Kapustin Yar is a Russian rocket launch complex in Astrakhan Oblast, about 100 km east of Volgograd. It was established by the Soviet Union on 13 May 1946. In the beginning, Kapustin Yar used technology, material, and scientific support gained from the defeat of Germany in World War II. Numerous launches of test rockets for the Russian military were carried out at the site, as well as satellite and sounding rocket launches. The towns of Znamensk and Kapustin Yar were built nearby to serve the missile test range.
R-2A and R-5A geophysical rockets
Layout of the first Cosmos-1 satellite at the test site
R-2A rocket with two test dogs (Palma and Kusachka)
RSD-10 missiles prepared for destruction
The V2, with the technical name Aggregat 4 (A4), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a "vengeance weapon" and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings of German cities. The V2 rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944.
Peenemünde Museum replica of V2
Wernher von Braun at Peenemünde Army Research Center.
Wind tunnel model of an A4 in the German Museum of Technology in Berlin.
Layout of a V2 rocket.