On June 16, 1963, the world’s first female cosmonaut made a solo flight into space.
This achievement belongs to Valentina Tereshkova – Hero of the Soviet Union, Candidate of Technical Sciences, Professor of the Air Force Engineering Academy, Major- General of aviation.
Valentina Tereshkova performed her flight on the “Vostok-6” spacecraft.
The launch was performed from the Baikonur cosmodrome at 12:29:51.
The flight duration was 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes, the range was 1 million 971 thousand km (48 turns around the Earth).
At the same time, the “Vostok-5” spacecraft, piloted by cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, was in orbit.
During the flight, Valentina Tereshkova kept a logbook and took photographs of the horizon, which were later used to detect aerosol layers in the atmosphere.
The descent vehicle “Vostok-6” landed safely on June 19, 1963.
The first “Chayka” of the Soviet cosmonautics (Sergey Korolev invented this call sign) is still the only woman on our planet, who has made a solo space flight.
All women cosmonauts and astronauts flew into space only as part of crews.
