Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez

He is the first Latin American to fly to space, an event that occurred over a week starting on September 18, 1980 alongside cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko. Upon his return, he was decorated in Moscow with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union, and upon returning to his homeland he received the first medal of Hero of the Republic of Cuba.

First Latin American to fly to space and first Cuban cosmonaut, he is today a Brigadier General and Chief of the Department of Foreign Relations of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (Ministry of Defense) of Cuba.

Arnaldo Tamayo was born into a humble family. Being an orphan, he began working at age 13 as a shoe shiner and carpenter's assistant. After the revolution he enrolled at the Technical Institute "Ejército Rebelde" and later joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

He became a combat pilot and took the MiG-15 fighter pilot course in the USSR when he was only 19 years old. Later, in 1962 during the "October Crisis" he carried out multiple patrol missions.

For four years, until 1975, he was Chief of Staff of the Santa Clara Aviation Brigade. In 1976 he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. In 1978 he was selected to join the Intercosmos program and relocated to the City of Stars in the Soviet Union for his training.

In 1980 he carried out the historic space flight of the first Latin American, aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 38. Upon his return he was decorated with the first honorary medal of Hero of the Republic of Cuba. In Moscow he received the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star of Hero of the Soviet Union from the Soviet government.

From that same year, Arnaldo Tamayo has been a deputy to the National Assembly of the People's Power (Legislative Power) of Cuba. He is president of the Parliamentary Friendship Group Cuba-Russia and of the Cuba-Russia Friendship Association.

From 1981-1982 he was president of the Society of Patriotic-Military Education (SEPMI), dissolved in the early 1990s.

On October 26, 1987, Arnaldo Tamayo and his colleague Yuri Romanenko established the first radio bridge Cuba-cosmos with Cuban scientists and journalists through a radio link that connected the Mir orbital complex (where Romanenko was on his third space mission and at the same time setting a new duration record) by means of the geostationary satellite Statsionar-4 (Gorizont-7).

Today, apart from his work as a legislator, General Tamayo also serves as Chief of the Department of Foreign Relations of the Cuban Armed Forces.

Arnaldo Tamayo is the father of two children.

Chronology of the Soyuz 38 Mission

On September 18, 1980 at 15:11 the Soyuz carrier rocket departed from the Baikonur Cosmodrome (in Kazakhstan) which would place the Soyuz 38 spacecraft in orbit, aboard which the joint Soviet-Cuban crew made up of Yuri V. Romanenko and Arnaldo Tamayo conducted their flight to and from the Salyut-6 orbital complex.

There they met with the resident crew, made up of cosmonauts Leonid Popov and Valeri Ryumin, and conducted a series of experiments over the course of a week, after which they returned to Earth on September 26, 1980.

A large part of the research and technological experiments program of the mission was prepared by the National Academy of Sciences of Cuba and included scientific tasks such as the cultivation of the first organic single crystals in microgravity using Cuban sugar, medical-biological experiments (including some dedicated to investigating the causes of space adaptation syndrome) and the exploration from space of the territory of the Caribbean island and its continental shelf in the search for minerals and possible oil deposits.

Among the Cuban scientists who participated in the design of the medical-biological experiments was professor Roberto Hernández Corvo.

Once the research program was concluded, the cosmonauts transferred the experimental and research materials conducted aboard to the descent module on September 25 and landed the following day.

Arnaldo Tamayo represented in space Cuba, Latin America, Africa, and the "Third World." The backup crew was made up of cosmonauts Yevgeny V. Khrunov and José Armando López Falcón.