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Friday, June 03, 2005

Happy Birthday Baikonur!

Baikonur cosmodrome is the oldest space launch facility in the world.

The remote site in Kazakhstan was chosen in 1955 as the nerve centre for the Soviet space programme.

The facility is located near Tyuratam on the Kazakh steppe. The town of Baikonur actually lies 400km (250miles) north-east (The name was a ruse to hide its actual location).

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, from Baikonur aboard an R-7 rocket.

It kickstarted the space race between the US and USSR.

In November 1957, Baikonur was the launch site for Sputnik 2, carrying the dog Laika into space.

The mission gave scientists the first data on behaviour of an animal in space. But there was no way to return Laika to Earth, so she died after a day or two in space.

The cosmodrome experienced the worst disaster in space history on 24 October 1960.

The attempted launch of an R-16 missile resulted in an explosion on the launch pad that killed over 100 personnel, including rocket forces Marshal Nedelin.

The rocket's designer was spared because he nipped into a bunker for a cigarette at the time of the explosion.

Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space when the spacecraft Vostok 1 blasted off from Baikonur on 12 April 1961.

The cosmonaut orbited the Earth once, spending 108 minutes in space before his capsule touched down in the Saratov region of the Soviet Union.

Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space when she blasted off from Baikonur aboard Vostok VI on 16 June, 1963.

Most of the modules that made up Russia's Mir space station (the first permanently occupied space station) were launched from Baikonur.

The first element was launched in 1986 and it remained in orbit for 15 years before being brought back into the Earth's atmosphere for a fiery death.

Today, Baikonur is in constant demand for commercial satellite launches and to supply the International Space Station.

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