Buran programme
The "Buran" programme (, , "Snowstorm" or "Blizzard"), also known as the "VKK Space Orbiter programme" (), was a Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began in 1974 at the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute in Moscow and was formally suspended in 1993. In addition to being the designation for the whole Soviet/Russian reusable spacecraft project, "Buran" was also the name given to Orbiter K1, which completed one uncrewed spaceflight in 1988 and was the only Soviet reusable spacecraft to be launched into space. The "Buran"-class orbiters used the expendable Energia rocket as a launch vehicle. They are generally treated as a Soviet equivalent of the United States' Space Shuttle, but in the Buran project, only the aeroplane-shaped orbiter itself was theoretically reusable (unlike the Shuttle system's ability to reuse solid rocket boosters).