Buran arrives in the Netherlands, Rotterdam harbour

For the one that hasn't been destroyed, even if you finish the craft itself, you'd still need to build the complete Energia booster from scratch. And that would be difficult, because facilities which did that were scattered across entire Union, so they are now in different countries and many of them aren't even operating anymore. So you'd also have to build the infrastructure for building Energia from scratch. There is no pressing need for a heavy booster of that class right now, so Russia is as unlikely to do it for the heck of it as to give away the technical documentation for it to someone else.

And no, you can't just strap it to STS booster system. Buran had no SSME-class engines, those were on Energia. And no, attaching SSMEs under the fuel tank won't make an Energia out of it.
 
yeah, i think it's kazak's property as an agreement, because as we know, Baikonur is in Kazak, but is a leased by Russia, so as a payment,the shuttles were given to them. Yeah, the sistership "Ptichka" or little bird in English, also known as the "shuttle 1.02" was 96%-98% complete, it was near in the state of "flight ready".But unfortunately, the Union collapsed, so project canceled.

@ryan====it cannot be flown to space since it's only a prototype which is not equipped w/ heat shield tiles, main engines and has only a mock-up of the payload bay, and it's only designed to fly here on earth for researching purposes...but look at it know, left like a tin can rotting and rusting for 20+years
 
No, i wasnt meaning the one in that picture i ment the one that did that unamanned luanch, thats what i said earlier.

As already said, the one that did the unmanned flight was destroyed in 2002 in the incident, along with the booster. It was plain shattered beyond any kind of repair.
 
Basically the unmanned one got destroyed in a hangar collapse.

The one you see if the test one for aerodynamic tests

The second one scheduled for spaceflight was almost complete but if you look on wikipedia, there is pictures of it with tiles missing

Ok, Buran 1.01

Buran 1.02 Located in MIK building at Baikonur Cosmodrome

Shuttle 2.01 In german museum - Incomplete - Oddly has ejection seats

Shuttle 2.02 and 2.03

More info on all of them plus the test ones at the buran - Energia site
 
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