Command post of Soviet rocket’s launch pad turned into museum at Baikonur spaceport

MOSCOW, July 11. /TASS/. The command post of the Soviet-era Energiya super-heavy carrier rocket that was used to launch the Buran space shuttle has been opened for tourists at the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan, the Center for Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Operation told TASS on Tuesday. "The facility and all the equipment inside it have been specially restored for tourist purposes," the company said. Visits to the command post on site 250A have now become an additional excursion, which the Baikonur cosmodrome’s museum holds for its visitors, the Center for Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Operation said. "When we began to restore the hall and supply panels with electric power, it turned out that almost all the equipment was in the working condition," Yevgeny Rakovsky, director of the company’s branch, the Yuzhny Space Center, said. The command post housed the workplace of the heads of technical and technological equipment. The same site 250 accommodated thermostats, gas supply, fire extinguishing and video surveillance systems along with all refueling systems and the software and testing complex. As was reported earlier, Russia’s State Space Corporation Roscosmos delegated the Center the right to coordinate tourist activity as part of developing ground-based space tourism. At the same time, the Ground-Based Space Infrastructure Operation Center does not independently engage in tourist business and has selected about 40 travel operators from Russia and Kazakhstan for this work. Energiya carrier rocket Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said in mid-June as he visited the Baikonur space center that there were plans to open a museum on the premises of the Energiya carrier rocket’s launch pad to show the outstanding projects of Soviet cosmonautics. The development of the Energiya rocket and the Buran space shuttle became the most impressive program in the history of domestic space rocket-making, with the annual financing volume reaching 1.3 billion rubles by 1985. The first launch of the Energiya rocket took place on May 15, 1987 from the Baikonur space center. The Energiya became the first Soviet rocket that used hydrogen in the rocket’s main stage. The Energiya was also the most powerful of domestic rockets. The second flight, during which the Buran space shuttle was delivered into orbit, was performed on November 15, 1988. Read more