Moving between facilities

Linking the various facilities was an impressive network of roads and railways, some left over from the N-1 days, others built specifically for Energiya-Buran. Twelve meter wide roads connected the MIK OK with the landing facility, the MIK RN, the test-firing stand, and the MZK. Buran was transported with its landing gear retracted on a special 126-ton, 58.8 m long platform with 32 wheels that was pulled by a truck. Maximum speed with the vehicle mounted on top was 10 km/h.

In keeping with Soviet tradition, the Energiya-Buran stack was assembled and rolled out horizontally and then erected after arriving at the launch pad. The transportation device used for this was a giant crawler transporter (TUA) left over from the N-l days and built by the Novokramatorskiy Machine Building Factory in the Donetsk region (Ukraine). The transporter weighed 2,756 tons (without the stack), measured 56.3 x 90.3 m and was 2l.2m high. It was towed by four 100 horse­power diesel locomotives, moving at a maximum speed of 5 km/h over rail tracks separated 18 m apart. There were two TUA transporters, parked outside high bays 4 and 5 of the MIK RN. The MIK RN was linked by railway with the MZK, the two Energiya-Buran launch pads, and the UKSS [17].

After the cancellation of the Energiya-Buran program in l993, some of the facilities were mothballed and left to rust, but others have since been modified for new programs (see Chapter 8).