As the Soviet space program expanded, in 1961, Chief Designer Sergei Korolev indicated the need for 60 new cosmonaut candidates, to include five women. In response to this, Nikolai Kamanin, Assistant to the Deputy Chief Commander of the Air Force and in charge of cosmonaut training, on October 24, 1961, wrote in his diary that:

“In my view, it is necessary to prepare women for space flights mainly for the following reasons:
1. Without doubt women will fly into space, and it is therefore necessary to begin training them as soon as possible.
2. Under no circumstances should an American become the first woman in space. This would be an insult to the patriotic feelings of Soviet women.
3. The first Soviet woman cosmonaut will be as big an active advocate for communism as Gagarin and Titov turned out to be.”  —Nikolai Kamanin

Eligible women were contacted and selected through aviation clubs throughout the Soviet Union. Skydiving was a popular hobby at the time and particular preference was given to physically fit candidates with parachute jumping experience. The Vostok spacecraft required the cosmonaut to land using a parachute, a complex skill which would be hard to train a novice in a short period of time. Candidates had to be under 30 years of age, under 170cm (5’7”) tall, and under 70kg (150 lbs). From the initial 400 women applicants, the group was narrowed down to 58, until five candidates were selected.

In March 1962, the five women chosen to join the male cosmonaut group were Tatyana D. Kuznetsova, Irina B. Solovyeva, Zhanna D. Yorkina, Valentina V. Tereshkova, and Valentina L. Ponomareva.

The five women cosmonauts were enrolled as honorary privates in the Soviet Air Force and followed military regulations. They trained for eighteen months at the Cosmonaut Training Center under the same rigorous conditions to which their male counterparts had been subjected. The women were trained to withstand spaceflight conditions which included weightlessness training; medical and biological testing; centrifuge training; various physical conditioning, such as swimming and gymnastics; spinning chairs; sensory deprivation; heat training; and flight simulations.

They further practiced their parachute jumping as well, performing up to 120 jumps during training. Specialists from Korolev’s Design Bureau gave lectures on the Vostok spacecraft and other instructors provided lectures on theoretical topics – rocket technology, astronomy, aeronautics, navigation, and other sciences related to the technical side of spaceflight. The program would be complete after final examinations, at which time the women were allowed to become Air Force officers.

Two factions within the Soviet space program leadership fought over which woman would be the first in space. Korolev and Kamanin preferred Tereshkova. She was physically fit and came from a blue-collar background. She was quite active in the Communist Party from a young age, being the Secretary for the Komsomol Committee at the textile factory where she worked. Although Ponomareva was best qualified, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin felt she should not fly because she was a mother. Additionally, Ponomareva was also deemed to have “unsteady” morals – she was independent, self-assured, drank at times, smoked, and took walks – all while being a mother. The final decision rested with Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev himself who preferred Tereshkova as he believed she better represented the ideal Soviet woman, with her working-class background in the textile industry and her dedication to the Communist party.

Valentina Vladimirova Tereshkova was officially chosen to be the first woman in space. Kamanin referred to her as “Gagarin in a skirt.” Solovyeva would be her backup and Ponomareva became the second backup. By the time of launch, only Tereshkova and Solovyeva were actively involved with activities on the launch pad, while Ponomareva was relegated to ground support.

“…I got nervous right before the start…Yuri Gagarin noticed it, but instead of saying something that would make me calm, he sympathized with me, “I understand you. It’s hard to be the first.” 

— Valentina V. Tereshkova, The First Lady of Space

Tereshkova was born March 6, 1937, in Maslennikovo, Russia where she finished school by correspondence. An amateur parachutist hobbyist, she performed her first jump at age 22 in 1959. She was not a pilot but had performed 126 parachute jumps at the time of her selection as a cosmonaut. She became the first woman to fly to space on June 16, 1963, in the Vostok 6 spacecraft. Her call sign was “Chaika,” meaning “Seagull.”

