Toktar Aubakirov

Toktar Ongarbaevich Aubakirov (Cyrillic Токтар Онгарбаевич Аубакиров) (born on July 27, 1946, in Karaganda, Kazakhstan) is the first Turkic man in space. He spent over 8 days in space aboard Soyuz TM-13 in 1991. He was also the first Soviet citizen to go into space without being fully certified as a cosmonaut, as his flight was hurried forward - several commercial international cosmonauts were already booked, but the flight of an Kazakh cosmonaut was part of the Baikonur rental agreement between Kazakhstan and Russia.

Since 1993 he is the general director of the National Aerospace Agency of Republic of Kazakhstan and a member of Kazakhstan parliament.