Abdul Ahad Mohmand

During his nine days stay on the Mir space station, Momand took photographs of his country, participated in astrophysical, medical and biological experiments. He also spoke to Afghanistan’s president, Mohammed Najibullah, and brewed Afghan tea for the crew.

Following the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, Mohmand decided to emigrate to Germany in 1992 and applied for asylum there, becoming a German citizen in 2003. He worked in printing services and now as an accountant residing in Ostfildern near Stuttgart.

Along with Commander Vladimir Lyakhov and Flight Engineer Valery Polyakov, Mohmand was part of the Soyuz TM-6 three-man crew, which launched at 04:23 GMT 29 August 1988. Momand's inclusion in the mission was a significant symbol during the Soviet–Afghan War.

Mohmand was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 7 September 1988.

Abdul Ahad Mohmand (Pashto: عبدالاحد مومند ‎; born 1959) is a former Afghan Air Force aviator who became the first Afghan and fourth Muslim to journey to outer space. He became one of Soyuz TM-6 crew members and spent nine days aboard the Mir space station in 1988 as an Intercosmos Research Cosmonaut. He holds many records as an Afghan Astronaut. During this mission, Abdul Ahad Mohmand was the first cosmonaut to speak the Pashto language after he made a telephone call to Afghanistan, making it the fourth language to be officially spoken in space. He became the first Afghan citizen and the fourth Muslim to visit outer space, after Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, Muhammed Faris, and Musa Manarov.

Mohmand was born on sometime in 1959 in Sardah, within the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. He belongs to the Mohmand tribe of the Pushtun ethnic group. After completing his initial schooling he entered the Polytechnical University of Kabul in 1976 at the age of 17, and graduated a year later before being drafted into the military in 1978. After being conscripted he was sent to the Soviet Union to train to become a pilot; there he studied at the Krasnodar Higher Air Force School and the Kiev Higher Air Force Engineering School before returning to Afghanistan in 1981, where he rose through the ranks from pilot, wing commander, and then chief navigator. He returned to the USSR in 1984 to train at the Gagarin Air Force Academy. Not long after graduating in 1987, he was selected as a cosmonaut candidate for the Intercosmos project. The other cosmonaut candidate from Afghan sent for training was Muhammad Dauran, a Tajik MiG-21 pilot with the rank of colonel. While Dauran had more political connections than Mohamnd and held a higher military rank (since Mohmand was a captain at the time), Dauran's appendicitis was the deciding factor in Momand being chosen for the primary crew; Dauran became part of the backup crew.