Soviet ‘Cosmic Spectacular’ Included First Woman in Space

By Bob Granath

In June 1963, 60 years ago, the Soviet Union performed another “spectacular” in the cosmos, eclipsing American achievements in space. As was the case 10 months earlier, two Vostok spacecraft orbited the Earth with one establishing a new human spaceflight endurance record. Aboard the second capsule was the first woman to travel in space. Her time in orbit was more than all six U.S. human flights combined.

Launched June 14, 1963, Vostok 5 was flown by Soviet cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky, an Air Force pilot. Two days later, Valentina Tereshkova was launched aboard Vostok 6. While the two had no capability to rendezvous, they were in vice contact during their flight. The two spacecrafts’ closest approach was within 2.8 miles. While she was the first woman in space, it would be another 19 years before the Soviets launched the second, Svetlana Savitskaya, who became the first woman to perform a spacewalk.

According to Russian rocket and spacecraft control systems designer Boris Chertok, there was no consensus among Soviet space leaders as to what should come next in their human spaceflight program following the flights of Vostoks 3 and Vostok 4. Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, the guiding genius behind the Soviet space program, favored another dual flight. However, if so, should it be two women, two men, or a man and a woman? Other Russian space leaders believed there was no reason to fly female crews, emphasizing flight duration such as a six to eight-day mission.

“We needed to show that there was a benefit from having a human being in space,” Chertok wrote in his 1999 memoir, Rockets and People: Hot Days of the Cold War, re-published in 2009 by the NASA History Division. “But the memory of our sensational space feats was fading, and rather than a routine project, political considerations demanded a new space sensation. The flight of a woman might be just that.”

According to former NASA Chief Historian, Bill Barry, this approach is what gave the Soviets the appearance of a lead in the space race. It was “the agility and brilliance of the Soviet engineering team in coming up with ‘firsts’ that would score public relations points.”

“The historical record is now clear that the Soviets were operating a very thin program of one-off spectaculars that made it appear there was a ‘race,’” he said.

Valery Bykovsky

Born Aug. 2, 1934 in Pavlovsky Posad, Russia, Bykovsky was five years old at the outbreak of World War II. His family was forced to move multiple times eventually settling near Moscow.At the age of 14, he attended a lecture on the Soviet Air Force Club, which inspired him to become a pilot. Bykovsky graduated from aviation school at age 18 and enrolled in the Kachinsk Military Aviation Academy, graduating when he was 21-years-old earning the rank of lieutenant.

He served as a fighter pilot and later as an instructor pilot, training other pilots on fighter aircraft and bombers. In the 1950s, he participated in the testing of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-19 jet fighter, which was the first Soviet production aircraft capable of supersonic flight. He began his cosmonaut training in 1960.

Valentina Tereshkova

Tereshkova was born on March 6, 1937 in the Bolshoye Maslennikovo, a village on the Volga River 170 miles northeast of Moscow. Her father, Vladimir Tereshkov, was a former tractor driver and a sergeant in command of a tank in the Soviet Army who died in the Finnish Winter War during World War II. Tereshkova was two years old at the time. Afterwards, her mother, Elena Tereshkova worked at the Krasny Perekop cotton mill. Tereshkova spoke of her experience in remarks following her spaceflight.

“We know the bitterness of that war,” she said. “My father perished defending our country and my mother brought up her three children.”

Tereshkova began working at a tire factory, and later at a textile mill, but continued her education by taking correspondence courses and graduating from the Light Industry Technical School in 1960. At a young age, she also became interested in skydiving at the local Aeroclub, making her first jump at age 22. While still employed as a textile worker, she trained as a competitive parachutist.

Because Soviet cosmonauts were required to eject from their spacecraft, women skydivers became the obvious choice. On March 12, 1962, a group of five civilian women with parachuting experience was selected for training as a cosmonaut. However, Tereshkova looked beyond that.

“If women can be railroad workers in Russia,” she said, “why can’t they fly in space?”

