reduction treaties made Buran redundant. On November 15, 1988, Buran and its Energia rocket were launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and after two orbits in three hours, glided to a landing a few miles from its launch pad. While the craft survived that re-entry, the heat shield was not reusable. This failure resulted from United States counter intelligence efforts. After this test flight, the Soviet Ministry of Defense would defund the program, considering it relatively pointless compared to its price. Polyus satellite The Polyus satellite was a prototype orbital weapons platform designed to destroy Strategic Defense Initiative satellites with a megawatt carbon-dioxide laser. Launched mounted upside-down on its Energia rocket, its single flight test was a failure when the inertial guidance system failed to rotate it 180° and instead rotated a complete 360°. Canceled projects Energia rocket The Energia was a successfully developed super heavy-lift launch vehicle which burned liquid hydrogen fuel. But without the Buran or Polyus payloads to launch, it was also canceled due to lack of funding on dissolution of the USSR. Interplanetary projects Mars missions Heavy rover Mars 4NM was going to be launched by the abandoned N1 launcher between 1974 and 1975. Mars sample return mission Mars 5NM was going to be launched by a single N1 launcher in 1975. Mars sample return mission Mars 5M or (Mars-79) was to be double launched in parts by Proton launchers, and then joined in orbit for flight to Mars in 1979. Vesta The Vesta mission would have consisted of two identical double-purposed interplanetary probes to be launched in 1991. It was intended to fly-by Mars (instead of an early plan to Venus) and then study four asteroids belonging to different classes. At 4 Vesta a penetrator would be released. Tsiolkovsky The Tsiolkovsky mission was planned as a double-purposed deep interplanetary probe to be launched in the 1990s to make a "sling shot" flyby of Jupiter and then pass within five or seven radii of the Sun. A derivative of this spacecraft would possibly be launched toward Saturn and beyond. See also DRAKON, an algorithmic visual programming language developed for the Buran space project. Intercosmos, a Soviet space program designed to give nations on friendly relations with the Soviet Union access to crewed and uncrewed space missions List of Russian aerospace engineers List of Russian explorers List of space disasters Pilot-Cosmonaut of the USSR, an honorary title