Inside Baikonur, Kazakhstan's Gateway To Space
- By Amos Chapple
As liftoff nears for the first astronauts launched from U.S. soil since 2011, we take a look at the Soviet-built cosmodrome that sent more than a dozen NASA astronauts into orbit.
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A U.S. spy-plane photo of a launchpad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome that was shot in 1957, two years after the secret site -- initially built to test long-range missiles -- became the place from which the U.S.S.R. battled the United States for dominance in the space race.
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An unidentified rocket blasts off from Baikonur in 1960. The site -- built in the wilderness of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic -- was chosen for the uninhabited plains that surround it and its proximity to the equator.
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The center of the town of Baikonur (then called Leninsk), built to service the launch operations. The featureless plains surrounding the site allow long-distance radio communications and limit the risk to civilians from dumped rocket stages; being near the equator makes use of the Earth's rotation to help fling rockets into orbit.
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Final checks are made to the Vostok (East) rocket that would launch Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit in 1961. Multiple historic launches were made from Baikonur, including the first satellite (October 1957), the first dog (November 1957), the first man (1961), and the first woman (1963) into space.
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Baikonur was also the scene of some tragic failures, most notably the 1960 Nedelin catastrophe (pictured), when a missile exploded on its launchpad, killing around 100 people.
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Cosmonauts Anatoly Berezovoy and Valentin Lebedev speak to the media behind glass before a launch in 1982. Several Soviet prelaunch traditions continue today, including sitting together for a screening of the 1970 film The White Sun Of The Desert and urinating on the back wheel of the bus that transports space travelers to the launchpad. Female cosmonauts and astronauts reportedly bring along a small vial of urine for the ritual tire splash.
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The Buran space shuttle, photographed before launch from Baikonur in 1988, was the last major Soviet space program before the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991.
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Local women walk in Baikonur in 1999. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia leased Baikonur and a wide swath of the surrounding area from newly independent Kazakhstan.
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An aerial view of the town of Baikonur, which had a population of some 36,000 people in 2009. Virtually the entire town's economy is based on the space industry. Some 70 percent of the population were ethnic Russians during the Soviet period, most of the rest ethnic Kazakhs. That ratio has approximately reversed since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
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A mosaic in central Baikonur. Russia pays Kazakhstan about $115 million each year for use of the launch base. The lease is set to expire in 2050 but the Kremlin is currently building its own launch site in Russia's Far East.
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A Soyuz rocket that would take U.S. astronaut Dan Burbank to the International Space Station (ISS) readies for launch on a freezing morning in November 2011. Since the U.S. Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, the United States has paid Russia tens of millions of dollars per astronaut for rides to the ISS.
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A Soyuz rocket streaks into space from Baikonur. The price for recent flights for U.S. astronauts was around $86 million, more than twice what Russia's space agency charged in 2011.
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U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly sits with Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka in the Soyuz landing capsule in 2011. While highly reliable, the Soyuz rockets launched from Baikonur are famously uncomfortable and too cramped to fit a toilet. Space travelers must wear diapers for the two-day journey to the ISS.
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A Soyuz carrying one American and two Russians to the ISS blasts off in 2017. Travel blogger Ric Gazarian, who witnessed a launch in 2018, told RFE/RL that foreigners are allowed to watch the launch from a little more than a kilometer from the launchpad.
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A museum dedicated to spaceflight in Baikonur
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Russian military personnel watch from an armored vehicle as a Soyuz is transported to the launchpad. Baikonur is seen as a potential target for terrorist attacks.
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Camels relax on the plains around Baikonur.
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Kazakh girls watch as a Soyuz rocket prepares for launch in 2009. As work continues on Russia’s troubled Vostochny Cosmodrome and SpaceX aims to ferry astronauts to the ISS from U.S. soil beginning on May 27, Kazakhstan's aging launch facility and the population it supports is likely to be left behind.
