The Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world's oldest and largest operational space launch facility.
It is located in Kazakhstan, about 200 km east of the Aral Sea, on the north bank of the Syr Darya,
near the town of Tyuratam.  

It is leased by the Kazakh government to Russia (until 2050) and managed by the Russian Federal Space
Agency. It was originally built by the Soviet Union as the base of operations for its space program from
the late 1950s to the '80s. 

Baikonur was founded on June 2, 1955. It was originally built as a long-range-missile centre and later
expanded to include space flight facilities. A supporting town was built around the facility to provide
apartments, schools and support for workers. It was raised to city status in 1966 and named Leninsk.

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian space program continued to operate from
Baikonur, under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

In 1995 the city surrounding the spaceport was renamed to Baikonur. On June 8, 2005 the Russian
Federation Council ratified an agreement between Russia and Kazakhstan extending Russia’s rent term
of the spaceport Baikonur until 2050. The rent price, which is fixed at 115 million US dollars per year,
is the source of a long-running dispute between the two countries, that has prompted Russia to begin
upgrading its own Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Oblast of Northern Russia as a fallback option.

Baikonur is fully equipped with facilities for launching both manned and unmanned space vehicles.
It supports several generations of Russian spacecraft: Soyuz, Proton, Tsyklon, Dnepr and Zenit. Since
the temporary lapse of the United States' Space Shuttle program it has played an essential role in the
resupply and deployment of the International Space Station.

Future Project 

On December 22, 2004, Kazakhstan and Russia signed a contract establishing the "Russia-Kazakhstan
Baiterek JV" joint venture, in which each country holds a 50-percent stake.

The goal of the project is the construction of the Baiterek (poplar tree) space launch complex, to facilitate
operations of the Russian Angara rocket launcher.

The site is scheduled to be completed in 2009. This will allow launches with a payload of 26 tons to low
earth orbit, compared to 20 tons using the Proton system.

An additional benefit will be that the Angara uses kerosene and oxygen as fuel, which is less hazardous
to the environment than the toxic fuels used by older boosters. The total expenditure on the Kazakh side
will be $223 million over 19 years.

Gagarin's Start