NPO Molniya

NPO Molniya is a Russian scientific and production enterprise founded on February 26, 1976, and headquartered in Moscow. It was created to develop the orbiter for the Soviet Buran program, the USSR's counterpart to the United States Space Shuttle, and carried out the design, assembly and testing of the Buran orbiter's airframe through the late 1980s and early 1990s. Buran flew a single uncrewed orbital mission in 1988, completing the first fully automated landing of a spacecraft of its kind, before the program was cancelled after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. NPO Molniya is now part of the Rostec state conglomerate, with the Kalashnikov Concern holding a 60 percent controlling stake as of September 2018. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/