While the choice of Bykovsky to pilot Vostok 5 was without controversy, Chertok noted that selection of which female candidate was the subject of heated discussions about which of the three finalists to select — Tereshkova, Irina Solovyeva and Valentina Ponomareva. Members of the Academy of Sciences favored Ponomareva. However, Korolev and Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, supported Tereshkova.

‘Hawk,’ ‘Seagull’ Soar

On June 14, 1963, Bykovsky was aboard his spacecraft during the countdown when, at T-minus 5 minutes, a problem developed with an upper stage gyroscope. The preferred procedure would have been to drain the propellants from the launch vehicle, remove it from the launch pad and return it to the assembly building. This would have required a delay of several days. The chief guidance and control specialists convinced Korolev to take the risk of simply doing the repair work on the fully fueled launch vehicle with Bykovsky aboard.

Liftoff took place without further difficulties, although the upper stage slightly underperformed, placing the spacecraft into a lower-than-expected orbit of 108 by 137 miles as opposed to the planned altitude of 112 by 146 miles. Bykovsky implemented a couple of simple scientific experiments in orbit. He also practiced exercising and tested his body’s reactions to weightlessness.

The launch of Vostok-6 with 26-year-old Tereshkova lifted off right on schedule on June 16, orbiting the Earth at 102 miles by 132 miles.

“I got nervous right before the start,” she said later. “I can’t even tell why. It’s hard to be first.”

Several media outlets began referring to Tereshkova by the radio code name – “Chayka” (Russian for “Seagull”) after similar reports in Russia’s state-owned news agency, TASS. Bykovsky was called “Yastreb” (Russian for “Hawk”). Using her call name, she reported on the view out the window.

“It is I, Seagull,” she said. “Everything is fine. I see the horizon; it’s a sky blue with a dark strip. How beautiful the Earth is. Everything is going well.”

As was the case on previous Vostok missions, Tereshkova kept a flight log, took photographs of the Earth and used available controls to orient the spacecraft. Her photographs of the horizon from space later were used to identify layers within the atmosphere. Soviet state television showed live scenes of Tereshkova from an onboard camera and she spoke with Premier Nikita Khrushchev. However, her contact with ground controllers about her condition later was described as “evasive.”

“During day two the flight directors began to complain about her responses, which were not always clear,” Chertok said. “Whether she was fatigued, or suffering from nausea in weightlessness, she sometimes gave evasive responses to direct questions. After being tasked with manual attitude control of the spacecraft, she failed to execute it on her first attempt. This didn’t bother us very much, but it really annoyed Korolev.”

Plans called for Bykovsky to establish a new spaceflight duration record of eight days and Tereshkova was supposed to fly for no more than three. However, Bykovsky’s orbital altitude dropped more rapidly than expected. On June 17, the decision was made to limit the time of his flight to five days, landing on the 82nd orbit. Tereshkova’s flight program had provided for a landing during the 48th orbit.

As was the case during the re-entry of Vostok 1 and Vostok 2, the module with Bykovsky aboard failed to separate cleanly from the service module. He experienced several seconds of serious vibrations immediately following.

“We are spinning violently,” he reported to tracking stations. However, he soon added, “Well, it (the spacecraft) survived through.”

With control regained, Vostok 5 safely landed northwest of Karatal, Kazakhstan following Bykovsky’s 4 day, 23 hour and 7 minute flight. A group of local farmers were first to greet the cosmonaut prior to rescue teams arriving.

For Tereshkova, the landing was where her experience as a parachutist was crucial. As planned, she ejected from the Vostok 6 spacecraft at about 8,000 feet above the ground. She nearly landed in a lake as a stiff wind was blowing. She safely landed, only sustaining a bruise on her nose.

People living in the area were eager to welcome the new space hero and were first to greet Tereshkova. She quickly consumed food they provided and laid out on the Vostok 6 parachute. She obviously was hungry, as she reported having no appetite during her 2 days, 22 hours and 50 minutes in space.

