Sary Shagan is an anti-ballistic missile testing range located in Kazakhstan at coordinates .
On 17 August 1956 the Soviet Council of Ministers authorized plans for an experimental facility for missile defense located at Sary Shagan, on the west bank of Lake Balkhash. The first missile launched from the facility[1] was a V-1000 on 16 October 1958, but the facilities for full scale testing were not ready until 1961.[2] Sary Shagan remains in use to this day, with the latest known launch at 30 October 2007.[1][3] Sary Shagan was a closed city until 2005.
The Sary Shagan range was the intended landing site for the sample return canister of the Russian Phobos Grunt mission.
In the 1970s the Vympel OKB built the Terra-3 laser testing centre at Sary Shagan.
In 1977 the site was expanded with a modern Pechora/Daryal-type radar, to replace the old Dnepr missile early warning radars. This new radar never became operational, shut down in the early 1990s and burnt down in 2004.[4] [5]
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