Sochi's "Buran" becomes a 3D donor for a new museum exhibit

In January 2025, RangeVision specialists took part in a 3D scanning of the Buran spacecraft, or rather, its third version called Baikal, which is to become an interactive exhibit at the Museum Complex of Civil and Military Equipment in Verkhnyaya Pyshma. The Baikal was delivered to the museum with significant losses — it was missing the nose cone, front landing gear and the entire aft section with engines. The design documentation for the spacecraft is not available, so it was supposed to copy the missing structural elements from another fully preserved spacecraft of the Buran series located in Sochi. This stage of the project was completed exactly one month later, at the end of February.

In the early 1980s, several full-size models were built to test the ground tests of the new Soviet reusable Buran spacecraft. Among them, OK-KS (product 0.03), the Orbiter — Integrated Stand. In terms of the composition of the systems, it was the closest model to the Buran. It contained a complete set of standard radio electronics, drives and mechanisms that got into the "Buran" only after testing and testing on OK-KS in normal and emergency situations. This ship has never been in space, but it was thanks to him and several other twin brothers that the successful implementation of the Energia-Buran program became possible.

Since 1992, the model has been mothballed and was in storage at RSC Energia in Korolev, Moscow region, until 2017. On June 27, 2017, the ceremony of handing over the OK-KS to the Sirius Educational Center in Sochi took place. The model was disassembled and transported to Sirius, first on a convoy of trucks, then on a marine vessel. Then it was reassembled and brought into full compliance with the flight model of the Buran spacecraft, and since 2018 it has been part of an interactive popular science exhibition about space.

OK-KS is now an interactive museum exhibit: all systems and equipment have been restored inside, projectors have been installed, and a convenient entrance has been organized. But we were more interested in what was on the outside, namely the immaculately preserved tail section and the front landing gear strut.

It was planned to scan all the objects in two days, taking into account not only the complexity of the preparation and organization of work, but also the working schedule of the ship itself, which was periodically visited by tour groups and delegations. Looking ahead, let's say that the scanning process itself took about 6 hours of pure time.

We had: 2 scanners, 2 laptops, 2-4 thousand markers, a pair of extension cords, a two-story tour assembled on site, 3 engineers and a manager. It looks like the beginning of a famous movie, and the process itself turned out to be no less fascinating.

The project was prepared in a short time, so we had to work in the conditions that were available. In order to get close to the engines, we used a regular installation tour, so the scan added a dose of adrenaline to the specialists. 3D scanners and laptops were powered by Buran itself.

It was not easy to scan the art section. Strongly protruding main engine nozzles, overhanging maneuvering engines, a tiny platform — and all this at a height of 6 meters. At the same time, there are different details: from large smooth surfaces to small structural parts of unknown purpose. It was impossible to assemble all this geometry just by standing on the scaffolding. We had to squat in some places, lie down in some places, and even jump from tower to ship and back. It had to be done in the cold February wind, to which snowfall was added in the evening.

At the same time, due to the symmetry of the art section and the fairly simple geometry of the main elements, there was no need to scan the engines entirely. The main task was to collect the sizes and configurations of objects, according to which they could then be modeled from primitives — planes, spheres, arcs.

About 2000 markers were spent on pasting the scanned surfaces. The scanning process, including applying markers and warming up the scanners, took just over 5 hours. The scans were checked on site for completeness of geometry and crosslinkability, after which the final model was assembled on the ground in a warm room. The specialists worked in turns, taking turns every hour.

Scanning the front landing gear rack was both easier and more difficult. It's easier because it's much smaller and located on the ground. It took only 30 markers to paste it. But at the same time, it has a complex geometry, a large number of details, and in order to fully collect the geometry, it was necessary to shoot it in a confined space from all possible angles and look deep into the interweaving of the elements of the metal structure. The full scan took about 20 minutes, after which the scans collected on site were combined into a model in a warm office.

We finished scanning in complete darkness, but this is not a problem for a 3D laser scanner.

The final OK-KS engine model consisted of almost 8 million landfills after being cleaned of debris. Then it was simplified, optimized and aligned relative to the tail section of the Buran from Verkhnyaya Pyshma.

After making sure that the engines from the Sochi Buran perfectly match the tail section of the Verkhnepyshminsky, reverse engineering specialists, having already left the cold Sochi, built a solid-state model. It will make it possible to prepare design documentation for the manufacture of this spacecraft structural element.

In August 2025, we plan to return to Verkhnyaya Pyshma and scan the entire outer surface of the fuselage and wings of the Buran using a photogrammetry system for the most accurate stitching of scans, since the Buran is one of the largest objects that we have ever scanned. We will certainly tell you about the results of this ambitious project.