Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova[a][b] (born 6 March 1937) is a Russian engineer, member of the State Duma, and former Soviet cosmonaut.

She remained politically active following the collapse of the Soviet Union but twice lost elections to the national State Duma in 1995 and 2003.

Valentina Tereshkova was born on 6 March 1937 in the Bolshoye Maslennikovo, a village on the Volga River[2] 270 kilometres (170 mi) northeast of Moscow and part of the Yaroslavl Oblast in central Russia.

[2] She began working at a tire factory, and later at a textile mill, but continued her education by taking correspondence courses and graduated from the Light Industry Technical School in 1960.

[3] Tereshkova also joined the local Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in Yaroslavl, serving as the secretary of the organisation in 1960 and 1961.

[11] The rules required that the potential cosmonaut be a parachutist under 30 years of age, less than 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) in height, and no more than 70 kg (154 lb) in weight.

[3] By January 1962, the All-Union Voluntary Society for Assistance to the Army, Air Force and Navy (DOSAAF) had selected 400 candidates for consideration.

With advice from the male cosmonauts, they chose to accept Kamanin's offer, as it would make it harder for the programme to get rid of them after the first flight.

[19][20] Tatyana Kuznetsova became ineligible for the first flight due to illness, and Zhanna Yorkina was performing poorly in training, leaving Tereshkova, Irina Solovyova, and Valentina Ponomaryova as the leading candidates.

[21] Originally, a joint mission profile was developed that would involve launching two women into space, on solo Vostok flights, on consecutive days in March or April 1963.

[32] Her mission was used to continue the medical studies on humans in spaceflight and offered comparative data about the effects of space travel on women.

[38] Although Tereshkova experienced nausea and physical discomfort for much of the flight,[39] she orbited the earth 48 times and spent 2 days, 22 hours, and 50 minutes in space.

[40] As planned in all Vostok missions, Tereshkova ejected from the capsule during its descent at about four miles above the Earth[35] and made a parachute landing 620 km (385 mi) north-east of Karaganda, Kazakhstan at 8:20 am UTC on 19 June.

[42] However, she landed safely but received a bruise on her nose, then she had dinner with some local villagers in the Altai Krai who helped her to get out of her spacesuit.

[43] According to the Russian newspaper Pravda, one million flowers were brought in to celebrate the success of the dual flights and greet the cosmonauts in Moscow.

All three made speeches from atop Lenin's Tomb on the Red Square; Tereshkova said, "my father perished defending our country and my mother brought up her three children.

[45] Sometime after her mission, she was reportedly asked how the Soviet Union should thank her for her service to the country; Tereshkova requested that the government search for and publish the location of where her father was killed in action.

[50] The following month she presented a silver cup, which went to the team from the Soviet Union who won gold in all five boat classes, at the women's 1963 European Rowing Championships held in Khimki near Moscow.

[52] Except for a few-months break that year, Tereshkova went on a continuous and exhausting world tour, returning to her public duties only two months after the birth of her daughter.

[56] A few months after she graduated with honours from the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy in October 1969,[58] the team of women cosmonauts was disbanded and a woman would not go to space again until Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982, after a gap of 19 years.

[58] In April 1977, she earned a doctorate in aeronautical engineering[59] and underwent the medical examinations to qualify for spaceflight when selection of a new class of women cosmonauts was announced in 1978.

[60] She remained politically active following the collapse of the Soviet Union but lost elections to the national State Duma during 1995.

[61] On 4 December 2011, Tereshkova was elected to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, as a representative of the Yaroslavl Oblast and a member of the United Russia party.

[64][65][66] In the 6th State Duma, together with Yelena Mizulina, Irina Yarovaya and Andrey Skoch,[67][68][69] she was a member of the inter-factional committee for the protection of Christian values.

[65] During the drafting process for the 2020 amendments to the Constitution of Russia, she proposed to lift the term limits for president Putin.

[73] In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine,[74] the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury added Tereshkova to the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List on 30 September 2022, which results in her assets being frozen and U.S. persons being prohibited from dealing with her.

[22][38] In 1997, London-based electronic pop group Komputer released a song entitled "Valentina" which gives a more-or-less direct account of her career as a cosmonaut.

[117] The 2015 album The Race for Space by Public Service Broadcasting also has a song featuring the Smoke Fairies entitled "Valentina".

The film stars Rebecca Front as Tereshkova and is based on an interview by the former cosmonaut where she expressed a desire to journey to Mars.

[131][132] A proposal was also brought forward in 2015 to move a monument to Tereshkova in Lviv, Ukraine to the Territory of Communist Terror Memorial Museum.