Let’s have a look, for this new Space Law article on Space Legal Issues at the Soviet Buran spaceplane. Buran, meaning Snowstorm or Blizzard in Russian, was the first spaceplane to be produced as part of the Soviet Buran programme. What was the Soviet Buran spaceplane’s legal status? Was Buran an aircraft or a spacecraft?
The Buran programme
The Soviet Buran spaceplane reusable spacecraft programme has its roots in the very beginning of the space age, the late 1950s. Also known as the “VKK Space Orbiter programme” (VKK or “Air Space Ship” in Russian), the Buran programme, started by the Soviet Union as a response to the United States’ Space Shuttle program, was a Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began in 1974 at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute (founded by Russian aviation pioneer Nikolay Zhukovsky on December 1, 1918) in Moscow and was formally suspended in 1993. In addition to being the designation for the whole Soviet/Russian reusable spacecraft project, Buran was also the name given to Orbiter K1, which completed one unmanned spaceflight in 1988 and was the only Soviet reusable spacecraft to be launched into outer space.
Treated as a Soviet equivalent of the United States of America’s Space Shuttle (which in the 1980s raised considerable concerns among the Soviet military and especially Defense Minister Dmitry Ustinov), the Buran-class orbiters (the Soviet Buran spaceplane) used the expendable Energia rocket as a launch vehicle; only the airplane-shaped orbiter itself was theoretically reusable. After the U.S. developed its Space Shuttle programme, the Soviet military became suspicious that it could be used for military purposes, due to its enormous payload, several times that of previous U.S. launch vehicles. Officially, the Buran orbital vehicle was designed for the delivery to orbit and return to Earth of spacecraft, cosmonauts, and supplies. The idea saw its first iteration in the Burya high-altitude jet aircraft, which reached the prototype stage. It was according to officials “a clear indication that one of its main objectives would be to place massive experimental laser weapons into orbit that could destroy enemy missiles from a distance of several thousands of kilometres”. While Orbiter K1 was recovered successfully after its first orbital flight in 1988, it was never reused.
The project was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration. Soviet engineers were initially reluctant to design a spacecraft that looked superficially identical to the Shuttle, but subsequent wind tunnel testing showed that NASA’s design was already ideal. The construction of the shuttles began in 1980, and by 1984 the first full-scale Buran was rolled out. Development work included sending BOR-5 test vehicles (1:8 sized test flight vehicles used to study the main aerodynamic, thermal, acoustic and stability characteristics of the Buran, put into a suborbital trajectory by a K65M-RB5 rocket launched from Kapustin Yar, near Volga, towards Lake Balkhash) on multiple sub-orbital test flights, and atmospheric flights of the OK-GLI aerodynamic prototype (constructed in 1984 and used for twenty-five test flights between 1985 and 1988 before being retired; the test vehicle is now an exhibit at the Technik Museum Speyer in Germany). As the project progressed, five additional scale-model flights were performed. In 1982, it was decided that all Buran commanders and their back-ups would occupy the third seat on a Soyuz mission, prior to their Buran spaceflight. Buran completed one unmanned orbital spaceflight in 1988 before its cancellation in 1993. Orbiter K1, which flew the test flight in 1988, was crushed in a hangar collapse on May 12, 2002 in Kazakhstan.
The Antonov An-225 Mriya
The Antonov An-225 Mriya is a strategic airlift cargo aircraft that was designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Ukrainian SSR within the Soviet Union during the 1980s. It is powered by six turbofan engines and is the heaviest aircraft ever built. The Antonov An-225, initially developed for the task of transporting the Buran spaceplane, was an enlargement of the successful Antonov An-124. The first and only An-225 was completed in 1988. After successfully fulfilling its Soviet military missions, it was mothballed for eight years. It was then refurbished and re-introduced, and is in commercial operation with Antonov Airlines carrying oversized payloads.
The Buran spaceplane
The only flight of Buran took place in 1988. The only orbital launch of the Orbiter K1 Buran took place in November 1988 from pad 110/37 in Baikonur. Site 110 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome is a launch facility which was used by the N1 rocket during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and by the Energia rocket during the 1980s. The unmanned craft was lifted into orbit by the specially designed Energia booster rocket. The life support system was not installed and no software was installed on the CRT displays. The automated launch sequence performed as specified, and the Energia rocket lifted the vehicle into a temporary orbit before the orbiter separated as programmed. The shuttle orbited the Earth twice in two hundred and six minutes of flight. On its return, it performed an automated landing on the shuttle runway in Baikonur.
Buran was supposed to hold up to six passengers in its crew cabin. A separate cargo department would allow for satellites up to seventeen meters long and four and a half meters in diameter. Additional crewmembers could ride in the cargo area. Similarly to NASA’s space shuttle, Buran would have different kinds of thermal materials on its surface to shield from the stresses of re-entry.
