The Buran launched strapped onto the Energia launch vehicle, the largest among Soviet launch vehicles. Although they tested the Buran extensively in the Earth's atmosphere with trained pilots, the maiden, and only, orbital launch was made without a crew. Amid much international speculation and after many delays, the Soviet Union launched the Buran (Snowstorm), its first full-scale reusable space shuttle, on November 15, 1988. These reports began speculation that the Soviet Union was trying to build a shuttle to match the U.S. Although the program had been secret, Australian fishermen caught sight of a Soviet ship pulling a small scale model form the ocean.
#Buran shuttle escape system series#
This was a series of 1:3 and 1:2 scale models of the planned spacecraft.
At the time of the early US space shuttle launches, the soviet Ministry of Defense took a renewed interest in the project and began testing an unpiloted scale model of the Buran, called the Bor. Among test pilots was the second man to orbit the Earth, German Titov, who left his career as a cosmonaut to become a test pilot for the program. After the dawn of the space age, Soviet rocket designers and cosmonauts continued work on a space plane then called Spiral, during the 1960s. Also known as the MiG-105, the craft employed a ramjet engine that required an assisted launch to gain orbit. Their first effort, known as the Burya, was developed by engineers in at the Mikoyan Gurevich aircraft design plant. Designers and managers believed that such a craft ultimately would provide more reliable and efficient access to space than single-use rockets. For 30 years several programs overlapped. Official Soviet interest in a reusable space plane revived in the 1950s. A commemorative medal of the Soviet Buran shuttle in the Museum’s collection.
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