The Baikonur Cosmodrome is the world's oldest and largest space station. It was built in the 1. on the desert steppe 2. kilometres east of the Aral Sea. It has 15 launch sites, and covers an area of nearly 7,000 square kilometres. Baikonur is the place where some of the most important 'firsts' of space exploration happened: On 4th October 1957, the world's first satellite was launched from Baikonur. It was called Sputnik 1.
A month later, 3. on November 1957, Sputnik 2 was launched. Inside the satellite was the first dog to travel into space. Its name was Laika.
On 12th April 4, Yuri Gagarin became the first man in the world to travel into space in Vostok 1. It took him 5. minutes to travel around the Earth in his spacecraft.
The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, was also launched into space from Baikonur on 16th June 1963.
On 2nd October 1991, Toktar Aubakirov became the first Kazakh to travel into space on the spacecraft TM- 6.. Aubakirov spent eight days in space. While he was there, he did experiments for Kazakhstan.
The world's first space tourist was Dennis Tito. He went into space from Baikonur on 6th May 2001. With him was the second Kazakh in space, Talgat Musabaev. Musabaev travelled into space three times. His first space flight was to the space station Mir on 1st July 1994. The mission lasted for 125 days, 22 hours and 53 minutes! On his second space flight, Musabaev was commander of the mission. This expedition lasted for 207 days, 12 hours and 7. minutes. Kazakhstan's first satellite, called KazSat, was launched on 18th June 2006.
2What happened on each one? Write full sentences:
8. 4th October 1957-
9. 1st July 1994-
10. 18th June 2006
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