58 years ago, June 16, 1963, from the Baikonur cosmodrome, the carrier-carrier launch was launched, which brought the East-6 spacecraft around the Earth, for the first time in the world, piloted by a woman-astronaut Valentina Tereshkova. Her call sign – “Seagull.”
During the flight Valentine Vladimirovna led the logbook and made photos of the horizon, which were later used to detect aerosol layers in the atmosphere. The ship made 48 turns around our planet, and the descent apparatus “East-6” launched safely in the Baevsky district of the Altai Territory. The duration of flight was 2 days 22 hours 50 minutes, the range is 1 million 971 thousand kilometers.
“Preparation of a rocket, ship and all service operations passed extremely clearly. For the clarity and coherence of the work of all services and systems, Tereshkova reminded me of Gagarin’s start. As and on April 12, 1961, on June 16, 1963, the flight was preparing and began fine. Everything Who saw Tereshkov during the preparation of the start and withdrawal of the ship into orbit, who listened to her radio reports, unanimously stated: “She held the start better Popovich and Nikolaev.” Yes, I am very glad that I was not mistaken in the choice of the first cosmonaut’s female “,” described Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kamanin, engaged in the selection and training of astronauts.
At the same time, the Spaceship of East-5 was located in space, launched by two days earlier – on June 14, 1963, piloted by astronaut Valery Bykovsky. Call sign – “Hawk”.
In the history of Valentina Vladimirovna, Vladimirovna preserved the phrase, spoken by her before the start: “Hey! Sky! Remove the hat!” (Changed quote from the poem Vladimir Mayakovsky “Cloud in the pants”). The first “seagull” of Soviet cosmonautics (just such a calling invented Sergey Pavlovich Korolev) is still the only woman of our planet who has committed a single space flight. All subsequent cosmonaut women and astronauts flew into space only as part of the crews.
Records that Valentina Tereshkova installed:
- Cosmonaut’s first woman in the world (sixth among Soviet cosmonauts, 12th people in space);
- the youngest woman who visited space – at the time of the flight she was 26 years old;
- The only woman who has completed a flight alone (others have passed as part of the crews); First woman in the history of the Russian army, having a title Major General Aviation.