Release:
The Flight of Buran
---------------------------------------------
After many weeks of work, we can finally present the Flight of Buran for Celestia.
This is an Add-On for Celestia 1.5 that shows the entire flight of november 15, 1988 - from lift-off,
through two full orbits around the Earth to landing at Baikonur.
The Add-On also comes with a CELX script that lets you experience the flight movie-style.
This is short - only 2.5 minutes - since i don??t like those loooong meditating scripts. It
is just an introduction, so you can discover the various maneuvers the ship goes through
on its journey. Everything is there, every burn or turn. And, it is exact.
Everything happens exactly like it did in reality, at the correct time and altitude. The only
approximation is the inclination of its orbit, which changed several times and i did not
have very exact information for.
Let me point out, for example: when the four strap-on boosters separate, it happens insanely
fast. You must slow down time to 1/100 to really appreciate what is happening. We did not
believe it when we wrote it in, and had to check and verify it - but three separate sources
agree, so that is how it happened... See for yourself the insane speed they drop back to
Earth!
A collaboration
The Flight of Buran is a collaboration between ElChristou, Andrea and myself. To be specific,
- we got permission to use the models on http://www.buran.ru. However, these are very complex, and
much to detailed to be used for Celestia. So, we had to use them as a basis only, and re-work
everything.
- Andrea did all the research and documented each detail we used
- I collected and cleaned up all the meshes, and put the models together
- ElChristou optimized all the models for real-time rendering: simplified them, in
many cases recreated them completely.
- I then texture-mapped each model, and wrote the SSC and XYZ files
- I also created the "special effects".
A note on the trajectory
The trajectory is reasonably exact - within the limits of Celestia, of course. Using Andrea??s
information, i plotted it by hand, with 5-minute intervals for the plot points. I achieved
this by putting out geostationery satellites all over its real trajectory and aligning the
XYZ file to them, hitting each satellite at the right moment. Then i removed the
satellites...
The flight
You can witness the launch, the entire flight and all maneuvers during - and you can
choose to follow Buran, the Energia rocket, or each of the A4 strap-on boosters all the way.
Buran
Buran was the Soviet Union??s version of the Space Shuttle. They look pretty similar,
but in reality, they are very different machines - the US shuttle is a proper launcher,
while Buran is only a payload for the Energia rocket. In spite of this, Buran could lift
more, fly almost twice as high, and stay in space twice as long as the shuttle.
The A4 boosters could perform soft landings via parachutes and retrofire, and the
Energia rocket was planned to be able to land on a conventional airfield - not just
a tank, it was a spaceship in its own right.
However, none of this would ever happen: Buran flew only once. The entire program
was abandoned when the Soviet Union fell apart.
Some screenshots:
(click for full size)
The Add-On can be downloaded from Celestial Matters.
Here you will also find Andrea??s article about the Buran program.
Thanks to:
- Buggs Moran for calculating the range of the boosters
- Ivvi for translating to russian for us
- Cartrite for beta-testing
... And, of course, thanks to Andrea and ElChristou for the many, many hours they have put into this project!
Enjoy!
- rthorvald
!
