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68-566: Soyuz TM-22 was a Russian transport spacecraft that transported cosmonauts to the Mir space station for a 179-day stay. It was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and docked on September 5, 1995, with Mir's Kvant-2 module at the port that was vacated by Progress M-28 a day before. Soyuz TM-22 was the final mission launched on the Soyuz-U2 launch vehicle, fueled by synthetic Syntin rather than

136-479: 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 price – which remained fixed at US$ 115,000,000 per year – is

204-539: A 'holiday atmosphere' aboard the complex. Having already remained in orbit for four years longer than originally intended, the station held the promise of at least three more orbiting anniversaries. On February 21, Soyuz TM-23 launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome with the cosmonauts for Mir Principle Expedition 21. To clear a docking port for the Soyuz TM-23, the Progress M-30 was undocked on February 22 and re-entered over

272-461: A NASA Space Shuttle docking. During that phase of the mission, Mir housed crews from four countries: Russia , Canada , Germany and the United States . After two days of autonomous orbital flight, on September 5, the spacecraft docked with Mir after circling from 90-120m out at the -X docking port. After an hour and a half, the crew checked the hatch seals, removed their space suits and entered

340-561: A Western European. 51°38′N 67°45′E  /  51.633°N 67.750°E  / 51.633; 67.750 Baikonur Cosmodrome Download coordinates as: 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

408-610: A contract establishing the "Russia–Kazakhstan Baiterek JV" joint venture, in which each country holds a 50% stake. The goal of the project was the construction of the Bayterek (" poplar tree") space launch complex, to facilitate operations of the Russian Angara rocket launcher. This was anticipated to allow launches with a payload of 26 tons to low Earth orbit , compared to 20 tons using the Proton system. An additional benefit would be that

476-497: A handshake that signaled the formation of a multinational crew. The crews transferred cargo items between the visiting Orbiter and Mir over the three days the two were docked. From the Orbiter, Mir received 300 pounds of food, 700 pounds of experimental equipment, 900 pounds of by-product water from Atlantis ' fuel cells and 20 lithium hydroxide canisters to serve as backup for Mir's primary carbon dioxide removal system. From Mir,

544-657: 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

612-586: 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 comes after Russia's relations with Kazakhstan became tense due to its ongoing invasion of Ukraine . Baikonur

680-451: 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. As part of

748-471: Is home to a collection of space artefacts. A restored test article from the Soviet Buran programme sits next to the museum entrance. The only completed orbiter , which flew a single orbital test mission in 1988, was destroyed in a hangar collapse in 2002. For a complete list of surviving Buran vehicles and artefacts, see Buran programme § List of vehicles . The museum also houses photographs related to

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816-638: Is still laying on the falling grounds". Scrap recovery is part of the local economy. 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 have launched from Baikonur under

884-608: The Aral Sea ) are featured heavily in Terry Hayes ' 2023 spy / thriller novel The Year Of The Locust . The Baikonur Cosmodrome appears as Russia's primary space facility in Tom Clancy's EndWar ' s Veterans Map Pack. Draconids The October Draconids , in the past also unofficially known as the Giacobinids , are a Northern hemisphere meteor shower whose parent body is

952-524: The Buran programme , several facilities were adapted or newly built for the Buran-class space shuttle orbiters: All Baikonur's logistics are based on its own intra-site 1,520 mm ( 4 ft  11 + 27 ⁄ 32  in ) gauge railway network, which is the largest industrial railway on the planet. The railway is used for all stages of launch preparation, and all spacecraft are transported to

1020-562: 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. 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

1088-735: The Kazakh Steppe , some 90 metres (300 ft) above sea level, it is 200 kilometres (120 mi) 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

1156-834: The RP-1 fuel used in other variants of the Soyuz launch vehicle . The crew's commander was Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko of the Russian Air Force . The flight engineer was Sergey Vasilyevich Avdeyev of RKK Energiya . Thomas Reiter was the first ESA cosmonaut on a long duration Mir crew as part of the European Mission " Euromir 95 ". While docked with Mir, the Soyuz was joined by Progress M-29 , Space Shuttle Atlantis as part of STS-74 and Progress M-30 . The spaceflight took two months longer than planned due to lack of funds for Soyuz TM-23 . Mir 20

