CREW MODULE

Buran’s crew module was 5.4 m long, more than 5 m wide, and 5.4 m high. Shaped like a truncated cone, the crew module’s outer shell (“Cabin Module’’ or MK) was made of an aluminum alloy called 1201-T1. The overall layout of Buran’s crew module was very similar to that of the Space Shuttle Orbiter, comprising a flight deck, a mid-deck, and a lower deck. The crew module was able to accommodate a maximum crew of ten, with four seated in the flight deck and up to six in the mid-deck during launch and landing. The Space Shuttle Orbiter has never flown more than eight astronauts (one single time on STS-61A in 1985), but could theoretically carry two more if the bunk sleep stations in the mid-deck are removed. The overall volume was 73m3.

Flight deck (“Command Compartment” or КО)

The flight deck provided seating for four crew members. The commander and co­pilot occupied the left and right front seats, respectively. Directly behind them would have been a so-called “specialist” (middle position) and a flight engineer (right position). This was a different seating arrangement than in the Space Shuttle Orbiter, where the mission specialist acting as flight engineer during launch and re-entry is seated in the middle behind the commander and co-pilot, looking over their shoulders to check vital instruments. On Buran the flight engineer would have had individual displays on the right-hand side of the cockpit.

There were six forward windows, two overhead windows, one aft window looking out into the payload bay (vs. two on the Shuttle), and a smaller aft-looking porthole permanently occupied by a crew visual navigation instrument. In front of the overhead windows were two jettisonable panels that would have allowed the commander and co-pilot to escape from the vehicle with ejection seats in case of an emergency during launch or landing.

The crew workstations were quite reminiscent of the Space Shuttle’s original Multifunction CRT Display System, using the traditional cathode ray tubes rather than the full-color liquid-crystal multifunction display units of the Shuttle’s “glass cockpit’’ introduced in the late 1990s.

The crew had six workstations (RM) at their disposal:

– RM-1 and RM-2 (front left and front right): the commander and co-pilot workstations, used during launch, re-entry, and also some orbital opera­tions. RM-2 duplicated many of RM-1’s systems. The instrument boards and control panels of RM-1 and RM-2 were known together as Vega-1 or 17M27. There were three CRTs, controlled by a display processor known as

Adonis. There was one keyboard for interaction with the vehicle’s on-board computers.

– RM-3 (middle right): the flight engineer’s workstation, used to control vital systems during launch, in orbit, and during re-entry. The console (Vega-2/ 17M28) featured two CRTs controlled by two US3-DISK display processors and a keypad for interaction with the on-board computer system. It was felt by some that the RM-3 unnecessarily duplicated the functions of other

Crew compartment: 1, flight deck; 2, RM-2 workstation; 3, instrument panel; 4, equipment; 5, RM-3 workstation; 6, co-pilot seat; 7, depressurization valve; 8, flight engineer seat; 9, overhead windows; 10, instrument panel; 11, instrument panel; 12, aft window; 13, passenger seat; 14, commander seat; 15, fire extinguisher; 16, RM-1 workstation; 17, feed-through plates; 18, interdeck opening; 19, mid-deck; 20, lockers; 21, instrument bay; 22, entry hatch; 23, toilet; 24, air duct; 25, cooling/drying device; 26, galley; 27, instrument bay; 28, access panel to lower deck (source: NPO Molniya/Moscow Aviation Institute).

workstations and that most or all of those functions could eventually be transferred to RM-1/2 and RM-4/5, thereby saving mass.

– RM-4 (aft middle, underneath the porthole with the navigational instru­ment): a workstation used for orbital operations such as rendezvous and docking, orbit corrections, and navigational measurements and corrections. The console (Vega-3 or 17M29) had two CRT displays linked to the Adonis and US3-DISK processors and a single keypad that interfaced with the ship’s computer complex.

– RM-5 (aft middle, underneath the aft-looking window): a console for operat­ing the payload bay doors, the remote manipulator arm, and several other systems. Known as Vega-4 or 17M210, the console had two CRT screens (interacting with Adonis and US3-DISK) and a single keyboard to enter commands into the on-board computers. RM-5 was more or less a mirror image of RM-4.

– RM-6 (middle left): a console for operating the payload in the cargo bay. The console (Vega-5/17M211) had two CRTs linked to the US3-DISK processors, one keyboard for interaction with the on-board computers and one for interaction with the payload computers.

Overall Buran had fewer control and display systems in the cockpit than the Space Shuttle Orbiter because of the vehicle’s higher degree of automation. A feature not seen on Buran was a heads-up display system projecting important landing informa­tion on a special see-through glass in front of the cockpit windows. NASA introduced such a system on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983. What was tested in several simulated landings was a television system that displayed real-time images of the outside environment on a television screen via the Adonis system.

The organization in charge of designing the cockpit information display systems was the Specialized Experimental Design Bureau of Spacecraft Technology of the Scientific Research Institute of Aviation Equipment (SOKB KT NIIAO), based in Zhukovskiy. SOKB was originally part of the Flight Research Institute (LII), became an independent organization in 1971, and was absorbed by the newly founded NIIAO in 1983. The organization is also responsible for building most Soviet/Russian space simulators.