NEXT SPACEFLIGHT

Status

Success

Cosmos 1614 (BOR-4)

Launch Time
Wed Dec 19, 1984 03:55 UTC

Last orbital flight of a Soviet space shuttle before Buran in 1988. Last flight of K65M-RB5.

Rocket

K65M-RB5
RVSN USSR
Status: Retired
Liftoff Thrust: 1,486 kN
Payload to LEO: 1,300 kg
Payload to GTO: 0 kg
Stages: 2
Strap-ons: 0
Rocket Height: 26.0 m
Fairing Diameter: 2.44 m
Fairing Height: 5.72 m

Mission Details

Cosmos 1614 (BOR-4 n°406)

The BOR-4 flight vehicle is a scaled (1:2) prototype of the Soviet Spiral VTHL (vertical takeoff, horizontal landing) spaceplane. An uncrewed, subscale spacecraft, its purpose was to test the heatshield tiles and reinforced carbon-carbon for the Buran space shuttle, then under development.

Several of them were built and flown between 1982 and 1984 from the Kapustin Yar launch site at speeds of up to Mach 25. After reentry, they were designed to parachute to an ocean splashdown for recovery by the Soviet Navy. The testing was nearly identical to that carried out by the US Air Force ASSET program in the 1960s, which tested the heatshield design for the X-20 Dyna-Soar. On June 3, 1982 a Royal Australian Air Force P-3 Orion reconnaissance aircraft captured the first Western images of the craft as it was recovered by a Soviet ship near the Cocos Islands.

Payloads: 1
Total Mass: 1,450.0 kg
Low Earth Orbit

Location

Site 86/1, Kapustin Yar, Russia

Stats

1984

126th orbital launch attempt

Cosmos-3

337th mission
19th mission of 1984
314th successful mission
40th consecutive successful mission