Baykonur, abandoned buildings with Buran and Energya

Buran was the first spaceplane to be produced as part of the Soviet Buran programme. Besides describing the first operational Soviet/Russian shuttle orbiter, “Buran“ was also the designation for the whole Soviet/Russian spaceplane project and its orbiters, which were known as “Buran-class spaceplanes“. Energia was a Soviet rocket that was designed by NPO Energia to serve as a heavy-lift partially recoverable launch system for a variety of payloads including the Buran spacecraft. Control system main developer enterprise was the Khartron NPO “Electropribor“. The Energia used four strap-on boosters each powered by a four-chamber RD-170 engine burning kerosene/LOX, and a central core stage with 4 one-chamber RD-0120 engines fueled by liquid hydrogen/LOX.