Facts about Valentina Tereshkova Mission
- 06
A 5-day orbital rendezvous between Vostok 5 and Vostok 6 in June 1963 brought Valentina Tereshkova within 5 kilometers of cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky's spacecraft during their simultaneous missions.
- 05
Tereshkova's capsule was equipped with an ejection seat that she used to parachute separately from Vostok 6 during reentry, a standard procedure for early Soviet spacecraft that was initially concealed from the public.
- 04
During her Vostok 6 mission, Tereshkova manually controlled the spacecraft's orientation using a periscope-like viewing system called the Vzor optical device to photograph Earth's surface.
- 03
At 26 years old, Tereshkova became the first woman in space and remains the only woman to have completed a solo spaceflight mission.
- 02
Tereshkova experienced severe nausea and vomiting throughout her three-day Vostok 6 mission due to space sickness, though she continued performing all scheduled experiments.
- 01
On June 16, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova completed 48 orbits around Earth aboard Vostok 6 in approximately 71 hours.