The Baikal booster stage would also be equipped with an air-breathing jet engine fitted in the nose section of the rocket, which would provide a powered horizontal landing of the vehicle on a runway. Thanks to jet propulsion, the Baikal's return to Earth would look much more similar to a regular aircraft than to the US Space Shuttle or Russian Buran , which both had to rely entirely on aerodynamic gliding and had only one opportunity for landing. Baikal's jet engine would be fueled by kerosene from the same tanks which had fed the vehicle's main rocket engine during the ascent phase of the flight.

The Baikal stage would be equipped with a folding wing, which would be stored along the fuselage of the vehicle during the ascent of the rocket. After its separation from the second stage of the Angara rocket at an altitude of about 75 kilometers, the Baikal's wing would rotate 90 degrees into its deployed position.

In cooperation with KB Salyut, the developer of the Buran orbiter, GKNPTs Khrunichev in Moscow designed a reusable fly-back booster rocket, which would serve as an alternative first stage in the Angara family of space launchers. Designated Baikal, after a Siberian lake, the reusable booster was developed in parallel with the work on more traditional "booster modules."