"LIFE" OF THE BAIKONUR COSMODROME
In different years, the number of main technical facilities has reached a maximum of 52 launch facilities, 34 technical complexes, 3 computer centers, 16 stationary measuring points, 2 mobile automobile, 1 railway, 4 airplane measuring points, 4 drop bases, oxygen-nitrogen plant, 2 mechanical assembly plants, 2 airfields and 5 landing sites, 80 MW CHPP, 2 power trains, meteorological station, ionospheric station. Over the past 40 years, more than 1,100 spacecraft for various purposes and more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles have been launched at Baikonur, 38 main types of missiles and more than 80 types of spacecraft and their modifications have been tested.
But the main value of the spaceport is its people. The following facts testify to the high scientific and intellectual potential of these spacecraft: several hundred scientific and research works have been performed, thousands of rationalization proposals have been introduced, dozens of inventions have been made, dozens of testers have defended their dissertations for a scientific degree. The first candidates of technical sciences in 1959 were Colonels A.A. Vasiliev, F.A. Gorin, M.F. Zhuravlev, N.G. Merzlyakov, A.I. Nosov, Lieutenant Colonels V.I. Bely, V.A. Bokov, S.A. Kalinin, A.F. Korshunov, E.I. Ostashev and S.D. Titov. The selfless devotion to the cause, high professional skill, aspiration to achieve the final result were and remain the main qualities of the cosmodrome testers. And the state assesses their work by their merits.
On the Battle Banner of the Cosmodrome of the Order of Lenin, the October Revolution and the Red Star. The Order of the Red Star was awarded to the military unit 25741, the combat calculation of which carried out the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, the spacecraft "East" with the first cosmonaut of the planet Earth Yuri Gagarin and most manned spacecraft. Nine Baikonur workers (testers and military builders) were awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. Colonel A.I. Nosov was the first to be awarded this title in 1957. Hundreds of servicemen and civilian personnel of the cosmodrome were awarded by the state.
