PROJECT

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GEORGI IVANOV

BULGARIAN ASTRONAUT PROGRAM

The Bulgarian astronaut program began in 1977 when members of the Bulgarian People's Air Force were trained for space tasks. Bulgaria is the only country from the Interkosmos program to send two cosmonauts into space in a time when space missions were reserved to the world powers.

BACKGROUND

Bulgaria's space activities have their beginning in August 1964, when the Minister of Defence of the Soviet Union, Marshal Malinovski, organized a meeting with the Bulgarian military attaché at the country's embassy in Moscow. Lieutenant-General Zakhari Zakhariev discussed with Malinovski the issue of sending Bulgarians into space onboard of a Soviet spacecraft. Doing so he even proposed sending already checked and approved air force officers. It seems that the time for that hadn't come yet. The space ships the Soviet Union has developed at that time were not up to the requirements for that task.

INTERKOSMOS

This changed a decade later and, according to the Interkosmos program, a leading group of countries had sent air force officers for space training.

The countries in that group were the former Czechoslovakia, Poland and the former German Democratic Republic (or East Germany).

Shortly afterwards a second group of countries sent personnel to the "Forming Center for Cosmonauts - Gagarin". The countries were Bulgaria, Cuba, Hungary, Mongolia and Romania.

INTERCOSMOS GROUP - 1978

Aleksandr Panayotov Aleksandrov. Bulgarian Pilot Cosmonaut.

Born 1 December 1951.

Dumitru Dediu. Romanian Pilot Cosmonaut.

Born 12 May 1942.

Farkas Bertalan. Hungarian Pilot Cosmonaut.

Born 2 August 1949. First Hungarian to fly in space.

Ganzorig Maidarjabyn. Mongolian Pilot Cosmonaut.

Born 5 February 1949. Gurragcha Jugderdemidiin.

Mongolian Pilot Cosmonaut. Born 5 December 1947.

First Mongolian astronaut.

INTERCOSMOS GROUP - 1978

Dumitru Dorin Prunariu. Romanian Pilot Cosmonaut.

Born 27 September 1952. First Rumanian astronaut.

Georgi Ivanov (nee Kakanov). Bulgarian Pilot Cosmonaut.

Born 2 July 1940.

First Bulgarian astronaut.

Jose Armando Lopez-Falcon. Cuban Pilot Cosmonaut.

Born 8 February 1950.

Magyari Bela. Hungarian Pilot Cosmonaut.

Born 8 August 1949.

Arnaldo Tamayo-Mendez. Cuban Pilot Cosmonaut. Born 29 January 1942. First Cuban astronaut.

First person of African descent to fly in space.

FIRST MISSION

Tests and evaluations for the Bulgarian group of astronauts started in 1977, with all of the candidates being fighter pilots of the Bulgarian People's Air Force. The reason for that is the requirement stated that all the candidates should be graduates of the "Higher People's Air Force School - Georgi Benkovski" between 1964 and 1972. In other words the absolute requirement is for a science degree (which the school starts issuing in 1964) and at least 3 years of regular flying activity.

Hundreds of air force flight officers had filled the papers for that. The Aeromedical Commission of the Bulgarian People's Air Force evaluated the candidates and those who had qualified were sent to the Sofia Military Hospital for a complete medical examination lasting several weeks.

After the severe standards had drastically reduced the number of candidates, the age limit of the volunteers had to raised in order to bring more officers in the evaluation group.

FIRST MISSION

The 15 men ranged in their air force experience from squadron leader to executive officer of an air regiment. After the final examinations the final group comprised 6 officers, those being:

Alexander Alexandrov Chavdar Dzhourov Georgi Yovchev Georgi Ivanov (although his name is Kakalov he is publicly

known by his surname) Ivan Nakov Kiril Radev Of those Dzhourov and Radev left the group for a number of

reasons and the remaining four left for Moscow. There, the Soviet physicians found that Yovchev has a cardiological problem.

According to their judgement the main trainee would be Georgi Ivanov and the first substitute - Alexander Alexandrov.

SECOND MISSION During his visit to the USSR, the Bulgarian

Minister of People's Defence Army, General Dobri Dzhourov, had come to an agreement with the Soviet government about sending a second Bulgarian cosmonaut to space onboard a Soviet spacecraft. The official paper concerning the training, and preparation, and execution of a joint Soviet-Bulgarian space mission was signed in Moscow on the August 22, 1986.

The Bulgarian officials made the decision that the financial requirements for that would be met by the constructing of science equipment at the cost of about $14 million, which would be transferred to the Soviet Union. The technology needed for the production was donated by the USSR. After a thorough medical evaluation of more than 300 air force flight officers, ten candidates were approved, of which the Soviet physicians who were sent to Bulgaria approved four:

Alexander Alexandrov Plamen Alexandrov Nikolay Raykov Krasimir Stoyanov As in the preparations for the previous Bulgarian mission

after the candidates arrived in Moscow the soviet physicians found that Plamen Alexandrov had health problems.

Of the remainder Alexander Alexandrov was approved for the main trainee post and Krasimir Stoyanov was destined to be the first substitute.

GEORGI IVANOV

Intercosmos Cosmonaut Born July ( 2, 1940 )

(age 69)Lovech, Bulgaria

Other occupation Pilot Rank Major General Time in space 1d 23h 01m Selection

1978 Intercosmos Group Missions Soyuz 33

Georgi Ivanov (born Georgi Kakalov, born July 2, 1940) was the first Bulgarian in space. He was a member of the National Assembly of Bulgaria in 1990.

Born in Lovech, Georgi Kakalov attended the Military Air-force School in Dolna Mitropolia. After completing the five-year program, he served in the Bulgarian National Army as a military pilot. A few years later he became an instructor and head of a division.

As soon as he entered the Soviet International Space Programme Intercosmos in 1978, he had to change his family name to Ivanov, because his original surname Kakalov occasionally had negative connotations in Russian. After intensive training, Ivanov was selected for the fourth mission under the Intercosmos program.

He, along with Soviet cosmonaut Nikolai Rukavishnikov, was launched into space as part of the Soyuz 33 mission from Baikonur Cosmodrome on April 10, 1979, at 17:34 (GMT).

Though take-off was smooth, the mission was a disaster, with severe damage of the engine preventing docking in orbit to Salyut 6 orbital station as it was initially planned.

A premature return to Earth became the only possible decision for Ivanov and Rukavishnikov. Due to some additional technical problems landing was difficult to endure — more than 9Gs.

When Soyuz 33 finally landed, it was 320 km southeast of Dzhezkazgan. It completed 31 orbits, and was in space for 1 day, 23 hours and 1 minute.

Till 1982 Ivanov was married to Natalya Rousanova and they had one daughter, Ani (born 1967). Later they divorced.

Now he is married to Lidia and they have one son, Ivan (born 1984).

His hobbies include skiing, fishing and golf. Ivanov is a Member of the ASE — Association of the Space

Explorers. He founded the Future in Space Foundation. Ivanov was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on

April 13, 1979 [1] Georgi Ivanov earned a Ph.D. in space engineering. He was elected to the National Assembly and took part in the

creation of the new democratic Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Since 1993, Ivanov has been the executive director of Air Sofia Ltd.