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The Buran orbiters were similar in design to the U.S. Space Shuttle. [3] Buran completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988, and was destroyed in 2002 due to the collapse of its storage hangar. [ 4 ] The Buran-class orbiters used the expendable Energia rocket, a class of super heavy-lift launch vehicle .
Per-launch costs can be measured by dividing the total cost over the life of the program (including buildings, facilities, training, salaries, etc.) by the number of launches. With 135 missions, and the total cost of US$192 billion (in 2010 dollars), this gives approximately $1.5 billion per launch over the life of the Shuttle program. [20]
The original intention was to compensate for this lower payload by lowering the per-launch costs and a high launch frequency. However, the actual costs of a Space Shuttle launch were higher than initially predicted, and the Space Shuttle did not fly the intended 24 missions per year as initially predicted by NASA. [54] [24]: III–489–490
SpaceX is able to offer cheap and quick turnaround launches at about $67 million a flight, which is about $1,500 per pound of payload. By comparison, the Space Shuttle cost about $25,000 per pound ...
The Buran SO, a docking module that was to be used for rendezvous with the Mir space station, was refitted for use with the U.S. Space Shuttles during the Shuttle–Mir missions. [ 46 ] The cost of a Buran launch carrying a 20-ton payload was estimated at 270 million roubles, vs 5.5 million roubles on the Proton rocket.
In 2010, the incremental cost per flight of the Space Shuttle was $409 million, or $14,186 per kilogram ($6,435 per pound) to low Earth orbit (LEO). In contrast, the comparable Proton launch vehicle cost was $141 million, or $6,721 per kilogram ($3,049 per pound) to LEO and the Soyuz 2.1 was $55 million, or $6,665 per kilogram ($3,023 per pound ...
Rated to launch 45 metric tons of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO) in an expendable configuration, and reported to cost about $70 million per launch, Blue Origin's rocket poses serious competition ...
The longest orbital flight of the Shuttle was STS-80 at 17 days 15 hours, while the shortest flight was STS-51-L at one minute 13 seconds when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart during launch. The cold morning shrunk an O-Ring on the right Solid Rocket Booster causing the external fuel tank to explode.