Molniya

A full-size model of the plane was presented at a closed pavilion during a Russian military forum last year and the project is now under development, said the general director of the Molniya research-to-production facility.

“The goal has now been set and the development of a multi-use civilian complex with an orbital plane is in full swing,” Olga Sokolova was quoted as saying in comments posted on Molniya’s website.

The Molniya facility designed the long-mothballed Buran space shuttle in the 1980s in response the launch of the U.S. space shuttle programme during the Cold War era.

The mammoth parade, which included equipment from the revolution as well as modern armor, was carried live over the 6,000-mile breadth of the Soviet Union via a new TV antenna network and 20 relay stations tied into the communications satellite Molniya 1.

Molniya was cluttered with so many unlabeled antennas and sensor systems that scientists figured that the satellite was also capable of serving a "spy in the sky" function over the U.S.