Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan: where it is, what launched here and what we could not confirm about visiting

Baikonur Cosmodrome is a spaceport in the Kyzylorda Region of southern Kazakhstan, near the railway station of Töretam, operated by Russia under a lease that runs to 2050. It launched the first satellite in 1957 and the first human spaceflight in 1961, and Russian crews still fly from here. This page covers where it is, what each famous site is, the 2025 launch pad damage and what you need to check before planning a trip.

Where is Baikonur Cosmodrome

Baikonur lies in the Kazakh steppe in Kyzylorda Region, between the towns of Kazaly and Zhosaly, close to Töretam station on the Trans-Aral Railway. By Wikipedia it is about 200 km east of the Aral Sea and 33 km north of the Syr Darya river, at roughly 90 m above sea level.

For a foreign traveller this is a long way from anywhere you are likely to start. Kyzylorda is about 210 km in a straight line, Turkistan about 490 km, and the Almaty sights roughly 1,120 km. Road distances will be longer, and we could not confirm road conditions or transport times.

The area figure matters: the cosmodrome is a spread of dozens of launch sites across open desert, not one building. A map of it looks like scattered numbered sites linked by roads and rail, which is why pads are called by site numbers such as 1, 31 or 81.

What launched from Baikonur, in dates

Most of the early milestones of spaceflight left from this patch of desert. The site was chosen in 1954–55 because it was flat, thinly populated, had a railway and fresh water from the Syr Darya, and was relatively close to the equator.

The history has a dark page too. On 24 October 1960 an R-16 missile caught fire on the pad. Russian Wikipedia gives 76 and, elsewhere in the same article, 78 dead, including Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin; English Wikipedia says over 100. The true figure is disputed in the sources.

The name itself is contested. Most sources say “Baikonur” was borrowed from a mining settlement about 320 km to the northeast to mislead foreign intelligence; NASA’s history of the Apollo-Soyuz project says it was the old name of the Tyuratam area. In Kazakh, Baiqoñyr is translated as “rich valley”.

Gagarin’s Start, Site 31 and Site 81: the launch pads people search for

Three sites draw most of the interest, and their status has changed recently. Gagarin’s Start (Pad 1/5) launched both Sputnik 1 and Vostok 1. Its last launch was on 25 September 2019; modernisation for the Soyuz-2 rocket was not funded, and in 2023 plans were announced to retire it as a launch pad and turn it into a museum. We could not confirm whether that museum is open.

Site 31 (Pad 31/6) is the Soyuz pad that carried the Soyuz MS-28 crew in 2025. On 27 November 2025 it was significantly damaged after the launch of Soyuz MS-28 carrying three cosmonauts to the ISS. On 3 March 2026 Roscosmos announced the restoration of the damaged pad.

Searches for an “abandoned Baikonur” usually lead to these retired sites, such as the Energia-Buran pad at Site 110. The cosmodrome as a whole is not abandoned: it remains the only launch site for Russian missions to the ISS.

Baikonur city is not the same as the cosmodrome

The town that serves the spaceport is a separate place, built from 1955 for workers and raised to city status in 1966 as Leninsk. It was renamed Baikonur on 20 December 1995. Russian Wikipedia credits a decree of the President of Kazakhstan; English Wikipedia credits Boris Yeltsin.

English Wikipedia describes Leninsk as a closed city, and the city is part of the leased Baikonur complex. A mock-up of a Soyuz rocket was installed in the city centre in 1980, and a street and monuments honour G. M. Shubnikov, the general who led construction. If you see listings for local football (FK Baikonur) or city services, they refer to the town, not the launch sites.

Can you visit Baikonur Cosmodrome

We could not confirm how a foreign visitor gets access, whether permits are needed, or who arranges entry. The cosmodrome is a working spaceport run by Russian agencies inside Kazakhstan, and the city was built as a closed town, so do not assume you can simply arrive at Töretam and walk in.

What this means for planning: treat Baikonur as a trip you arrange well in advance, not a side stop. If access is confirmed, Töretam station on the Trans-Aral Railway is the natural arrival point, but we could not confirm train times.

There are also environmental warnings in the record. The rocket fuel UDMH is highly toxic, and a researcher at the Kazmechanobr institute, quoted by Wikipedia, reported 11,000 tonnes of contaminated rocket scrap on the impact grounds. Stay away from any debris you might see in the steppe.

When to go: hot, dry summers and freezing winters

Spring and early autumn are the comfortable windows. The figures below are computed ERA5 reanalysis normals for 1991–2020 at a grid point at 101 m, close to the cosmodrome’s own elevation, not readings from a weather station.

July days average about 35°C and nights stay above 20°C, which is hard going on shadeless steppe. January days stay below freezing at around -5°C, with nights near -11°C. May and September sit between, with average highs of about 28°C and 25°C. It is very dry all year: the wettest months bring under 20 mm, so rain will rarely spoil plans, but sun and dust will. If your interest is a launch, the date is set by the mission, not the weather, and the season advice matters less.