Tereshkova had a perfect launch, orbited the Earth 48 times, and spent almost three days in space. Fellow cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky went up on Vostok 5 two days earlier on June 14, 1963. Tereshkova’s Vostok 6 rendezvoused within three miles of Bykovsky’s spacecraft. At the completion of the mission, she ejected safely from the spacecraft, with a parachute landing on June 19, 1963.

When Tereshkova returned to Earth, news reels shown to the public were of a happy, smiling female cosmonaut after landing. However, these film clips were staged earlier, during successful  practice parachute jumps, as she was quite ill during the actual Vostok 6 landing. The status of her health throughout the entire mission has been very much under debate.

Tereshkova went on worldwide goodwill tours, celebrating all the “first” accomplishments of the Soviet Union in space, along with her compatriots. She received the “Hero of the Soviet Union” medal, the “Order of Lenin” award, and the Gold Star medals, among many other awards. On November 3, 1963, under a state-hosted wedding, she married fellow cosmonaut, Andriyan Nikolayev. They had one daughter, Elena, in June 1964. Tereshkova remained active in the Soviet and Russian political arena, and currently is a member of the Russian State Duma (lower assembly of the Federal Assembly of Russia). She still retains the record of being the youngest woman in space (26 at the time of launch) and the only woman to have been on a solo space mission. Tereshkova never flew in space again.

Although the five women: Tatyana D. Kuznetsova, Irina B. Solovyeva, Zhanna D. Yorkina, Valentina V. Tereshkova, and Valentina I. Ponomareva continued training as cosmonauts, the group disbanded in October 1969 when the Soviet Union abandoned the Vostok programme in favor of developing the new Voskhod spacecraft and cancelled plans for further women’s flights.

Five more Russian women would fly in space, but not until nineteen years had passed by.

Svetlana Y. Savitskaya

Savitskaya performed more than 400 parachute jumps before she was 18 years old. A world-record holding parachute jumper and test pilot, Savitskaya launched aboard the Soyuz T-7 on August 19, 1982, on a mission to fly to the Russian Salyut 7 Space Station, along with cosmonauts Leonid Popov and Aleksandr Serebrov. Two years later she followed up with her second flight on July 17, 1984, aboard the Soyuz T-12, again to Salyut 7 with cosmonauts Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Igor Volk. On this flight Savitskaya became the first woman to perform a spacewalk. Savitskaya had many other achievements as well:

• First woman to reach 2,683 kph in a MiG-25 aircraft

• Second woman in space

• First woman to fly in space twice

• First person to cut and weld metal in space on her spacewalk

• First woman to visit a space station

See Sveltana Savitskaya’s sokol suit on display at the Cosmosphere.

Yelena V. Kondakova

Kondakova made her first trip to space on the Soyuz TM-20 on October 4, 1994. She had several achievements as the third Russian woman in space:

• First woman to visit the Mir Space Station

• First woman to make a long-duration spaceflight, with a five-month stay on the Russian Mir Space Station

• First Russian woman on a U.S. space shuttle, flying on STS-84 as a flight specialist, May 15, 1997

• First woman to travel in two different spacecraft, Soyuz TM-20 and Space Shuttle Atlantis

Yelena O. Serova

• Fourth Russian woman to fly in space

• First Russian woman cosmonaut to live and work on the International Space Station (ISS)

• Lived and worked on the ISS for 167 days

• Deputy in the State Duma of Russian Federation between 2016 and 2021

Yulia Peresild

• First professional actress to fly and perform in space. Peresild is a Russian actress who filmed footage for the movie, “The Challenge,” aboard the International Space Station. She launched October 5, 2021, aboard the Soyuz MS-19, filmed for 11 days and returned on October 17, 2021, aboard the Soyuz MS-18.

Anna Y. Kikina 

• Kikina is the only active female cosmonaut as of 2023.

• Launched aboard the commercial SpaceX Crew-5 with Expedition 68/69 to the ISS on October 5, 2022. She returned to Earth on March 11, 2023.

• Total time in space was 157 days, 10 hours, 1 minute

• First Russian cosmonaut to fly on a Crew Dragon

• First Russian cosmonaut to fly on a U.S. spacecraft since 2002