The first Bulgarian cosmonaut was Georgi Ipanov, who made his space flight in April 1979 on the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz-33 together with cosmonaut Nikolai Rukavishnikov. The automatic control system of the Soyuz-33 failed. The Soyuz-33 did not reach the calculated orbit. The planned docking with the Salyut-6 station did not take place, the spacecraft returned to Earth ahead of schedule. The issue was about saving the crew. Only thanks to the courage of the cosmonauts and the professionalism of the experienced spacecraft commander Nikolai Rukavishnikov, who took manual control of the ship, was a safe landing possible.

This was the fourth manned flight under the Intercosmos program. Bulgaria became the sixth country whose citizen flew into space.

As compensation for the unsuccessful flight of the first cosmonaut, Bulgaria received a second cosmonaut. Alexander Alexandrov flew into space in June 1988. The flight of the second Bulgarian cosmonaut went quite well. The docking with the Mir station was completed and the flight program was fully completed.

List of Bulgarian cosmonauts.