— Abdul Ahad Momand, the first citizen of Afghanistan to fly into space, has died at the age of 67.

Momand's death on Sunday (June 21) was due to cancer, according to his family. He died in a hospital in Stuttgart, Germany, near where he had lived for more than half his life.

"To us, the late Abdulahad Momand was a loving, compassionate father and a steadfast pillar of support for the entire family," read the post on Instagram. "The late Abdulahad Momand also holds an enduring place in the contemporary history of Afghanistan as the country's first and only astronaut. Through this great achievement, he inscribed the name of Afghanistan in the realm of global space exploration and became a source of pride and an inspiration for generations of his fellow countrymen."

In 1988, Momand was chosen to train for spaceflight under the Soviet Union's Interkosmos program. The project encouraged increased cooperation by flying representatives from the communist states in central and eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. At the time, Afghanistan was under Soviet control.

Momand and Mohammad Dawran, also from Afghanistan, were selected out of a pool of more than 400 candidates and entered training together. A medical concern with Dawran (appendicitis) led to Momand being picked as the one to fly (Dawran continued to serve as his backup).

On Aug. 29, 1988, after six months of training, Momand lifted off with Russian cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Polyakov on board the Soyuz TM-6 spacecraft on a three-day rendezvous with the Mir space station. For five days aboard the orbital outpost, Momand took part in medical and biological studies, observed Earth (including photographing his home country) and spoke to the then-president of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah.

Later, while speaking to his mother, he established Pashto as the fourth language to be spoken from space. Although he was the fourth Muslim to reach orbit, Momand was the first to carry and read from the Quran. He also prepared Afghan tea for his crewmates.

On Sep. 5, 1988, Momand and Lyakhov boarded the earlier arrived Soyuz TM-5 to return to Earth (Polyakov, a medical doctor, remained on board to monitor the resident Mir crew's year-long mission.) Momand and Lyakov's reentry was delayed due to a sensor problem interfering with their attempt at a deorbit burn. Despite a tense 24 hours, they safely touched down on Sep. 6, eight days, 20 hours and 26 minutes after their launch.

The Soyuz TM-6/TM-5 flight, or as it was also known Mir EP-3, was Momand's only trip into space. He was the 208th person in history to enter Earth orbit and the 215th to fly above 50 miles (80 kilometers), according to the Association of Space Explorers' Registry of Space Travelers.

Abdul Ahad Mohmand was born in the town of Sardeh Band, located on the eastern edge of the Andar District in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan. His exact birthdate in 1959 is unclear due to a lack of records. A spelling mistake on his German identity papers left out the 'h' from his first name and from that point on he used Momand.

He graduated from the Kabul Polytechnic University in 1976 and was drafted by the military two years later.

He learned to fly at the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School of Pilots and the Kiev Higher Air Force Engineering School in the Soviet Union. Returning to Afghanistan in 1981, he rose to become a chief navigator at Bagram Air Base before returning to Russia to train at the Gagarin Air Force Academy, graduating in 1987. It was from there that he was recruited for the Interkosmos program.

After landing from space and returning home, Momand was named deputy minister of civil aviation for the Afghan government (the Soviets withdrew in 1989). It was in this role that he was in India when a civil war broke out and Momand moved him and his family to Germany. He applied for asylum and began work as an accountant. He was granted citizenship in 2003.

In 2013, on the 25th anniversary of his spaceflight, Momand made his first visit back to Afghanistan. His celebrated return was documented by the BBC in the documentary "Kabul to the Galaxy."

For his service to the Interkosmos program, Momand was awarded the status of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin. In 2010, he received the Russian medal "For Merit in Space Exploration."

Momand is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.