The Buran shuttle was a Russian  orbital vehicle developed as a response to the US Space Shuttle which was suspected by Russia to have military capabilities, although their security advisors could not be sure of what that capability might be. The Buran completed one unmanned orbital mission in 1988 before the programme was cancelled in the early 90’s. The Buran was left in a hangar which collapsed in 2002, due to lack of maintenance, wrecking the craft.  The wreckage of the Shuttle was moved to the docks at Tushino and left to rot in the open air. Recently however, it has been moved from Tushino to Zhukovsky where it will be restored and shown at the  air show MAKS-2013.

One response to “The Russian Space Shuttle”

  1. A shame it only flew once. I remember that the first public release of photos of Buran was on the day the US returned to manned spaceflight following the Challenger disaster (29th September 1988). I remember one space expert being asked about the similarity on a UK news show, and he said it was probably a case of “parallel development” rather than straightforward copying.
    We longed for another flight of Buran, or even the two other shuttles under development but nothing ever happened. Even the booster, Energiya, never flew again (Buran was its second publically announced flight), which make me think the whole project was instigated for propaganda reasons and with the collapse of the USSR three years later there was obviously no need for such expensive programmes…

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