Baikonur. For the first time this word was sounded 12 on April 1961 of the year, when Levitan, in a voice breaking from excitement, informed the whole world about the first manned flight into space. For 45 years from the Baikonur cosmodrome, more than 150 citizens of Russia and foreign countries launched into space. Here at Baikonur, flight tests of all generations of domestic launch vehicles passed: combat and peaceful purposes.