60 years have passed since the world’s first flight of a woman – an astronaut into space.
The first woman in the world who flew into space on June 16, 1963, was the USSR -Cosmonaut – Valentina Tereshkova.
The decision to prepare women for space flight was made in 1961.
Initially, the simultaneous flight of two women’s crews was supposed, but in March 1963 they refused this plan, and the task of choosing one of five candidates arose. After careful research for space training, three were allocated: Ponomarev, Solovyov and Tereshkov. Valentina Tereshkova was appointed the main candidate.
The start of the historical flight on the Vostok-6 spacecraft was given at the Baikonur cosmodrome.
The spacecraft made 48 turns around the Earth and on June 19 landed safely in the Baevsky district of the Altai Territory.
The flight duration was two days 22 hours 50 minutes, the range was one million 971 thousand kilometers.
Tereshkova – a cosmonaut pilot with the call sign “The Seagull” is the only woman in the world who made space flight alone.
The next flight of a woman into space in the USSR took place only after 19 years. The second woman-cosmonaut was Svetlana Savitskaya.
In the history of Russia (including the USSR) until today, only 6 women have visited space.
on May 24, 2023, more than 70 women cosmonauts participated in orbital space flights around the world.
Most often, representatives of the United States were in space. Representatives of Canada, China, Japan also flew twice in orbit, and once – Great Britain, France, Italy, South Korea and Saudi Arabia.
The recordings for the number of flights to the orbit of the Earth are the American Shannon Lusid, Bonnie Dunbar, Tamara Jernigan, Jennis OSS, Marshal Ains, Susan Helms.
The first American to visit space 20 years after Tereshkova was Sally Ryd.
The first flight of a person into space took place on April 12, 1961. It was committed by Yuri Gagarin.
This historical event opened the way for exploring space space.
The Vostok launch vehicle with the Vostok-1 ship, on board which was Gagarin, was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome located in the Kyzylorda region of the Kazakh SSR.