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The first woman-cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flies to space
On June 16, 1963 Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova, the first woman-cosmonaut took the flight on ‘Vostok-6’ spacecraft.
Valentina Tereshkova was born on March 6, 1937 in Yaroslav region in a family of peasants-collective farmers. At the age of 17 she started working as a weaver, later became keen on parachute sport.
At the end of 1961 it was decided to start preparing women for space flights. From few hundreds of aspirants there was elected a student group of women-cosmonauts which included: J. D. Yorkina, T. D. Kuznetsova, V. L. Ponomaryova, I. B. Solovyova and V. V. Tereshkova.
Originally it was planned to conduct a simultaneous flight of two women crews. However in March of 1963 the plan was rejected and the choice had to be made among five aspirants. After thorough examinations three women were chosen for space training: Ponomaryova, Solovyova and Tereshkova. The main candidate was assigned Valentina Tereshkova.
Trainings, during which was tested the stability of organism to the factors of space flight, included a heat chamber, a dead room, practicing of actions at the state of weightlessness on the board of MiG-15, parachute training, ect.
Tereshkova had spent on the orbit 2 days 22 hours and 50 minutes having made 48 turns around the Earth and flown 1 971 000 km. The flight had passed with difficulty for Tereshkova but in spite of physical discomfort she kept the ship’s log-book and made photographs of the horizon which later had been used for discovering of aerosol layers in the atmosphere.
The next space flight of a woman took place only 19 years later; the second woman-cosmonaut became Svetlana Savitskaya.
In 2000 an influential British organization ‘Annual Assembly of Successful Women’ conferred Valentina Tereshkova with the title of the ‘Greatest Woman of the 20th century’.
Lit.: Борисенко И. Г. Рекордный полёт «Чайки». М., 1966; Валентина Терешкова — первая в мире женщина лётчик-космонавт: Этапы подгот. к групповому косм. полёту: [Фотоальбом] / Сост.: Ушаков И. Б. [и др.]. М.; Воронеж, 2003; Зайцев Ю. Женская судьба в космонавтике [Электронный ресурс] // РИА Новости. 2014. URL: http://www.rian.ru/analytics/20070312/61857200.html; Терешкова В. В. Вселенная — открытый океан! М., 1964.
From the Presidential library materials:
Outer Space : [digital collection];
Cosmonauts Training Center created in USSR // On this day. 11 January1960;
World Aviation and Astronautics Day. The first human in space // On this. 12 April 1961 ;
Foundation of “Baikonur” Space Center // On this day. 2 Juneиюня 1955;