“When you are up there, you are homesick for Earth as your cradle,” Tereshkova said later. “When you get back, you just want to get down and hug it.”

Following the first spaceflight for a woman, Chertok stated that he believed Tereshkova was a capable cosmonaut.

“It was much simpler to control a spacecraft than an airplane since all the processes are more spread out over time,” he said. “One has the opportunity to think. A spacecraft isn’t going to go into a tailspin. If a firing of the braking engine is scheduled, then, according to the laws of celestial mechanics, the spacecraft will not depart from its orbit. Consequently, any physically and mentally normal individual who has been trained for two to three months can control it.”

Soyuz Missions for Bykovsky

Following Vostok 5, Bykovsky went on to fly two additional missions. In 1976, he flew the Soyuz 22 mission with cosmonaut Vladimir Aksyonov orbiting for nearly eight days to study and practice Earth observation techniques. While the mission was described as a science mission, it also allowed observations of NATO exercises near Norway.

Bykovsky’s third flight was Soyuz 31 to the Soviet Union’s Salyut 6 space station. He and East German cosmonaut Sigmund Jähn flew nearly eight days in August 1978, joining two cosmonauts on the station conducting biological experiments on themselves before landing back on Earth. The Salyut 6 crew of Vladimir Kovalyono and Aleksandr Ivanchenkov remained aboard for 139 days.

After the Soyuz 31 mission, Bykovsky became the director of the Centre of Soviet Science & Culture in East Berlin. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he was a member of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, from 1999 to 2003. While in the Duma, he served as a member of the Committee on Science, Education, Culture and Information Policy, working to advance science and technology initiatives in Russia by advocating for greater funding for scientific research and education.

Bykovsky was married to Valentina Sukhova with whom he had two sons. He died on March 27, 2019.

Reaching ‘Cosmic Heights’

Shortly after her spaceflight, Tereshkova married cosmonaut Andriyan Nikolayev on Nov. 3 1963 in the Moscow Wedding Palace with Khrushchev presiding. Many reports suggested the marriage was “encouraged” by the Soviet space authorities. The following year, she gave birth to their daughter Elena Nikolaeva-Tereshkova, the first person with both a mother and father who travelled into space. Tereshkova and Nikolayev divorced in 1982 and she married Yuli Shaposhnikov, a surgeon she had met during her medical examinations to re-qualify as a cosmonaut in 1979. They remained married until Shaposhnikov’s death in 1999.

In her professional career, Tereshkova become a colonel in the Soviet Air Force, eventually reaching the honorary rank of Major General. She also earned a doctorate in aeronautical engineering from the N. Ye. Zhukovskiy Air Force Engineering Academy in April 1977. Two years later, she re-qualified for spaceflight when selection of a new class of women cosmonauts was announced in 1978. Although she did not go to space again, she remained an instructor at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center.

“She had reached truly cosmic heights,” Chertok wrote, recalling Tereshkova’s career.

“Tereshkova became chairperson of the Committee of Soviet Women and, in 1969, the vice president of the International Democratic Federation of Women and a member of the World Peace Council,” he said. “Beginning in 1971, she was a member of the Central Committee of the USSR. In 1974, she became a deputy and member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and chair of the Society for the Friendship of the Peoples of the Soviet Union (and then Russia) with Other Countries.”

Like Bykovsky, Tereshkova remained politically active following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2008, she was elected to her regional parliament, the Yaroslavl Oblast Duma.

A year earlier, Tereshkova was invited to the home of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to celebrate of her 70th birthday. According to a report from the Reuters news agency, during her visit she said that she would like to fly to Mars, even if it meant that it was a one-way trip.

Frequently asked to speak about her experience in space, Tereshkova is eager to share her feelings.

“Once you’ve been in space, you appreciate how small and fragile the Earth is,” she said. “They forbade me from flying (in space again), despite all my protests and arguments. After being once in space, I was keen to go back there.”

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