In recent years Plesetsk, the world's most northerly space launch pad in the Arkhangelsk Region, 160 kilometers from the White Sea coast and 420 kilometers from the Arctic Circle, has become better known. Its popularity soared after the disintegration of the USSR, when independent Kazakhstan exercised its rights over the ̱Baikonur Baikonur Cosmodrome, the USSR's main launching complex. Built in 1955-57. Situated in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic, to the east of the Aral Sea.launch site.

Like Baikonur, Plesetsk was built as a military test ground for intercontinental missiles. The decision to build Plesetsk was made in January 1957, before the first ̱R-7 R-7: a superrocket initially designed as a means of delivering H-bomb and used later as the prototype of the rockets for the first Soviet space flights.or the first satellite was launched and before the term cosmodrome, or launch site, existed. It is hard to say which of the two - Plesetsk or Baikonur - was the most difficult to build. The most basic human needs of the builders themselves were always ignored and work continued, in effect, round the clock. Bare ground gave way, in all projects, in what seemed like no time at all, to unique feats of engineering in the harshest of conditions. The only difference was the kind of natural hardships which had to be overcome: the dust and heat of ̱Kapustin Yar;Kapustin Yar Rocket Range. Situated on the left, Asian bank of the Volga River not far from Volgograd.the sand, heat and cold of Baikonur; and the marshland, cold and more cold at Plesetsk. Winter in Plesetsk lasts six or seven months and temperatures are as low as 35-40 degrees below freezing. As the locals there say, tongue in cheek, "summer here is awful, but at least it's short." In spring, two small rivers flood over a wide area. The taiga is very marshy, and areas of solid earth form small islands.

It was decided in May 1964 to transform the site at Plesetsk from a purely military installation into a semi-civilian one. The first civilian satellite, Kosmos-112, was launched from Plesetsk on March 17, 1966. In recent years foreign researchers and engineers have visited Plesetsk, or, to be precise Mirny, the town that has grown up around the cosmodrome, frequently. Of all of the former USSR's launch sites, Plesetsk has been developing especially rapidly and has launched nearly 2,000 spacecraft and satellites to date - more than any other launch site in the world.