Ivan Bella

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Ivan Bella
Ivan Bella
Country: Slovakia
selected on March 23, 1998
Calls: 1 space flight
Begin: February 20, 1999
Landing: February 28, 1999
Time in space: 7d 21h 56min
retired on February 28, 1999
Space flights

Ivan Bella (born May 25, 1964 in Dolná Lehota , Okres Brezno , Czechoslovakia ) is a pilot and former cosmonaut . He is the first and so far only Slovak in space .

education

Ivan Bella was born in the small village of Dolná Lehota in the Brezno district on the edge of the Low Tatras . From 1979 to 1983 he studied at the officers' school in Banská Bystrica , after which he attended the military academy in Košice , which he finished in 1987. In 1983 he was a pilot of a tactical squadron at the 33rd Air Force Base in Malacky . On March 23, 1998, Bella was selected as a cosmonaut. From March to August 1998 he received his basic cosmonaut training.

Space flights

Ivan Bella flew with the Russian commander Viktor Afanassjew and the French Jean-Pierre Haigneré aboard Soyuz TM-29 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in a Soyuz rocket to the Mir space station . This was the first mission with only a single Russian spaceman on board, as two of the three seats were leased to other nations (France and Slovakia). This meant that the flight engineer Sergei Avdejew on board the Mir had to stay twice as long. After Ivan Bella returned with the commander of the regular crew EO-26, Gennady Padalka in Soyuz TM-28 , the new Mir crew EO-27 consisted of Viktor Afanassjew, Sergei Avdejew and the Frenchman Jean-Pierre Haigneré.

Bella is currently a military attaché in Moscow . The pilot holds the rank of colonel in the Slovak Air Force.

Ivan Bella is married and has two children.

In 2011, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's space flight, he was awarded a medal for services to conquering space by Dmitry Medvedev .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marika Adamovská: Slovak astronaut awarded by Medvedev . In: Radio Slovakia International . April 13, 2011

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bella, Ivan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Slovak cosmonaut and pilot
DATE OF BIRTH May 25, 1964
PLACE OF BIRTH Brezno , Czechoslovakia