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On this day in space! June 16, 1963: First woman travels Into space

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Russian cosmonaut Valentina Nikolayeva Tereshkova made history as the first woman to travel into space.

On June 16, 1963, Valentina Nikolayeva Tereshkova became the first woman to travel into space.

Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to fly in space, climbs into her capsule, Vostok 6, in 1963. (Image credit: Roscosmos)
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Tereshkova, a cosmonaut with then-Soviet Russia, launched into space on the Vostok 6 mission and orbited Earth 48 times in 70.8 hours. That's nearly three days alone in space!

The goal of Vostok 6 was to better understand the female body's reaction to spaceflight. Tereshkova was give the title Hero of the Soviet Union when she returned from her voyage. Vostok 6 was her only space mission.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

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Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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