Soviet Space Shuttle Buran on launch pad ready for takeoff 🚀 - The Buran might look awful lot like Space Shuttle, but despite it's looks, it performed in a quite different manner. The Soviet Union strapped the Buran shuttle on the side of the third most powerful rocket ever: the twice flown Energia rocket. The Buran orbiter didn't do any of the lifting, unlike the Space Shuttle Orbiter which had three RS-25 main engines power it through accent. - Construction of the Buran orbiter began in 1980, and the first full scale orbiter saw the light of day in 1981. The Soviets even developed a fully autonomous system that could perform the entire flight and landing by itself. They of course had to develop their own fuel cells and control system. Then they strapped it to their massive Energia rocket, which was a mighty and powerful beast too! This meant the Soviets had developed a more flexible system by making the Energia capable of other payloads and not just the Buran. - The only orbital flight of the Buran (OK-1K1)…