Rebirth of a Legend: 3D scanning of the Buran spacecraft

Verkhnyaya Pyshma is a small industrial town north of Yekaterinburg. This is the heart of the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, but the city is known for more than that. The Museum Complex of Civil and Military Equipment, established in 2005, is located here. This is probably the largest, most detailed and well-organized permanent exhibition of domestic and foreign equipment: four exhibition buildings and an extensive open-air exposition are located on an area of 13 hectares. The museum’s collection includes 15,000 exhibits, including 1,500 samples of military and civilian equipment.
This year, the museum plans to add a significant exhibit to its exposition in every sense. This is the only surviving flight copy of the Buran spacecraft in Russia. The space shuttle, which is currently in a rather depressing condition, will be completely restored and placed in a new pavilion built specifically for it. But first you need to restore a significant part of its body.

The legendary orbital shuttle Buran made its first and only flight on November 15, 1988. It was a real breakthrough in world space exploration, which could have been the beginning of a new era of space exploration. To date, no one has been able to repeat the achievement of Soviet designers — an automatic return spacecraft. Unfortunately, in 1993, after the collapse of the USSR, the program was finally curtailed.

Within the framework of the Energia—Buran program, only three flight ships of this type were produced. Only the first of them was called "Blizzard": the second was "Storm", and the third — the hero of this story — was called the Product 2.01 "Baikal".

The spacecraft arrived at the Museum Complex in August 2024. His transportation from Moscow to Verkhnyaya Pyshma itself makes for an exciting adventure film: on a barge along the canals of Moscow, then along the Volga through Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan, then along the Kama River to Perm, and finally on tractors along bypass roads to Verkhnyaya Pyshma.

The preparation of the multi-stage spacecraft restoration project took several months. Due to the fact that the Buran project was secret, the design documentation and drawings are almost completely missing. The only reconstruction option is to create a complete digital copy of the shuttle. Based on the data obtained, the missing parts will be designed and manufactured: the external elements of the main engines and control engines, the leaf of the nose landing gear, part of the glazing, the nose cone and the wing edge fairing.

According to Nikolai Rezinsky, director of the Museum Complex, the restoration of the Buran is a unique project. Almost no one has ever tried to restore space technology before, there are only a few such specialists. At the same time, the museum plans not only to create a mock-up of the shuttle, but to restore its entire structure as completely as possible, including the original components and assemblies, instruments, and interior, so that visitors to the exhibition can fully experience themselves as pilots of a real orbital shuttle.

Yaroslav Portmanov, chief specialist for the restoration of the Buran, did a great job collecting all available technical information about the shuttle from various design bureaus and institutes. But still, many structural elements will have to be reinvented based on the existing design — for example, to recreate the lost hatch flap of the landing gear compartment.
The first stage of the reconstruction is a 3D scan of the hull and wings to create a basic digital model of the Buran. It was in the scanning that we were lucky enough to take an active part.

The reconstruction plan is very tight, so the 3D scanning of the Buran began as early as possible — on January 25, 2025. By spring, the museum’s specialists are going to install the wings and begin further restoration.

Ural January turned out to be invigorating: snowdrifts, freezing temperatures of -15 and a piercing wind. The museum’s specialists provided the most comfortable conditions possible: they cleared the snow, erected forests and installed heated tents.

Helix handheld 3D laser scanners and RV 3D Studio proprietary software were used to scan Buran. We scanned simultaneously with two scanners: the data was collected at different sites, including on different floors of the scaffolding, and then the scans were combined in a program to make sure that all the necessary geometry was collected.

Before scanning, the shuttle body was glued with 6 mm marks. The case is almost entirely made of titanium and aluminum, so it was impossible to use magnetic tags. According to rough estimates, more than 5,000 self-adhesive markers were manually applied to the Buran.

The scanning process itself took two full-time work shifts, despite the fact that the Helix scanners showed impressive digitization speed, despite the cold. The largest scanning object in terms of area was the rear end of the case measuring approximately 6×6 meters. I had to work on three-story scaffolding.

The Buran lacks a nose cone and a front landing gear compartment cover. They will need to be re-manufactured and installed in their rightful places. During the scan, we digitized the hatch and mounting brackets so that we could re-construct these parts.

In addition to the hull, the wings removed from the shuttle and folded side by side were scanned. Their dimensions are no less impressive than the body. At the same time, wings are complex structures with a variety of diverse elements and complex geometries. During the life of the Buran, the wings were removed and placed on it repeatedly, so the attachment points of the wings were partially damaged and deformed. Even the availability of complete documentation would not have allowed for the correct reconstruction of spare parts — a local adjustment was required.

The scanner’s mounting brackets came into focus. These are typical parts: it is enough to create a digital copy of one whole bracket to copy it and replace the damaged or lost ones.

In RV 3D Studio, the initial scan matching was performed right on the spot. Deeper processing was already done in a warm room without haste. All the assembled geometries fit perfectly within the accuracy specified by the customer.

The entire planned amount of work was completed in two days. We scanned four large and critical parts of the object:

• the wing attachment
• points, the nose cone
• , the front landing gear
• rack, and the tail section

Constructed and processed 3D models are an excellent base for designing mating parts and assemblies.

The restoration work will take a whole year. During this time, the restorers will find the missing parts or at least the documentation for them, or they will create them anew. After that, the Buran will return to its original appearance: it is expected to be contaminated, locally repaired, and the interior will be completed.

The tasks of 3D scanning the spacecraft have not ended. In February 2025, we will go to scan again, this time the full—size Buran test stand, known as OK-KS (product 0.03). This is an almost complete replica of the real shuttle, which was used for ground tests before the actual launch. This model, located in Sochi on the territory of the Sirius Educational center, has been preserved as much as possible. It will become a "3D donor" for its brother Baikal: all the parts missing from the Ural shuttle will be scanned, primarily the stern with main engines and control engines.

We will continue to talk about the Buran restoration project in the next issues of the blog.