Stone from Baikonur launch pad

On the occasion of the official opening of the Soyuz launch base, a commemorative plaque was unveiled and a stone from the Baikonur launch pad from which the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin took off in 1961 was deposited on the site.

This stone is a powerful symbol of the continuity between the Russian launch site, which saw the start of the space age with Sputnik followed by the first human spaceflight, and the setting-up of a Soyuz launch operation in French Guiana. The arrival of Soyuz marks the culmination of 40 years of space cooperation between France and Russia, a decade of industrial cooperation in the Starsem framework, and the long-standing cooperation between ESA and Russia's Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).