Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world's oldest operational spaceport, located on the steppe of southern Kazakhstan at 45.9° N latitude, constructed by the Soviet Union beginning in 1955 to serve as the primary launch site for its space and ballistic missile programs — and the origin point for more defining moments in space history than any other facility on Earth.

From Baikonur, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957 — the world's first artificial satellite, beginning the Space Age. On April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin lifted off aboard Vostok 1 from Site 1 (officially named Gagarin's Start after his flight) to become the first human in space, beginning his 108-minute orbital flight.

The cosmodrome subsequently hosted all Soviet and Russian crewed missions including the first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova, 1963), the first spacewalk (Alexei Leonov, 1965), all Mir space station module launches, and continued as the exclusive launch site for Soyuz crewed flights to the International Space Station through the Soyuz program's active ISS period.

Following Soviet dissolution, Russia negotiated a Kazakhstan lease paying approximately $115 million annually for the cosmodrome complex spanning 6,717 square kilometers with 15 launch complexes and 4 launch pads. Russia progressively shifted uncrewed launches to the new Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East to reduce Kazakhstan dependency, while Soyuz crew flights and commercial Proton-M launches continued from Baikonur. The Kazakh government has developed the adjacent Baiterek launch complex for Soyuz-5 and future vehicles.