Baikonur Cosmodrome

Short answer: Buran was the Soviet Union's reusable spaceplane, built in response to the US Space Shuttle and launched on the Energia rocket. The orbiter Buran (1K) flew once, uncrewed, on November 15, 1988.

It lifted off from Baikonur, circled Earth twice in 3 hours 25 minutes and landed automatically on the cosmodrome's runway. Funding dried up as the Soviet Union broke apart, and the program was suspended in 1993. The flown orbiter didn't survive. It was stored in Baikonur's main assembly building, MIK 112, which was originally built for the N1 Moon rocket. On May 12, 2002, the roof collapsed during repair work, killing eight workers and destroying Buran along with Energia hardware. The craft in the famous photos are two others, kept in a separate Assembly and Fueling Complex (MZK) at Site 112A. According to RussianSpaceWeb, the MZK is 150 m long, 80 m wide and 70 m high. Inside are orbiter 1.02, the second flight article, which was about 95–97% complete and never flew, and OK-MT, an engineering mockup. Both were moved there in 1995. Their doors later jammed, and RussianSpaceWeb calls the building a sarcophagus for both vehicles. Wikipedia, citing CNN, reports that a Russian-Kazakh company, Aelita, has owned them since 2005. Baikonur is in Kazakhstan. Under a 1994 agreement, Russia leases the whole Baikonur complex for $115 million a year, and the lease has since been extended to 2050. The footage looks down on an orbiter between rusting work platforms in the MZK, then shows the hall and the vehicles from the side.

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