The Buran programme, 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 was formally suspended in 1993. In addition to being the designation for the whole Soviet/Russian reusable spacecraft project, Buran was also the name given to orbiter 1K, which completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988 and was the only Soviet reusable spacecraft to be launched into space. The Buran-class orbiters used the expendable Energia rocket as a launch vehicle.
Energia was a 1980s super-heavy lift launch vehicle. It was designed by NPO Energia of the Soviet Union as part of the Buran program for a variety of payloads including the Buran spacecraft. Control system main developer enterprise was the Khartron NPO "Electropribor". The Energia used four strap-on boosters each powered by a four-chamber RD-170 engine burning kerosene/LOX, and a central core stage with four single-chamber RD-0120 (11D122) engines fueled by liquid hydrogen/LOX.
The Progress is a Russian expendable cargo spacecraft. Its purpose is to deliver the supplies needed to sustain a human presence in orbit. While it does not carry a crew, it can be boarded by astronauts when docked to a space station, hence it is classified as crewed by its manufacturer. Progress is derived from the crewed Soyuz spacecraft and launches on the same launch vehicle, a Soyuz rocket.
The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian crewed spaceflights are launched from Baikonur.
The Airbus A300-600ST, or Beluga, is a specialised wide-body airliner used to transport aircraft parts and outsize cargoes. It received the official name of Super Transporter early on, but its nickname, after the beluga whale, which it resembles, gained popularity and has since been officially adopted.
The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy is a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft that is used for hauling outsize cargo components. It was the successor to the Pregnant Guppy, the first of the Guppy aircraft produced by Aero Spacelines. Five were built in two variants, both of which were colloquially referred to as the "Super Guppy".
The Antonov An-225 Mriya was a strategic airlift cargo aircraft designed and produced by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union.
The Antonov An-124 Ruslan is a large, strategic airlift, four-engined aircraft that was designed in the 1980s by the Antonov design bureau in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union (USSR). The An-124 is the world's second heaviest gross weight production cargo airplane and heaviest operating cargo aircraft, behind the destroyed one-off Antonov An-225 Mriya and the Boeing 747-8. The An-124 remains the largest military transport aircraft in service.
The Myasishchev M-4 Molot was a four-engined strategic bomber designed by Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev and manufactured by the Soviet Union in the 1950s to provide a Long Range Aviation bomber capable of attacking targets in North America.
The Polyus spacecraft, also known as Polus, Skif-DM, GRAU index 17F19DM, was a prototype Soviet orbital weapons platform designed to destroy Strategic Defense Initiative satellites with a megawatt carbon-dioxide laser. It had a Functional Cargo Block derived from a TKS spacecraft to control its orbit and it could launch test targets to demonstrate the fire control system.
V. M. Myasishchev Experimental Design Bureau or OKB-23, founded in 1951 by MGB UdSSR Vladimir Myasishchev, was one of the chief Soviet aerospace design bureaus until its dissolution in 1960. Vladimir Myasishchev went on to head TsAGI. In 1967, Myasishchev left TsAGI and recreated his bureau, which still exists to this day. The bureau prefix was "M." As of 2003, its workforce is estimated at approximately one thousand. Myasishchev and NPO Molniya intend to use the V-MT or M-55 as launch vehicle for sub-orbital spaceflight.
The Boeing Pelican ULTRA was a proposed ground effect fixed-wing aircraft under study by Boeing Phantom Works in the early 2000s.
A cargo aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of cargo rather than passengers. Such aircraft generally feature one or more large doors for loading cargo. Passenger amenities are removed or not installed, although there are usually basic comfort facilities for the crew such as a galley, lavatory, and bunks in larger planes. Freighters may be operated by civil passenger or cargo airlines, by private individuals, or by government agencies of individual countries such as the armed forces.
The Buran cruise missile, designation M-40 (М-40) sometimes referred to as RSS-40, was a Soviet intercontinental cruise missile by Myasishchev capable of carrying a 3,500 kg hydrogen bomb payload. The project was canceled before flight tests began. It is unrelated to the later Buran reusable orbiter.
Buran was the first spaceplane to be produced as part of the Soviet/Russian Buran program. Buran completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988, and was destroyed in 2002 due to the collapse of its storage hangar. The Buran-class orbiters used the expendable Energia rocket, a class of super heavy-lift launch vehicle. Besides describing the first operational Soviet/Russian shuttle orbiter, "Buran" was also the designation for the entire Soviet/Russian spaceplane project and its flight articles, which were known as "Buran-class orbiters".
The Tupolev '102' and Tupolev '101' were 1950s projects for a turboprop airliner and assault transport by the Tupolev Design Bureau. The aircraft designs were almost identical but the '101' had a rear loading ramp and tail barbette for two Nudelman-Rikhter NR-23 cannon. The internal arrangement also differed with the '101' cabin being unpressurised apart from the flightdeck and a small cabin for ten passengers, whilst the '102's pressurised cabin was in one section, configured for 40 passengers.
The Conroy Virtus was a proposed American large transport aircraft intended to carry the Space Shuttle. Designed, beginning in 1974, by John M. Conroy of the Turbo-Three Corporation, it was to incorporate a pair of Boeing B-52 Stratofortress fuselages to form a new craft using existing parts for cost-savings. While the project was seriously considered, it proved impractically large and NASA chose to develop the Boeing 747–based Shuttle Carrier from surplus commercial aircraft instead.
Outsize cargo is a designation given to goods of unusually large size. This term is often applied to cargo which cannot fit on standardized transport devices such as skids (pallets) or containers. This includes military and other vehicles.
The Boeing RC-1, short for "Resource Carrier 1", was a design for an enormous cargo aircraft intended to haul oil and minerals out of the northern reaches of Alaska and Canada where ice-free ports were not available. It was optimized for short-haul missions only, carrying cargo to locations for loading onto ships, trains or pipelines. Depending on the role, the design was nicknamed "Brute Lifter" or "Flying Pipeline".
TTS-IS is a project by TsAGI for a very large wing-in-ground-effect, lifting-body cargo aircraft with a take-off weight of 1000 tons, a payload of 500 tons, with a flight range of over 6000 km, a cruising speed of 500 km / h. Although the aircraft typically flies at 6 to 12 metres above water, ice, or ground to reduce drag, it is designed to take off and land at conventional airports, unlike most ground effect vehicles but similar to the Boeing Pelican. As with the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 747-8, the aircraft is designed to land at airports that meet the Aerodrome Reference Code code 4F standard of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). It is also notable for the use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as its aviation fuel source, and for the use of intermodal containers that are standardized in train, ship, and truck freight instead of the smaller unit load devices that are common in air freight transportation.
