Buran OMS Engine & Thruster Testing

The Buran spacecraft was the only fully completed and operational space shuttle vehicle from the Soviet Buran program. With a design that borrowed heavily from the NASA Space Shuttle, the Buran completed one unmanned spaceflight in 1988 before cancellation of the Soviet shuttle program in 1993. The Buran was subsequently destroyed by a hangar collapse in 2002. Like its NASA counterpart, the Buran, when in transit from its landing sites back to the launch complex, was transported on the back of a large jet aeroplane. It was piggy-backed on the Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft, which was designed for this task and remains the largest aircraft in the world. Several shuttles were produced. One of those, the OK-GLI, was modified to fly with jet engines for aerodynamic testing. One painted mock shuttle (the former static test-article OK-TVA) is now a ride simulating space flight in Gorky Park, Moscow. The OK-GLI was sold by its owner NPO Energia, shipped to Sydney in Australia and subsequently displayed at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Shortly after, the new owner went bankrupt and the OK-GLI shuttle then went to Bahrain for a number of years while legal ownership status was in dispute. The Sydney/Bahrain (OK-GLI) shuttle was acquired by the German Technikmuseum Speyer in 2004,[2] and has been transported to the museum, where it is exhibited to the general public.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L7sIG-2BHg&hl=en