Baikonur was the chief operations centre of the Soviets' ambitious space program from the 1960s through the '80s and is equipped with complete facilities for launching both manned and unmanned space vehicles. The facility and supporting town were originally built in the mid-1950s as a long-range-missile centre, which was later expanded to include space-flight facilities. Several historic flights originated there: that of the first artificial satellite (1957), the first manned orbital flight (Yury Gagarin; 1961), and the flight of the first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova; 1963). The town supporting the facility was raised to city status in 1966 and named Leninsk. The facility remained the base of the Soviet space program until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, after which it continued to function under Russian auspices. Pop. (1991 est.) Leninsk, 73,000.