NEXT SPACEFLIGHT

Status

Suborbital
Success

BOR-5 n°503

Launch Time
Thu Dec 25, 1986 23:59 UTC

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

BOR-5 n°503

The BOR-5 flight vehicle is a scaled prototype of the Soviet Buran shuttle. 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
Suborbital

Location

Site 86/1, Kapustin Yar, Russia

Stats

Cosmos-3

367th mission
16th mission of 1986
342nd successful mission
8th consecutive successful mission