SOVIETS TO LAUNCH SHUTTLE SATURDAY

LEAD: The Soviet Union said today that it would launch its first space shuttle on an unmanned mission Saturday, after months of delays similar to those that plagued the maiden voyage of the United States' re-usable spacecraft.

The Soviet Union said today that it would launch its first space shuttle on an unmanned mission Saturday, after months of delays similar to those that plagued the maiden voyage of the United States' re-usable spacecraft.

A government commission scheduled the launching for 6:23 A.M., Tass, the official press agency, reported. It said the decision came after reports from specialists on several thousand tests of the shuttle Buran and its Energia booster rocket.

But a television report indicated that the launching time could be pushed back because tests of systems might take longer than anticipated. State-run television showed the white delta-shaped Buran, with its name, Russian for snowstorm, emblazoned in red, attached to the Energia on a launching pad at the Baikonur astrodrome in Kazakhstan in central Asia. #2,000 Tons of Fuel Preparations for pouring nearly 2,000 tons of liquid hydrogen, oxygen and hydrocarbon fuel into the Energia, a new type of booster that the Soviets say is the world's most powerful, are to begin Thursday, Tass said. The rocket is capable of carrying more than 100 tons of cargo into orbit of the Earth and up to 20 tons to the planets Mars and Venus.

An Energia is known to have launched a dummy payload in May 1987.

The shuttle launching was originally planned for the first half of this year but was postponed as technical problems arose, officials said.

Soviet officials have said the first flight, whose scheduled length was not reported, would be pilotless. If the test flight is successful, a mission with two astronauts is to follow, but Soviet officials have not said when.

Little has been reported of the Soviet shuttle program since it began in 1982, and Soviet Foreign Ministry officials said today that foreign reporters would not be allowed to travel to Baikonur for the launching.

Tass transmitted the first pictures of the Soviet shuttle on Sept. 29, the same day the United States launched the shuttle Discovery from Cape Canaveral, Fla. That mission was the first American manned space flight since the shuttle Challenger exploded in flight in January 1986, killing all seven astonauts aboard.

The photographs showed a craft very similar in appearance to the United States shuttles.

New York Times. AP.