Who became the first woman in space in 1963?

Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space in 1963.

A Soviet cosmonaut, Tereshkova launched aboard Vostok 6 on 16 June 1963. During her nearly three-day mission, she orbited Earth 48 times. Her flight occurred while the United States and Soviet Union were competing in space exploration, giving the mission major symbolic and political importance.

Tereshkova was selected from a group of women parachutists and trained for the Vostok program. She was the only woman to fly in the Vostok series. Her spacecraft operated in orbit at the same time as Vostok 5, piloted by cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky.

The next woman in space was also Soviet: Svetlana Savitskaya, who flew in 1982. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983, two decades after Tereshkova’s historic mission.