Baikonur - 60 years



    On February 12, 1955, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR signed a joint decree on the establishment of the Scientific Testing Ground No. 5 near the railway station Tyura-Tam in the wilderness of Kazakhstan. A few years later this place turned into the first in the world and still the largest cosmodrome, called Baikonur.

    Initially, the training ground was intended to test new intercontinental ballistic missiles. Already in May 1957, the first launch took place, and after another 5 months the test site turned into a cosmodrome - the very first artificial Earth satellite in the world was launched.



    The construction went on continuously, new launch sites, assembly shops, related infrastructure, housing for space center personnel and visiting specialists were erected. Test runs were conducted regularly. Almost exactly a month after the launch of Sputnik-1, the dog Laika went into space from the Kazakhstan plain. She became the first living creature sent by mankind into space. True, it was a one-way ticket, since the device was not intended to return to Earth.



    In fairness, all the other "dog" crews - Belka and Strelka, Chernushka, Ugolyok and Veterok - nevertheless returned home.



    In 1960, one of the largest disasters in the history of rocket science was inscribed in the history of Baikonur: the intercontinental R-16 rocket that exploded on the launch pad claimed the lives of various sources, from 74 to 126 people, including the commander-in-chief of the Strategic Missile Forces and Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin.

    Just six months after the explosion, Baikonur once again went down in history - it was from here that the world's first astronaut started.



    In June 1965, the first Proton heavy carrier rocket, developed under the guidance of Academician Vladimir Chelomei, was launched from Baikonur. Perhaps this is one of the most successful missiles in the world, for half a century its modifications have been used to put all kinds of useful cargoes into orbit, including all of our orbital stations and ISS components.

    For example, in April 1971, the Proton-K rocket launched the first manned orbital station Salyut-1 in the world. Alas, the history of this station was tragic. The first crew of astronauts could not switch to it due to the lack of tightness of the docking station, as a result of which they had to return to Earth ahead of schedule. The second departed crew successfully worked at the station for 22 days, but when they returned, there was a depressurization in the upper atmosphere and the astronauts died.



    In 1986, the construction of the Mir station in orbit began, which became our last “national” space station (hopefully temporarily). In 1995, the Mir set an absolute record of continuous stay in space: Valery Polyakov was in orbit for 438 days. In total, during the operation of the station, 104 cosmonauts from 12 countries of the world visited it. In March 2001, Mir was withdrawn from orbit and flooded in the Pacific Ocean.

    In May 1986, the first test launch of the Energia heavy launch vehicle was conducted at Baikonur. And in November 1988, the pride of our cosmonautics, the Energy-Buran tandem, took off.



    The ship was, according to US estimates, safer than their own Shuttles. In addition, the Buran could land in fully automatic mode, controlled by a computer, while the American Shuttles at the final stage of landing required direct human intervention. The Energy rocket could be used to launch not only the Buran, but also other cargoes into orbit. However, the enormous cost of developing, manufacturing and launching reusable orbital ships became unbearable for a crumbling country, and in 1993 the program was closed.

    Today, Baikonur, which is the property of Kazakhstan, was leased by Russia until 2050. The geographic location of the cosmodrome and the developed infrastructure make it possible to send cargo from it to geostationary orbits, as well as ships as part of manned programs. So far, none of our own spaceports have been adapted for this, although there are plans to transfer such launches to our territory. In the meantime, Baikonur is the most important spaceport for our space industry. And it will always remain so thanks to its unique history, because it was here that the domestic cosmonautics originated and developed.

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