Intercosmos Program
Tuan reached rank of lieutenant colonel in the VPAF before eventually training to be a research cosmonaut in the joint USSR-Vietnamese Space program. On April 1, 1979, he was selected as a member of the sixth international crew for the Intercosmos program. His backup was Bùi Thanh Liêm. Tuan, along with Soviet cosmonaut Viktor Gorbatko, was launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 23, 1980, on board Soyuz 37 en route to the Salyut 6 station.
During his time in orbit, Tuan performed experiments on the melting of mineral samples in microgravity. He also carried out plant experiments on azolla and photographed Vietnam from orbit for mapping purposes. Tuan was in space for 7 days, 20 hours and 42 minutes. He completed 142 orbits, and was returned to earth on July 31, 1980.
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