Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45
Zenit/Baytarek launch site at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan
Site 45 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome is a launch site currently being used to support the Soyuz-5 rocket. It was previously the launch site for all Soviet and Russian government Zenit launches, along with a commercial launch conducted for Globalstar in 1998, and continuing commercial launches under the Land Launch programme. The main pad at the site is area 45/1, which was completed in 1983 following five years of construction. A second pad, area 45/2, was completed in 1990, but was destroyed by a launch failure in the same year.
The first launch from site 45, using pad 1, occurred on 13 April 1985. This was a sub-orbital test flight of the Zenit-2, and the maiden flight of the Zenit rocket. The launch failed, and was followed up with a second, successful, test flight launched at 08:21 GMT on 21 June 1985. Whilst this launch was also intended to be suborbital, some debris from the launch reached low Earth orbit. The first launch from pad 2 occurred on 22 May 1990, when a Zenit-2 successfully orbited a Tselina-2 ELINT satellite. On the next launch, also from pad 2, the first stage RD-171 engine failed five seconds after launch and the rocket fell back onto the launch pad from a height of about 70 metres (230 ft).
“Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45” enters the record as zenit/Baytarek launch site at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Baikonur, Cosmodrome and Site can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4843262. Authority coordinates are 45.943, 63.653. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998, 1983, 1990 and 1985.
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This entry incorporates text from “Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.