[4] Under the current Russian management, Baikonur remains a busy spaceport, with numerous commercial, military, and scientific missions being launched annually.

The site was selected by a commission led by General Vasily Voznyuk, influenced by Sergey Korolyov, the Chief Designer of the R-7 ICBM, and soon the man behind the Soviet space program.

It had to be surrounded by plains, as the radio control system of the rocket required (at the time) receiving uninterrupted signals from ground stations hundreds of kilometres away.

The expense of constructing the launch facilities and the several hundred kilometres of new road and train lines made the Cosmodrome one of the most costly infrastructure projects undertaken by the Soviet Union.

Upon their return to the United States, the crews commented that on their evening flight to Moscow they had seen lights on launch pads and related complexes for more than 15 minutes, and according to astronaut Thomas Stafford, "that makes Cape Kennedy look very small."

In 1997, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation changed the flight path and removed the ejected rocket stages near Nyurbinsky District, Russia.

[citation needed] Scientific literature collected data that indicated adverse effects of rockets on the environment and the health of the population.

Valery Yakovlev, a head of the laboratory of ecosystem research of the State scientific-production union of applied ecology "Kazmechanobr", notes: "Scientists have established the extreme character of the destructive influence of the "Baikonur" space center on environment and population of the region: 11 000 tons of space scrap metal, polluted by especially toxic UDMH is still laying on the falling grounds".

Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian space program continued to operate from Baikonur under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Gagarin's Start failed to receive funding (in part due to Russian invasion of Ukraine) to modernize it for the slightly larger Soyuz-2 rocket.

In 2023, it was announced that the Russian and Kazakhstan authorities plan to deactivate the site as a space launch pad and turn it into a museum (in part for tourism purposes).

Downrange from the launchpad, spent launch equipment is dropped directly on the ground in the Russian far east where it is salvaged by the workers and the local population.

The Baikonur Cosmodrome has two on-site multi-purpose airports, serving both the personnel transportation needs and the logistics of space launches (including the delivery of the spacecraft by planes).

There are scheduled passenger services from Moscow to the smaller Krayniy Airport (IATA: BXY, ICAO: UAOL), which however are not accessible to the public.

The larger Yubileyniy Airport (Юбилейный аэропорт) (IATA: UAON) was where the Buran orbiter was transported to Baikonur on the back of the Antonov An-225 Mriya cargo aircraft.

Although Baikonur has always been known around the world as the launch site of Soviet and Russian space missions, from its outset in 1955 and until the collapse of the USSR in 1991 the primary purpose of this center was to test liquid-fueled ballistic missiles.

[35] On 22 December 2004, Kazakhstan and Russia signed a contract establishing the "Russia–Kazakhstan Baiterek JV" joint venture, in which each country holds a 50% stake.

The goal of the project was the construction of the Bayterek ("poplar tree") space launch complex, to facilitate operations of the Russian Angara rocket launcher.