Site 45 at the

Baikonur Cosmodrome 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 Human spaceflight, crewed spaceflights are l ...

used to be a

Zenit rocket Zenit (, ; meaning ''Zenith'') was a family of space launch vehicles designed by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau in Dnipro, Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. Zenit was originally built in the 1980s for two purposes: as a liquid rocke ...

launch site consisting of two pads, both of which are currently inactive. It used to be the launch site for all

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n government Zenit launches, along with a commercial launch conducted for Globalstar in 1998, and continuing commercial launches under the

Land Launch Land Launch refers to a service product of Sea Launch, Sea Launch SA. There is no entity or company called Land Launch. Sea Launch created the Land Launch offering to address lighter satellites directly into geosynchronous orbit or into Geostationa ...

programme. The main pad at the site is area 45/1, which was completed in 1983 following five years of construction. A second pad, area 45/2, was completed in 1990, but was destroyed by a launch failure in the same year. The first launch from site 45, using pad 1, occurred on 13 April 1985. This was a

sub-orbital A sub-orbital spaceflight is a spaceflight in which the spacecraft reaches outer space, but its trajectory intersects the surface of the gravitating body from which it was launched. Hence, it will not complete one orbital revolution, will no ...

test flight of the

Zenit-2 The Zenit-2 was a Ukrainian, previously Soviet, expendable carrier rocket. First flown in 1985, it has been launched 37 times, with 6 failures. It is a member of the Zenit family of rockets and was designed by the Yuzhmash. History With 13� ...

, and the maiden flight of the Zenit rocket. The launch failed, and was followed up with a second, successful, test flight launched at 08:21 GMT on 21 June 1985. Whilst this launch was also intended to be suborbital, some debris from the launch reached

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

. The first launch from pad 2 occurred on 22 May 1990, when a Zenit-2 successfully orbited a Tselina-2

ELINT Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the act and field of intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly u ...

satellite. On the next launch, also from pad 2, the first stage RD-171 engine failed five seconds after launch and the rocket fell back onto the launch pad from a height of about . The resulting explosion completely destroyed the launch pad, and was reported to have lifted a 1,000 tonne metal structure 20 metres into the air, and to have caused significant damage to lighting towers 100 metres from the pad. Zenit launches resumed from pad 1 around ten months later, pad 2 was not rebuilt. On 29 June 2007, the first Zenit-2M was launched from pad 1, followed by the first Zenit-3SLB on 28 April 2008. Facilities to support crewed launches were built at both pads. These included large mobile access towers, which would have allowed the crew to board a spacecraft on top of the rocket. These towers were never used. The tower at area 45/1 is still intact, and the tower at area 45/2 is still standing, but was heavily damaged in the October 1990 explosion. The towers are not used in uncrewed launch operations, as all systems are automated, and no access to the rocket is required. Following the Russian military intervention in Ukraine in 2014, Russia announced that it was no longer interested in the purchase of Zenit rockets from

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

. As a result of this, the last Zenit-3F launched from Site 45 on December 26, 2017. In accordance to the 2016–2025 Russian space master plan, the launch pad was then supposed to be rebuilt to support the launch of the new domestic Irtysh launch vehicle. In March 2023, it became public that the Baiterek Kazakh-

n joint venture in charge of the site had filed a claim of about 2 billion

ruble The ruble or rouble (; rus, рубль, p=rublʲ) is a currency unit. Currently, currencies named ''ruble'' in circulation include the Russian ruble (RUB, ₽) in Russia and the Belarusian ruble (BYN, Rbl) in Belarus. These currencies are s ...

s (30.3 million US-Dollar) to TsENKI, a

Roscosmos The State Corporation for Space Activities "Roscosmos", commonly known simply as Roscosmos (), is a State corporation (Russia), state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space science, space flights, List of space agencies, c ...

subsidiary in charge of handling ground-based infrastructure, as Roscosmos had failed its obligation to conduct an environmental impact assessment of Site 45. This effectively delayed the Baiterek project and the development of the Irtysh launch vehicle, which had been scheduled to start from Site 45 in 2024.

References

Literature

* "Baikonur. Korolev. Yangel." - M. I. Kuznetsk, Voronezh: IPF "Voronezh", 1997, * "Look back and look ahead. Notes of a military engineer" - Rjazhsky A. A., 2004, SC. first, the publishing house of the "Heroes of the Fatherland" * «A breakthrough in space» - Konstantin Vasilyevich Gerchik, M: LLC "Veles", 1994, - * «At risk,» - A. A. Toul, Kaluga, "the Golden path", 2001, - * "Bank of the Universe" - edited by Boltenko A. C., Kyiv, 2014., publishing house "Phoenix", * "My first life" - Е. A. Anufrienko. {{Use British English, date=January 2014 Baikonur Cosmodrome

See also

References

Literature