1224-515: The vestibular system and visual organs . The cosmonauts performed preventative maintenance on the Kvant 2 gyrodynes in late November, using the attitude control jets to maintain station orientation while the gyrodynes were inactive. On December 8, the crew reconfigured the docking port at the front of the Mir base block to prepare it to receive the 1996 Priroda module. They moved the Konus docking unit from

1292-508: The +Z to the -Z docking port where Priroda would attach in the spring. Progress M-29 departed the station on December 19. It undocked from the rear Kvant port and deorbited over the Pacific Ocean . Progress M-30 was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on a Soyuz-U rocket on December 18. It docked with the same port Progress M-29 departed from on December 20 with 2300 kg of fuel, crew supplies, and research/medical equipment for use on

1360-505: The 1990s, when the Russian civilian space agency and its industrial contractors started taking over individual facilities. In 2006, the head of Roscosmos, Anatoly Perminov , said that the last Russian military personnel would be removed from the Baikonur facility by 2007. However, on 22 October 2008, an SS-19 Stiletto missile was test-fired from Baikonur, indicating this may not be the case. On 22 December 2004, Kazakhstan and Russia signed

1428-582: The 20th century. Rare outbursts in activity can occur when the Earth travels through a denser part of the cometary debris stream ; for example, in 1998, rates suddenly spiked but only increased modestly in 2005. A Draconid meteor outburst occurred as expected on October 8, 2011, though a waxing gibbous Moon reduced the number of meteors observed visually. During the 2012 shower radar observations (which detect smaller and fainter meteors) detected up to 1000 meteors per hour. The 2012 outburst may have been caused by

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1496-503: The Angara uses kerosene as fuel and oxygen as the oxidiser, which is less hazardous to the environment than the toxic fuels used by older boosters. The total expenditure on the Kazakh side was expected to be US$ 223 million over 19 years. As of 2010, the project was stalling due to insufficient funding, but it was thought that the project still had good chances to succeed because it would allow both parties – Russia and Kazakhstan – to continue

1564-617: The ESEF: two exposure cassettes, a spacecraft environmental monitoring package and a control electronics box on the forward section of the Spektr module. One of the cassettes would be opened remotely from within the station to sample the Draconids meteor stream when the Earth passed through the tail of the Giacobini Zinner comet . On November 1, a coolant line to the core module air regeneration system

1632-521: The Maria magnetic spectrometer. Between January 12 and 16, the cosmonauts resumed work on the cooling system leak that began in November. They sealed a manifold on the coolant line and then refilled the loop with ethylene glycol that was sent up with Progress M-30. The SPK (or YMK) maneuvering unit was stored inside the Kvant 2 airlock. It was a large unit which hadn't been used since it was tested in 1990 and it

1700-519: 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 rains and cancers in

1768-691: The Mir 20 mission by 44 days at a meeting of the RSA , ESA , RSC Energia , the Russian Central Specialized Design Bureau (Soyuz rocket designer) and representatives of the Progress Plant where the Soyuz-U rocket for the launch of Mir 21 was under construction. By postponing the Soyuz TM-23 launch from January 15, 1996, to February 21, 1996, they were able to shift much of the expenditure for

1836-402: The Orbiter received 800 pounds of research samples collected during Euromir 95 and experimental equipment no longer needed by the station. The crews also spoke with the press and received congratulations from Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin , Canadian Industry Minister John Manley , NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin and U.N. Secretary General Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali . While

1904-459: The Pacific Ocean. The Soyuz docked on February 23 at the +X docking port on the rear of the Kvant module. An hour and a half after docking, the hatches opened and Yuri Onufrienko and Yury Usachov were greeted by the Mir 20/Euromir 95 crew. This began a week of joint operations where Mir 20 handed the station over to Mir 21, including familiarization with the current conditions of the projects and

