site.btaApril 10, 1979: First Bulgarian in Space

On April 10, 1979, Bulgaria became the world's sixth nation to put a person in outer space, after the USSR, the US, Czechoslovakia, Poland and East Germany and ahead of France, India, Japan, Britain and China. On this date, Bulgarian Pilot Cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov - only the 92nd Earthling to leave the planet, was launched into space on board the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 33 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 8:34 p.m. Moscow time (17:34:34 GMT). 

Georgi Ivanov was born in Lovech (North Central Bulgaria) on July 2, 1940. For him, flying was a teenage dream fulfilled. He graduated from the Georgi Benkovski Higher Air Force School in Dolna Mitropolia in 1964 as a licensed pilot engineer. He served with the Bulgarian Air Force as an instructor pilot and a fighter aircraft pilot, unit commander and squadron commander, mastering several types of combat aircraft and logging approximately 2,000 hours' total flight time. Ivanov rose through the ranks, from lieutenant in 1964 to major in 1979.