Energia II (Uragan) Fully Reusable Soviet Rocket Concept

Energia II, named Uragan (Russian: Ураган, Hurricane), was a rocket design proposed to be fully reusable with the capability to land on a conventional airfield. Unlike the Energia-Buran, which was planned to be semi-reusable (like the U.S. Space Shuttle), the Uragan concept was to have allowed the complete recovery of all Buran/Energia elements, like the original, totally reusable Orbiter/Booster concept of the U.S. Shuttle. The Energia II core as proposed would be capable of re-entering and gliding to a landing.

[ectogaming]

Those boosters lining up for approach is majestic.

[jeffvader]

You make the best conceptual-spacecraft renderings on YouTube, you really deserve more subscribers.

[КосмонавтикаВидео]

Завораживающе.
И это все могло случиться 20 лет назад...
Thank you, Hazegrayart!

[homesbymatt]

Wow man, the Energia II would have been a heck of a sight to see! Crying shame it never went any farther than it did. Your visualizations are amazing!

[JokubasVas]

3:23 I love how the boosters have that ambient choir music and it just transitions into the roaring of the main core 😂😂😂

[michaelreinert]

This is simply astonishing. To me it is just unbelievable how much work you must have put into this in order to make it look so close to real. Thanks for these amazing renderings!

[ParallelAmmeter]

Who would have thought then that the Union would collapse? For us in Russia, a trip to the stars is a dream that has been taken away from us.

[Vladimir-uiij]

Given that the real Buran landed in unmanned mode as gliding, the concept is quite realistic.

[jack_]

3:24 The cut from music to the rocket was amazing and movie like

[louisshelley]

This looks so good. The quality is amazing. Absolutely loved the attention to detain and the lighting was really nice at 2:00. Well done

[pychpth]

Man! I always wanted to see, how that thing would have looked in action. Thank you so very much! 🤗

[andrewsuryali]

This is incredible animation, but I humbly suggest two possible changes that I hope you would consider if you ever plan to do such a project ever again.


The first is that the way Energia II was designed, it was probably intended to work more like Polyus than Buran. The elongated nose section would have carried its own separate payload and final stage rocket. The connecting fairing would hide the nose of the Buran-like main stage. So the launch sequence would have been booster + main stage -> main stage -> final stage. The main stage would have returned from orbit right after launch. If the final stage carried a reentry-capable payload, then it would have had to return like a Soyuz. Otherwise, the payload could just go its merry way to orbit or beyond. Two pieces of the rocket would always be discarded: The fairing and the final stage rocket engine.


The second is that the positioning of the wings would require the boosters to land with a high angle of attack, which means the landing gears in the model are too short. Also, given the empty weight of the boosters themselves, they would likely need only a fairly small and simple pair of rear landing gears.


That said, this is already a very beautiful and technically accurate animation of what could have been and honestly doesn't need any improvement. I salute you and your imagination for this wonderful work of art.

[denysxenyev]

Да, хорошая идея. И по идее такая система должна обладать бОльшим ресурсом и надежностью, чем Falcon с вертикальной посадкой, потому что по сути это просто набор реактивных самолетов с ракетными двигателями, просто взлетающих вертикально.


А вообще конечно очень круто, респект.


Надо бы сделать радиоуправляемую модель такой системы, проверить как будет летать и садиться, чисто из интереса. А потом сделать что-то вроде масштаба Rocketlab, для вывода небольших. поначалу грузов - это вполне реалистично.

[brendanwood]

This is like an epic challenge trying to watch the whole playlist without getting the urge to play KSP so hard!

[AlexSchendel]

Imagine how it would have transformed rocketry if this concept was built back in the 1980's. Took over 20 years to reach the sort of reusability that this rocket aimed to achieve.

[ColdConceptOfficial]

I most impressed by both the animation and the sound engineering...kudos to whoever glued this together

[redpug]

people laugh at this idea, but people also laughed at Elon when he said he was going to land a rocket booster, and then that he was going to make a fully and rapidly reusable rocket. Here we are, just months away from its first orbital flight, and less than a year from seeing a booster and/or starship being caught.

[gavintheobald]

this is crazy ! just imagine the BFR with 6x falcon 9 boosters !

[bbro]

Man! ESA's rocket demonstrations need you! This is awesome <3

[lvwpy]

This is probably your video that I enjoyed the most. The views are amazing, those four boosters lining up for landing, just beautiful!