A prototype of the famous Soviet space shuttle Buran BTS-02, will soon be an exhibit at the Technical Museum in Sinsheim

Thursday, June 30, 2022

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A prototype of the famous Soviet space shuttle Buran BTS-02, will soon be an exhibit at the Technical Museum in Sinsheim, Germany, Deputy Director General of the Molniya scientific and industrial association Mikhail Gofin said Monday in an interview with RIA Novosti. "A treaty has been signed on transferring the Buran BTS-02 exhibition model [serial No. USSR-3501002]," Mr. Gofin said, "built in 1984, to the Technical Museum in Sinsheim, Germany. Before the end of 2004, as has been planned, it will be transported to Germany from Bahrain, where the model has been kept and guarded with our permission since 2002. All of the Buran's internal equipment and its outer heat shielding [unique ceramic tiles] have been removed from the model. It was pasted over from the outside with plastic foam." The Russian shuttle will not be the museum's first purchase from Russia, as it also exhibits a Soviet Tu-144 supersonic passenger plane, an analogue of the French Concord liner. The Molniya Web site said that while the Buran was being tested it made 24 flights and performed 19 automated approaches, beginning with the 8th flight, all approaches were automated. Its total flying time is 8 hours. The BTS-02 is more than 36 meters long and 17.5 meters high. Its wing span is 24 meters. The first and the only unmanned space flight of the Buran, under the name of BTS-1.01, took place on November 15, 1988. "Unfortunately, the spaceship was damaged as a result of the collapse of the hangar in the Baikonur space port in 2002," Mr. Gofin added.

Bookmark A prototype of the famous Soviet space shuttle Buran BTS-02, will soon be an exhibit at the Technical Museum in Sinsheim