This week the kids and I have been learning about Valentina Tereshkova and we thought we’d share what we found.

Valentina Tereshkova was born on March 6, 1937 in a village on the Volga River about 300km north of Moscow, to the parents Vladimir and Elena, she was the first of three children.

Her father was a tractor driver on a collective farm who later became tank commander in the Soviet Army.

When Valentina was two her father was reported missing in action in the Finnish Winter War.

Valentina stayed at home to help her mum and didn’t start school until she was ten.

At 17 Valentina began work at a tyre factory, and later a textile mill, but continued her education by correspondence.

In 1960 she graduated from the Light Industry Technical School.

The young Valentina became interested in parachuting and she joined her local Aeroclub making her first jump aged 22.

She went on to train as a competitive parachutist, which she kept secret from her family.

Meanwhile, Nikolai Kamanin, the director of cosmonaut training, was granted approval to select and train five female cosmonauts.

The rules required that the potential cosmonaut be a parachutist under 30 years of age, less than 170 cm in height, no more than 70 kg in weight.

Valentina volunteered and was one of 400 candidates, quickly reduced to 58 then 23.

On 16 February 1962, Valentina, along with four other candidates, was selected to join the female cosmonaut corps.

Valentina and her comrades went through extremely rigorous training including centrifuge up to 12Gs (modern cosmonauts go up to 8Gs) and sitting in a thermal chamber up to 80 degrees Celsius in full flight gear.

Valentina noted that one of the problems she and her fellow female trainee cosmonauts experienced was that all spaceflight hardware, "including spacesuits and spacecraft comfort-assuring systems, were designed mostly by men and for men."

On the morning of 16 June 1963, Valentina was taken to the launch pad by bus.

Following tradition set by Gagarin, Valentina urinated on the bus tyre.

After a two-hour countdown, Vostok 6 launched, and Valentina became the first woman in space.

Her call sign during the flight was Ча́йка (Seagull), soon after launch, she radioed:

“It is I, Seagull! 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.”

Valentina orbited the earth 48 times and spent 2 days, 22 hours, and 50 minutes in space.

She logged more flight time than the combined times of all American astronauts who had flown before that date.

As with all Vostok missions at the time, returning required the cosmonaut to leave the craft and parachute to Earth.

At four miles altitude, Valentina climbed out of the capsule and made a parachute jump to Earth.

A parachute Jump!

Valentina landed 620 km north-east of Karaganda, Kazakhstan at 8:20am.

Valentina said she had difficulty controlling the parachute due to strong winds but landed safely, receiving a bruise on her nose.

Valentina was helped out of her space suit by some local villagers, then, cool as you like, she had dinner with them while waiting recovery.

Valentina was 26.

Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman to fly into space, the first civilian to fly into space, and remains the only woman ever to have completed a solo space mission.