The infiltration of Spanish urban explorers into the Russian Baikonur cosmodrome

@ElentirENG ES 1·20·2024 · 22:46 0

In 2018 I published here a video of an infiltration of urban explorers in Baikonur, the huge Russian cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

They sneak into a Russian base and there record two abandoned space shuttles
Spain: huge abandoned satellite dishes that participated in a NASA program

Built in 1955, during Soviet times, after the disappearance of the USSR the Russian space agency Roscosmos and the Russian Armed Forces have continued to operate this enormous spaceport, which is leased until 2050 to Kazakhstan. One of the most interesting places in this cosmodrome, and surely the one that most attracts groups of urban explorers, is a huge hangar called MZK, where two of the Soviet space shuttles from the Buran program are preserved, the OK-1K2 "Ptichka" and the OK-4M. This hangar is in the inactive part of the cosmodrome, in an area called MIK 112.

Near the MZK hangar and also in MIK 112 is the SDI (Dynamic Test Bed), where a full-scale model of the Soviet Energia launcher is preserved, whose purpose was to transport the Buran shuttles to the space. The original rocket was 60 meters high and more than 20 meters in diameter, so this hangar is colossal.

Both the hangar and the Buran shuttles and the model of the Energia launcher are abandoned, but Russia maintains military teams guarding the area so that curious people do not enter. Without much success, judging by the upcoming videos. publishing from that place. Among the latest intruders of that place there has been a group of urban explorers made up of two Spaniards and two French. One of them, Alfon What, published a video a few days ago telling the adventure of him in detail (the video is in Spanish, you can activate the automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

This video is of great quality and unlike the videos of other explorers who have sneaked into Baikonur, Alfon What shows us what the whole adventure was like, including a very long journey through the Kazakh desert to the cosmodrome, making the final stretch in the middle of the night, in complete darkness, so as not to be detected by the spaceport guards.

The images of the shuttles obtained by this Spanish explorer are excellent, although in that MZK hangar one of the worst things that could have happened to these explorers happened: they were discovered by Russian watchmen. In the video you can see how things went.

Far from being discouraged, three of the explorers returned to the cosmodrome to see the Energia rocket, managing to infiltrate successfully although fighting against enormous fatigue. In short, a spectacular adventure that is very well told in the video.