Upon arriving at Mir, Aleksandrov became the first Bulgarian to reach a Soviet space station, as the Soyuz 33 mission carrying Georgi Ivanov failed to reach the Salyut 6 space station.
Though take-off was smooth, the mission was a disaster, with severe damage of the engine preventing docking in orbit to Salyut 6 orbital station as it was initially planned.
While aboard, on 19 July, they sent their greetings to the Olympians and wished them happy starts in the live communication between the station and the Central Lenin Stadium, where the opening ceremony of the 1980 Summer Olympics was held.
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Vladimír Remek of Czechoslovakia, the first space traveller not from the US or USSR, visited Salyut 6 in 1978, and the station hosted cosmonauts from Hungary, Poland, Romania, Cuba, Mongolia, Vietnam, and East Germany.
Salyut 6 | Salyut 3 | ''Salyut'' |
In 1980, cosmonaut Phạm Tuân became the first Vietnamese and the first Asian to go into space, traveling on the Soviet Soyuz 37 to service the Salyut 6 space station.
The first was launched and landed with the spacecraft Soyuz 32, and lasted for 175 days; it was the third long-duration expedition on the space station Salyut 6, called Salyut 6 EO-3.