The textile-worker 'Chaika,' first woman in space
At the launch pad: "Hey, sky! Take off your hat!" — quoting Mayakovsky, June 16, 1963.
The first woman to fly solo in space: aboard Vostok-6 in 1963, the textile-worker 'Chaika' orbited Earth 49 times over 71 hours alone, a symbol of proletarian women's liberation through science. Later became the first woman general in Russian military history.
Career Timeline
- 1954–60Tire factory and textile mill worker; graduated evening and technical schools
- 1959–61Parachute training at Yaroslavl aeroclub (90 jumps)
- 1962.3Selected for women's cosmonaut group (5 candidates)
- 1963.6.16–19Vostok-6: first woman in space, 71-hour solo flight
- 1966–89USSR Supreme Soviet deputy; Presidium member 1974–89
- 1968–87Chairwoman, Committee of Soviet Women
- 1969Graduated Zhukovsky Academy with honors; Candidate of Technical Sciences, professor
- 1971–90Member, CPSU Central Committee
- 1987–92Chair, Union of Soviet Societies for Friendship Abroad
- 2011–현재State Duma deputy, United Russia
- 1995/2025Major General, later Lieutenant General — first woman general in Russia
Related historical events
The Women's Cosmonaut Group and Vostok-6
In December 1961 the CPSU Central Committee Presidium resolved to send a woman into space. Nikolai Kamanin's proposal met initial resistance from Sergei Korolev, but the political symbolism carried the day after Gagarin's triumph. Candidates had to be parachutists under 30, below 170 cm and 70 kg. From hundreds of applicants, five (Zhanna Yorkina, Tatyana Kuznetsova, Valentina Ponomaryova, Irina Solovyova, and Valentina Tereshkova) were enrolled in the women's cosmonaut group in March 1962.
Training was grueling: a 70°C thermal chamber, ten days of soundproof isolation, 40-second zero-G sessions aboard a MiG-15, and parachute jumps including sea landings. On medical and theoretical exams Tereshkova ranked last of the five, yet Kamanin chose her. Her working-class background, her father's death in the Soviet-Finnish War, and above all her gift for public engagement tipped the scales. 'Ponomaryova and Solovyova would make better cosmonauts,' Kamanin wrote, 'but Tereshkova can become a great public figure.'
Vostok-6 launched on 16 June 1963 (call sign 'Chaika') flying in tandem with Valery Bykovsky's Vostok-5. Forty-nine orbits, 71 hours. But a serious fault went unreported: the manual orientation controls were wired in reverse, so every correction pushed the craft into a higher orbit instead of toward re-entry. Tereshkova kept silent, relying on the automatic system, and honored Korolev's request to conceal the error for over forty years. After landing she ignored medical instructions and ate potatoes and bread offered by local farmers: a glimpse of her unvarnished warmth. She remains the only woman ever to fly solo in space; nineteen years passed before another woman, Svetlana Savitskaya, followed.