The Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world's oldest and largest operational spaceport. Source: http://mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov/detail.cfm?mediaid=40359 (direct link). Author: NASA/Bill Ingalls.
Overview[]
The Baikonur Cosmodrome (Russian: космодром «Байконур»; Kazakh: Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы), also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about 200 kilometres (124 mi) east of the Aral Sea, north of the Syr Darya river, near Tyuratam railway station, at 90 meters above sea level. It is leased by the Kazakh government to Russia (currently until 2050) and is managed jointly by the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Russian Space Forces. The shape of the area leased is an ellipse, measuring 90 kilometres (56 mi) east-west by 85 kilometres (53 mi) north-south, with the cosmodrome at the centre. It was originally built by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s as the base of operations for its space program. Under the current Russian space program Baikonur remains a busy space port, with numerous commercial, military and scientific missions being launched annually. Currently, all manned Russian spaceflights are launched from Baikonur.
Both Vostok 1, the first manned spacecraft in human history, and before it Sputnik 1, the world's first orbital spaceflight of any sort, were launched from one of Baikonur's launch pads, which is presently known as Gagarin's Start.
History[]
Soviet era[]
The Soviet government issued the decree about Scientific-Research Test Range No. 5 (NIIP-5; Russian: Nauchno-Issledovatel’skii Ispytatel’nyi Poligon N.5) on 12 February 1955. It was actually founded on 2 June 1955, originally a test center for the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the R-7 Semyorka. NIIP-5 was soon expanded to include launch facilities for space flights. The site was selected by a commission led by Gen. Vasily Voznyuk, influenced by Sergey Korolyov, the Chief Designer of the R-7 ICBM, and soon the man behind the Soviet space program. It had to be surrounded by plains, as the radio control system of the rocket required (at the time) receiving uninterrupted signals from ground stations hundreds of kilometres away. Additionally, the missile trajectory had to be away from populated areas. Also, it is an advantage to place a space launch site closer to the equator, as the surface of the earth has higher rotational speed there. Taking these constraints into consideration, the commission chose Tyuratam, a village in the heart of the Kazakh Steppe. The expense of constructing the launch facilities and the several hundred kilometres of new road and train lines made the Cosmodrome one of the most costly infrastructure projects the Soviets undertook. A supporting town was built around the facility to provide housing, schools and support infrastructure for workers. It was raised to city status in 1966 and named Leninsk (presently Baikonur).
The American U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance plane found and photographed the Tyuratam missile test range for the first time on 5 August 1957.
Name[]
There are conflicting sources about origins of the name "Baikonur". Some sources say that it was not until 1961 (i.e. until Gagarin's flight), when the name "Baikonur" was deliberately chosen to misdirect the West to a place about 320 kilometres (199 mi) northeast of the launch center, a small mining town Baikonur near Jezkazgan.
Other sources state that "Baikonur" was a name of the Tyuratam region even before the cosmodrome existed. The main cosmodrome-supporting town Leninsk was renamed to Baikonur on 20 December 1995 by Boris Yeltsin.
Environmental impact[]
Russian scientist Afanasiy Ilich Tobonov researched mass animal deaths in the 1990s and concluded that the mass deaths of birds and wildlife in the Sakha Republic were noted only along the flight paths of space rockets launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome. Dead wildlife and livestock were usually incinerated, and the participants in these incinerations, including Tobonov, his brothers and inhabitants of his native village of Eliptyan Horulinskogo naslega commonly died from stroke or cancer. In 1997, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation changed the flight path and removed the ejected rocket stages near Nyurbinsky District, Russia.
Importance[]
Many historic flights lifted off from Baikonur: the first operational ICBM; the first man-made satellite, Sputnik 1, on 4 October 1957; the first spacecraft to travel close to the Moon, Luna 1, on 2 January 1959; the first manned orbital flight by Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961; and the flight of the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963. 14 cosmonauts of 13 other nations, such as Czechoslovakia, East Germany, India and France, started their historic journeys from here as well under the Interkosmos program. In 1960, a prototype R-16 ICBM exploded before launch, killing over 100 people.
Russian era[]
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Russian space program continued to operate from Baikonur under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States. On 8 June 2005 the Russian Federation Council ratified an agreement between Russia and Kazakhstan extending Russia’s rent term of the spaceport until 2050. The rent price — which is fixed at 115 million US dollars per year — is the source of a long-running dispute between the two countries. As an attempt to reduce its dependency on Baikonur, Russia is planning on constructing the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur Oblast.
