After the first successful space flights of Yuri Gagarin (April 12, 1961) and German Titov (August 6-7, 1961), the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU and other departments of the Soviet Union considered various options for continuing space exploration with the main task of maintaining priority over the United States. The ideas of a long flight of one ship and a group flight of two ships were put forward.
The leadership of the USSR Air Force (Air Force), supporting the initiative of General Nikolai Kamanin, Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force for Space, Mstislav Keldysh, President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and Sergei Korolev, Chief Designer of the First Rocket and Space Systems, appealed to USSR Minister of Defense Rodion Malinovsky with a request to recruit women to the Air Force pilot-cosmonaut squad to prepare for space flight.
On December 30, 1961, the decision of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU No. 10/19 was issued, which approved the proposal to recruit five women into the detachment. , now DOSAAF of Russia).
The criteria for selection were as follows: paratrooper, age under 30, height up to 170 centimeters and weight up to 70 kilograms.
On January 19, 1962, out of 58 candidates for the Cosmonaut Training Center (TsPK, now the Yu.A. Gagarin Research and Testing Cosmonaut Training Center) 23 girls were selected to undergo a medical examination.
On March 12, 1962, the engineer of PKB Uralenergomontazh (now JSC PO Uralenergomontazh) Irina Solovieva, an employee of the Moscow Institute of Radio Electronics (since 2018 — part of MIREA — Russian Technological University) Tatyana Kuznetsova and secretary of the Komsomol committee factory «Krasny Perekop» (now PJSC Yaroslavl Industrial Fabrics Plant «Krasny Perekop») Valentina Tereshkova. On April 3, they were joined by a student of the Ryazan Pedagogical Institute (now the Ryazan State University named after S.A. Yesenin) Zhanna Erkina and an employee of the Department of Applied Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences Valentina Ponomareva. Tereshkova became the eldest in the group.
Since the recruitment was carried out by the Air Force, all five were called up for active military service and were given the rank of «private».
On November 27-29, 1962, the group passed their final exams. Tatyana Kuznetsova was not allowed to see them due to health problems. The rest successfully coped with the program, were enlisted in the staff of the Cosmonaut Training Center with the military rank of junior lieutenant.
In January-May 1963, all four were trained under the women's flight program. The trainings included a thermal chamber, an isolation chamber, weightlessness training on the MiG-15, parachute training, etc.
In March 1963, it was decided to conduct a female flight together with a male one: a man flew on the first ship for eight days, on the second — a woman for two or three days.
On June 4, 1963, at a meeting of the State Commission, Valentina Tereshkova was appointed the main candidate for space flight. Her understudies were Irina Solovieva and Valentina Ponomareva. All applicants were equally well-trained, but Tereshkova's public speaking experience played an important role.
In addition, Sergey Korolev, the leadership of the Air Force and the CPC spoke out for her candidacy — a girl from a simple peasant family.
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova was born on March 6, 1937 in the village of Maslennikovo, Tutaevsky district, Yaroslavl region, in a family of workers.
In 1960 she graduated from the Yaroslavl Correspondence Technical School of Light Industry with a degree in Cotton Spinning Technologist. In 1969 she graduated with honors from the engineering faculty of the N.E. Zhukovsky (now the Military Educational and Scientific Center of the Air Force «Air Force Academy named after Professor N.E. Zhukovsky and Yu.A. Gagarin») with the qualification of «pilot-cosmonaut-engineer». Candidate of Technical Sciences (1977).
Tereshkova began her career in 1954 as a cutter at the Yaroslavl Tire Plant. Since 1955, she worked as a rover at the Krasny Perekop Yaroslavl industrial fabric factory. From August 1960 to March 1962 she was the released secretary of the VLKSM committee of the plant.
Since 1959, she went in for parachuting at the Yaroslavl flying club. By the time she was enlisted in the cosmonaut corps, she had completed 163 jumps.
On June 16, 1963, at 12.30 Moscow time, from the Baikonur cosmodrome (Kazakh USSR, now Kazakhstan), the Vostok launch vehicle launched the Vostok-6 spacecraft into Earth's orbit, piloted for the first time in the world by Soviet woman cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova (call sign » Chaika»).
The orbital period of the Vostok-6 spacecraft (the sixth and last manned spacecraft of the Vostok series) was 88.304 minutes, and its weight was 4,713 kilograms.
Simultaneously with Tereshkova, the Vostok-5 spacecraft was in space, launched two days earlier — on June 14, 1963 and piloted by cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky (call sign «Yastreb»).
During the flight, Tereshkova kept a log book, took photographs of the horizon, which were later used to detect aerosol layers in the atmosphere, filmed the Earth and the Moon. Radio contact was maintained both with Earth and with Bykovsky.
Flight Valentina Tereshkova endured hard. In her report, she later reported that “on the second day, aching pains appeared on the right shin, and on the third day it was already disturbing. The helmet interfered, pressed on the shoulder. «. There were other ailments as well.
During the flight, Tereshkova also experienced technical difficulties. It was difficult to work with the equipment, as it was difficult to reach the instruments. The biological experiments were not performed as Tereshkova was unable to retrieve the objects.
The ship made 48 orbits around the Earth and on June 19 the Vostok-6 descent module 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.
At the same time, still on Earth, an error was made in the calculations on the site of return from space. Tereshkova noticed her in flight and reported it to Earth. Updated data was transmitted to her, and she was able to land successfully.
Tereshkova became the sixth among Soviet cosmonauts, the 12th person in space and the youngest woman to have been in space (26 years old). She is also the first woman in the history of the Russian army to hold the rank of Major General of Aviation.
Tereshkova is still the only woman in the world to have completed a solo space flight. All subsequent female cosmonauts and astronauts flew into space only as part of crews.
The next woman's flight into space took place only 19 years later — in 1982. It was made by the Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya.
For her flight, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 22, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova was awarded the honorary title — Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1978, after the resumption of the idea of women's flight, she passed the State Medical Commission and received admission to special training.
In 1997, she was expelled from the cosmonaut corps due to reaching the age limit and retired from the Armed Forces.
After that, she worked at the Cosmonaut Training Center. Yu.A. Gagarin, Roszarubezhtsentre (now Rossotrudnichestvo), headed the Russian Center for International Scientific and Cultural Cooperation under the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, worked in many other organizations and institutions, and did a lot of social work.
From 1966 to 1989 she was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR 7-11 th convocation. From 1974 to 1989, he was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
From 1971 to 1989, he was a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU.
In 2011, Valentina Tereshkova was elected to the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the VI convocation, in 2016-2021 she was a deputy to the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the VII convocation.
Since September 2021 — Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation of the VIII convocation from the United Russia party.
In 2000, the influential British organization «The Annual Assembly of the Most Successful Women» awarded Valentina Tereshkova the title of «The Greatest Woman of the 20th Century».
Major General of Aviation (1995).
Valentina Tereshkova, USSR pilot-cosmonaut (1963), laureate of the State Prize of the Russian Federation (2009). Among her numerous awards are two Orders of Lenin (1963, 1981), the Order of the October Revolution (1971), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1987), the Order of Honor (2003), the Order of Friendship (2011), the Order of Alexander Nevsky (2013). Full Cavalier of the Order «For Merit to the Fatherland». She was awarded 17 orders and six medals of foreign countries.
Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1963).
The material was prepared on the basis of information and open sources