That problem was corrected, officials said Monday, by simplifying the design of the equipment involved and then testing it.
Had it been a manned mission, technicians found later, an adjacent platform with a cosmonaut escape chute would have had no time to pull away from the rocket. Soviet space officials said later that they considered overriding the automatic controls when it appeared there was sufficient clearance after all, but then decided that it was safer to cancel the launch.
#BURAN SHUTTLE ESCAPE SYSTEM FREE#
The first attempt to launch Buran was aborted with only 51 seconds to go when part of the ground equipment, an access arm with control mechanisms for setting the azimuthal orientation system of the spacecraft and carrier rocket, failed to pull back quickly enough to free the rocket for blastoff. The testing process itself is “capricious by nature,” Pravda commented. “Removing developmental problems will be a prolonged process of many small steps,” Pravda said, reflecting the caution of Soviet space officials who are testing not only the new spacecraft but also a new rocket system and new ground facilities at Baikonur. While no date has been set for the first manned flight, a second Buran shuttle is now being assembled at Baikonur.
“The most delicate and sensitive moment is the fully automated landing, beginning with re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere and ending with the final run along the specially built landing strip,” a correspondent for the Communist Party newspaper Pravda wrote from Baikonur on Monday.Īt least one more unmanned test flight is planned before the new spacecraft is used by cosmonauts, Soviet space officials said. They said they are prepared for further problems. But Buran’s own designers and engineers said earlier that they want to see, most of all, how well it lands.
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