Earlier today, a Soyuz-FG rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying an International Space Station (ISS) crew into orbit. Baikonur, Russia's primary space launch facility since the 1950s, is the largest in the world, and supports multiple launches of both manned and unmanned rockets every year. With the U.S. manned space program currently on hold, Baikonur is now the sole launching point for trips to the ISS. Gathered here is a look at the facility, some of the cosmonaut training programs in Star City outside of Moscow, and a few recent launches and landings -- plus a bonus: 3 spectacular long-exposure images of Earth from the ISS.
The Russian Soyuz TMA-19 spaceship that will carry a crew to the International Space Station sits on the launch pad at the Russian-leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on June 13, 2010.
(AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)
A Soyuz space capsule in a forest during a complex training on emergency landing at a marshy wooded site in winter, with members of an expedition to the ISS, on January 31, 2012. It is a part of their training program preparing for a space flight to the International Space Station scheduled for April 2013.
(AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
Members of an expedition to the ISS, Russian Cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov, left, and Alexander Misurkin, right, and US astronaut Christopher Cassidy, center, prepare a fire near their tent in a forest during emergency landing training at a marshy wooded site at Star City, outside Moscow, Russia, on January 31, 2012.
(AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel)
In a long-exposure image, service towers move away from the Russian Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft carrying an ISS crew of U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly, Russian cosmonauts Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, a few minutes before blast off at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, on October 8, 2010.
The Soyuz-FG rocket booster with Soyuz TMA-02M space ship carrying a new crew to the ISS, flies above the Baikonur Cosmodrome, on June 8, 2011. The Russian rocket carried U.S. astronaut Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.
(AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky)
A helicopter crew gets ready at Arkalyk airfield in preparation for the recovery mission of the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft with ISS crew of U.S. astronaut Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Volkov and Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, near the town of Arkalyk in northern Kazakhstan, on November 22, 2011.
A group of Russian rescue service helicopters flies over Kazakh steppe on the way from Kostanai to Arkalyk on October 23, 2008. US space tourist Richard Garriott returned from the ISS in a Soyuz capsule landing in Arkalyk, on October 24 with Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononenko, who had been in orbit since April.
(AP Photo/Dmitry Kostyukov)
Russian support personnel arrive to help meet the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft shortly after the capsule landed with Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum, and Flight Engineers Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa in a remote area outside of the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, on November 22, 2011.
(AP Photo/NASA/Bill Ingalls)
(Bonus: 1 of 3) This is a composite of a series of images photographed from a mounted camera on the Earth-orbiting International Space Station, from approximately 240 miles above Earth, released on March 22, 2012. Expedition 31 Flight Engineer (and photographer) Don Pettit: "My star trail images are made by taking a time exposure of about 10 to 15 minutes. However, with modern digital cameras, 30 seconds is about the longest exposure possible, due to electronic detector noise effectively snowing out the image. To achieve the longer exposures I do what many amateur astronomers do. I take multiple 30-second exposures, then 'stack' them using imaging software, thus producing the longer exposure." A total of 46 images photographed by the astronaut-monitored stationary camera in the Cupola were combined to create this composite.
(2 of 3) A composite of a series of images photographed from the ISS, released on March 17, 2012. Space station hardware in the foreground includes the Mini-Research Module (MRM1, center) and a Russian Progress vehicle docked to the Pirs Docking Compartment (right). A total of 47 images photographed by the astronaut-monitored stationary camera were combined to create this composite.