Penetrated into the Baikonur Cosmodrome | Giant abandoned rocket "Energia-M" | Part 1

Video from the channel Exploring With Anatoly about Energia, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 29:06. Language: English. Video type: Onboard.

The author narrates an unauthorized trek through the Baikonur Cosmodrome. He arrives by freight train at Tyuratam and crosses the steppe on foot at night, dodging vehicles and searchlights, to one of the large abandoned hangars. Inside is a full-scale mock-up of the Energia-M launcher, which he explores from the floor and from the upper walkways. Afterward he goes back outside the building and heads to the neighboring hangar, where Buran orbiters are stored.

The mock-up takes up much of the hangar and can barely be seen whole from below. The footage shows the interior access points and stairways, elevator shafts, holes in the floor, the crane and platform used to handle rocket components, and the hangar's huge doors mounted on rollers. The author notes that the equipment was removed or looted. From up high, a launch pad still in service can be made out, along with the so-called "Gagarin's Start," from which the first crewed flight lifted off. At the end, the author enters the Buran hangar and sits in the pilot's seat of one of the orbiters, while security staff walk through the building with flashlights.

According to the video's explanation, Energia was built for the Buran program and flew only twice. The first flight, in 1987, carried the Polyus payload: the rocket worked normally, but the payload failed to reach orbit and fell into the Pacific. The second flight carried Buran. Energia could place about 100 tonnes into orbit. A variant with side boosters, called Vulkan, would have reached 200 tonnes, but it was never built. The Energia-M, of which this is the mock-up, was a smaller version intended for about 35 tonnes.