Buran: first fully automatic orbital flight and landing of a space shuttle
Buran: primer vuelo orbital y aterrizaje totalmente automáticos de un transbordador
- Date
- 15 de noviembre de 1988 · confidence high
- Place
- Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan (USSR)
- Credited to
- NPO Molniya and NPO Energia (Energia-Buran programme)
- Field
- Movement
What it is
An uncrewed Soviet space shuttle made two orbits of the Earth and landed on its own on the Baikonur runway after 206 minutes of flight, in a crosswind. It was its only flight, as the programme was cancelled in 1993.
Its aerodynamic design resembled the US Space Shuttle, fuelling accusations of copying; the Soviets countered with design differences (engines on the rocket, not on the orbiter).
What it led to
- proof that an orbiter could return and land fully automatically
- the Energia rocket (up to 100 tonnes to low Earth orbit)
- cancelled on cost grounds after the USSR's dissolution; the orbiter was lost in 2002 when a hangar roof collapsed