Bulgarian astronaut program

Bulgaria is the only country from the signatories of the "Interkosmos" programme to send two cosmonauts into space. This happened at the time when missions to space were still 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 and the Bulgarian military ataché at the country's embassy in Moscow Lieutenant-General Zakhari Zakhariev discussed with him the issue of sending Bulgarians into space on-board of a soviet spacecraft. Doing so he even proposed already checked and approved air force officers. It seems that the time for that hasn't come yet and at the moment is a little more than just a dream. The space ships the Soviet Union has developed at that time are not up to the requirements for that task.

Intercosmos

This changes a decade later and according to the Intercosmos programme a leading group of countries has sent air force officers for space training. The countries of that group are 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 Centre for Cosmonauts - Gagarin". The countries of that group were Bulgaria, Cuba, Hungary, Mongolia and Romania.

Tests and evaluations for the Bulgarian group of candidates starts in 1977 with all of the candidates being fighter pilots of the Bulgarian People's Air Force. The reason for that is the requirement, stating that all the candidates should be graduates of the "Higher People's Air Force School - Georgi Benkovski" in the period 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 have filled the papers for that. The Aeromedical Commission of the Bulgarian People's Air Force evaluates the candidates and those, who have quallified were sent to the Sofia Military Hospital for a complete medical examination lasting several weeks. After the severe standards have drastically reduced the number of candidates the limit about the age of the volunteers had to raised in order to bring more officers in the evatuation group. The 15 men ranged in their air force expirience 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 RadevOf 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 substitude - Alexander Alexandrov.

econd mission

During his visit to the USSR the Bulgarian Minister of People's Defence Army General Dobri Dzhourov has 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 22nd of August 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 $14.000.000, 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. Those being:
* Alexander Alexandrov
* Plamen Alexandrov
* Nikolay Raykov
* Krasimir StoyanovAs 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.