Buran Program

Buran program is also known under VKK - air spaceship and it was Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft program which started in 1974 and was canceled in 1993. Buran was also name of Orbiter K1, unmanned spaceflight in 1988, which was the only Soviet reusable spacecraft ever launched into space. It was generally opponent of the US Space Shuttle. Even Orbiter K1 was successfully recovered, it was never used again. It was crashed in the collapsing of the hangar in Kazakhstan on May 12, 2002.

Maintenance, launches and landings of Buran vehicles occurred in Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan.

Note: Let's skip the part why the objective of the program. I do not want to come into politics and since the program ended 25 years ago, I hope it is not needed anymore. 

 The original ideas about reusable come back to 1950s. There was not clear project, and it was not continuous idea all the time. The program itself started in 1970s as a response to the US Space Shuttle. Soviet's engineers didn't want to make any design, which was similar to the US Space Shuttle, but wind tunnel tests showed that the shape of the shuttle was ideal.


The construction of Soviet shuttle started in 1980. First Buran rolled out in 1984. Orbital ship OK-GLI, also known as Buran Analog BST-02, was a test vehicle which was aerodynamically identical to Buran. It was built in 1984 and it was used 25 times in between years 1985 and 1988. Until 1991, 7 cosmonauts (all test pilots) were practising on OK-GLI. It had 4 engines AL-31 which was original designed for the Su-27 Flanker (Sukhoi).

The only orbital flight of Buran was unmanned mission on November 15, 1988. It was the first shuttle to perform an unmanned flight, including the landing in automatic mode. After the first flight, the program was cancelled due to lack of funds and also due to the situation in Soviet Union/Russia. The docking module that was supposed to be used for Mir/Buran was carried by US Space Shuttle during the Shuttle-Mir project.

Soyuz, US Space Shuttle, Soviet Buran Shuttle comparison

Buran used expendable Energia rocket as a super heavy lift launch vehicle. Buran itself didn't have main engines. The core Energia rocket was equipped with navigation and control system. Energia rockets used liquid propellant (kerosene/oxygen).



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