Ivan Bella

• I Stefanik   Soyuz TM -28 TM-29/Sojus (1999)

Ivan Bella ( born May 25, 1964 in Dolna Lehota / district Brezno, Czechoslovakia) is a pilot and former cosmonaut. He is the first and only Slovak in space.

Training

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

Space flights

Ivan Bella flew to the Russian commander Viktor Afanasyev and Frenchman Jean -Pierre Haigneré aboard Soyuz TM -29 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome by a Soyuz rocket to the space station Mir. This was the first mission with only one Russian cosmonaut on board, since two of the three seats were rented out to other nations (France and Slovakia). This meant that the on-board the Mir flight engineer Sergei Avdeev had to do twice as long stay. After the return of Ivan Bella with the commander of the crew of EO -26, Gennady Padalka in Soyuz TM -28 was the new Mir EO -27 crew of Viktor Afanasyev, Sergey Avdeev and Frenchman Jean -Pierre Haigneré.

Bella is currently Militarattacheé in Moscow. The pilot holds the rank of captain of the Slovak Air Force.

Ivan Bella is married and has two children.

In 2011 he was honored by Dmitry Medvedev on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the space flight of Yuri Gagarin with a Medal for Merit in the conquest of space.