The Baikonur Cosmodrome, also called Tyuratam, is a very large space launch facility.
It is located in the desert steppe of Kazakhstan, about 200 kilometres east of the Aral Sea. It is leased by the Kazakh government to Russia (as of 2012 : until 2050) and is managed jointly by the Russian Federal Space Agency (ROSCOSMOS) and the Russian Space Forces. The shape of the area leased is an ellipse, measuring 90 kilometres east-west by 85 kilometres north-south, with the cosmodrome at the centre. It was originally built by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s as the base of operations for its space program.