Russia’s largest operational missile testing and rocket-launching site with nine launch pads, located 170 km south of Arkhangel, Russia. From 1966 the USSR, and later Russia, launched (mainly military) artificial satellites from here. Many are now from other countries, such as Nigeria's NigeriaSat 1, launched on 27 September 2003, and Japan's SERVIS-1, launched on 30 October 2003. In June 2017, a modified Soyuz rocket launched Russia’s Kosmos 2519 satellite, which might be the first of several ‘14F150 Napryazhinie’ geodetic satellites designed to make extremely accurate measurements of Earth’s shape and gravitational field. The Cosmodrome is controlled by the Voenno-Kosmicheski Sily (VKS; Military Space Forces).