Creation On 3 June 1947, by the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) No. 2642–817, Kapustin Yar was designated as the location of the new rocket test site. Voznyuk was appointed head of the training ground. The first officers arrived at the future training ground on 20 August 1947. In September 1947, a special brigade of the Reserve of the Supreme Main Command, Major General of Artillery, arrived from Germany with A. F. Tveretsky (the 22nd BON RVGK since 1950), plus two special trains with equipment taken from Germany. By the beginning of October 1947, in addition to the concrete test stand and bunker at the first site, a launch site with a bunker, a temporary technical position, and an installation building were built. Additionally, a highway and a 20-kilometer railway line connecting the site with the main highway to Stalingrad (Volgograd) were built. Site housing was not constructed until 1948. Until then, builders and testers lived in tents, dugouts, temporary buildings, and peasant izba in the village of Kapustin Yar. Guide landfill lived in special train. By 1 October 1947, Voznyuk reported the site was ready for launching rockets. On 14 October 1947, the first batch of V-2 rockets arrived at the test site. On 18 October 1947 at 10:47 Moscow time, the first launch of ballistic missile in the USSR was made. From 18 October to 13 November 1947, eleven V-2 rockets were launched; seven of these achieved the targeted range (two of them with a large deviation from the set trajectory) and four failed. From 1947 to 1957, Kapustin Yar was the only place to test Soviet ballistic missiles, including the R-1 (September–October 1948, September–October 1949), R-2 (September–October 1949), R-5 Pobeda (March 1953), R-12 Dvina, and R-14 Chusovaya, among others. During 1957–1959, the intercontinental cruise missile "Burya" started at the Kapustin Yar proving ground. On 2 September 1959, the R-12 became the first missile launched from a missile silo. In June 1951, the State R&D Test Range No 8 (GNIIP-8, "test range S") was established at Kapustin Yar. Photo-reconnaissance flights Western intelligence services learned about the existence of the test site from German scientists returning to their homeland. For an additional gathering of intelligence in August 1953, a specially-trained Royal Air Force reconnaissance Canberra (Canberra PR3, tail number WH726) was equipped with a unique Robin camera.