which was supposed to pay off thanks to the launch of satellites into orbit on a commercial basis. For the success of the project, it was important to minimize the cost of putting each kilogram of cargo into orbit. In 1969, the creator of the project talked about reducing the cost to 40-100 US dollars per kilogram, while for Saturn-V this figure was 2000 dollars.

To launch into space, the shuttles used two solid rocket boosters and three of their own propulsion engines. Solid rocket boosters were separated at an altitude of 45 kilometers, then splashed into the ocean, repaired and reused. The main engines use liquid hydrogen and oxygen in an external fuel tank, which was thrown at an altitude of 113 kilometers, after which it partially burned up in the atmosphere.

The first prototype of the Space Shuttle was the Enterprise, named after the ship from the Star Trek TV series. The ship was checked for aerodynamics and tested for the ability to land in gliding. Columbia was the first to go into space on April 12, 1981. In fact, this was also a test launch, although there was a crew of two astronauts on board: commander John Young and pilot Robert Crippen. Then everything went well. Unfortunately, it was this shuttle that crashed in 2003 with seven crew members on the 28th launch. The Challenger had the same fate - it withstood 9 launches, and on the tenth it crashed. 7 crew members were killed.

Although NASA planned 24 launches per year in 1985, in 30 years the shuttles have taken off and returned 135 times. Two of them are unsuccessful. The record for the number of launches was the Discovery shuttle - it survived 39 launches. Atlantis withstood 33 launches, Columbia - 28, Endeavor - 25 and Challenger - 10.

"Challenger", 1983

The Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor shuttles were used to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and the Mir station.

The cost of delivering cargo into orbit in the case of the Space Shuttle turned out to be the highest in the history of astronautics. Each launch cost from 500 million to 1.3 billion dollars, each kilogram - from 13 to 17 thousand dollars. For comparison, a disposable Soyuz launch vehicle is capable of launching cargo into space at a price of up to $25,000 per kilogram. The Space Shuttle program was planned as self-sustaining, but in the end it became one of the most unprofitable.

Shuttle Atlantis, ready for the STS-129 expedition to deliver equipment, materials and spare parts to the International Space Station. November 2009

The last flight under the Space Shuttle program took place in 2011. On July 21 of that year, Atlantis returned to Earth. The last landing of the Atlantis marked the end of an era. Read more about what was planned and what happened in the Space Shuttle program in this article.

In the USSR, they decided that the characteristics of the Space Shuttle made it possible to steal Soviet satellites or an entire space station from orbit: the shuttle could launch 29.5 tons of cargo into orbit, and lower 14.5 tons. Taking into account plans for 60 launches per year, this is 1770 tons annually, although at that time the United States did not send 150 tons per year into space. It was supposed to lower 820 tons per year, although usually nothing descended from orbit. The drawings and photos of the shuttle suggested that an American ship could attack the USSR using nuclear weapons from any point in near-Earth space, being out of the radio visibility zone.

To protect against a possible attack, a modernized automatic 23-mm NR-23 cannon was installed at the Salyut and Almaz stations. And in order to keep up with the American brothers in militarized space, the Soyuz began developing an orbital rocket ship of the Buran reusable space system.

Development of the reusable space system began in April 1973. The idea itself had many supporters and opponents. The head of the institute of the Ministry of Defense for military space made sure and made two reports at once - in favor and against the program, and both of these reports ended up on the table of D. F. Ustinov, Minister of Defense of the USSR. He contacted Valentin Glushko, who is responsible for the program, but he sent his employee at Energomash, Valery Burdakov, to the meeting instead of himself. After talking about the military capabilities of the Space Shuttle and the Soviet counterpart, Ustinov prepared a decision that gave the development of a reusable spacecraft the highest priority. The NPO Molniya, created for this purpose, took over the creation of the ship.

The tasks of "Buran" according to the plan of the USSR Ministry of Defense were: countering the measures of a potential enemy to expand the use outer space for military purposes, solving problems in the interests of defense, the national economy and science, conducting military-applied research and experiments using weapons based on known and new physical principles, as well as launching into orbit, servicing and returning to earth spacecraft, astronauts and cargo.

Unlike NASA, which risked the crew during the first manned flight of the shuttle, Buran made its first flight in automatic mode using an on-board computer based on the IBM System / 370. On November 15, 1988, the launch took place, the Energia launch vehicle brought the spacecraft into low-Earth orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The ship made two orbits around the Earth and landed at the Yubileiny airfield.

During the landing, an incident occurred that showed how smart the automatic system turned out. At an altitude of 11 kilometers, the ship made a sharp maneuver and described a loop with a 180-degree turn - that is, sat down, coming from the other end of the runway. The automation made this decision after receiving data on the storm wind in order to enter along the most favorable trajectory.

The automatic mode was one of the main differences from the shuttle. In addition, the shuttles landed with an idle engine and could not land several times. To save the crew, Buran provided a catapult for the first two pilots. In fact, the designers from the USSR copied the configuration of the shuttles, which they did not deny, but made a number of extremely useful innovations from the point of view of the apparatus control and crew safety.

Unfortunately, the first flight of Buran was the last. In 1990, work was suspended, and in 1993 it was completely closed.

As sometimes happens with the pride of the nation, version 2.01 of Baikal, which they wanted to send into space, rotted for many years on the pier of the Khimki reservoir.

You could touch history in 2011. Moreover, then people could even tear off pieces of the skin and heat-shielding coating from this story. In that year, the ship was delivered from Khimki to Zhukovsky to be restored and presented at MAKS in a couple of years.

