According to this:
http://en.buran.fr/bourane/bourane-carac.php

Buran was 82t at landing. I wonder now what was the actual largest payload put into orbit.

It's really sad to read about energia and buran. It was such an impressive system.

This could beat an 80t Buran on orbit insertion.

Probably, but I was keying on the "non-apollo payload" portion of his question. IMO, Skylab was part of the Apollo program (made from a Saturn V third stage).

If we're going to count the orbiter itself as payload, then the Space Shuttle inserts more than 100t. I think the maximum has been somewhere around 115t.

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I guess it depends on what you actually consider to be payload. I would say the Space Shuttle if you count the entire orbiter as payload. If you don't want to count the orbiter, then I'd say Skylab. The greatest total mass placed in orbit was about 140t during each of the final three Apollo missions, but the majority of that was propellant. (I think Apollo 15 was the largest.)

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Webmaster, Rocket & Space Technology

The Buran launch was a special case in which the orbiter was the sole payload of the Energia. Normally, the Shuttle is the launch vehicle and carries the payload internally. You might consider the first few Shuttle flights as being in the same category as the Buran. In the end, I agree that as pure payload, it's hard to beat Skylab.

Columbia with payload massed out to 123 tons IIRC

Polyus remains the largest unmanned payload lofted--unmanned through-out its history unlike Skylab that is.

I don't think that's correct. Polyus was 80 metric tons: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/polyus.htm.

The unmanned Apollo 4 mission orbited 127 metric tons, or 280,000 lbs (total orbital mass of S-IVB), per the Apollo 4 Saturn V Flight Evaluation Report, AS-501 (2.2MB pdf). See table 21-5, S-IVB Mass History:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/ca...1990066482.pdf

If you count "useful payload", the largest appears to be SA-513 (Skylab). The orbital workshop itself was 88,474 kg (195,052 lbs).

If you count total payload (whether useful or not), it appears the greatest is also SA-513, which orbited both the S-IIC 2nd stage plus the Skylab, at a total weight of 147,530 kg (325,247 lbs). This is slightly greater than the total mass orbited by Apollo 15, which was 140,930 kg (310,697 lbs).

Shuttle orbiter weight (inc'l payload) varies with each mission. The heaviest orbiter+payload weight I've seen is 124,538 kg (274,560 lbs) on STS-73, which was USML-2 Spacelab. Due to OMS propellant consumption during ascent, the actual orbital weight was somewhat less. So the Saturn lifted significantly more mass to LEO than the shuttle, even if you count the orbiter itself on the heaviest shuttle mission.

Shuttle Orbiter mass properties: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/...n/massprop.pdf

BTW the SA-513 (Skylab) Saturn V Flight Evaluation Report (figure 5-3, S-IC Stage Propulsion Performance) shows that vehicle had the highest liftoff thrust of any Saturn, 35.1 MN or 7,890,793 lbf. That's much more than the U.S. shuttle and former Soviet N-1 launcher, and roughly equals the liftoff thrust of the two Energia test launches.

Saturn V Flight Evaluation Report, AS-513 (31 MB .pdf): http://www.klabs.org/history/history...I_saturn_v.pdf

Ares V will come second only to N-1

Let's support it--and Griffin.

It looked as though the Soviets were only trying to state that they could make the same technology (or better) as the USA, but that is rather an empty statement.

It was the most costy space project the Soviets had, and all of it (or almost all of it) is lost (the enormous resources it had costed must have contributed to the economical incline that was occuring right at that time).
Like before the N1/L3 for the moonrace. If their N1 rocket had not failed and went on for the moon race (they delayed their goals to go to the moon several years), just maybe the first man walking on the moon was a man from the USSR...

Only some components are used in real launches of rockets, but most of the development cost have been without any real return.

Hapily, their approach after loosing the moon race, has been very productive.
Without that, ISS would not have been what it is now.

Energiya was fashioned after our STS but was superior. Look at www.buran.ru and play around that site.

It took Glushko awhile to warm to kerolox--wanting hypergolics for the longest time.
If Korolov had abandoned the N-1--this compromise could have been flying today:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/r56.htm


Glushko (unfairly demonized in my opinion) managed to perfect RD-170 after much difficulty--and yet the RD-0120 (their SSME) was rather problem free.

He hated hydrogen however--and wanted an all kerolox modular HLLV in the RLA series, as explained here:

The baseliner booster: http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/rla120.htm
This super EELV would have placed 100 tons in orbit http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/rla135.htm
This super HLLV would be place 250 tons in LEO http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/rla150.htm

The latest:
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/angara100.html

The most probable:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/angara5a.htm 28 tons only


Misc Cool pictures--scroll down:
http://www.astronautix.com/gallery/hires.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/newurism.htm

VSE - the other alternatives
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/_nsf/content/?cid=4890
From Lockheed Martin to the Congressional Budget Office, it seems like everyone has a proposal for how to change the VSE (Vision for Space Exploration).
In the final part of this series, we will examine four more recently proposed alternatives to NASA's VSE program, ranging from industry professionals to international concepts.

I just worry about the EELV based scenarios which combine the worst of DART/ISS assembly options.

Polyus turned 20 in May--details in recent back issues of QUEST.