Valentina Tereshkova Biography

Valentina Tereshkova Profile

Name: Valentina Tereshkova

Full Name: Valentina Nikolayeva Tereshkova

Date of Birth: 6 March 1937

Birth Place: Maslennikovo, Tutayevsky District in Central Russia.

Father's Name: Vladimir Tereshkov

Mother's Name: Elena Fyodorovna Tereshkova

Sibling : Vladimir Tereshkov (Brother), Ludmila Tereshkova (Sister)

Spouse (s): Yuli Shaposhnikov (m. 1982–1999) and Andriyan Nikolayev (m. 1963–1982)

Children: Elena Andrianovna Nikolaeva-Tereshkova ( daughter)

Education: Light Industry Technical School in 1960, Zhukovsky Military Air Academy in 1969

Occupation: Cosmonaut, Pilot, Politician

Nationality: Russian

Political Activity:

1.Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1960–1991)
2. Our Home – Russia (1995)
3. Russian Party of Life (2003)
4. United Russia (2008– present)

Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Death Age: 84

Space career Soviet cosmonaut

Rank: Major general( Air Force)

Space-Time: 2 days, 22 hours, and 50 mins

Valentina Tereshkova Biography

Valentina Tereshkova was born on March 6, 1937, in a proletariat family. She was born in the village of Maslennikovo, Tutayevsky District in Central Russia.

Tereshkova's father was a tractor driver and her mother worked during a textile plant. Her parents were proletariat. Hence in her childhood, her financial condition was bad. Of course, during her adulthood, she is well off.

Tereshkova started to school in 1945 at the age of eight, but left school in 1953 and continued her education through distance learning. The reason is that she was from insolvent family. She had to work as a textile worker. From the very adolescence of her life, she wanted to do something extraordinary. She wanted to create coruscation all over the world by doing something outstanding. She had a dream to conquer the space.

She became interested in parachuting from a young age, and trained in skydiving at the local Aeroclub, making her first jump at age 22 on May 21, 1959.

At that point, she was employed as a textile worker during a local factory. It was her expertise in skydiving that led to her selection as a cosmonaut. After the flight of Yuri Gagarin (the first human being to travel to outer space in 1961), the Soviet Union decided to send a woman into space. On 16 February 1962.

“Proletarian” Tereshkova was selected for this project from quite four hundred applicants.

Tereshkova had to undergo a series of training that included weightless flights, isolation tests, centrifuge tests, rocket theory, spacecraft engineering, 120 parachute jumps and pilot training in MIG- 15UTI jet fighters.

On June 1963 the spacecraft Vostok-5 launch successfully. Tereshkova began preparing for her own flight. On the morning of June 16, 1963, Tereshkova and her back-up cosmonaut, Solovyova were wearing space-suits and brought to the spacecraft launch pad by a bus.

Then she completing communication and life support checks, she was sealed inside Vostok 6. Finishing a two-hour countdown, Vostok-6 launched faultlessly.

Although Tereshkova experienced nausea and physical discomfort for much of the flight. She orbited the world 48 times and spent almost three days in space. With a single flight, she logged more flight time than the combined times of all American astronauts who had own before that date.

Tereshkova also maintained a flight log and took photographs of the horizon, which were later accustomed to identify aerosol layers within the atmosphere.

Vostok-6 was the ultimate Vostok flight and was launched two days after Vostok-5, which carried Valary Bykosky into similar orbit for five days, landing three hours after Tereshkova. The Vostok approached each other within 5 kilometres at one point, and from space Tereshkova communicated with Bykosky and thus the Soviet leader Khrushchev by radio. It proves that women can also make the impossible possible.

Much later, in 1977 Tereshkova earned a doctorate degree in Engineering from Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. Afterwards, she joined politics. During the Soviet Union regime, she became one of the praesidium members of the Supreme Soviet. Now, this living legend is a member in the lower house of the Russian legislature.

Valentina Tereshkova is the first woman to conquer the space. On her 7oth birthday when she was invited by the Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, she expressed her desire to fly to Mars, even if for a one-way trip. This legendary woman still alive.

Awards and Achievements

✓Hero of the Soviet Union in 1963

✓Merited Master of Sports of the Soviet Union in June 1963

✓Order of Lenin in 1963 and 1981

✓Order of the Friendship of Peoples

✓Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Soviet Union in 1963

✓Gold star Hero of Socialist Labor, on August 1963

✓Gold star Hero of Socialist Labor on 9 September 1963

✓Order of Georgi Dimitrov on 9 September, 1963

✓Order of Karl Marx (East Germany) on October 1963

✓Artur Becker Medal [de] (East Germany), October 1963

✓Cross of Grunwald, 1st class (Poland October 1963

✓Order of the Flag of the Republic of Hungary, 1st class (April 1965)

✓Star of the Republic of Indonesia, 2nd class (November 1963)

✓Order of the Volta (Ghana, January 1964)

✓Gold Star Medal of the Hero of the Mongolian People's Republic on May 1965

✓Order of Sukhbaatar (Mongolia) May 1965

✓Order of the Enlightenment (Afghanistan) August 1969

✓Order of Planets (Jordan) December 1969

✓Order of the October Revolution in 1971

✓Order of the Nile (Egypt) January 1971

✓Gold Star of Hero of Labor (Vietnam) October 1971

✓Order of Bernardo O'Higgins (Chile) March 1972

✓Order of Ana Betancourt (Cuba) 1974

✓Order of the Red Banner of Labour in 1987

✓Order of Friendship (Laos) 1997

✓Order of Duke Branimir, with sash (Croatia), presented on 8 September 2005

✓The Eduard Rhein Ring of Honor from the German Eduard Rhein Foundation in 2007

✓Order of Merit for the Fatherland ( 6 march 1997, 6 march 2007, 1 March 2017)

✓Order of Alexander Nevsky in 2013

✓Order of Honour 10 June 2003

✓Order of Friendship 2 April 2011

✓Russian Federation State Prize in 2008 and 4 June 2009

✓Participant of the Military Operation in Syria Medal [ru] in 2016

✓Strengthening the Military Community Medal [ru] in 2018

✓Certificates of appreciation from the Government of the Russian Federation on  3 March 1997

✓Gold Medal of the British Society for interplanetary communication on February 1964

✓Gold Space Medal FAI, in 1963

✓Honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh in 1990

✓Order of St. Euphrosyne of Moscow on January 2008