Prunariu, Dumitru

Dumitru Prunariu, in full Dumitru Dorin Prunariu, (born September 27, 1952, Brașov, Romania), Romanian pilot and cosmonaut who was the first Romanian citizen in space.

Prunariu earned a degree in aerospace engineering from the Polytechnic University in Bucharest in 1976. In 1978 he became a senior lieutenant in the air force and was selected for spaceflight training as part of the Intercosmos program. The non-Soviet cosmonauts of Intercosmos flew alongside Soviet crews on missions intended to demonstrate unity between Warsaw Pact and other countries sympathetic to the Soviet Union. Prunariu finished his training at the top of his class and was chosen to accompany Soviet cosmonaut Leonid Popov for a joint spaceflight. Prunariu and Popov launched on May 14, 1981, aboard Soyuz 40 and docked with the space station Salyut 6. The crew spent nearly eight days in space conducting experiments in the fields of biology, medicine, and physics. They returned to Earth on May 22, 1981.

Prunariu returned to the Romanian air force as the chief inspector for aerospace activities and taught courses in aerospace engineering at the Polytechnic University. From 1992 to 1995 he was the secretary of the Romanian Space Agency (ASR). He was also the chief inspector for aerospace activities on the General Staff of Aviation and Air Defense from 1991 to 1998. In 1999 he graduated from the National Defense College in Bucharest with a Ph.D. in spaceflight dynamics. From 1998 to 2004 he was president of the ASR, and from 2004 to 2005 he was the Romanian ambassador to Russia and chair of the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Exploration of Outer Space.