BACK-UP LANDING FACILITIES

Buran had two back-up landing sites, an “eastern” site not far from the Soviet Pacific coast and a “western” site in the Crimea. The eastern site was situated south of Lake Khanka very close to the small town of Khorol, a little over 100 km north of Vladivostok. The aerodrome was originally used in the 1960s as a temporary home base for the Tu-95MR bomber and later hosted Tu-95RTs Navy reconnaissance planes, Tu-16 planes belonging to the Pacific fleet, and fighter jets of the Air Defense Forces. In the 1980s it was modified for its role in the Buran program by lengthening the existing runway and installing equipment of the Vympel navigation system. The runway was 3.7 km long and 70 m wide. The western site was located near the town of Simferopol in the Crimea and featured a 3.6 km long and 60 m wide runway. There is conflicting information on whether the two sites were ready in time for Buran’s maiden mission in November 1988, but they should have been available for the first manned missions in the early 1990s [18].

Also considered was the possibility of landing Buran on ordinary runways, not specially adapted for the orbiter and not equipped with the navigation facilities needed to assist in a hands-off landing. A requirement formulated for Buran’s test pilots was to land Buran on such runways at nighttime without any illumination [19].