 Official space cooperation began in 1966 with the establishment of the Interkosmos programme which allowed Communist Bloc countries to access Soviet space technology and assets.Under Interkosmos, Bulgaria sent its first cosmonaut, Georgi Ivanov, to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979 and became the sixth country in the world to have a citizen in space.However, a malfunction in his Soyuz 33 spacecraft prevented the crew from docking, and Ivanov only spent 31 orbits around Earth before safely descending back to Earth.