PLANNING THE FIRST FLIGHT

The US Defense Department estimated in the early 1980s that the HLLV would fly first in 1986-1987, followed by the Soviet orbiter in 1987-1988. Ironically, this prediction was more realistic than what was being planned by the Russians, who had a history of setting optimistic timelines for their space projects. When the Energiya-Buran program was approved in February 1976, the goal had been to fly the maiden mission in 1983, but this date started slipping soon. A government decree in December 1981 moved the target date to 1985 and another one on 2 August 1985 set the mission for the fourth quarter of 1986 [26]. Even that must have been a completely unrealistic goal given the progress made by that time in rocket and orbiter testing. A major factor in the delays probably were the serious problems with test firings of the RD-170/171 engines in the early 1980s, although other technical as well as budgetary issues must also have come into play.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, original plans apparently called for launching the first two missions of Energiya with mock-up orbiters that would remain attached to the rocket and re-enter together with it. Later those plans were dropped in favor of launching a real orbiter on the first Energiya mission. Then, as Buran ran into delays, it was decided to turn a test model of Energiya (6S) into a flightworthy version (6SL) and launch that with the Polyus/Skif-DM payload, moving the Buran mission to the second flight of Energiya.