Vostok 6: Valentina Tereshkova, first woman in space

On 16 June 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard Vostok 6 and became the first woman to travel into space. She was 26 years old, used the call sign "Chaika" (seagull), and remained in flight for two days, 23 hours and 12 minutes.

Her mission coincided with that of Vostok 5, flown by Valeri Bykovsky and launched on 14 June, and it was the second time that two crewed spacecraft were in space at the same time. On board she carried out tests to study her body's reaction to spaceflight and took photographs of the Earth that helped identify aerosol layers in the atmosphere.

Born in 1937, Tereshkova worked in the textile industry and had been practicing parachuting since 1959 when, on 16 February 1962, she was one of five women chosen for the cosmonaut corps out of more than 400 candidates. With that single flight she accumulated more time in space than all the Mercury program astronauts who had flown up to then put together.