Cosmonaut Abdul Ahad Momand Dies at 67 in Germany
Abdul Ahad Momand, Afghanistan's first and only citizen to travel to space, has died at the age of 67. According to his family and friends, Momand succumbed to cancer on June 21 in a hospital in Stuttgart, Germany, where he had resided since fleeing Afghanistan in 1992 during the civil war.
Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani expressed his condolences on X, writing: "I am deeply saddened by the sudden death of Afghanistan’s first and only astronaut, Abdul Ahad Momand. I pray to God to grant Momand a high place in heaven, and I extend my deepest condolences to his wife, children, and other family members."
The 1988 Soyuz TM-6 Mission
In 1988, at the age of 29, Momand was serving as an air force pilot when he was selected to join the Soviet Intercosmos program, which aimed to send representatives from allied nations into orbit. After months of rigorous training, he launched aboard Soyuz TM-6 alongside Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Polyakov. The mission lasted nine days, during which Momand conducted scientific research aboard the Mir space station.
His return journey on Soyuz TM-5 was fraught with difficulty. A technical problem delayed the landing by a day, leaving Momand and Lyakhov stranded in cramped conditions with dwindling food and oxygen supplies. The incident was widely reported at the time.
Momand's Background and Statements
An Associated Press report from 1988 noted that Momand (then spelled Mohmand) had previously flown hundreds of attack missions as part of a joint Soviet-Afghan effort to quell an insurgency. Before his launch, he told Sovietskaya Rossiya that the space mission would help identify Afghanistan's mineral resources, assess hydroelectric potential, and study glaciers and earthquake risks.
In a televised message from orbit, Momand addressed his fellow citizens, saying that violence cannot be seen from outer space. "I would like to believe that such will be the situation on the land inhabited by my brothers and sisters, on the land of our fathers and mothers who have suffered so much during the years of the war," he said, according to the AP.
During his mission, Momand carried and read from the Qur'an, a moment that Ghani said introduced Afghanistan to the world "with national colors and national words" and presented its Islamic identity to the cosmos. Ghani added, "His nine days on the Mir space station made Afghans forget the bitterness of the civil wars of 1988 and the rest of that decade."
Early Life and Legacy
Momand was born in Ghazni province's Andar district in southeastern Afghanistan. He trained at military academies in Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. His death has been met with sorrow across Afghanistan, where he is remembered as a national hero. Funeral and memorial arrangements have not been announced. Momand is survived by his wife, two daughters, and a son.
