Antonov Company Antonov   
An-225 Mriya "Cossack"
Manufactured 1985

The Antonov An-225 was a strategic airlift cargo aircraft that retained many similarities with the preceding An-124 airlifter that it was derived from. It has a longer fuselage and cargo deck due to the addition of fuselage barrel extensions that were fitted both fore and aft of the wings. The wings, which are anhedral, also received root extensions to increase their span. The flight control surfaces are controlled via fly-by-wire and powered by triple-redundant hydraulics. Furthermore, the empennage of the An-225 is a twin tail with an oversized, swept-back horizontal stabilizer, having been redesigned from the single vertical stabilizer of the An-124. The use of a twin tail arrangement was essential to enable the aircraft to carry its bulky external loads that would generate wake turbulence, disturbing the airflow around a conventional tail.

The An-225 is powered by a total of six Progress D-18T turbofan engines, two more than the An-124, the addition of which was facilitated by the redesigned wing root area. An increased-capacity landing gear system with 32 wheels was designed, some of which are steerable; these enable the airlifter to turn within a 60-metre-wide (200 ft) runway. Akin to its An-124 predecessor, the An-225 incorporated a nose gear designed to "kneel" so cargo can be more easily loaded and unloaded. Additional measures to ease loading and unloading activities included the four overhead cargo cranes that could move along the whole length of the cargo hold, each of which was capable of lifting up to 5,000 kilograms (11,000 lb). To facilitate the attachment of external loads, such as the Buran orbiter, various mounting points were present along the upper surface of the fuselage.