Soviet Space Shuttle Readied for 1st Unmanned Test Flight

Soviet technicians worked round the clock Friday on a floodlit launch pad preparing for the unmanned maiden flight of a Soviet space shuttle.

The launch of the black-and-white winged Buran, or Snowstorm, and its Energia booster--the world’s most powerful rocket--was scheduled for 6:23 a.m. Moscow time today (8:23 p.m. PDT Friday) at the Baikonur space center in the Soviet Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan.

At that time, “the sound of rocket engines with a total power of 170 million horsepower will resound through the autumn steppe of Kazakhstan like thunder, and the orbital ship Buran will leave on its first space trip,” Tass, the official news agency, said Friday.

The shuttle will orbit the Earth twice and then, “obeying its electronic brain and the radio commands from Earth, will land on a paved runway 12 kilometers from the launch complex,” Tass said. No landing time was given.

News reports indicated the mission would be entirely devoted to checking out the craft’s onboard systems and the shuttle would not deploy satellites or conduct any other tasks.

Soviet newspapers said the shuttle has room for a maximum of 10 people--up to four cosmonauts and six passengers. They said Energia and Buran cost about the same as the U.S. shuttle, about $10 billion.

Communications with the craft will be controlled via four ships in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, four satellite systems and ground stations.

On Thursday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yuri Gremitskykh said the launch would be televised live in the Soviet Union, but on Friday he said he could no longer ensure a live broadcast. Foreign reporters were not allowed to travel to Baikonur.

Technicians worked round the clock by the light of 670 spotlights, filling the four first-stage rockets with kerosene and oxygen, and the second stage with liquid oxygen and hydrogen.

In a report on launch preparations late Friday, state-run television provided the first confirmation that the military is involved in the shuttle program.

“As always in our country, military specialists participate in crucial, dangerous tests,” a correspondent said, reporting from Baikonur.

The report said the military official overseeing shuttle operations is Alexander A. Maksimov, “chief specialist of the Defense Ministry on multiple-use space transport systems and the prospect of their development.”

Military involvement could be one reason Soviet officials have withheld details of their shuttle program. Officials have said throughout the year that a launch was imminent but gave a date for it only on Wednesday.

Soviet officials and media repeatedly have criticized military uses of the American space shuttle.

Tass also reported that a second Soviet shuttle is under construction. It referred to the second craft as Ptichka, or Birdie, and said its dimensions are similar to Buran.

The U.S. Defense Department, in its 1988 publication Soviet Military Power, says the Soviets might use their shuttle to deploy anti-satellite and ballistic missile defense weapons “and other space-based components of the Soviet strategic defense program.”

The TV showed Maksimov speaking to Baikonur workers at an outdoor ceremony.

‘Historic Task’

“Truly this is a historic task,” he said. “Today’s launch we can compare to the launch of the first artificial satellite.”

The Soviet Union began the Space Age in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik.

The evening news also showed the chairman of the government commission on shuttle construction and launch, Vitaly V. Doguzhiev, speaking to Baikonur workers.

“Qualified and responsible people are gathered here. But . . . the main thing nonetheless has always been and remains quality. In the name of the government commission, I ask you very much, I beg you--quality and only quality,” Doguzhiev said nervously.

Soviet officials once criticized the U.S. space shuttle, which made its first flight in 1981, as wasteful and unreliable, but have been developing their own look-alike for years.

The Soviet shuttle, like the American version, is attached to smaller first-stage rockets and one large booster. But the newspaper Socialist Industry told its readers to ignore the similarities.

The automatic system that allows the Buran to be completely guided from the ground not only makes the initial flight safer but in the future will give the crew more flexibility, it said.

“It . . . gives it the possibility of engaging first of all in experiments in space and increases the reliability of all systems,” the newspaper said, adding that cosmonauts can take control of it at any time.

Soviet officials have said the flight is unmanned to avoid risking the lives of its crew. They cite the Jan. 28, 1986, explosion of the U.S. shuttle Challenger, in which seven crew members died, as an example of the dangers.