BAIKONUR COSMODROME

The 'Baikonur Cosmodrome' (Kazakh: 'Байқоңыр ғарыш айлағы', ''Bayqoñır ğarış aylağı''; Russian: 'Космодром Байконур', ''Kosmodrom Baykonur''), also called 'Tyuratam', is the world's oldest and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in Kazakhstan, about 200 kilometers (~125 mi) east of the Aral Sea, on the north bank of the Syr Darya, near the town of Tyuratam. It is leased by the Kazakh government to Russia (until 2050) and managed by the Russian Federal Space Agency. It was originally built by the Soviet Union as the base of operations for its ambitious space program from the late 1950s to the 1980s. One of the launch pads, known as "Gagarin's Start" (), is located at and is the launch pad from which Vostok 1 was launched. The administrative offices are positioned at .

Contents

Name

History

Soviet era

Russian era

Features

Future projects

Popular culture

References

Bibliography

External links

Name

It sometimes assumed the name ''Baikonur'' which was chosen to intentionally^[1] mislead the West as to the actual location of the site by suggesting that the site was near Baikonur, a mining town about northeast of the space centre in the desert area near Dzhezkazgan. Others assert Baikonur also refers to the entire region.^[2]

History

Soviet era

Baikonur was founded on June 2, 1955. It was originally built as a long-range-missile centre and later expanded to include space flight facilities. Sergei Korolev the Chief Designer of the Soviet R-7 Semyorka ICBM selected the site as the radio control system of the rocket required a ground station several hundred kilometers down range of the launch pads. The expense of constructing the launch facilities and the several hundred kilometers 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 apartments, schools and support for workers. It was raised to city status in 1966 and named Leninsk.
The Soviet government established the Nauchno-Issledovatel’skii Ispytatel’nyi Poligon N.5 (NIIIP-5), or Scientific-Research Test Range N.5 by its decree of 12 February 1955.^[3][4] The U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance plane found and photographed for the first time the Tyuratam missile test range (cosmodrome Baikonur) on 5 August 1957. See a composite satellite image of the early Tyuratam launch complex, the cosmodrome (30 May 1962). ^[5]
Many historic flights lifted off from Baikonur: the first operational ICBM, the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957, the first manned orbital flight by Yuri Gagarin in 1961 and the flight of the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963. The first astronauts of many other nations, such as Czechoslovakia, France, East Germany and Brazil, started their historical journeys from here as well. In 1960 a prototype ICBM exploded before launch, killing over 100 people.

Russian era

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 the Russian space program continued to operate from Baikonur under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States. In 1995 the city surrounding the spaceport was renamed Baikonur. On June 8 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. That dispute has prompted Russia to begin upgrading its own Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Oblast of Northern Russia as a fallback option.

Features

Baikonur is fully equipped with facilities for launching both manned and unmanned space vehicles. It supports several generations of Russian spacecraft: Soyuz, Proton, Tsyklon, Dnepr and Zenit. During the temporary lapse of the United States' Space Shuttle program after the Columbia Disaster in 2003 it has played an essential role in the resupply and deployment of the International Space Station.

Future projects

On December 22, 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 Baiterek (poplar tree) space launch complex, to facilitate operations of the Russian Angara rocket launcher. The site is scheduled to be completed in 2009. ^[6]
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 and oxygen as fuel, 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.^[6]

Popular culture

In the world of ''Star Trek'' the Baikonur Cosmodrome launched the SS Mariposa (NAR-7678) on November 27, 2123 and the ''SS Tsiolkovsky'' (Russian: К. Э. Циолковский) (NCC-53911) circa 2363.
In the computer game '', the Global Liberation Army terrorist faction arms a Soyuz rocket with anthrax and launches it from the base at a nondescript city. In the expansion pack, , a second rocket is launched at an American base in Europe, and a third launch is in progress until the Baikonur launch pad is annihilated in a counter-strike by the USA.
Winter Hawk by Craig Thomas heavily features Baikonur Cosmodrome during the Soviet period.
The short story ''Red Star, Winter Orbit'', written by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, (reprinted in Gibson's story collection ''Burning Chrome'') makes several references to Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Almost the entire first half of the anime ''Blue Gender'' covers the several thousand km journey of Yuji Kaido and Marlene Angel from Korea all the way to Baikonur to escape the Blue infested Earth.
has a mission to recapture the Baikonur Cosmodrome from Asad Rahil's rebel forces.

References

1. M. Gruntman, ''Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry'', AIAA, Reston, Va., 2004, ISBN 978-1-56347-705-8
2.
The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

3. M. Gruntman, ''Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry'', AIAA, Reston, Va., 2004, ISBN 978-1-56347-705-8.
4. [1]
5. Composite satellite photo of the Tyuratam Missile Range, 1962.
6.
7.

Bibliography

★ M. Gruntman, ''Blazing the Trail: The Early History of Spacecraft and Rocketry'', AIAA, Reston, Va., 2004, ISBN 978-1-56347-705-8.

External links

★ RussianSpaceWeb.com on Baikonur

★ RussianSpaceWeb.com on Angara and Baikonur expansion