[8][7] Since 2016, there have been attempts to revive the launch vehicle, reusing an updated version of its booster engine in the Soyuz-5 rocket.

Energia also replaced the "Vulkan" concept, which was a design based on the Proton and using the same hypergolic propellants, but much larger and more powerful.

Design of the Energia-Buran system assumed that the booster could be used without the Buran orbiter, as a heavy-lift cargo launch vehicle; this configuration was originally given the name "Buran-T".

[8] This configuration required the addition of an upper stage to perform the final orbital insertion.

The legacy of Energia/Buran project manifests itself in the RD-170 family of rocket engines, and the Zenit launcher, with the first stage roughly the same as one of the Energia first-stage boosters.

[9] The Soviets had originally announced that the launch was a successful sub-orbital test of the new Energia booster with a dummy payload, but some time later it was revealed that in fact the flight had been intended to bring the Polyus into orbit.

Since that time, there have been persistent[citation needed] rumors of the renewal of production, but given the political realities, that is highly unlikely.

The four strap-on liquid-fuel boosters, which burned kerosene and liquid oxygen, were the basis of the Zenit rocket which used the same engines.

[16] In August 2016, Roscosmos announced conceptual plans to develop a super heavy-lift launch vehicle from existing Energia components[clarification needed] instead of pushing the less-powerful Angara A5V project.

With eight Zenit booster rockets and an Energia-M core as the upper stage, the Vulkan (which shared the name with another Soviet heavy lift rocket that was cancelled years earlier) configuration was initially projected to launch up to 200 metric tonnes into 200 km orbit with inclination 50.7°.