Plesetsk Cosmodrome , a
Russian spaceport located in
Mirny,
Arkhangelsk Oblast, about 800 km north of
Moscow and approximately 200 km south of
Arkhangelsk, dates from 1957. Originally developed as an
ICBM site for the
R-7 missile, it also served for numerous
satellite launches using the R-7 and other rockets. Its high
latitude makes it useful only for certain types of launches, especially the
Molniya orbits, so for much of the site's history it functioned as a secondary location, with most orbital launches taking place from
Baikonur, in the
Kazakh SSR. With the
end of the
Soviet Union, for Russia Baikonur became foreign territory which charged usage fees, so Plesetsk has seen considerably more activity since the 2000s.