Who became the first woman in space when she flew aboard Vostok 6 in 1963?

Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space when she flew aboard Vostok 6 in June 1963.

The Soviet cosmonaut launched on 16 June 1963 and spent nearly three days in orbit, completing 48 orbits of Earth. Her mission overlapped with Vostok 5, flown by Valery Bykovsky, allowing the two spacecraft to approach one another even though they could not dock.

Tereshkova was selected from a group of female parachutists and trained as a cosmonaut. Before joining the Soviet space programme, she worked in a textile factory and participated in amateur parachuting. Her mission made her a global figure and demonstrated that women could endure the physical and technical demands of spaceflight.

Svetlana Savitskaya later became the second woman in space, while Sally Ride was the first American woman in space in 1983.