Baikonur has been the only launch site for International Space Station missions utilizing Russian spacecraft. Following the conclusion of the Space Shuttle program, Russian spacecraft are now the only means used by astronauts traveling to the International Space Station, making Baikonur the sole launch site used for manned missions to the ISS.
Features[]
Baikonur is fully equipped with facilities for launching both manned and unmanned spacecraft. It supports several generations of Russian spacecraft: Soyuz, Proton, Tsyklon, Dnepr, Zenit and Buran. During the temporary lapse of the United States' Space Shuttle program after the Columbia Disaster in 2003 it played an essential role in operating and resupplying of the International Space Station (ISS) with Soyuz and Progress spacecraft. Its high latitude of 46 N required the high orbital inclination of the ISS.
Downrange from the launchpad, spent launch equipment is dropped directly on the ground where it is salvaged by the workers and the local population.
Baikonur Railway[]
All Baikonur's logistics are based on its own intra-site 1520 mm gauge railway network, which is the largest industrial railway on the planet. The railway is used for all stages of launch preparation, and all spacecraft are transported to the launchpads by the special Schnabel cars. Once part of the Soviet Railroad Troops, the Baikonur Railway is now served by a dedicated civilian state company. There are several rail links connecting the Baikonur Railway to the public railway of Kazakhstan and the rest of the world.
Baikonur Airport[]
Baikonur Cosmodrome has two on-site multi-purpose airports, serving both the personnel transportation needs and the logistics of space launches (including the delivery of the spacecraft by airplanes). The Buran orbiter was transported to Baikonur on the back of the Antonov An-225 cargo aircraft. There are scheduled passenger services from Moscow to the smaller "Krayniy" (UAOL) airport which however are not accessible for lay public.
ICBM testing[]
Although Baikonur has always been known around the world as the launch site of Soviet and Russian space missions, from its outset in 1955 and until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the primary purpose of this center was to test liquid-fueled ballistic missiles. The official (and secret) name of the center was State Test Range No. 5 or 5 GIK. It remained under control of the Soviet and Russian Ministry of Defense until the second half of the 1990s, when the Russian civilian space agency and its industrial contractors started taking over individual facilities.
In 2006, the head of Roskosmos, Anatoly Perminov said the last Russian military personnel would be removed from the Baikonur facility by 2007. However, on 22 October 2008 an SS-19 Stiletto missile was test fired from Baikonur, indicating this may not be the case.
Future projects[]
On 22 December 2004, Kazakhstan and Russia signed a contract establishing the "Russia-Kazakhstan Baiterek JV" joint venture, in which each country holds a 50-percent stake. The goal of the project is the construction of the Bayterek ("poplar tree") space launch complex, to facilitate operations of the Russian Angara rocket launcher.
This will allow launches with a payload of 26 tons to low earth orbit, compared to 20 tons using the Proton system. An additional benefit will be that the Angara uses kerosene as fuel and oxygen as the oxidiser, which is less hazardous to the environment than the toxic fuels used by older boosters. The total expenditure on the Kazakh side will be $223 million over 19 years. As of 2010, the project is stalling due to insufficient funding. It is thought that the project still has good chances to succeed because it will allow both parties – Russia and Kazakhstan – to continue the joint use of Baikonur even after the Vostochny Cosmodrome is commissioned.
Baikonur Museum[]
Baikonur Cosmodrome has a small museum, located right next to two small cottages, once residences of Sergey Korolev and Yuri Gagarin. Both cottages are part of the museum complex and have been preserved. The museum is home to a collection of space artifacts. A restored artifact from the Soviet Buran programme, possibly the Buran shuttle that was tested and orbited on a single unmanned spaceflight, sits right next to the museum entrance. (Another, similar looking artifact was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002; which artifact, if either, actually flew into space, and which is a model, prototype, or test bed is disputed.) It has been restored and hosts an interactive presentation for visitors.
The museum also houses photographs related to the cosmodrome history, including images of all cosmonauts. Every crew of every expedition launched from Baikonur leaves behind a signed crew photograph that is displayed behind the glass.
Baikonur’s museum holds many objects related to Gagarin, including the ground control panel from his flight, his uniforms, and soil from his landing site, preserved in a silver container. One of the museum rooms also holds an older version of Soyuz descent capsule.
