5 Pesos First Joint Space Flight

This piece commemorates the July 1980 mission of Soyuz 38, which carried Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez alongside Soviet commander Yuri Romanenko to the Salyut 6 space station. Tamayo Méndez became the first person of African descent and the first Latin American to reach orbit — a propaganda victory Havana milked extensively in print, postage, and coinage alike.

Cuba's commemorative silver program of this period was produced primarily for foreign hard-currency sales rather than domestic circulation, given the island's chronic shortage of convertible currency in the post-1959 economy.