Teams of the Higher Air Force School in Dolna Mitropolia participated in the “Shipka” project, Assoc. Yulian Stanchev told BTA

Teams with various developments of the “Georgi Benkovski” Higher Air Force School in Dolna Mitropolia participated in the preparation of the second Soviet-Bulgarian space flight under the “Shipka” project. This was told to BTA by Prof. Dr. Yulian Stanchev, a teacher in the Department of “Electrical Engineering, Automation and Information Technologies” at the school and who participated in the project for two years in a row.
He was a special guest today at the National Press Club of BTA in Pleven during the online presentation of the April issue of the “LIC” magazine – “Bulgarian Trail in Space”.
In February 1987, Prof. Stanchev, then chief assistant in aerodynamics, together with Prof. Veselin Zaekov and chief assistant Kosta Mitov are leaving for the Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow. “In the condition of the contract, the Russian side wanted us to provide four computers, 16-bit – the first produced in Bulgaria with color monitors, together with programming in the language “Pascal”. They were developed in this language with the participation of representatives from the Training Center tests in various disciplines from the medical-biological training, which is quite voluminous and complex. The management of the Center wanted to have an objective evaluation of the astronaut candidates, because there was dissatisfaction that some evaluations were not objective and they wanted a computer to evaluate the candidates” you are Assoc. Stanchev.
He added that in the discussion process, the idea for a new system arose, which he implemented after returning to Bulgaria. It is for the qualitative assessment of the knowledge of the trainees in the medical-biological training, implemented in April 1988 during the then second visit of Prof. Stanchev to the Cosmonaut Training Center.
“Under the Shipka project, I and my colleagues participated in the creation of automated training systems, which were subsequently used for the training of other crews and candidates,” added Associate Professor Stanchev.
Among the interesting exhibits that Prof. Stanchev showed in the BTA press club in Pleven is food for cosmonauts from 1986, vacuumed and well preserved.
According to the teacher at VVVU “Georgi Benkovski”, today among the current cadets – pilots there are ambitious young people who want and dream of being prepared for cosmonauts. He added that not a small part of the subjects studied at the school are related to space topics.