Also see[]
Sources[]
| Communist world! (1922-1991) | |
|---|---|
| The Warsaw Pact and the military | Warsaw Pact - People's Republic of Albania (left) - German Democratic Republic- Czech Socialist Republic- Warsaw Pact Rail - USSR -People's Republic of Poland - Hungarian People's Republic - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - People's Republic of Bulgaria - Polish People's Republic - Romanian Popular Republic - Romanian People's Republic - Soviet 5.45x39mm - Soviet Southern Group of Forces -Seven days to the River Rhine (1979) - Jüterbog Airfield -Topoľčany Army Barracks and bunker system - Brezhnev Doctrine - Soviet war in Afghanistan - Vladivostok Navel base - Murmansk Navel base - Archangelsk Navel base - Kaliningrad Navel base - Sevastopol Navel base - Kazan Higher Tank Command School and related tank factory - Burevestnik Airport - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (de facto, but not de jure) - AK-47\Kalashnikov assault rifle - Red Army - Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau (OKB-520) - KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs) - Eastern bloc - Tupolev Tu-160- 9M14 Malyutka - RPG-7 - R-7 ICBM - Tupolev Tu-95 |
| The Council for Mutual Economic
Assistance (ComEcom) nations |
Council for Mutual Economic Assistance - SovRoms - Mongolian People's Republic - Cuba - Vietnam - North Vietnam - German Democratic Republic- Czech Socialist Republic- USSR -People's Republic of Poland - Hungarian People's Republic - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - People's Republic of Bulgaria - Polish People's Republic - People's Republic of Albania (left) - Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (never fully joined) - Romanian Popular Republic -Romanian People's Republic - North Korea (de facto, but not de jure to avoid worrying the PRC) - Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (wanted to join, but never got round to doing so) - People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (de facto, but not de jure) - Eastern bloc |
| The ones with nukes | USSR - Cuba (gave them up) - Cuban Missile Crisis - Tupolev Tu-160 - R-7 ICBM - Tupolev Tu-95 |
| The Sino-Soviet Split | Sino-Soviet Split - USSR - Zhou Enlai - Nikita Khrushchev - Mao Zedong - People's Republic of China People's Republic of Albania |
| The end of it | Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 - Fall of the Berlin wall - Soviet "Era of Stagnation" - Dissolution of the Soviet Union - Singing Revolution - Baltic Republics of the Soviet Union- The political dissolution of the Soviet Union and why it broke up afterwards - Soviet war in Afghanistan - Chernobyl disaster -Glasnost - Perestroika |
| Economics | Sakhalin Island - Life under communism - Food cards- Collective farms- Yugoslavian Agricoles - Political Committee of the Communist Party of China - Soviet political organs - Soviet Social Apparatus - The purveyors of crappy Cold War era Easter Block cars - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Virgin Lands campaign - Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs) - The Agrokomerc Affair - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc - Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau (OKB-520) - KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory- Eastern bloc |
| Politics and Geo-politics | Sakhalin Island - Stalin Monument (Budapest) - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - Khrushchev Thaw- Tito–Stalin Split- Life under communism - Hungarian Revolution of 1956 - Cold War - Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia - Soviet "Era of Stagnation" - Soviet 'oligophrenics' and 'oligophrenia' - Soviet political organs - Soviet Social Apparatus - Russian and Soviet Leaders between 1917 and 2018 - Stalin's purges and ethnic cleansing- Closed Soviet locations - Gulags - Berlin Wall - Détente - Sino-Soviet Split - Brezhnev Doctrine - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation -Glasnost - Perestroika - Kuril Islands - Rybachy Peninsula - Kaliningrad Oblast - Eastern bloc - The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union |
| Technology and outer space | Sputnik 1 - Soviet Space Program - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Virgin Lands campaign - Tatra trams#T3 and T3R.P trams - M62 locomotive - TEP80 locomotive -Soviet MSI nMOS chip - Soviet Ice Breaker Lenin - Chernobyl disaster - AK-47\Kalashnikov assault rifle -Soviet Opytnoye Konstruktorskoye Buros (OKBs)- The Space Race - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Yuri Gagarin - Vostok rocket-Soyuz rocket - Baikonur Cosmodrome - Plesetsk Cosmodrome - Zenit 2 - Tupolev Tu-160 - R-7 ICBM |
