Dynamic Test Stand (SDI)

Operated and owned by NPO Energiya, the more than 100 m high Dynamic Test Stand (SDI or “Object 858-142D’’) was built to create and monitor vibrations and resonances similar to those that would be encountered by the Energiya-Buran stack during powered ascent. For this purpose a set of exciters and sensors was placed on the skin of the stacked elements. Data on the behavior of the vehicle was recorded in the facility’s computer room and then flown to Kaliningrad for full analysis. Vibration research in 300 channels could be carried out over the range of 0.1 to 20.000 Hz. The exciters could each exert forces from 200 to 5,000 newtons.

The tests performed in the SDI were similar to the “Mated Vertical Ground Vibration Tests’’ (MVGVT) conducted with the Shuttle Enterprise and a mock-up External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters at the Marshall Space Flight Center in 1978. Whereas MSFC’s Dynamic Test Stand had originally been built for the Saturn V rocket, Baykonur’s SDI was constructed specifically for Energiya. There had been some discussion early on in the program to conduct the dynamic tests at the UKSS

Energiya test-firing stand on Site 250 rather than build a dedicated facility. However, the idea was rejected by the designers of the UKSS, who expected they would be too preoccupied with the test-firing program. The military, on the other hand, were against the construction of a facility that would only be used for test purposes.

In the end, NPO Energiya took charge of construction itself, but, since this ran into delays, initial dynamic tests were conducted at the UKSS using full-scale Energiya mock-ups known as 4M-D and 4MKS-D in 1983 and 1986 (see Chapter 6). Ultimately, the SDI was not finished until 1989, after the two flights of Energiya. The second Buran flight vehicle, attached to a mock-up Energiya, was tested here in June 1991. The SDI was designed to test Energiya in all possible configurations (not just with the orbiter) as well as for tests of Energiya-derived rockets such as Energiya-M and the massive Vulkan rocket. The now abandoned facility still houses a mock-up of Energiya-M built in the late 1980s [13].