ValentinaTereshkova

The First woman in space

16 June 1963

Vostok-6

Olga Zhdanovich, WIA lunch, ESTEC

14 June 2016

Valentina Tereshkova was born on 6 of March 1937 in the region of Yaroslavl in the Soviet Union

She was working at textile manufacture since 1955 in Yaroslavl city

Since 1959 she started parachuting sport, and before selection Valentina had 90 jumps with parachute

She was selected to the cosmonaut group on 12 March 1962 at the age of 25 and automatically was drafted to the Soviet Army (first cosmonauts in USSR and USA were army officers).

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

1. Selection of candidates of women-cosmonauts was performed with following criteria:

up to 30 years old, height up to 170 sm, wight up to 70 kg

2. 800 candidates applied to the selection mainly ladies who were doing parachute sport. 30 women were pre-selected. 5 candidates were selected: Zhanna Yerkina, Tatyana Kuznecova, Valentina Ponomareva, Irina Solovieva and Valentina Tereshkova

3. Original idea was to have parallel launch of 2 spaceships with women-cosmonauts but later this idea was rejected by S. Korolev chief designer of the Soviet Space program

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

The preparation to flight was very short. 1 year in total. No difference to female candidates during trainings, the training program was the same tuff as for the first group of Russian male cosmonauts.

Why candidates were selected among women parachutists?

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

Final selection was perfomed by Nikita Khrushev –General Secretary of the Communist Party – Soviet leader: Tereshkova and Solovieva as her first back-up and Ponomareva as second back-up

She made flight on 16 June 1963 on Vostok-6.

Fight lasts 3 days, she made 48 rounds around Earth

At the same time in orbit was spacecraft with Valery Bukovsky

Her call sign for radio telecommunications was “Chaika” that means seagull

Her historical phrase just before launch in Baikonur : “Sky! Please take off your hat” (because lady is coming in)

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

Just few days before launch the hairdresser arrived to cosmodorome Baikonur. All 3 ladies decided to color their hair in different colors from original. But later they were asked to wash it out because of official photos that were made early and should be published on the day of launch.

Family got to know where is she, only from official news because of possible tragic end of the mission she informed her parents that she is going for parachute competition.

During the flight she had radio communication with Bykovsky, they talked with each other but once he was listening official radio news about “First woman in space” and at one moment Valentina asked him why he addressed her very officially calling “citizen Tereshkova (as it was at official news) ”

www.aif.ru

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space:

interesting notes

It was noted that launch she performed better that cosmonauts # 3 and # 4 A. Nikolaev and P. Popovitch

During flight she did not felt well (no countermeasures for cosmonauts in space exists at that time)

She was doing photos of Earth and was writing diary Later her photos helped to discover aerosol layers in

atmosphere She had difficulty to perform manual orientation of the

spacecraft (only after landing it was discovered that wires were connected for manual orientation of a spacecraft in a wrong way ) but automatic orientation worked well. Thus she may not return back to the Earth because spacecraft would not perform the manual command of descending.

She landed in Altai region in Siberia and gave all her space food to local villagers and eat their local food for 3 days – so space doctors were very unhappy

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

After the flight she became as living legend as Yury Gagarin –cosmonaut # 1.

She was married to cosmonaut # 3 – Andriyan Nikolayev, has 1 daughter Elena

She is the only woman cosmonaut flying to space alone

She is the first woman in the Soviet Union and Russia (perhaps in the world) with rank of General of Air Force

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

“Two lifes” of Valentina Tereshkova

1. Challenging space flight: off-nominal situation (no return to the Earth)+possible landing in the lake

2. 9 bullets at her seat in the car in 1969 while attempt to kill Leader of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev while official greetings of just returned cosmonauts from space.

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=GRBYDTlovjk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2k9s-NbNaA (in English)

Valentina Tereshkova –the First woman in space