In March 1983, the Royal Australian Air Force's P-3 Orion base patrol aircraft captured images of a previously unknown Soviet prototype spacecraft. At the time of filming, he was just being lifted aboard a fishing trawler.

To test a new heat shield design, Soviet engineers created a halved model of a reusable spacecraft. It was designated BOR-4 and was unmanned. The device was launched into space, where it reached a speed of up to Mach 24, after which it entered the Earth's atmosphere and splashed down in the Indian Ocean, where it was discovered by the Australian military.

This was the first time that Western countries saw the BOR-4, which undoubtedly aroused serious interest in intelligence circles of the time. However, BOR-4 was used exclusively as an experimental platform for a limited range of tasks. The concept of a reusable spacecraft was in many ways reminiscent of the earlier American Dyna-Soar project, which also was not realized in its intended form.

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