Talk:Buran (spacecraft)

Thermal tile count: 38,600 in Technical description vs 38,000 in Operational history

The article gives two different counts for Buran's thermal protection tiles:

• "Technical description" → "Exterior": "The lower surface of the Buran orbiter was covered in 38,600 carbon-carbon heat shielding tiles designed to withstand 100 reentries." (cited to buran.ru "Раскрой плиток")
• "Operational history" → "Orbital flight" (last sentence): "It was later found that Buran had lost eight of its 38,000 thermal tiles over the course of its flight." (cited to a Space Daily article)

Both passages are about the same single orbiter (Buran 1.01) and the same lower-surface heat-shielding system. The 600-tile gap can't be explained as "lower surface vs whole orbiter" — the second figure is the smaller one. One number is off.

Suggested approach: rather than silently picking the higher or lower number, the talk-page discussion should determine which source to trust, then make both passages consistent. If the numbers are genuinely disputed across sources, the article could attribute each ("Soviet sources cite 38,600 tiles; Western reporting refers to 38,000") rather than presenting both as plain fact in different sections. Rome (talk) 00:32, 29 April 2026 (UTC)