Historically, humanity has always looked closely at the sky and was interested in various celestial bodies. There are legends that supposedly the first people visited space in ancient times, but this is not documented by anything. But the whole world experienced surprise and joy when in 1961 a Soviet officer Yuri Gagarin visited space and then returned to Earth.
The first launch of the Soviet spacecraft occurred from a secret facility called the Baikonur Cosmodrome. In this article, we will consider not only the named launch pad, but also other significant places.
Discoverer
“Research Testing Ground” - that was the name of the project approved by the General Staff of the USSR Ministry of Defense in 1955. Subsequently, this place became known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
This object is located in the Kyzylorda region on the territory of Kazakhstan, near the village of Toretam. Its area is about 6, 717 square meters. km And for many years, the first cosmodrome of the world has been considered one of the leaders in its industry in the number of launches. So, for example, in 2015, 18 rockets were launched from it into Earth orbit. The named training ground for space launches is leased by Russia from Kazakhstan until 2050. About 6 billion Russian rubles per year are spent on the operation of the facility.
Privacy level
All cosmodromes of the world are star harbors, which are guarded in the most careful way, and Baikonur is no exception in this regard.
So, the construction of the space port was accompanied by the construction of a false cosmodrome near the village of Baikonur. Such tactics were also used during World War II, when the military built false airfields with dummies.
Directly the construction of the spaceport involved soldiers and officers of the construction battalion. In short, they accomplished a real labor feat, since they were able to build a launch pad in two years.
Today's problems
Today, for the legendary spaceport, quite difficult times have come. The starting point for the occurrence of problems can be considered the year 2009, when the military left it, and the object passed completely under the jurisdiction of Roscosmos. And all because, together with the military, the spaceport also lost a rather serious amount of money, which had previously been allocated for training and testing.
Of course, launching rockets with satellites also brings money, but these days it is not done as often as it was before, when rockets took off almost every week. Nevertheless, the cosmodrome is still recognized as the world leader in space launches.
Russian giant
But still, considering the cosmodromes of the world, it will be unfair not to pay attention to other similar objects, one of which is located on the territory of the Russian Federation. Technical capabilities and the money invested in its construction and development allow him to launch and launch many satellites and space stations into Earth orbit.
The Plesetsk Cosmodrome is a Russian space harbor located 180 kilometers from Arkhangelsk. The size of the object is 176, 200 hectares.
The Plesetsk Cosmodrome is inherently a special rather complicated scientific and technical complex, which is designed both for military tasks and for peaceful purposes.
The cosmodrome includes many objects:
- Complexes for launching launch vehicles.
- Technical complexes (carry out the preparation of rockets and other spacecraft).
- Multifunctional fueling and neutralization station. With its help, carrier rockets and booster blocks are run.
- Nearly 1, 500 buildings and structures.
- 237 objects providing energy to the entire cosmodrome.
Far East site
One of the newest spaceports in Russia is Vostochny, which is located near the city of Tsiolkovsky in the Amur Region (Far East). The harbor is used exclusively for civilian purposes.
The construction of the facility began in 2012 and was actively accompanied by various corruption scandals and strikes by workers due to non-payment of salaries.
The first launch from Vostochny Cosmodrome took place relatively recently - on April 28, 2016. The launch allowed to put three artificial satellites into orbit. At the same time, at the time of the launch of the carriers, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin personally attended, as well as Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin and the head of the Kremlin administration Sergey Ivanov.
It should be noted that the successful launch from Vostochny Cosmodrome was carried out only on the second attempt. Initially, it was planned to launch the Soyuz 2.1A launch vehicle on April 27, but literally one and a half minutes before the launch, the automatic system canceled it. The management of Roscosmos explained this incident as an emergency malfunction of the control system, as a result of which the start was postponed for a day.
List of the main cosmodromes of the planet
The existing cosmodromes of the world are ranked by the date of their first orbital launch (or its attempt), as well as by the number of successful and failed launches. Their list currently looks like this:
- Baikonur.
- US Air Force Base at Cape Canaveral.
- Vandenberg (United States of America).
- Wallops.
- Kapustin Yar (RF).
- Hammagir (France).
- Plesetsk (Russia).
- Utinoura (Japan).
- San Marco (Italy).
- Kennedy Space Center (USA).
- Woomera (Australia).
- Kourou (France, European Space Agency).
- Jiuquan (China).
- Tanegashima (Japan).
- Satish Dhawan Space Center (India).
- Xichang (China).
- Taiyuan (China).
- Palmahim (Israel).
- Al Anbar (Iraq).
- Free (Russia).
- Alcantara (Brazil).
- Musudan (North Korea).
- Sea Launch (Russia, USA, Norway, Ukraine).
- Kodiak (USA).
- Reagan Test Site (USA).
- Semnan (Iran).
- Naro (South Korea).
American leader
Cape Canaveral (USA) has been used by the military since 1949. It was then that army engineers began their experiments on the launch of long-range missiles. The named place was chosen for a reason, because the spaceport is located very close to the equator, and this, in turn, allows us to use the rotation power of our planet to accelerate the rocket. In 1957, the government decided to launch a satellite called Vanguard TV3. Unfortunately, the attempt was unsuccessful (the rocket exploded).
Already since 1958, rocket launches began to be led by the NASA aerospace agency. However, formally, the spaceport is still in the introduction of the US Department of Defense. The space harbor consists of 38 launch sites, 4 of which are operational.
French space avant-garde
The Guiana Space Center, often called the Kourou Cosmodrome (French Guiana), is deployed in northeast South America. The object was built on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean between two cities: Sinnamari and Kourou. The spaceport is jointly operated by the European Space Agency and the National Space Research Center.
This launch pad first sent a rocket into space on April 9, 1968. It is important to note that the spaceport is located literally five hundred kilometers from the equatorial line, which allows the most efficient launch of aircraft in the geostationary orbit of our Earth. In addition, the geographical location of the space port is such that the launch angle is always equal to 102 degrees, and this indicator significantly expands the range of launch trajectories of objects used for various tasks.
The launch pad efficiency is so high that it attracted the attention of many corporate clients from many countries of the world: USA, Canada, Japan, Brazil, India, Azerbaijan.
In 2015, the European Space Agency invested over 1.6 billion euros in the modernization of the spaceport infrastructure. Also, a high level of security of the facility deserves special attention. Space Harbor is located in an area that is densely covered with equatorial forests. Moreover, the department itself is poorly populated. In addition, there is no risk of even the slightest earthquakes or hurricanes. To provide maximum protection against external attacks, the 3rd Regiment of the Foreign Legion (France) is located at the cosmodrome.
A joint project
The launch platform "Odyssey" is, in fact, a huge self-propelled, semi-submersible catamaran. The facility was built in Norway on the basis of an oil production platform. The composition of the described mobile spaceport includes:
- starting table;
- rocket installer;
- fueling and oxidizing systems;
- temperature control system;
- nitrogen supply system;
- cable mast.
The offshore space launcher is staffed by 68 personnel. For them, residential premises, a medical center and a dining room were built.
The platform is based in the port of Long Beach, California (southwestern United States). The industrial giant of the space industry arrived at this place of its permanent deployment on its own, having crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal and Singapore.