"Buran" from the inside

Buran delivery from Khimki to Zhukovsky

"Buran" at MAKS, 2011, a month after the start of restoration

Despite the economic inexpediency shown by the Space Shuttle program, the United States decided not to abandon projects to create reusable spacecraft. In 1999, NASA, along with Boeing, began developing the X-37 drone. There are versions according to which the device is designed to test the technologies of future space interceptors capable of incapacitating other devices. Experts in the United States are inclined to this opinion.

The device made three flights with a maximum duration of 674 days. It is currently on its fourth flight, with a launch date of May 20, 2015.

The Boeing X-37 orbital flying laboratory carries a payload mass of up to 900 kilograms. Compared to the Space Shuttle and Buran, which can carry up to 30 tons at takeoff, Boeing is a baby. But he also has other goals. The Austrian physicist Eigen Senger laid the foundation for minishuttles when he began to develop a long-range rocket bomber in 1934. The project was closed, remembering it in 1944, towards the end of World War II, but it was too late to save Germany from defeat with the help of such a bomber. In October 1957, the Americans continued the idea by launching the X-20 Dyna-Soar program.

The X-20 orbital aircraft was capable, after reaching a suborbital trajectory, to dive into the atmosphere to an altitude of 40-60 kilometers in order to take a photo or drop a bomb, and then return to space on lift from the wings.

The project was canceled in 1963 in favor of the civilian Gemini program and the military project of the MOL orbital station.

Titan boosters to launch the X-20 into orbit

Layout X-20

In the USSR in 1969 they began to build "BOR" - an unmanned orbital rocket plane. The first launch was carried out without thermal protection, because of which the device burned out. The second rocket plane crashed due to unopened parachutes after successfully braking against the atmosphere. In the next five launches, only once did the BOR fail to enter orbit. Despite the loss of devices, each new launch brought important data for further development. With the help of BOR-4 in the 1980s, they tested thermal protection for the future Buran.

As part of the Spiral program, for which the BOR was built, it was supposed to develop an accelerator aircraft that would rise to a height of 30 kilometers at speeds up to 6 speeds of sound in order to put the orbiter into orbit. This part of the program did not take place. The Ministry of Defense demanded an analogue of the American shuttle, so the forces were sent to the Buran.

BOR-4

BOR-4

If the Soviet Buran was partially copied from the American Space Shuttle, then in the case of the Dream Chaser, everything happened exactly the opposite: the abandoned BOR project, namely the BOR-4 version of the rocket plane, became the basis for creating reusable spacecraft from SpaceDev. Rather, the "Space Chaser" is based on a copied orbital plane HL-20.

Work on the Dream Runner began in 2004, and in 2007 SpaceDev agreed with United Launch Alliance to use Atlas-5 rockets to launch. The first successful wind tunnel tests took place in 2012. The first flight prototype was dropped from a helicopter from a height of 3.8 kilometers on October 26, 2013.

According to the plans of the designers, the cargo version of the ship will be able to deliver up to 5.5 tons to the International Space Station, and return up to 1.75 tons.

The Germans began to develop their own version of the reusable system in 1985 - the project was called "Senger". In 1995, after the development of the engine, the project was closed, as it would only give a 10-30% benefit compared to the European Ariane 5 launch vehicle.

Aircraft HL-20

"Dream Chaser"

In 2000, Russia began to develop the multi-purpose spacecraft Clipper to replace the disposable Soyuz. The system became an intermediate link between the winged shuttles and the Soyuz ballistic capsule. In 2005, in order to cooperate with the European Space Agency, a new version was presented - the winged Clipper.

The device can put into orbit 6 people and up to 700 kilograms of cargo, that is, it surpasses the Soyuz in these parameters twice. At the moment, there is no information that the project is ongoing. Instead, they write in the news about a new reusable ship - the Federation.

Multi-purpose spacecraft "Clipper"

The manned transport ship "Federation" should replace the manned "Soyuz" and trucks "Progress". It is planned to be used, among other things, for a flight to the moon. The first launch is scheduled for 2019. In an autonomous flight, the device will have to be able to stay up to 40 days, and when docked from the orbital station, it will be able to work up to 1 year. At the moment, the development of conceptual and technical designs has been completed, and the development of working documentation for the creation of the ship of the first stage is underway.

The system consists of two main modules: the reentry vehicle and the engine compartment. The work will apply the ideas that were previously used for Clipper. The ship will be able to deliver up to 6 people into orbit and up to 4 people to the moon.

Parameters of the device "Federation"

One of the most notable reusable projects in the media at the moment is the development of SpaceX - the Dragon V2 transport ship and the Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

Falcon 9 is a partially re-entry vehicle. The launch vehicle consists of two stages, the first of which has a system for return and vertical landing on the landing site. The last launch was not successful - on September 1, 2016, an accident occurred.

The Dragon V2 reusable manned spacecraft is now being prepared for safety testing for astronauts. In 2017, they plan to carry out an unmanned launch of the device on the Falcon 9 rocket.

Reusable manned spacecraft Dragon V2

As part of preparations for the flight of the expedition to Mars, the United States developed the reusable Orion spacecraft. The assembly of the ship was completed in 2014. The first unmanned flight of the device took place on December 5, 2014 and was successful. Now NASA is preparing for further launches, including those with a crew.

Aviation, as a rule, implies reusable use aircraft. In the future, spacecraft will have to have the same property, but for this a number of problems, including economic ones, will have to be solved. Each launch of a reusable ship should come out cheaper than building a disposable one. It is necessary to use such materials and technologies that will allow the devices to be restarted after minimal repair, and ideally without repair at all. It is possible that spaceships in the future will have both the characteristics of a rocket and an aircraft.