Buran
On November 15th 1988 the Russian Buran space
shuttle took off for its maiden and as it turned out its only flight into
space.
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| Buran landing after maiden flight |
The American space shuttle programme is well known but what
perhaps fewer people know is that the Russians also had a space shuttle, this
was called Buran. The Buran (which means blizzard in Russian) was started in
1980. The idea was to have a reusable space shuttle to take Russians into
space.
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| Buran being ferried to air show |
The only Buran launch was from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan,
which was unmanned, it completed two
orbits of the Earth, and then successfully returned. The second mission was
scheduled for 1993 but due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union it never took
place.
The Buran shuttle was destroyed in 2002 in a hangar at
Baikonur when it collapsed during a massive storm.
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| Destruction of Buran |
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