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Not that there was a serious debate on the issue around the world, but the Russian Defense Minister said last week that the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will continue to support launches into orbit for many years to come.
"I believe that Baikonur's function as a basis for the manned flight program will continue for many more decades," the Russian media quoted Minister Sergey Ivanov as saying.
Baikonur is the place from which all manned flights of the Russians have been launched since Yuri Gagarin's historic flight in 1961. The last launch so far was on October 18, 2003, when members of the eighth crew of the International Space Station took off into space. Baikonur is both a military and commercial space field, from where you can also launch the giant Proton rockets.
In the meantime, Russia will continue to increase the use of the cosmodrome in Plastek, which is within its borders, for the purposes of launching military satellites, as well as for testing new launch vehicles currently under development, say senior officials in the Russian space program.
The question of how much Russia will pay Kazakhstan for the use of the launch site still remains open. The question was not relevant in the days of the Soviet Union, but since its breakup, Kazakhstan has demanded additional money from Russia for the use of the one-of-a-kind facility.
They knew about space operations outside the USA
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