[Closed] Ever wondered what happned to the Russian Shuttle?

Awesome.

Also saw a picture recently of one as part of a theme park ride.

I seemed to have completely missed this first time round (or forgotton about it).

Seems quite impressive:

Exactly 206 minutes[4] into the mission, Orbiter OK-1K1 landed, having lost only eight of its 38,000 thermal tiles over the course of the flight.[5] The automated landing took place on a runway at Baikonur Cosmodrome where, despite a lateral wind speed of 61.2 kilometres per hour (38.0 mph), it landed only 3 metres (9.8 ft) laterally and 10 metres (33 ft) longitudinally from the target mark.[4] Specifically, as Buran approached Baikonur Cosmodrome and started landing, spacecraft sensors detected the strong crosswind and "the robotic system sent the huge machine for another rectangular traffic pattern approach, successfully landing the spacecraft on a second try."[5] It was the first space shuttle to perform an unmanned flight, including landing in fully automatic mode.

Wonder how much of a copy of the US design it was.....

Needs re grouting.

Thanks, that was interesting. Reading through all the blurb, seems the Ruskies independently came up with a similar concept having started with a similar brief. That is apart from the injuns. Mostly externals for the Shuttleski, 3 onboard plus Morton Thiokol Roman candles/grenades for the Septics.

I remember watching Tomorrow's World or some such as a kid when they covered tiles falling off the shuttle mid mission. They had a splooge gun that the crew were supposed to go round the craft filling in where the tiles had escaped with heatproof splodge. Anyone else recall that?

It's such a shame to see what's happened to them over the past 20 or so years :-/

Actually credit for this should go to nach. But he's messing around in Manchester, so I'll take the glory, whole.

Wow - thanks for this. Just spent an hour trawling through the pics and text. I had forgotten entirely about the russian shuttle - seems a shame for it just to rot away there, although I would have loved to be the guy taking the photos!

Buran Programme was a bit of a step too far for what it would be used for; space station visits and launching spy satellites . Then there was the minor issue that the life support system was proving somewhat troublesome and couldn't be sorted out with the funds and skills available and the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 80's meant that the first (unmanned) flight was never to be repeated.

The real shame was losing the Energia Rocket programme that the Buran was launched with, now that really was an awesome piece of kit.

May yet all get revitalised, Putin has been pumping 10s of billions into the Military in recent years to try and catch up with the US.

Had a nosey at the one that was/in Bahrain years ago when I was working out there. In the age before smart/camera phones so didn't take any pics.
Didn't know what it was at the time-and wasn't expecting to see a space shuttle on the dockside, the local guy I was with didn't know much about it other than it was a space shuttle so I just presumed it was an American one, until I googled it a few years ago.