1972-526: The STS-74 mission. For the first two days of the flight, Kenneth Cameron , Atlantis Commander and James Halsell , Atlantis Pilot executed a series of reaction control jet firings to gradually bring Atlantis closer to Mir. On the third day, Chris Hadfield and William McArthur grappled the Docking Module with the 50-foot mechanical arm, lifting it horizontally out of the bay. When it was clear, he pivoted

2040-454: The Shuttle was docked with Mir, the crews cooperated in medical experiments and environmental investigations designed as part of International Space Station Phase I research. The Photogrammetric Appendage Structural Dynamics Experiment (PASDE) was a set of three photogrammetric instruments located in the Orbiter payload bay and recorded Mir solar array dynamics during the docking and docked phase of

2108-504: The Soyuz descent capsule. In 2021, the Baikonur space complex was named as one of the top 10 tourist destinations in Kazakhstan. In 2023, a plan was announced to add the Gagarin's Start launch complex to the museum complex at Baikonur. The Baikonur Cosmodrome was heavily featured in the 2003 computer game Command & Conquer: Generals and in the expansion Zero Hour . The GLA captured

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2176-618: The Space Shuttle departure, the Mir 20/Euromir 95 crew continued with their medical tests and material processing experiments. In addition to equipment brought on board for Euromir, Reiter used the Austrian Optovert equipment that had been on Mir since the Austro-Mir mission in October 1991. He investigated the effects of weightlessness on human motor system performance and the interactions of

2244-630: The aiming point, however the rescue crews found Mir 19 in excellent condition. The Mir 20 crew began activating and calibrating the Euromir 95 experiments on September 13. The 41 experiments included 18 life sciences, 5 astrophysics, 8 material science and 10 technology experiments. An average of four and a half hours per day was allotted for experimental work, the rest of the time was devoted to exercise and station maintenance. Thomas Reiter, in addition to his Euromir duties, participated in Russian experiments and in his role as flight engineer, he helped maintain

2312-579: The carbon dioxide. The leak was found a few days later and repaired with a putty-like substance. Two Dutch companies sponsored by the ESA and the Dutch National Institute for Aerospace Programs developed a 500g system to use microbes to filter air by converting airborne contaminants into harmless compounds. The system was activated by the crew on November 9, run for a week and then put in a small freezer for return to Earth on STS-74 . The Docking Module

2380-457: 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

2448-434: The cosmodrome's history, including images of all cosmonauts. Every crew of every expedition launched from Baikonur leaves behind a signed crew photograph that is displayed behind the glass. Baikonur's museum holds many objects related to Gagarin, including the ground control panel from his flight, his uniforms, and soil from his landing site, preserved in a silver container. One of the museum rooms also holds an older version of

2516-573: The cosmodrome. 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,

2584-498: 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." 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 320 kilometres (200 mi) northeast of

2652-541: The extended Euromir 95 mission. Reiter took biomedical samples and measurements and tested the capacity of uncooled melts in the TITUS materials processing furnace. The Russian cosmonauts studied microgravity effects on hydrodynamics with the Volna-2 device, using models of spacecraft fuel system elements. They also investigated the possible links between terrestrial seismic activity and high-energy charged cosmic particle fluxes with

2720-409: The fourth day of the STS-74 mission, after a 'go' from Russian and U.S. ground controllers, Cameron slowed the orbiters approach to less than one inch per second and successfully docked with the station at 6:28 UTC about 216 nautical miles above western Mongolia . After two and a half hours of verification and seal checkouts, Cameron opened the Docking Module hatch and met Mir 20 Commander Gidzenko with

2788-497: The joint use of Baikonur even after the construction of Vostochny Cosmodrome . As of 2017, the first launch of the Baiterek Rocket and Space Complex was expected to occur in 2025. The Baikonur Cosmodrome has a small museum, next to two small cottages, once residences of the rocket engineer Sergei Korolev and the first cosmonaut , Yuri Gagarin . Both cottages are part of the museum complex and have been preserved. The museum

