site.btaLIK Magazine April Issue Themed on "Bulgarian Footprint in Space"

"The Bulgarian Footprint in Space" is the theme of the April 2024 issue of BTA's LIK magazine, which will be launched at a special event at the news agency on April 22, with video links from BTA national press clubs countrywide. The issue is inspired by the 45th anniversary of the first space flight by a Bulgarian, Georgi Ivanov, which took place on April 10, 1979.

In chronological order, the magazine quotes highlights from the news archive and pictures from the BTA photo archives, which trace the long history of the relationship between Bulgaria and space.

Bulgarian science's contribution to space research dates back to the 1950s. BTA covered Bulgarian scientists' participation in various symposiums and seminars exploring space options. The agency commented on the development of the first Bulgarian spacecraft and discussed the country's sharing in various space research projects on a part with other States.

BTA provided especially enthusiastic coverage of the two space flights involving Bulgarians: Georgi Ivanov in 1979 and Alexander Alexandrov in 1988.

"From a distance of 300 to 400 km, the Earth looks very beautiful with its blue green oceans and seas. Large white patches of cloud are visible, and the stars are much brighter. During our flight, there was a full moon and it was very beautiful against the background of the black sky. I then managed to take dozens of pictures with my camera, beautiful photographs of the Earth and the Moon from outer space. The Earth, our native planet, is very small, fragile and defenceless. That is why we must protect it for future generations," cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov says in an interview for LIK.

The Director of the Space Research and Technology Institute with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Prof. Dr Georgi Jelev, writes in the issue: "Historically, Bulgaria is among the space research pioneer countries. It started back in 1957, when two months after the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik, was put into orbit, a group of scientists, engineers and specialists established the Bulgarian Astronautical Society in Sofia on December 8, 1957".

The magazine has also interviewed Assoc. Prof. Dr Vladimir Bozhilov, an astrophysicist and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Physics of the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, and with Assoc. Prof. Milena Georgieva, a molecular biologist of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

The issue is illustrated with pictures from the BTA archives about space research by 20th and 21st century scientists and photographic coverage of the preparations for the two space flights with Bulgarians on board.