The
Buran (, ,
Snowstorm or
Blizzard) programme, also known as the
VKK Space Orbiter (,
Air Space Ship) programme, was a
Soviet and later Russian reusable
spacecraft project that began in 1974 at the
Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute 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 unmanned spaceflight in 1988 and remains the only Soviet reusable spacecraft to be launched into space. The Buran-class space shuttle 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 airplane-shaped orbiter itself was theoretically reusable, and while
Orbiter K1 was recovered successfully after its first orbital flight in 1988, it was never reused.