MOSCOW, June 16 President Vladimir Putin has awarded the world's first female cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova, the newly established Order of Gagarin, according to a decree posted on the official Internet portal of legal information.
«For outstanding services in the exploration of outer space, courage and dedication shown during the implementation of a historic manned flight into space, active social and international activities, award the Order of Gagarin to Tereshkova Valentina Vladimirovna — Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR, deputy of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, a member of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs,» the document says.
Putin established the Order of Gagarin in May. It was reported that they would be awarded for merit in the field of space.
Tereshkova's space flight began exactly 60 years ago — on June 16, 1963. On that day at 12:30 Moscow time, the Vostok carrier rocket launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome and launched the Vostok-6 spacecraft into orbit. The flight duration was two days 22 hours and 50 minutes, the range was one million 971 thousand kilometers. The ship made 48 orbits around the Earth, and on June 19 the descent vehicle landed safely in the Bayevsky district of the Altai Territory.
Tereshkova became the first woman in space and the sixth among Soviet cosmonauts. And until now, she remains the only woman who flew alone — all the rest flew only as part of crews. The next woman went into space only 19 years later — in 1982, it was the Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya.