Valentina Tereshkova: The first woman in space
In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in Earth orbit. Learn more about her life, career and space exploration legacy.
Image: Valentina Tereshkova | Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
The ‘Space Race’ between the United States and the Soviet Union in the late 20th century captured imaginations across the world. In the 1950s and 1960s, the two superpowers fought to demonstrate which boasted the most impressive space exploration technology.
This competition led to a large number of firsts. These included the launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, the Soviet-owned Sputnik, in 1957.
Many historians perceive the Space Race to have ended with the US landing the first man on the Moon in 1969. However, the USSR was leading the Space Race long before then — and responsible for the first woman in space.
The making of a future space pioneer
Valentina Tereshkova was born in the Russian village of Bolshoye Maslennikovo, near the city of Yaroslavl, on 6th March 1937. She was two years old when her father Vladimir Tereshkov, a sergeant in the Soviet Army, died in the Winter War against Finland.
After Valentina’s family subsequently moved to Yaroslavl, she trained as a skydiver and parachutist. This experience became a major factor in Valentina’s later recruitment to the Soviet space program.
The run-up to the Vostok 6 mission
On 12th April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Such was the significance of this milestone, the US space program hurried to send an American into space the following month.
The Soviets didn’t rest on their laurels. The same year, Nikolai Kamanin, the space program’s director of cosmonaut training, read — much to his disquiet — that the US was training female astronauts.
On 16th February 1962, Valentina was one of five female candidates training to become cosmonauts. It was eventually decided that Valentina would be launched into space on the Vostok 6 spacecraft in June 1963. Another capsule, Vostok 5, was set to carry the male cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky into orbit around the same time.
The then-Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev recognised the propaganda value of selecting Valentina for the mission. Not only had her father been a war hero, he had worked as a tractor driver before then. Elevating a young woman from this kind of modest background was in keeping with communist ideology.
Image: A monument to Valentina Tereshkova in remote Siberia | stock.adobe.com
Notable events of the Vostok 6 expedition
After Vostok 5’s launch on 14th June 1963, the spacesuit-clad Valentina was brought to the Vostok 6 launch pad at Baikonur Cosmodrome. After a two-hour countdown, the spacecraft — holding Valentina along with her communication and life support systems — lifted off.
Valentina was aged 26 when she flew in Earth orbit, making her the first - and to this date the youngest - woman to do so. While in space, she communicated with both Bykovsky and Khrushchev by radio.
She also performed a series of tests to monitor her body’s reaction to spaceflight. Taking advantage of the extraordinary viewpoint afforded by her capsule, Valentina also took photographs of Earth and the horizon. These images later aided the identification of aerosol layers in the planet’s atmosphere.
Valentina spent almost three days in space, orbiting Earth 48 times along the way. Vostok 6 re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on 19th June 1963.
Valentina Tereshkova returns to a heroine’s welcome
As planned in advance, Valentina ejected from Vostok 6 when it was about four miles above the ground. As she revealed later, Valentina struggled with her parachute due to the violently windy weather. She ultimately made a safe landing in Bayevo, a rural area of Russia’s Altai Krai territory.
In the weeks, months and years after returning from space, Valentina was feted as an international treasure. She was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal and the Order of Lenin (as was Bykovsky) and made many overseas trips.
In October 1963, she met Fidel Castro — at that time prime minister of Cuba — in Havana. Having married cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev the following month, Valentin was pregnant when she met the UK’s also-pregnant Queen Elizabeth II in February 1964.
How Valentina Tereshkova has further shaped space exploration
Valentina has been a trailblazer for generations of female space travellers. These include Britain’s first astronaut Helen Sharman, who visited the Soviet-launched space station Mir in May 1991. About half a decade later, astronaut Shannon Lucid was transferred from the US shuttle Atlantis to Mir. She made history as the first American woman to live in a space station.
The Soviet Union’s first group of female cosmonauts was dissolved in 1969 and Valentina never went to space again. However, her post-cosmonaut career saw her remain influential in the field as an instructor at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.
