page_title: Energia
section_title: Development history
hierarchical_section_title: Energia / Development history
caption_attribution_description: English: Polyus satellite on Energia launch vehicle. Deutsch: Poljussatellit auf Energija Trägerrakete.
context_page_description: Energia was a super-heavy lift launch vehicle. It was designed by NPO Energia of Soviet Union for a variety of payloads including the Buran spacecraft. Control system main developer enterprise was the Khartron NPO "Electropribor". The Energia used four strap-on boosters each powered by a four-chamber RD-170 engine burning kerosene/LOX, and a central core stage with 4 one-chamber RD-0120 engines fueled by liquid hydrogen/LOX.
  The launch vehicle had two functionally different operational variants: Energia-Polyus, the initial test configuration, in which the Polyus system was used as a final stage to put the payload into orbit, and Energia-Buran, in which the Buran-class orbiters were the payload and the source of the orbit insertion impulse.
  The launch vehicle had the capacity to place about 100 tonnes in Low Earth orbit, up to 20 tonnes to geostationary orbit and up to 32 tonnes via translunar trajectory into lunar orbit.
  The launch vehicle made just two flights to orbit before being discontinued. Since 2016, there has been attempts to revive the launch vehicle.
context_section_description: Work on the Energia/Buran system began in 1976 after the decision was made to cancel the unsuccessful N1 rocket. The facilities and infrastructure built for the N1 were reused for Energia (notably the huge horizontal assembly building), just as NASA reused infrastructure designed for the Saturn V in the Space Shuttle program. Energia also replaced the "Vulkan" concept, which was a design based on the Proton (rocket family) and using the same hypergolic propellants, but much larger and more powerful. The "Vulkan" designation was later given to a variation of the Energia which has eight boosters and multiple stages.
  The Energia was designed to launch the Soviet "Buran" reusable shuttle, and for that reason was designed to carry its payload mounted on the side of the stack, rather than on the top, as is done with other launch vehicles.  Design of the Energia-Buran system assumed that the booster could be used without the Buran orbiter, as a heavy-lift cargo launch vehicle; this configuration was originally given the name "Buran-T". This configuration required the addition of an upper stage to perform the final orbital insertion. The first launch of the Energia was in the configuration of a heavy launch vehicle, with the large Polyus military satellite as a payload, however Polyus failed to correctly perform the orbital insertion.
  Due to the termination of the Buran programme the Energia program was concluded after only two launches, and further the payload on the first launch didn't perform the final boost properly. The legacy of Energia/Buran project manifests itself most visibly in form of the RD-170 family of rocket engines, and the Zenit launcher, with the first stage roughly the same as one of the Energia first-stage boosters.
caption: Polyus satellite on Energia launch vehicle
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