Valentina Tereshkova facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova
|
|
|---|---|
1963 USSR postage stamp depicting Valentina Tereshkova
|
|
| Born | March 6, 1937 Yaroslavl Oblast, USSR
|
| Nationality | Russian |
| Occupation | Pilot |
| Space career | |
| Cosmonaut | |
| Rank | Major General, Soviet Air Force |
|
Time in space
|
2d 22h 50m |
| Selection | Female Group |
| Missions | Vostok 6 |
|
Mission insignia
|
 |
Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (born 6 March 1937) is a member of the Russian State Duma, engineer, and former cosmonaut. She is the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. She orbited the Earth 48 times, spent almost three days in space, and remains the only woman to have been on a solo space mission.
Before her selection for the Soviet space program, Tereshkova was a textile factory worker and an amateur skydiver. She joined the Air Force as part of the Cosmonaut Corps and was commissioned as an officer after completing her training. After the dissolution of the first group of female cosmonauts in 1969, Tereshkova remained in the space program as a cosmonaut instructor. She later graduated from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and re-qualified for spaceflight but never went to space again. She retired from the Air Force in 1997 having attained the rank of major general.
Tereshkova was a prominent member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, holding various political offices including being a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet from 1974 to 1989. She remained politically active following the collapse of the Soviet Union but twice lost elections to the national State Duma in 1995 and 2003. Tereshkova was later elected in 2008 to her regional parliament, the Yaroslavl Oblast Duma. In 2011, she was elected to the national State Duma as a member of the United Russia party and re-elected in 2016.
Images for kids
-
Cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Valery Bykovsky among children
-
Cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolayev and Valentina Tereshkova on a Hungarian stamp.
-
From left to right: Yuri Gagarin, Pavel Popovich, Valentina Tereshkova, and Nikita Khrushchev at the Lenin Mausoleum, during a celebration honoring the Soviet cosmonauts, 1963
-
Tereshkova, skiing, 1964
-
Tereshkova in 1970
-
The wedding ceremony of pilot-cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova and Andriyan Nikolayev, 3 November 1963.
-
Valentina Tereshkova and Neil Armstrong, 1970
-
Tereshkova visiting the Lviv confectionery, 1967
-
Valentina Tereshkova among delegates at the 24th Congress of the CPSU, 1971.
-
Tereshkova at the Heureka science centre, in Finland, 2002
-
Valentina Tereshkova and NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in December 2010.
