Roscosmos Chief Squelches Rumors of Buran Revival

Lately, there has been some talk about Russia reviving Soviet-era space shuttle efforts. Discussions have centered around both the large Buran orbiter, a U.S. space shuttle clone that flew once in 1988, and various smaller shuttle vehicles that the Soviet Union tested over the years.

The Roscosmos Public Affairs Office says that the first option is not being pursued:

Answering the questions of the students at the opening ceremony of International Students’ Science School “Space Exploration: Theory and Practice” in Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos Head Anatoly Perminov said that the Buran project would not be revived.

“I don’t want to disappoint you, but we are not planning to revive Buran. The idea to develop a reusable space vehicle is good, but the way it was implemented in Russian Buran and US shuttle made it unbeneficial due to high expenses and low reliability,” Perminov said.

“You see, there is an economical aspect here. A shuttle launch costs about $0.5 billion for NASA. This is much, even for a rich country like the US. Another point is reliability. 100% reliability has not been confirmed for the reusable space vehicles so far. Shuttles crashed twice. There are some differences in design of Burans and shuttles, but the disadvantages are similar. So, this approach appeared unfavorable and dangerous,” Perminov concluded.

The only Buran to fly was destroyed in a hanger collapse some years ago.