Built by the Soviets in the 1950s, Baikonur Cosmodrome is the oldest working space launch site in the world. A key site in space exploration history, the Cosmodrome was the launch site for many historic firsts. The groundbreaking missions launched from Baikonur include the October 4, 1957 launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite; Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit Earth, began the era of manned space flight on April 12, 1961 and Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space on June 16, 1963.
With dozens of launch pads and several tracking control centers, the Baikonur Cosmodrome is still the sole launch site for manned Russian space missions. European, Russian and U.S. crews scheduled for travel to the international space station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft do some of their training at Baikonur, and a new industry was launched on April 28, 2001, when American businessman Dennis Tito became the first space tourist, by traveling to the space station aboard a Soyuz spacecraft.