The Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport operated by Russia within Kazakhstan. Located in the Kazakh city of Baikonur, it is the largest operational space launch facility in terms of area. All Russian crewed spaceflights are launched from Baikonur.
Situated in the Kazakh Steppe, some above sea level, it is to the east of the Aral Sea and north of the Syr Darya. It is close to Töretam, a station on the Trans-Aral Railway. Russia, as the official successor state to the Soviet Union, has retained control over the facility since 1991; it originally assumed this role through the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), but ratified an agreement with Kazakhstan in 2005 that allowed it to lease the spaceport until 2050. It is jointly managed by Roscosmos and the Russian Aerospace Forces.
In 1955, the Soviet Ministry of Defense issued a decree and founded the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It was originally built as the chief base of operations for the Soviet space program. The Cosmodrome served as the launching point for Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1. The launchpad used for both missions was renamed "Gagarin's Start" in honour of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, who piloted Vostok 1 and became the first human in outer space. under Russian management, Baikonur is a spaceport, with numerous commercial, military, and scientific missions being launched annually.
History Soviet era The Soviet government issued Scientific Research Test Range No. 5 (NIIP-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 General 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 advantageous to place space launch sites closer to the equator, as the surface of the Earth has higher rotational speed in such areas. 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 undertaken by the Soviet Union. A supporting town was built around the facility to provide housing, schools, and infrastructure for workers. It was raised to city status in 1966 and named Leninsk ().The American U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance plane found and photographed the Tyuratam missile test range for the first time on 5 August 1957.
In April 1975, in preparation for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first NASA astronauts were allowed to tour the cosmodrome. Upon their return to the United States, the crews commented that on their evening flight to Moscow they had seen lights on launch pads and related complexes for more than 15 minutes, and according to astronaut Thomas Stafford, "that makes Cape Kennedy look very small."
Name According to most sources, the name Baikonur was deliberately chosen in 1961 (around the time of Gagarin's flight) to misdirect the Western Bloc to a place about northeast of the launch center, the small mining town and railway station of Baikonur near Jezkazgan. Leninsk, the closed city built to support the cosmodrome, was renamed Baikonur on 20 December 1995 by Boris Yeltsin.
According to NASA's history of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the name Baikonur was not chosen to misdirect, but was the name of the Tyuratam region before the establishment of the cosmodrome.
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 himself, his brothers and inhabitants of his native village of Eliptyan, 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.
Scientific literature collected data that indicated adverse effects of rockets on the environment and the health of the population. UDMH, a fuel used in some Russian rocket engines, is highly toxic. It is one of the reasons for acid rain and increased cancers in the local population near the cosmodrome. Valery Yakovlev, a head of the laboratory of ecosystem research of the State scientific-production union of applied ecology "Kazmechanobr", notes: "Scientists have established the extreme character of the destructive influence of the "Baikonur" space center on environment and population of the region: 11,000 tons of space scrap metal, polluted by especially toxic UDMH is still laying on the falling grounds". Scrap recovery is part of the local economy.
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 crewed and 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, including Czechoslovakia, East Germany, India and France launched from Baikonur under the Interkosmos program as well. In 1960, a prototype R-16 ICBM exploded before launch, killing over 100 people. Baikonur is also the site from which Venera 9 and Mars 3 were launched.
Post-Soviet 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. Russia wanted to sign a 99-year lease for Baikonur, but agreed to a US$115 million annual lease of the site for 20 years with an option for a 10-year extension. 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 pricewhich remained fixed at per yearis the source of a long-running dispute between the two countries. In an attempt to reduce its dependency on Baikonur, Russia built the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur Oblast.
Baikonur has been a major part of Russia's contribution to the International Space Station (ISS), as it is the only spaceport from which Russian missions to the ISS are launched. It is primarily the border's position (but to a lesser extent Baikonur's position at about the 46th parallel north) that led to the 51.6° orbital inclination of the ISS; the lowest inclination that can be reached by Soyuz boosters launched from Baikonur without flying over China. With the conclusion of NASA's Space Shuttle program in 2011, Baikonur became the sole launch site used for crewed missions to the ISS until the launch of Crew Dragon Demo-2 in 2020.
In 2019, Gagarin's Start hosted three crewed launches, in March, July and September, before being shut down for modernisation for the new Soyuz-2 rocket with a planned first launch in 2023. The final launch from Gagarin's Start took place 25 September 2019. Gagarin's Start failed to receive funding (in part due to Russian invasion of Ukraine) to modernize it for the slightly larger Soyuz-2 rocket. In 2023, it was announced that the Russian and Kazakhstan authorities plan to deactivate the site as a space launch pad and turn it into a museum (in part for tourism purposes).
