Forty-seven years since the flight of Bulgaria’s first cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov

Forty-seven years ago, Georgi Ivanov became the first Bulgarian to go into space. On this day in 1979, at 20:34 Moscow time, the Soyuz-33 spacecraft was launched into orbit. Georgi Ivanov was on board together with mission commander Nikolai Rukavishnikov.

Due to a technical malfunction, the spacecraft failed to dock with the Salyut-6 orbital station. The two cosmonauts managed to land 320 km southeast of Dzhezkazgan (Kazakhstan) after completing thirty-one full orbits around the Earth. Ivanov and Rukavishnikov spent one day, 23 hours and 1 minute in space.

• Two Bulgarians flew among the stars

Throughout the mission, the Bulgarian cosmonaut remained calm. His pulse did not exceed normal levels even during the emergency landing.

Edited by Diana Tsankova

Translated by Kostadin Atanasov