The Baikonur Cosmodrome, also called Tyuratam, is the world's first and largest operational space launch facility. It is located in the desert steppes of Kazakhstan, about 200 kilometers (124 mi) east of the Aral Sea, and is managed jointly by the Russian Federal Space Agency and the Russian Space Forces. In the mid-1950s, the Soviet military had to find a new test site for its secret rocket program. At the time, cruise and ballistic missiles conceived in the country promised to fly not hundreds but thousands of kilometers. Such range would not fit into existing corridors extending from Kapustin Yar on the Volga River to the steppes of Kazakhstan. After considering the four most desolate locations it could find, the government commission made a choice: the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Launch pad in Baikonur

Launch pad with the Borun space shuttle
 

We can read at the wiki:

The shape of the area leased is an ellipse, measuring 90 kilometres east-west by 85 kilometres north-south, with the cosmodrome at the centre. It was originally built by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s as the base of operations for its ambitious space program. Under the current Russian space program, Baikonur remains a busy space port, with numerous commercial, military and scientific missions being launched annually.

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. On June 8, 2005 the Russian Federation Council ratified an agreement between Russia and Kazakhstan extending Russia’s rent term of the spaceport until 2050. That dispute has prompted Russia to begin upgrading its own Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Oblast of Northern Russia as a fallback option.

Energia Buran launch facility

Energia Buran launch facility

The Baikonur Cosmodrome was used for the launch of the Buran-Energia, that is Russia's answer to the American space shuttle program. Envisioned before the American shuttle, yet only built some years after Columbia blasted off into space, the Buran-Energia project was one of the largest, most ambitious and expensive space programs ever attempted in history.

The Buran-Energia is composed of the the Buran shuttle, the Energia core booster and the Zenith strap on boosters, all designed to be fully reusable.

Energia Buran launch facility

Buran space shuttle

About its current state, we found out this note:

In mid-2006, head of Roskosmos Anatoly Perminov said that last Russian military personnel would leave Baikonur for Plesetsk by the end of 2007. In reality, the process was much slower and much more painful for rank-and-file members of the military, who often faced numerous problems when repatriating from Kazakhstan to Russia, especially in obtaining housing. Nevertheless, on April 30, 2008, in one of his last moves as president, Vladimir Putin signed a decree disbanding GIK-5. As of Jan. 1, 2009, the only military installations remaining in Baikonur would be an air squadron based at the Krainy airfield and a directorate responsible for R-36M UTTKh and UR-100NU missiles. In mid-2008, Russian space officials said that between 2005 and 2008, the total of 30 military units with 2,000 members of military personnel had been disbanded, as the center's facilities were transferred to the Russian space agency, Roskosmos. In turn, Roskosmos, announced a formation of a directorate responsible for running Baikonur. At the beginning of December 2008, Russian military was destroying classified hardware and absolete pirotechnic equipment, Interfax news agency reported.

Baikonur area. Google Earth image.

Mobile Service Tower

We discovered this story via twitter, when Simon Sellars aka @ballardian shared a reference about some of these striking images. If you're curious and want to visit the Baikonur area, you can join this trip, starting now in June.

And don't miss English Russia's wonderful images from the Buran Space Shuttle, here.