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'''Tyuratam''' ({{lang-kz|'''Төретам''', ''Töretam''}}; {{lang-ru|'''Тюратам'''}}) is a station on the main [[Moscow]] to [[Tashkent]] railway, located in [[Kazakhstan]]. The name is a word in the [[Kazakh language]] and means "Töre's grave"; Töre, or more formally, Töre-Baba, was a noble, a descendant of [[Genghis Khan]]. Tyuratam is near the [[Baikonur Cosmodrome]], a [[Russia]]n - formerly [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] - [[spaceport]], and near the city of [[Baikonur]] (formerly Leninsk), which was constructed to service the cosmodrome.

At a press conference for the [[Apollo-Soyuz Test Project]], [[Jules Bergman]] of [[ABC News]] asked:<blockquote>
"Baykonur, if you'll look on the coordinates, is 135 miles [217 km] away or something. Tyuratam may only be a railhead, but it is the Tyuratam Launch Complex. They call it Baykonur, I know. . . . I'm going to call it Tyuratam. ABC is going to call it Tyuratam. SAC [[Strategic Air Command]] calls it Tyuratam. Can we once and for all straighten that out and arrive at a . . . name for it, Tom?"<ref>
{{cite web | url = http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4209/ch9-12.htm | title = The Partnership: A History of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project |author=[[NASA]]| publisher = NASA}}
</ref></blockquote>

In the mid 1950s, the Soviet Union announced that space activities were being conducted from the Baykonur Cosmodrome, which was assumed to be near the city of Baykonur, in the [[Kazakh SSR]]. In reality, the launch facilities were located {{convert|400|km|mi}} to the southwest at Tyuratam to obfuscate the west as to its true location.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Pike|first1=John|title=Baikonur Cosmodrome 45.9 N 63.3 E, TYURATAM - Overview, Supporting Facilities and Launch Vehicles of the Soviet Space Program, The 1971-1975 study|url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/world/russia/baikonur.htm|website=GlobalSecurity.org|publisher=mypressplus.com|accessdate=30 April 2016}}</ref>

It was this launch site that the [[CIA]] was trying to locate by systematically tracking over the major rail networks of the Soviet Union in [[Soviet Central Asia|Central Asia]] with [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]] spy planes. The site was discovered and photographed in 1957. [[Gary Powers|Francis Gary Powers]] was scheduled to overfly it on his ill-fated mission in 1960, but either due to detecting the guidance radar of the defending [[S-75 Dvina#Employment|SA-2]] missile battery or cloud cover which prevented him from photographing the site, he avoided Tyuratam and was later shot down over the [[Ural mountains]]. <ref>{{cite web|last1=Zak|first1=Anatoly|title=Secrecy around Baikonur|url=http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikonur_secrecy.html|website=Russian Space Web|publisher=Anatoly Zak|accessdate=30 April 2016}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikonur.html Map]

{{coord|45|39|00|N|63|18|50|E|region:KZ_type:city|display=title}}

[[Category:Populated places in Kazakhstan]]

{{Kazakhstan-geo-stub}}

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OctaviusPublius: Removed editorializing adverb