After the first flight of a Buran shuttle, the project was suspended due to lack of funds and the political situation in the Soviet Union. The two subsequent orbiters, which were due in 1990 (informally “Ptichka”) and 1992 (informally “Baikal”) were never completed. The project was officially terminated on June 30, 1993, by Boris Yeltsin. At the time of its cancellation, twenty billion rubles (more than three hundred million dollars) had been spent on the Buran programme. The programme was designed to boost national pride, carry out research, and meet technological objectives similar to those of the U.S. Space Shuttle programme, including resupply of the Mir space station, which was launched in 1986 and remained in service until 2001. The Buran SO, a docking module that was to be used with the Mir space station, was refitted for use with the U.S. Space Shuttle. In May 2002, a hangar roof at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan collapsed because of a structural failure due to poor maintenance. The collapse killed eight workers and destroyed Orbiter K1, as well as a mock-up of an Energia booster rocket. Orbiter K1 or Buran spaceplane remains the only Soviet reusable spacecraft to be launched into space.
Buran spaceplane’s legal status
What was Buran spaceplane’s legal status? Was Buran an aircraft or a spacecraft? The existing regimes of Air Law and Space Law were developed at a time when the technology for Earth-to-Earth aerospace movements did not yet exist. Thus, there is not yet a unified or integrated regime of Aerospace Law, and there appears to be much inconsistency between the regimes of Air Law and Space Law.
The “Functionalist” and “Spatialist” approaches have been debated by States and scholars almost since the beginning of the Space Age. That debate long remained academic because there was no serious need to resolve the issue. But developments in technology and business are evolving rapidly.
The term “space object” is important in Space Law and Public International Law. This notion will become of more practical importance with the expansion of space activities (International Space Station, space tourism, Moon, Mars…).
Let’s recall that a space object causing damage triggers international third-party liability under the Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (entered into force in September 1972). Article I (d) of which enounces that “the term space object includes component parts of a space object as well as its launch vehicle and parts thereof”. Its Article II adds that “A launching State shall be absolutely liable to pay compensation for damage caused by its space object on the surface of the Earth or to aircraft in flight”.
A space object requires, thanks to the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (entered into force in September 1976), registration. Article II of which states that “When a space object is launched into Earth orbit or beyond, the launching State shall register the space object by means of an entry in an appropriate registry which it shall maintain. Each launching State shall inform the Secretary-General of the United Nations of the establishment of such a registry”.
Finally, the term space object effectively triggers application of much of both the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (entered into force in October 1967) and the Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (entered into force in December 1968). Article VII of the first declares that “Each State Party to the Treaty that launches or procures the launching of an object into outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, and each State Party from whose territory or facility an object is launched, is internationally liable for damage to another State Party to the Treaty or to its natural or juridical persons by such object or its component parts on the Earth, in air space or in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies”.
Article 5 of the latter states that “1. Each Contracting Party which receives information or discovers that a space object or its component parts has returned to Earth in territory under its jurisdiction or on the high seas or in any other place not under the jurisdiction of any State, shall notify the launching authority and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. 2. Each Contracting Party having jurisdiction over the territory on which a space object or its component parts has been discovered shall, upon the request of the launching authority and with assistance from that authority if requested, take such steps as it finds practicable to recover the object or component parts. 3. Upon request of the launching authority, objects launched into outer space or their component parts found beyond the territorial limits of the launching authority shall be returned to or held at the disposal of representatives of the launching authority, which shall, upon request, furnish identifying data prior to their return”.
An aircraft is any machine that can derive support in the atmosphere from the reactions of the air other than the reactions of the air against the Earth’s surface. Under this definition, an aerospace vehicle launched by rocket would not be considered an aircraft on the ascent phase of its flight, but might well on the descent phase. If the vehicle is a space object, presumably Space Law applies to it. Presumably, a spacecraft should be capable of moving in outer space (either orbital or suborbital) without any support from the air, and it would have a power source not dependent upon external oxygen.
As it is the case with the Buran spaceplane, what if the space transportation vehicle is a hybrid aerospace object, one capable of achieving lift and thereby flying in airspace (on ascent, descent, or both), and also traveling in outer space? Such a vehicle might be considered a space object during its take-off supported by rockets, and during the weightless portion of its flight through space, then an aircraft during descent and landing.
Future transportation systems will be highly influenced by the legal regime in which they are developed. Commercial development of space would be enhanced by clarity, stability and predictability of law. Lack of uniformity of law, and conflicting and overlapping laws will impair the market’s interest in investment in space transportation, and the insurance industry’s ability to assess and price risk. Commercial investment in space transportation systems is expensive, depends on as yet unproved technology, and is fraught with risk. Clear legal rules can help define the degree of risk, and reduce uncertainty, assisting the predictability necessary to support commercial investment.
Concluding remarks on the Soviet Buran spaceplane
As a conclusion, even though spaceplane are hybrid objects, we believe that the Buran spaceplane, as well as the United States of America’s Space Shuttles, because of the mission they had and the way they were operated, can be considered space objects and would, if we were to restart those projects, obey the corresponding laws. That is what we can say about the Soviet Buran spaceplane.