On 7 March 2023, the Kazakh government seized control of the Baiterek launch complex, one of the launch sites at Baikonur Cosmodrome, banning numerous Russian officials from leaving the country and preventing the liquidation of assets by Roscosmos. One of the reasons for the seizure was due to Russia failing to pay a $29.7 million debt to the Kazakh government. The seizure came after Russia's relations with Kazakhstan became tense due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
On 27 November 2025, one of the cosmodrome's launchpads at Site 31/6 sustained significant damage following the launch of the Soyuz MS-28 rocket carrying three cosmonauts to the International Space Station. On March 3, 2026, Roscosmos announced the restoration of the damaged launchpad.
Features Baikonur is fully equipped with facilities for launching both crewed and uncrewed spacecraft. It has supported several generations of Russian spacecraft: Soyuz, Proton, Tsyklon, Dnepr, Zenit and Buran.
Downrange from the launchpad, spent launch equipment is dropped directly on the ground in the Russian far east where it is salvaged by the workers and the local population.Baikonur Downrange , Russianspaceweb.com
List of launchpads
Pad 1/5 (Gagarin's Start) (1957–2019): R-7, Vostok, Voskhod, Molniya, Soyuz – Pad 31/6: R-7A, Vostok, Voskhod, Molniya, Soyuz, Soyuz-2 – Pad 41/3: R-16 (Destroyed in 1960 explosion) – Pad 41/4 : R-16 (1961–67) – Pad 41/15: R-16, Kosmos 3 (1963–68) – Pad 45/1: Zenit-2, Zenit-2M, Zenit-3M – Pad 45/2 (Destroyed in 1990 explosion): Zenit 2 – Pad 51: R-9 (1961–62) – Pad 60/6: R-16 (1963–66) – Pad 60/7: R-16 (1963–67) – Pad 60/8: R-16 (1962–66) – Pad 67/21: Tsyklon, R-36M, R-36O, MR-UR-100 Sotka (1963–72) – Pad 67/22: Tsyklon, R-36, R-36O (1964–66) – Pad 69: Tsyklon-2 Pad 70 (Destroyed in 1963 explosion): R-9 – Pad 75: R-9 – Pad 80/17: Tsyklon (1965) – Pad 81/23 (81L) (inactive >2004): Proton-K – Pad 81/24 (81P): Proton-K, Proton-M – Pad 90/19 (90L) (inactive >1997): UR-200, Tsyklon-2 – Pad 90/20 (90R) (inactive >2006): UR-200, Tsyklon-2 – Pad 101: R-36M (1973–76) – Pad 102: R-36M (1978) – Pad 103: R-36M (1973–77) – Pad 104: R-36M (1972–74) – Pad 105: R-36M (1974–77) – Pad 106: R-36M (1974–83) – Pad 107: R-36 – Pad 108: R-36 – Pad 109/95: R-36M, Dnepr – Pad 110/37 (110L) (inactive >1988): N1, Energia-Buran – Pad 110/38 (110R) (inactive >1969): N1 – Pad 130: UR-100 (1965) – Pad 131: UR-100N, UR-100, Rokot (1965–90) – Pad 132: UR-100NU (2001–02) – Pad 140/18: R-36 (1965–78) – Pad 141: R-36 – Pad 142/34: R-36 (three silo complex) – Pad 160: R-36O – Pad 161/35: Tsyklon (1967–73) – Pad 162/36: Tsyklon (1966–75) – Pad 163: R-36O – Pad 164: R-36O – Pad 165: R-36O – Pad 170: UR-MR-100 (1976–79) – Pad 171: UR-100, UR-100N – Pad 172: UR-MR-100 (1978–81) – Pad 173: UR-MR-100 (1972–78) – Pad 174: UR-100, UR-100K – Pad 175/2: UR-100NU, Rokot, Strela – Pad 175/59: Rokot, Strela – Pad 176: UR-100 – Pad 177: UR-MR-100, UR-MR-100U (1973–78) – Pad 178: UR-100 – Pad 179: UR-100 – Pad 181: UR-MR-100U (1978–79) – Pad 191/66: R-36O (1969–71) – Pad 192: R-36O – Pad 193: R-36O – Pad 194: R-36O – Pad 195: R-36O – Pad 196: R-36O – Pad 200/39 (200L): Proton-M/Proton-K – Pad 200/40 (200R): Proton-K (inactive >1991) – Pad 241: R-36O – Pad 242: R-36O – Pad 243: R-36O – Pad 244: R-36O – Pad 245: R-36O – Pad 246: R-36O – Pad 250 (inactive >1987): Energia –
Buran facilities
As part of the Buran programme, several facilities were adapted or newly built for the Buran-class space shuttle orbiters:
Site 110 – Used for the launch of the Buran-class orbiters. Like the assembly and processing hall at Site 112, the launch complex was originally constructed for the Soviet lunar landing program and later converted for the Energia-Buran program.