MOSCOW. Sept 6 (Interfax) - Specialists of the Molniya Scientific and Production Association, the developer of the Buran spacecraft, have arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to tackle issues surrounding the spacecraft's transportation back to Russia, according to the company.
"The objective of the trip is to examine the Buran orbital spacecraft, its engineering mockup and the hangar storing these objects in order to tackle issues concerning the orbital vehicle's subsequent transportation to the territory of our country," NPO Molniya said in a statement.
The specialists also discussed how to remove the Buran and its mockup from the hangar without damaging the objects and without having to drastically disassemble them, it said.
"A decision was adopted after the meeting that the disassembly, transportation and subsequent re-assembly of the spacecraft and the mockup ought to proceed under the designer supervision of NPO Molniya as the enterprise which developed this orbital vehicle," the company said.
Roscosmos head Dmitry Rogozin said in November 2020 that the state of the assembly and testing facility storing the Buran samples was a matter of concern, prompting the Russian state space corporation to consider buying the Burans and transferring them to a museum.
NPO Molniya is the developer of the Soviet re-entry spaceship Buran and is among Russia's largest producers of target rockets.
Two Buran spacecraft were left at Baikonur Cosmodrome. One of them, a flying item, was designed to fly into space and dock with the Mir station automatically. The second item, a mockup, was designed to practice ground operations.
In 2002, the only Buran which flew into space was destroyed during a roof collapse of an assembly and testing facility at Baikonur.
Buran was a Soviet reusable orbital vehicle built under the Energia-Buran program. Its first and only automatic and crewless spaceflight was on November 15, 1988. The program was suspended in 1990 and eventually closed on May 25, 1993 by a decision of the council of chief design engineers at the Scientific Production Association Energia.
Meanwhile, during the work on the Buran project, several mockups were built for dynamic, electric, airfield, and other trials. After the program was closed, these items were left on the balance sheet of different research centers and production associations. For instance, it is known that the Energia Rocket and Space Corporation and NPO Molniya own Buran mockups.