BTA News

BTA’s LIK Magazine Dedicated to Bulgaria’s History of Space Research Available in English

BTA’s April issue of LIK magazine, entitled Bulgarian Footprint in Space, has been translated into English. The issue is dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the flight into Earth orbit performed by the first Bulgarian cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov on April 10, 1979.

Ivanov was gifted a copy of the magazine by BTA Director General Kiril Valchev on November 10.

The issue contains an interview with Ivanov as well as highlights from BTA’s archive that document Bulgaria’s history with space. Those include the two space flights, which included Bulgarian cosmonauts: Ivanov’s flight in 1979 and Alexander Alexandrov’s flight nine years later.

Others who contributed to the magazine are Prof. Dr Georgi Jelev, Director of the Space Research and Technology Institute at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS); Assoc. Prof. Dr Vladimir Bozhilov, astrophysicist and Vice Dean of the Faculty of Physics at Sofia University; Milena Georgieva, molecular biologist at the Institute of Molecular Biology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences; Solomon Passy, founder of the Atlantic Club of Bulgaria and one of the organizers behind the youth science festival Hello Space, Bulgaria Calling.

The magazine is illustrated with photographs from the BTA archive related to space and its exploration in the 20th and 21st century, as well as with images from the preparation of the two space flights with Bulgarian astronauts on board. It is free to download as a PDF from BTA’s website.