Svobodniy Credit - © Mark Wade Media Gallery

Headquarters of an RVSN Division, 1961-1994, equipped with 90 light ICBM (UR-100) silos. The number of operational silos declined to 60 by 1993. The break-up of the Soviet Union left the main Russian cosmodrome on foreign territory (Baikonur, in Kazakhstan). The Northern Cosmodrome at Plesetsk did not have facilities for large launch vehicles and was not suited for support of launches into lower-inclination orbits. Therefore Svobodniy Cosmodrome, located 7,777 km east of Moscow, was established as the Second State Space Trials Launch Centre (GIK-2) on 2 February 1996. A decommissioned UR-100N (SS-19) ICBM base formed the starting point. A crash program built a living area for 6,000 staff, a paved road network, communications, electrical, and water systems. The airport Ukrainka, 70 km away, was upgraded to Category 1 so that it could accommodate the largest transport aircraft. The objective was to have the infrastructure within 2 to 3 years to start launches of the Rokot and Start light launch vehicles.

It was planned to also accommodate the new all-Russian modular Angara launch vehicles in the medium and heavy categories. This massive expansion, to be financed jointly by the Ministry of Defence and Russian Space Agency, would cost 4 trillion 1994 roubles. It would add new launch pads, a propellant farm, training centre, communications centre, tracking station, airport, and hospital south-east of the existing Rokot facility. It was to have been completed within eight years, eventually housing 30,000 technical staff and a total population of 100,000.

Such funding was not available. By 2000 conversion of unfinished Zenit pads at Plesetsk for use with Angara was underway. It would seem that Svobodniy would be limited to Rokot, Strela and Start-1 launches launches, while Plesetsk would be developed as the main Russian cosmodrome. Geosynchronous launches from Plesetsk, it was found, could be made economically by using the moon's gravity to change the orbital plane of the satellite. Svobodniy would still be needed to reach the 51.6 degree orbit of the International Space Station, however.

• Name: Area 5. Latitude: 51.7000 N. Longitude: 128.0000 E. Launch Pads: 1. Start-1.

Svobodniy Credit - © Mark Wade

• 1997 March 4 02:00 - Zeya Launch Vehicle: Start-1. Start-1.2 LC: LC5. Apogee: 472 km (293 mi).

• 1997 December 24 13:32 - Early Bird Launch Vehicle: Start-1. LC: LC5. Apogee: 488 km (303 mi).

• 2000 December 5 - EROS A1 Launch Vehicle: Start-1. LC: LC5. Apogee: 503 km (312 mi). Launch delayed from November 28. The Israeli commercial imaging satellite EROS A1 was owned by ImageSat (an Israeli-led company registered in the Netherlands Antilles) and built by IAI using the Ofeq-3 design. EROS A1 was placed in a sun-synchronous orbit together with the DS 5th stage. The 250 kg (dry mass) triaxially stabilized spacecraft carried a black and white high resolution (1.8 m) CCD camera, to obtain images (with terrain width of 12.6 km) of locations chosen by Israeli military or world-wide commercial clients, and downlink them at one of the 14 ground stations.

• 2001 February 20 08:48 - Odin Launch Vehicle: Start-1. LC: LC5. Apogee: 622 km (386 mi). Sweden's Odin scientific satellite carried a submillimeter wave astronomy instrument and a radiometer for atmospheric studies. The 1.1-meter reflector fed 500 GHz and 119 GHz radiometers and was used to study galactic molecular clouds, complementing NASA's SWAS satellite. The Odin satellite was designed and built by the Swedish Space Corporation (Svenska Rymdbolaget or Rymdaktiebolaget). SSC does most of its satellite design and construction in-house, although Saab made the antenna and carried out satellite final assembly. SSC was a goverment-owned company and a contractor for the Rymdstyrelsen (Swedish National Space Board).

• 2006 April 25 16:47 - EROS-B Launch Vehicle: Start-1. LC: LC5. Apogee: 514 km (319 mi). Combined civilian/military imaging satellite operated by an Israeli company incorporated in the Cayman Islands. Its capability was demonstrated when, within days of launch, sharp photographs of people and motor vehicles on a Syrian dam were released.

• McDowell, Jonathan, Jonathan's Space Home Page, Harvard University, 1997-present. Jonathan McDowell's complete on-line listing of all objects orbited and over 20,000 rocket launches Accessed at: http://www.planet4589.org/jsr.html.

• Melnik, T G, Voenno-Kosmicheskiy Siliy, Nauka, Moscow, 1997.. Two-volume official history of the (now defunct) Russin space forces.