2016-06-16 Thu

Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman to travel into space when she launched on the Vostok 6 mission June 16, 1963!

Valentina Tereshkova was selected from more than four hundred applicants and five finalists to pilot Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. She completed 48 orbits of the Earth in her three days in space. After 48 orbits and 71 hours, she returned to earth, spending more time in space than all U.S. astronauts combined to that date. Tereshkova also maintained a flight log and took photographs of the horizon, these photographs were later used to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere.

Before her recruitment as a cosmonaut, Tereshkova was a textile-factory assembly worker and an amateur skydiver. In February 1962, she was selected along with three other woman parachutists and a female pilot for an intensive training to become a cosmonaut.

Valentina Tereshkova was honoured on a 1 Forint Hungarian stamp in 1965. She is also honoured on 1963 10 Kopeks stamp of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan in 2013 issued a special stamp commemorating 50th Anniversary of First Woman in Space with Tereshkova’s portrait on it.

In 1983, USSR issued a 1 rouble coin commemorating 20 years of First Woman in Space. The coins depict the bust of cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova in her spacesuit.