Peter the Great Update: It's About Time!

Gist: The deployed Northern Fleet battle group has met Venezuelan Armed Forces. Having just barely entered territorial waters, they picked up an honor guard of Venezuelan Su-30s, the very kind that Russia has sold to Latin America. The Peter the Great and other ships will rest at anchor at the port of La Guaira, 35km from Caracas, while ashore they prepare to welcome Russian sailors, who in turn will return the favor.

Venezuela welcomes us! The task force enters territorial waters in the Caribbean Sea. This very morning two Su-30s are in the sky, made in Russia, sold to Venezuela. They circle the task group one after the other. Our sailors render honors to a friendly country and this frigate will escort us to the port of La Guaira. The exercises between the countries will last until the first of December. These will be the first exercises in history involving the submarines, frigates, cruisers and helicopters of Russia and Venezuela.

Comrade officers, I will now brief you on the exercises between Russia and Venezuela, ((missed))-2008.

They discuss the plans that lay ahead in the Navigator's shack - joint patrolling, search for and destruction of submarines and ships belonging to the potential enemy, reconnaissance and anti-air warfare. The militaries of the two countries have been preparing for these large scale exercises for a couple of months. The official language of the exercises wont be English, Spanish or Russian but the language of symbols and signs.

We have created a table of conditional signals which have been translated into both languages and both countries have approved this table of signals. These signals will be used during the exercise....

There is activity above decks as well. Two presidents will visit Peter the Great: Hugo Chavez and Dmitriy Medvedev.

This is the first time Peter the Great has visited South America. The cruiser was built for northern waters and not for the Caribbean. The air temperature is 34 degrees and the water temperature is 30.

Captain, Peter the Great, Feliks Min'kov: The ship has been at sea in the open ocean. Whether we want it or not, we have to battle against the effects of salt water, or just plain water. So we have to clean up everywhere.

The flag of Venezuela already flies on the mast. It is naval tradition to fly the flag of the countries in whose port you are conducting a friendly visit. Today the sailors checked out the missile tubes. The Peter the Great's armament will be shown to the presidents of both countries.

What is there to show? The Peter the Great is the largest non-aircraft carrier warship in the world. Two hundred and fifty meters of steel with dozens of missile tubes. And beneath each of these three ton hatches lays the main battery - the Granit nuclear anti-ship cruise missile (RNB comment - Huh! Well how about that!). As opposed to American cruise missiles, the Granit flies to its target at supersonic speed like a fighter jet. There is no ship as powerful as the Peter the Great in the world.

Re-Launch of Delta IV K-18 Karelia

The missile submarine K-18 Karelia has once again been rolled out in front of sailors. This Del'fin class nuclear missile carrier has long been an object of jealousy for other militaries. The best designers in the world have been unable to replicate such a design for their own navies. But in principle, that isn't possible. The submarine K-18 has always been undergoing modernization. But today, the submarine which has traveled 140,000 miles has once again become new. Our correspondent has become acquainted with Karelia's present capabilities.

The orchestra plays the Russian national anthem and the crew stands behind a rope line preparing for the ceremony. The boat stands on the graving dock ready for launch and in accordance with long standing maritime tradition, a bottle of champagne awaits breaking.

Karelia is a boat with a history. In 15 years of active service, the boat has gone to sea thirty eight times and has traveled 140,000 miles. It was the crew of the Karelia that planted the Andreyevskiy Flag on the North Pole for the first time. And in 2000 the boat had the honor of hosting Vladimir Putin. In 2004, the Karelia went to Severodvinsk for overhaul. Now the boat stands at 71 percent readiness. According to the shipyard, most of the modernization work went into reducing the noise levels on the submarine.

...so that when she is in combat service, the noise levels don't exceed the norms...

The reliability of this boat is comparable to a Kalashinikov automatic rifle, but instead of bullets, she fires ballistic missiles. The captain of the shipyard crew Ivan Shindyapin says that not only will the boat go to the North Pole, but she will go considerably farther.

The possibilities are colossal, not only in terms of sailing the world oceans, but also in terms of her other capabilities. I hope that in the future other boats of her class will also be overhauled in order to support the nation security of our country.

After the modernization the boat will be armed with the new ballistic missile system Sineva which was accepted into service last year.

The champagne bottle was smashed, in two weeks the boat will be in the water. Ahead lay the pierside testing and trials and then sea trials next summer.

K-18 is the fifth boat of the Project 667BDRM class to undergo modernization at the Zvezdochka shipyard. The sixth boat, the Novomoskovsk, is next. It is said that in two years the third generation Bars (Akula) and Granit (Oscar) class boats will arrive for overhaul.

Vladimir Nikitin, General Director Zvezdochka Shipyard: This is in the 2010 defense orders. We are ready for this boat as well as the titanium hulled Project 945 Barakuda (Sierra II). We'll be ready to overhaul her at Zvezdochka.

The Project 667BDRM will be the backbone of our strategic force for the next decade. Zvezdochka will be ready to turn the boat over to the Navy next year.

20 Years Ago Today: Buran Saves the World From War in Space!

Gist: Today is an important date in the history of the Russian space program. Twenty years ago the reusable Buran shuttle made her maiden voyage. Without exaggerating it was a pivotal moment for the planet. Because the USSR obtained the ability to launch a nuclear first strike, it headed off the possibility of a war in space.

These people have gathered once again after twenty years. Today, as back then, cosmonauts, test pilots, engineers and designers have all gathered here in the hall of the Energiya Design Bureau, united by the multi-use space shuttle Buran. This is footage of the Energiya launch vehicle with the Buran aboard. It may be history now, but back on 15 November, 1988, the people sitting here watched this live holding their breath. The Soviet government placed great hopes on this project. More than a 1000 design bureaus worked on the project. The Buran was designed to put a then record 30 tons of payload into near-Earth orbit.

For a long time we debated on where to put the booster rocket, on the Buran or on the launch vehicle. In the end we put it on the rocket, like the Americans. So we got two ways to launch payloads into orbit. One way was to put a hundred tons of payload on the rocket and the other was to put up to thirty tons on the sub-orbital vehicle.

The system worked fine during its 206 minute flight, making two orbits around the Earth. But all the tasks hadn't been carried out. Now came the most complicated step - a one of a kind landing in autonomous mode. After a few minutes, for the first time in the history of flight a multi-ton aircraft came in for a landing using only electronics into the airfield at Baykonur, strictly on course, not a centimeter off.

The multi-use Buran was a new type of space craft for her time. Her flight demonstrated the high level of acheivement of the Soviet space program. Her flight parameters were unparalleled, even surpassing those of the American Space Shuttle. To this day the American space shuttle is landed manually. Today it is known that the shuttle had a secret side.

The Buran deterred war in space. She deterred American plans for war in space. With one flight we canceled out everything the Americans were going to do with ten. You can imagine what an accomplishment that was back then.

Depite it's success, the program was canceled because of a lack of financing, but specialists consider the program to be viable. They are sure that a need for a shuttle will arise. And technology developed for the program like heat resistant materials and the automatic landing system have found wide use.


Where are they today?

A Buran test model floats down the Rhine to her final resting place in a German Museum.

(Photo: Siberian Light)

And here is the actual Buran that traveled into space:


(Photo: Buran Homepage)
The roof of the hanger where it is stored in Baykonur collapsed in 2002, killing eight workers.


Here is a great series of pictures of the Buran getting unloaded from the An-225 and placed on the launch vehicle in the assembly hall in Baykonur.