Who was the first woman in space?

The first woman in space was Valentina Tereshkova, who flew aboard the Soviet Union’s Vostok 6 mission on June 16, 1963.

Tereshkova was selected from a group of more than 400 applicants and trained as a cosmonaut after working in a textile factory and pursuing amateur parachuting. She launched alone in Vostok 6, becoming both the first woman in space and the first civilian to fly on a space mission. Her call sign was “Chaika,” meaning “Seagull.”

During her nearly three-day mission, Tereshkova completed 48 orbits of Earth. Vostok 6 flew in parallel with Vostok 5, piloted by cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, though the two spacecraft did not dock. Tereshkova returned safely on June 19, 1963, and later became a prominent Soviet public figure and politician.

A common mix-up is Sally Ride, who became the first American woman in space in 1983—20 years after Tereshkova. The next woman in space was another Soviet cosmonaut, Svetlana Savitskaya, who flew in 1982 and later became the first woman to perform a spacewalk.