Located on the western coast of

Space exploration

Mir, Russian space station that operated in LEO
Roscosmos is Russia's national space agency. The country's achievements in the field of space technology and space exploration can be traced back to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, the father of theoretical astronautics, whose works had inspired leading Soviet rocket engineers, such as Sergey Korolyov, Valentin Glushko, and many others who contributed to the success of the Soviet space program in the early stages of the Space Race and beyond.^{[427]: 6–7, 333}
In 1957, the first Earth-orbiting artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched. In 1961, the first human trip into space was successfully made by Yuri Gagarin. Many other Soviet and Russian space exploration records ensued. In 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first and youngest woman in space, having flown a solo mission on Vostok 6.^[428] In 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first human to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the space capsule during Voskhod 2.^[429]
In 1957, Laika, a Soviet space dog, became the first animal to orbit the Earth, aboard Sputnik 2.^[430] In 1966, Luna 9 became the first spacecraft to achieve a survivable landing on a celestial body, the Moon.^[431] In 1968, Zond 5 brought the first Earthlings (two tortoises and other life forms) to circumnavigate the Moon.^[432] In 1970, Venera 7 became the first spacecraft to land on another planet, Venus.^[433] In 1971, Mars 3 became the first spacecraft to land on Mars.^{[434]: 34–60} During the same period, Lunokhod 1 became the first space exploration rover,^[435] while Salyut 1 became the world's first space station.^[436]
Russia had 172 active satellites in space in April 2022, the world's third-highest.^[437] Between the final flight of the Space Shuttle program in 2011 and the 2020 SpaceX's first crewed mission, Soyuz rockets were the only launch vehicles able for transporting astronauts to the ISS.^[438] Luna 25 launched in August 2023, is the first of the Luna-Glob Moon exploration programme.^[439]