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2856-517: 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

2924-468: The launch complex. It was also featured in its Multiplayer Map "Launch", as well as the Zombies map "Ascension" The Baikonur Cosmodrome also serves as the inspiration for a location in the 2014 videogame Destiny . The Baikonur Cosmodrome and its surroundings serve as the setting of the 2022 French TV miniseries Infiniti . The Baikonur Cosmodrome, the city of Baikonur, and the surrounding areas (including

2992-513: The launch pad to launch an ICBM filled with bio-chemicals at an unspecified US naval base in Europe. The Americans retook it in Zero Hour. The Baikonur Cosmodrome was featured prominently in the 2010 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops . In one mission in the campaign, the main character is tasked by John F. Kennedy with destroying a Soyuz spacecraft and eliminating several high-value targets at

3060-532: The launchpads by the special Schnabel cars . Once part of the Soviet Railroad Troops , the Baikonur Railway is now served by a dedicated civilian state company. There are several rail links connecting the Baikonur Railway to the public railway of Kazakhstan and the rest of the world. The Baikonur Cosmodrome has two on-site multi-purpose airports , serving both the personnel transportation needs and

3128-461: 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

3196-551: The logistics of space launches (including the delivery of the spacecraft by planes). There are scheduled passenger services from Moscow to the smaller Krayniy Airport ( IATA : BXY , ICAO : UAOL ), which however are not accessible to the public. The larger Yubileyniy Airport (Юбилейный аэропорт) ( IATA : UAON ) was where the Buran orbiter was transported to Baikonur on the back of the Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo aircraft. Although Baikonur has always been known around

3264-497: The mission. The International Space Station Risk Mitigation Experiments evaluated the acoustics of the environment aboard Mir, the alignment stability of the Atlantis -Mir docked configuration and the remote communication systems. A series of jet firings by both Mir and Atlantis evaluated the dynamics of the complicated structure, which at more than 500,000 pounds, set a new record for a conjoined orbital mass. Atlantis undocked with

3332-512: The module 90 degrees to a vertical position and spun it almost 180 degrees and brought it close to Kristal. Once Hadfield placed the arm in a 'limp' position (no power, no mechanical parts working), Cameron fired Atlantis ' s steering thrusters to gently bring the docking systems together, docking the module with Kristal. The next day, the Space Shuttle Atlantis used the docking module's top hatch to dock with Mir. On November 15,

3400-413: 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

3468-509: The orbiter and the Mir solar arrays. The module had identical Androgeynous Peripheral Assembly Systems (APASs) on each end. APAS-1 attached to Kristall, APAS-2 attached to the Shuttle ODS. Visiting crews would then enter the pressurized interior through the APAS-2 hatch and then access Kristall through the APAS-2 hatch. Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center on November 12 at 7:30 am EST on

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3536-435: The periodic comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner . They are named after the constellation Draco , where they seemingly come from. Almost all meteors which fall towards Earth ablate long before reaching its surface. The Draconids are best viewed after sunset in an area with a clear dark sky. The 1933 and 1946 Draconids had Zenithal Hourly Rates of thousands of meteors visible per hour, among the most impressive meteor storms of

3604-410: 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,

3672-588: 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

3740-632: The spaceport until 2050. It is jointly managed by Roscosmos and the Russian Aerospace Forces . In 1955, the Soviet Ministry of Defence 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

3808-548: The station and were welcomed by Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin of Mir Principle Expedition 19 with the traditional bread and salt. The crews then began a week of joint work that included a handover from the Mir 19 crew to familiarize Mir 20 with the status of the onboard systems and experiments. Solovyev and Budarin ended their 75-day mission by departing on the Soyuz-TM 21 on September 11. Their Soyuz landed safely in Kazakhstan, 302 km northeast of Arkalyk, far away from

