2020
The Buran. The Soviet space shuttle success story
Category: Innovation (small and large newsrooms)
Country/area: Russia
Organisation: TASS Russian News Agency
Organisation size: Big
Publication date: 1 Apr 2019
Credit: Authors: KRISTINA NEDKOVA, TIMUR FEKHRETDINOV Editors: ALEXANDER BYCHKOV, SABINA VAKHITOVA Style editor: PHILIP AGHION 3D-model: ALEXANDER VOLKOV, ANASTASIA ZOTOVA Photo-editor: PAVEL KUKOLEV Video editor: MAXIM MAKAROV Art Director: ANTON MIZINOV
Project description:
This special project is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the first and only flight of the spaceship “Buran”. The “analysis of the flight” goes into detail about the most difficult stages of the Soviet rocket plane’s mission, including the landing, which for the first time in history was fully automatic. Each of the project’s four chapters contains interactive inserts: a comparison of the Soviet system “Energy — Buran” with the American Space Shuttle system, a step-by-step layout of the spacecraft’s take-off and landing, as well as complete information about the surviving flight specimens and full-size models.
Impact reached:
This special project is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the first and only flight of the spaceship “Buran”. Each of the project’s four chapters contains interactive inserts: a comparison of the Soviet system “Energy — Buran” with the American Space Shuttle system, a step-by-step layout of the spacecraft’s take-off and landing, as well as complete information about the surviving flight specimens and full-size models. The “analysis of the flight” received positive attention and feedback from users and professional community.
Techniques/technologies used:
We have used Adobe illustrator to create plans for the the spaceship and 3Ds Max and V-Ray to make realistic technical illustration. Project was built using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
What was the hardest part of this project?
One of the most complex (and complicated) visualizations of the project is a detailed 3D model of the Buran. It contains image of all 38 000 heat-resistant tiles.
What can others learn from this project?
The “analysis of the flight” goes into detail about the most difficult stages of the Soviet rocket plane’s mission, including the landing, which for the first time in history was fully automatic.
