buranBuran: The forgotten space shuttle.

The Buran spacecraft was a Soviet orbital vehicle analogous in function and design to the US Space Shuttle and developed by Chief Designer Gleb Lozino-Lozinskiy of RKK Energia. Buran completed one unmanned spaceflight in 1988 and remains the only Soviet space shuttle launched into space, as the Buran programme was cancelled in 1993. The shuttle Buran was destroyed in 2002 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome when the hangar in which it was stored collapsed.

Information from NASA Facebook post.

The Buran (means ‘blizzard’) fell victim to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.  It’s one and only flight was unmanned, and flew completely remotely controlled, from lift-off to landing.