The BOR-5 flight vehicle was used to test the main aerodynamic characteristics, thermal and acoustic loads and stability for the Shuttle Buran program

Shuttle Buran program

The Buran program was a Soviet and later Russian reusable spacecraft project that began in 1974 at TsAGI and was formally suspended in 1993. It was a response to the United States Space Shuttle program. The project was the largest and the most expensive in the history of Soviet space exploration...

. As the BOR-4

BOR-4

The BOR-4 flight vehicle is a scaled prototype of the Soviet Spiral VTHL spaceplane. An unmanned, subscale craft, its purpose was to test the heatshield tiles and reinforced carbon-carbon for the Buran space shuttle, then under development...

 flight vehicle aerodynamics were different from those of the Buran vehicle, the BOR-5 is a 1:8 Buran model.

It was put into suborbit by a K65M-RB5 rocket launched from Kapustin Yar

Kapustin Yar

Kapustin Yar is a Russian rocket launch and development site in Astrakhan Oblast, between Volgograd and Astrakhan. Known today as Znamensk , it was established 13 May 1946 and in the beginning used technology, material, and scientific support from defeated Germany...

, near Volga, towards Lake Balhash.

One of the BOR-5 1:8 models was recently put up for sale in Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

for $155,000 USD.

Flights

Five flights were made:

• 1984/06/05 - model 501
• 1985/04/17 - model 502
• 1986/12/27 - model 503
• 1984/08/27 - model 504
• 1988/06/27 - model 505

External links

• Detailed page on BORs