Gagarin's Start (, ''Gagarinskiy start''), also known as Baikonur Site 1 or Site 1/5 was a launch site 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 ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

that was used by the

Soviet space program The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1951 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contrary to its competitors (NASA in the United States, the European Space Agency in Western Euro ...

and

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 ...

History

20th century

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, aboard the first successful Human spaceflight, crewed sp ...

Vostok 1 Vostok 1 (, ) was the first spaceflight of the Vostok programme and the first human spaceflight, human orbital spaceflight in history. The Vostok 3KA space capsule was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 12 April 1961, with Soviet astronaut, c ...

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, Pad 1/5 or GIK-5 LC1. At Baikonur, site numbers refer to facilities. Site 0 was the construction headquarters and residential area and, as the first major project, this launch pad was named Site 1. Its processing facilities were called Site 2 and its oxygen/nitrogen plant was Site 3. The facility was later designated as Pad No. 5 for the R-7 programme. The numbering of the sites reflected Baikonur's role as a secondary ICBM base, with the primary being the

Plesetsk Cosmodrome Plesetsk Cosmodrome () is a Russian spaceport located in Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, near the town of Plesetsk, from which it takes its name. Until 2025 and the commissioning of the Andøya Space, Andøya base in Norway, it was the only operati ...

, which featured four launch pads. On 17 March 1954, the

Council of Ministers Council of Ministers is a traditional name given to the supreme Executive (government), executive organ in some governments. It is usually equivalent to the term Cabinet (government), cabinet. The term Council of State is a similar name that also m ...

ordered several ministries to select a site for a

proving ground A proving ground 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. The ...

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

reconnaissance In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnai ...

commission considered several possible geographic regions and selected Tyuratam in the Kazakh SSR. 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 Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program ...

. Crewed spaceflights launched from the site include

's flight,

Valentina Tereshkova Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born 6 March 1937) is a Russian engineer, member of the State Duma, and former Soviet cosmonaut. She was the first Women in space, woman in space, having flown a solo mission on Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. S ...

's flight, and numerous other

human spaceflight Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is spaceflight with a crew or passengers aboard a spacecraft, often with the spacecraft being operated directly by the onboard human crew. Spacecraft can also be ...

missions, including 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 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. The programme accompli ...

spacecraft, Mars probe program spacecraft,

Venera program The Venera (, 'Venus') program was a series of space probes developed by the Soviet Union between 1961 and 1984 to gather information about the planet Venus. Thirteen probes successfully entered the Venusian atmosphere, including the two ...

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 had been more than 400 launches from the site. The 500th launch from this site was of Soyuz TMA-18M 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 was 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. The pad underwent a year-long renovation program in 1969–70 to support Zenit reconnaissance satellite launches; during this time all R-7 launches from Baikonur were carried out from LC-31.

21st century

As of 2016, the most recent accident to occur on or around the pad was the attempted launch of Soyuz T-10-1 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. The first launch from the rehabilitated pad was a Yantar reconnaissance satellite in July 1984, but it did not host a manned launch again until Soyuz T-13 in June 1985, nearly two years after the Soyuz T-10-1 disaster. In 2019, Gagarin's Start hosted its last two crewed launches in July and September before its planned modernisation for

Soyuz-2 Soyuz2 (; GRAU index: 14A14) is a Russian expendable medium-lift launch vehicle and the seventh major iteration of the Soyuz rocket family. Compared to its predecessors, Soyuz-2 features significant upgrades, including improved engines and ...

rockets with a planned first launch at 2023. After the retirement of Gagarin's Start, crewed missions are launched from Site 31. The last launch from Gagarin's Start was the Soyuz MS-15 flight to ISS on 25 September 2019, the first crewed mission from Site 31 since 2012 was Soyuz MS-16 on 9 April 2020. Gagarin's Start failed to receive funding to modernize it for the slightly larger Soyuz-2 rocket due to the reorientation of Russian space launches to the

Vostochny cosmodrome The Vostochny Cosmodrome () is a Russian space launch facility in the Amur Oblast, located above the 51st parallel north in the Russian Far East. It was built to help reduce Russia’s reliance on the Baikonur Cosmodrome which is located on lan ...

. In 2023, it was announced that the Russian and Kazakhstan authorities plan to deactivate the site as a retired space launch pad and add it to the Baikonur Cosmodrome's museum complex.

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 a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

. 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, at the start of the Sun path. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon. Terminology Although the S ...

at the launch pad prior to the rollout of

Soyuz TMA-13 Soyuz TMA-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 2009, performed a deorbit burn ...

, 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 deflector for Gagarin's Start File:Baikonur_Cosmodrome_-_Baikonur-Kosmodrom_(Satellite_picture).jpg, A Soyuz on Gagarin's Start, 2018, satellite photo File:Expedition 61 Launch (NHQ201909250042).jpg, Soyuz MS-15, the final launch from Site 1/5

History

20th century

21st century

Gallery

See also

Notes

Further reading