| People | Stalin Monument (Budapest) - Vladimir Lenin - Leonid Brezhnev - Mikhail Kalashnikov - Yuri Gagarin - Nikita Khrushchev - Joseph Stalin - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation - Mikhail Gorbachev - Ho Chi Minh - Fidel Castro - Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej - Mohammad Najibullah - Maurice Bishop - Zhou Enlai - Salvador Allende - Dr. Kwame Nkrumah |
| Important places | Sakhalin island - Moscow - Nakhodka Port - Vladivostok Navel base - Murmansk Navel base - Arkangelsk Navel base - Kalinningrad Navel base - Sevastopol Navel base - Kazan Higher Tank Command School and related tank factory -Burevestnik Airport- Jüterbog Airfield - Topoľčany Army Barracks and bunker system - Kuril Islands - Berlin Wall - Mirny Diamond Mine - Magnitogorsk - Rybachy Peninsula - St. Petersburg - Closed Soviet locations - Kaliningrad Oblast - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc -KhPZ Factory No. 183 in Kharkiv/Malyshev Factory - Wuxi (diode) Factory 742 - Jiangnan Radio Factory - Agrokomerc - Baikonur Cosmodrome - Plesetsk Cosmodrome |
| Systems of state repression | What is a police state? - Státní bezpečnost/Štátna bezpečnosť (StB/ŠtB) - Committee for State Security (KGB) - Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye (GRU) - Stasi - Securitate -Gulag - Political disappearances - Berlin Wall - A Bulgarian umbrella assassination – Komitet za dǎržavna sigurnost (CSS) - Censorship East Germany - Communist Party of the Soviet Union - The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union |
| The political heretics who were
not really true communists |
People's Republic of Albania - Mao Zedong - Enver Hoxha - Pol Pot - Nicolae Ceauşescu - Democratic Kampuchea - Khmer Rouge - The PRC - Communist Party of Kampuchea - The Shining Path - North Korea - Red Brigades (in Italy) - Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) - Daniel Ortega - Kim Il-Sung - People's Republic of China |
| The founding nations | Russian SFSR - Ukrainian SSR - Byelorussian SSR - Transcaucasian SFSR - Bukharan People's Soviet Republic - Khorezm People's Soviet Republic - Tashkent Soviet -Communist Party of the Soviet Union - The Bolshevik Party |
| Bolshevik\Soviet annexations | Estonia (annexed) - Latvia (annexed) - Lithuania (annexed) - Kaliningrad Oblast (annexed) - Finnish Civil War (the Reds lost) - Mongolian People's Republic (annexation failed) - The Far Eastern Republic (annexed) - Far Eastern Republic (annexed) - Tuvan People's Republic (annexed) - Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (annexed) - State of Buryat-Mongolia (annexed) - Mountain Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (annexed) - Kronstadt Republic (crushed) - Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus (SSRB) (crushed)- The Belarusian People's Republic (BNR) (crushed) |
| Other former European, Central Asian
and Iranian puppet or client states |
Litbell - Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR) - Lithuanian–Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic - Soviet Republic of Naissaar - Latvian SSR of 1919-1920 - The Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) - Bolshavik Russia - Lemko-Rusyn People's Republic- West Ukrainian People's Republic - Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic - Hungarian Soviet Republic - People's State of Bavaria - Bavarian Soviet Republic - The Soviet Republic of Odessa - Kiev called the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) - Petrograd Soviet - East Turkestan Republic (ETR) - Persian Socialist Soviet Republic - Soviet Republic of Gilan - Azerbaijan People's Government - Republic of Mahabad (1946) - Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic |
| Other stuff | Life under communism - Sputnik 1- Khrushchyovka - When is not a Yugo to a Yugo? - Soviet Space Program - The purveyors of crappy Cold War era Easter Block cars- Vietnam War - 1950–1953 Korean War - Family in the Soviet Union - Radio Moscow - Tatra trams#T3 and T3R.P trams - M62 locomotive - TEP80 locomotive - Stalin's cult of personality - De-Stalinisation - Soviet medals - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros - The Agrokomerc Affair - Peruvian conflict - Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement - Cambodian genocide - The Jewish Holocaust and Roma Porajmos in the Baltic states - Italian Communist Party -"Reds under the bed" - The Holodomor - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Peruvian conflict - 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution - Sandinistas - Guerrilla Army of the Poor - Viet Cong - Pathet Lao - Soviet 'oligophrenics' and 'oligophrenia' - New Jewel Movement - The 'false' Cold War theory - All the Communist countries during the Cold War - People's Liberation Army (of China) - People's Republic of China |