Valentina Terechkova

Valentina Vladimirovna Terechkova (in Cyrillic: ВалентинаВладимировнаТерешкова ), born the March 6th 1937 with Maslennikovo, in the area of Yaroslavl (Soviet Union) is the first Femme Cosmonaute of the Histoire.

Biography

After the success of the flight of Youri Gagarine, Sergey Korolyov, the father of the Soviet space program, with the idea to send a woman in space. Worker of the textile at 18 years, it is selected among more than 400 candidates to become, under the crook of Youri Gagarine, the first woman in the espace.

The drive included flights in weightlessness, tests of insulation, tests of Centrifugeuse, space engineering, theoretical propulsion, 120 jumps in parachute and a training of pilot on fighters Mig-15UTI. However the women were not really integrated into the detachment of the cosmonauts and were considered on an equal basis for the assignments of flights. The Soviet leaders regarded the flights of women in space only as one tool of propaganda, which was already most of the space conquest during the Cold war. It is Nikita Khrouchtchev him even which made the final selection, choosing Tereshkova on the five women finalists.

After this single flight, she married the cosmonaut Andrian Nikolaïev, at the time of a marriage " arrangé" for reasons of propaganda. The couple gave rise to a little girl (now become doctor), and separated.
shortly after Then it left the Soviet space program and took again its études.
In 1971 it became member of the central committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union.

Flight carried out

Under the code “the Russian gull” (: Ча́йка (Chayka)), Valentina Terechkova carried out 48 orbits around the Ground on board Vostok 6, in 70 hours and 41 minutes, of the June 16th 1963 with 12:30 with the June 19th 1963 with 11:11. This duration of 2 days flight 22 hours and 41 minutes represented in only one mission, more than the total of the hours of flight of all the American astronauts of the époque.

Vostok 6 was the last flight of Vostok and had been launched only 2 days after Vostok 5 which transported Valery Bykovsky orbits about it for 5 days, landing only 3 hours after Terechkova in Vostok 6. At one time, the two vessels were only 5 km away and a radio operator contact was established between them.

The automatic routine of orientation of the vessel knew failures at the time of the vol. Vostok-6 went up instead of going down, and it tended to move away from the Earth at the time of each revolution instead of approaching some. The data of the control device had to be modified to reconsider a good orbit.

At the time of the final stage of the landing of Vostok 6, Valentina Terechkova was ejected as envisaged, but it was found above a lake. It however succeeded in flying over the lake in parachute, and landing on the dry land.

Valentina Terechkova remains to date the single woman to have carried out only a voyage in space. 19 years will have to be waited before another woman goes in space, it Russian Svetlana Y. Savitskaya, and 20 years before a woman of another nationality goes there in her turn, American the Sally Ride.

Distinctions

A crater of the hidden side of the the Moon of a diameter of 31 km was baptized of its name.

Valentina Terechkova is citizen of honor of 15 cities of the world: Kalouga and Iaroslavl in Russia, Vitebsk in Bielorussia, Baïkonour and Karaganda with the Kazakhstan, Gumri in Arménie, Montreuil and Drancy in France, Montgomery in Great Britain, Polizzi Generosa in Italy, Darkhan in Mongolia, Sofia, Burgas, Petric, Stara Zagora, Pleven and Varna in Bulgaria and Bratislava in Slovakia.

June 22nd, 1963, it was named Héros of the Soviet Union, the highest distinction of the USSR. The Lénine order and the medal of gold Star were also decreed to him. The United Nations decreed the gold medal of peace to him, and the France gave the medal Joliot-Curie to him.

See too

External bonds

the first woman Russian cosmonaut Valentina Terechkova reveals 40 years an old secrecy
Diaporama: The first woman in space celebrates her 70 years
a summary of the accomplished flights

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