Gagarin's Start (russian: Гагаринский старт, ''Gagarinskiy start''), also known as Baikonur Site 1 or Site 1/5 is a launch site at Baikonur Cosmodrome in

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

that was used for the

Soviet space program The Soviet space program (russian: Космическая программа СССР, Kosmicheskaya programma SSSR) was the national space program of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), active from 1955 until the dissoluti ...

and is now managed by

Roscosmos The State Space Corporation "Roscosmos" (russian: Государственная корпорация по космической деятельности «Роскосмос»), commonly known simply as Roscosmos (russian: Роскосмос) ...

Overview

The launchpad for the world's first human spaceflight made by

Yuri Gagarin Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin; Gagarin's first name is sometimes transliterated as ''Yuriy'', ''Youri'', or ''Yury''. (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space. T ...

Vostok 1 Vostok 1 (russian: link=no, Восток, ''East'' or ''Orient'' 1) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human orbital spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Apr ...

in 1961, the site was referred to as Site No.1 (, ''Ploshchadka No. 1'') as the first one of its kind. It is also sometimes referred to as NIIP-5 LC1, Baikonur LC1, LC-1/5, LC-1 or GIK-5 LC1. On 17 March 1954, the

Council of Ministers A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/ shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or nati ...

ordered several ministries to select a site for a

proving ground A proving ground (US) is an installation or reservation in which technology such as weapons, military tactics and automobile prototypes are experimented with or tested. Proving grounds can be operated by government bodies or civilian industries. ...

to test the R-7 rocket by 1 January 1955. A special

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...

commission considered several possible geographic regions and selected

Tyuratam Töretam ( kk, link=no, Төретам, Töretam; russian: link=no, Тюратам, Tyuratam) is a station on the main Moscow to Tashkent railway, located in Kazakhstan. The name means "Töre's grave" in the Kazakh language. Töre, or more formal ...

in the

Kazakh SSR ; kk, Қазақ Советтік Социалистік Республикасы) *1991: Republic of Kazakhstan (russian: Республика Казахстан; kk, Қазақстан Республикасы) , linking_name = the ...

. This selection was approved on 12 February 1955 by the Council of Ministers, with a completion of construction targeted for 1958.Origin of the test range in Tyuratam
at Russianspaceweb.com Work on the construction of Site No.1 began on 20 July 1955 by military engineers. Day and night more than 60 powerful trucks worked at the site; of earth were excavated and removed per day, with the total volume estimated to be . During winter explosives were widely utilised. By the end of October 1956, all primary buildings and installation of infrastructure for R-7 tests were completed. The Installation and Testing Building (, ''Montazhno-ispytatel'nyj korpus'') named "Site No.2" was built and a special railway completed from there to Site No.1 where the launch pad for the rocket was located.Creation and Launch of the First Earth's Satellite
by V.Poroshkov By April 1957, all remaining work was completed and the site was ready for launches. The R-7 missile made its maiden voyage from LC-1 on 15 May 1957. On 4 October 1957, the pad was used to launch the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Crewed spaceflights launched from the site include

's flight,

Valentina Tereshkova Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova ( rus, Валентина Владимировна Терешкова, links=no, p=vɐlʲɪnʲˈtʲinə vlɐˈdʲimʲɪrəvnə tʲɪrʲɪʂˈkovə, a=Valentina Tereshkova.ogg; born 6 March 1937) is an engine ...

's flight, and numerous other human spaceflight missions, including all

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

n crewed spaceflights to Mir. The pad was also used to launch

Luna program The Luna programme (from the Russian word "Luna" meaning "Moon"), occasionally called ''Lunik'' by western media, was a series of robotic spacecraft missions sent to the Moon by the Soviet Union between 1959 and 1976. Fifteen were successful, ...

spacecraft,

Mars probe program The Mars program was a series of uncrewed spacecraft launched by the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1973. The spacecraft were intended to explore Mars, and included flyby probes, landers and orbiters. Early Mars spacecraft were small, and launc ...

spacecraft,

Venera program The Venera (, , which means "Venus" in Russian) program was the name given to a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. Ten probes successfully landed on the s ...

spacecraft, many Cosmos satellites and others.Baikonur LC1
/ref> From 1957 through 1966 the site hosted ready-to-launch strategic nuclear ICBMs in addition to spacecraft launches; by the 2000s there were more than 400 launches from the site. The 500th launch from this site was of

Soyuz TMA-18M Soyuz TMA-18M was a 2015 Soyuz (spacecraft), Soyuz spaceflight to the International Space Station. It provided the two twelve-months occupants (Scott Kelly (astronaut), Scott Kelly and Mikhail Korniyenko) at the International Space Station with a ...

on 2 September 2015. In 1961, the growing launch schedule of the Soviet space program resulted in the opening of a sister pad at Baikonur, LC-31/6. LC-1 has been the primary facility for human spaceflight launches, with occasional Soyuz flights from LC-31/6. LC-1 was damaged several times by booster explosions during the early years. As of 2016, the most recent accident to occur on or around the pad was the attempted launch of

Soyuz T-10-1 Soyuz 7K-ST No.16L, sometimes known as Soyuz T-10a or Soyuz T-10-1, was an unsuccessful Soyuz mission intended to visit the Salyut 7 space station, which was occupied by the Soyuz T-9 crew. However, it never finished its launch countdown; the ...

in September 1983, which ended disastrously when the booster caught fire during prelaunch preparations and exploded, causing severe damage that left LC-1 inoperable for almost a year. In 2019, Gagarin's Start hosted its last two crewed launches in July and September before its planned modernisation for

Soyuz-2 Soyuz-2 ( GRAU index 14A14) is a modernized version of the Soviet Soyuz rocket. In its basic form, it is a three-stage launch vehicle for placing payloads into low Earth orbit. Compared to the previous versions of the Soyuz, the first-stage ...

rockets with a planned first launch at 2023. In place of Gagarin's Start, crewed missions will use the new

rocket which is launched from Site 31. The first crewed mission from Site 31 since 2012 was Soyuz MS-16 on 9 April 2020. The last flight from Gagarin's Start was the

Soyuz MS-15 Soyuz MS-15 was a Soyuz spaceflight launched on 25 September 2019, transporting two members of the Expedition 61 crew and a short duration visiting crew member to the International Space Station. Soyuz MS-15 was the 143rd flight of a Soyuz spac ...

flight to

ISS The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (J ...

, launched 25 September 2019.

Gallery

File:Soyuz TMA-16 Lifts Off.jpg, Soyuz TMA-16 launches from Gagarin's Start on 30 September 2009, on its way to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

. Image:Baikonur Cosmodrome Soyuz launch pad.jpg,

Sunrise Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects. Terminology A ...

at the launch pad prior to the rollout of

Soyuz TMA-13 Soyuz TMA-13 (russian: Союз ТМА-13, ''Union TMA-13'') was a Soyuz mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The spacecraft was launched by a Soyuz-FG rocket at 07:01 GMT on 12 October 2008. It undocked at 02:55 GMT on 8 April 20 ...

, 10 October 2008. File:Progress M-13M rocket launches from Gagarin's Start.jpg, Progress M-13M launches on 30 October 2011. File:Soyuz expedition 19 launch pad.jpg, The flame trench for Gagarin's Start File:Baikonur_Cosmodrome_-_Baikonur-Kosmodrom_(Satellite_picture).jpg, A Soyuz on Gagarin's Start, 2018, satellite photo

Overview

Gallery

See also

Notes

Further reading