The Buran spacecraft was a space shuttle developed by the Soviet Union in response to NASA's space shuttle program. Buran, which means “snowstorm” in Russian, flew one time.
NASA's space shuttle represented a new form of development for space vehicles. Up until 1982, space vehicles — even those that carried humans — were launched for only one mission at a time, except for certain military test programs. A shuttle, on the other hand, could be used multiple times and reduce the cost of space exploration.
