COMMUNICATIONS

Buran’s communication systems performed the following functions:

– two-way voice communications between the orbiter and Mission Control and between the orbiter and other spacecraft;

– intercom between crew members inside the vehicle and between crew mem­bers inside and outside the vehicle;

– relay to the ground of television images;

– relay to the ground of telemetry about the crew’s health, condition of on­board systems, payload-related activities;

– trajectory measurements to determine the vehicle’s exact orbital parameters;

– interaction between ground-based and on-board computers.

There were three independent radio systems, operating in three different wavebands (roughly equivalent to the Space Shuttle’s P-band, S-band, and Ku-band commun­ication systems):

– Meter waveband (VHF): for direct line-of-sight communications with ground stations, tracking ships, and the landing facility, and also for inter­com. This system used omnidirectional antennas.

– Decimeter waveband (UHF): for communications with ground stations and tracking ships either directly or through geostationary relay satellites. Equipped with three transceivers, this system used two omnidirectional an­tennas and five active-phased array antennas.

– Centimeter waveband (SHF): solely for communications through geo­stationary relay satellites using two parabolic narrow-beam antennas. One of these (ONA-I) was mounted on the aft wall of the payload bay, covering the upper hemisphere, and the other (ONA-II) was located in a well on the underside of the aft fuselage, covering the lower hemisphere. ONA-I could be moved off-axis so that its view to the geostationary satellite was not blocked by the vehicle’s vertical stabilizer. Depending on the mission objec­tives and the vehicle’s orientation, the antennas could be used either together or individually. Both antennas could only be deployed in orbit and had to be stowed for a safe re-entry. Therefore, they could be pyrotechnically jet­tisoned if something went wrong during the stowage process. The ONA antennas performed the same role as the Shuttle’s Ku-band antenna, the major difference being that the Shuttle has just one such antenna installed on the starboard side of the payload bay that covers both hemispheres. The ONA antennas were not installed on Buran’s single mission in November 1988.

The data relay satellites intended for use by Buran were the Luch/Altair satellites, approved by the same February 1976 government decree that had given the go-ahead for the Energiya-Buran program. The equivalent of NASA’s Tracking Data and Relay Satellites (TDRS), these were 2.4-ton three-axis stabilized satellites designed to relay communications from and to both Buran and the Mir space station and also to provide mobile fleet communications for the Soviet Navy. They were developed by the Scientific Production Association of Applied Mechanics (NPO PM) near the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. Five were launched between October 1985 and October 1995.

Buran’s communication systems were developed by the Moscow-based organ­ization NPO Radiopribor (currently named Russian Scientific Research Institute of Space Equipment Building or RNII KP). Headed throughout the Buran years by Leonid I. Gusev, this organization had a virtual monopoly in developing commun­ication systems for Soviet spacecraft [25].