Baikonur, Kazakhstan ? Kazakhstan launched its first satellite into orbit Sunday, the first step in the ex-Soviet republic’s plan to join the exclusive club of spacefaring nations.

The oil-rich Central Asian nation of 15 million people is home to the world’s largest space center, the Baikonur cosmodrome. It has been leasing the Soviet-built facility to Russia, but President Nursultan Nazarbayev wants his nation to build its own space industry.

Russian President Vladimir Putin joined the Kazakh leader early Sunday as they watched the KazSat 1 satellite, mounted on a Russian built Proton-K rocket, soar into the pre-dawn skies.

The satellite is designed to provide television and communication services for Kazakhstan, part of Russia and three other nations – Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.

Igor Panarin, a Russian space agency spokesman, said the launch signifies that Kazakhstan “has become a space nation.”

Kazakhstan is planning space exploration missions and has reached an agreement to participate in Russian projects involving Baikonur, said Serik Turzhanov, who heads the national space agency, Kazkosmos.

Set in the isolated western steppes of Kazakhstan, Baikonur was the scene of the historic launches of the first satellite to orbit the Earth and the initial flight of pioneer cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Today, it’s Russia’s main launch site for manned space flights.

Only Russia, the United States and China have launched a human into orbit on their own.