Ulaanbaatar
This day marks 36th anniversary of Mongolia's space travel
视频On this day 36 years ago, a Mongolian flew into space. Jugderdemidiin Gurragchaa along with the Soviet cosmonaut V.A.Janibekov took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 14.58 of March 22, 1981.
In eight days of space travel, the two cosmonauts have circled the Earth for 124 times and landed back on their home planet on March 30.
Thus, Mongolia became the 10th country in the world to send off a cosmonaut to space, 5th country to test its technology in space and 20th to create space equipment, which was tested in space.
Mongolia’s first and only space traveler J.Gurragchaa was born on December 5 of 1947 in Gurvanbulag soum of Bulgan aimag. After graduating from a local high school, Gurragchaa went to serve in the army in 1966. In 1971, he studied in the aviation academy in the Frunze city of the former USSR, modern-day Bishkek, the capital city of the Kyrgyz Republic.
J.Gurragchaa graduated in 1973 from Jukov’s Air Force Academy in Moscow.
From 1978, he had begun training as cosmonaut along with his Mongolian colleague M.Ganzorig at the Space Training Centre named after Yurii Gagarin. At the time, he was a Captain in the Mongolian People’s Army.
Between 2000 and 2004, he was the Minister of Defense and a member of the government cabinet headed by N.Enkhbayar. In 2004, he was elected to the State Great Khural (Parliament).
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