3876-531: The station early in the morning of November 18. Once the Orbiter was 525 feet out, he began a fly around, taking a photographic survey of the station. Four and half hours after undocking, Cameron lowered Atlantis to another orbit. Two days later, on November 20 at 12:02 EST, the Orbiter Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center in Floriday, ending a 128 orbit mission after 8 days, 4 hours and 31 minutes. After

3944-486: The station itself. Two days before the return flight, a water leak appeared in the Mir base block, but the cosmonauts were able to repair it. Gidzenko, Avdeyev and Reiter donned their Sokol launch and reentry suits and entered the Soyuz TM-22 on February 29, 1996. They landed safely about 105 km from Arkalyk. Their mission lasted 179 days, 1 hour and 42 minutes. Reiter then held the record for spaceflight duration by

4012-465: The station's onboard equipment. Progress-M 29 was launched from the Baiknour Cosmodrome on October 8, 1995, at 18:51 UTC on a Soyuz-U rocket. The resupply ship docked with Mir on October 10, 1995, at 20:23 UTC with about 2.5 tons of fresh supplies and equipment for the Mir 20 crew including 80 kg of experimental hardware for Euromir 95. On October 6, 1995, the decision was made to extend

4080-431: The vehicle processing to the next fiscal year, relieving strain on the RSA budget. This also allowed full usage of the Soyuz-TM 22 module's 180-day lifetime, allow time for more Euromir research and an extra EVA. Thomas Reiter became the first ESA cosmonaut to perform an EVA when he climbed through the Kvant 2 hatch on October 20 with Sergei Avdeyev. In a successful 5 hour and 11 minute EVA, they installed four elements on

4148-405: The world as the launch site of Soviet and Russian space missions, from its outset in 1955 and until the collapse of the USSR in 1991 the primary purpose of this center was to test liquid-fueled ballistic missiles . The official (and secret) name of the center was State Test Range No. 5 or 5 GIK . It remained under the control of the Soviet and Russian Ministry of Defense until the second half of

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4216-450: 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

4284-473: Was designed and built in 1994 and 1995 in Russia by RSC Energia for the RSA. The 4090 kg, 4.7m long, 2.2m diameter module was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on June 7, 1995, so that the Space Shuttle Atlantis could bring it to Mir on STS-74. The module simplified the Space Shuttle orbiter dockings with Mir by eliminating the need to move Kristall to the -X port on Mir each time the Space Shuttle visited. The length also provided more clearance between

4352-400: Was found to be leaking. Approximately 1.8L of an ethylene glycol mixture had leaked inside the Mir module. Shutting down the coolant loop required shutting down the primary carbon dioxide removal system in Kvant and the oxygen replenishment system. While they were off, the backup air scrubber using lithium hydroxide canisters similar to those used on the Space Shuttle was used to scrub

4420-452: Was in the way of airlock egress so Reiter and Gidzenko moved it outside on a February 8 EVA and attached it outside. They also retrieved the two cassettes they deployed in October. They also attempted to perform a task on the Kristall antenna, but TsUP canceled the antenna work when the cosmonauts were unable to loosen the bolts on the antenna. The Mir base block launched to orbit on February 20, 1986. On February 20, 1996, ITAR-TASS reported

4488-401: Was raised to city status in 1966 and named Leninsk ( Russian : Ленинск ). 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 of 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,

4556-529: 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 the current Russian management, Baikonur remains a busy spaceport, with numerous commercial, military, and scientific missions being launched annually. The Soviet government issued Scientific Research Test Range No. 5 ( NIIP-5 ; Russian : 5-й Научно-Исследовательский Испытательный Полигон, Pyatyy Nauchno-Issledovatel'skiy Ispytatel'nyy Poligon ) on 12 February 1955. It

4624-426: Was the second Mir mission with the Euromir designation and an ESA cosmonaut as part of the crew. The first was Ulf Merbold with Euromir94. The objectives of Euromir95 was to study the effects of microgravity on the human body, develop materials for the space environment, to capture particles of cosmic and anthropogenic dust in low Earth orbit and to test new space equipment. Mir 20 was the second mission to include

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