SVETLANA SAVITSKAYA
The second woman in space was also the first woman to perform a spacewalk
Savitskaya was born in Moscow on 8 August 1948, inheriting her passion for flight from her father, Yevgeny Savitsky, who served as deputy commander of the Soviet Air Defence Forces. By the time she was 16, Savitskaya had decided that she wanted to be a pilot and applied to a flying school, though she was rejected because she was too young. She was, however, permitted to take up parachuting instead. By the time she was 17 Savitskaya had already completed 450 parachute jumps, and would soon take part in a recordbreaking stratospheric skydive from 14,252 metres (46,758 feet).
Savitskaya’s determined spirit and skydiving experience paid off when she was admitted to the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) at just 18 years old. In parallel with her studies at MAI, Savitskaya took flying lessons at the Central United Flight Technical School at the Central Committee of the DOSAAF, where she qualified as a pilot instructor in 1971. Savitskaya graduated from MAI in 1972, and went on to hone her skills at the aircraft department of the Test Pilot School of the Flight Research Institute of the Ministry of Aviation Industry in Zhukovsky, graduating from the institute in 1976. In 1986 Savitskaya successfully completed her doctorate degree at Bauman Moscow State Technical University.
Savitskaya racked up 18 world records in aviation, including a 2,683 kilometre (1,667 mile) per hour flight speed record for a female pilot in an MiG-25 aircraft. Throughout her time at MAI, Savitskaya was an active member of the Soviet national aerobatics team, where she became a world champion, and in 1970 was dubbed ‘Miss Sensation’ by the British press after her performance at the FAI World Aerobatic Championships in Hullavington, UK. Savitskaya’s flying talent was not limited to aerobatics; the certified test pilot, second class, was qualified to fly over 20 different types of aircraft, and had impressively racked up over 1,500 hours of flight time before she was recruited as a cosmonaut.
When the Soviet Union set up a recruitment drive for female cosmonauts in 1979, Savitskaya was the perfect fit. She joined the cosmonaut training program in 1980 and was selected for the Soyuz T-7 mission to the Soviet space station Salyut 7. 19 years after Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space, Savitskaya followed in her footsteps. On 19 August 1982, Savitskaya flew alongside fellow cosmonauts Leonid Popov and Aleksandr Serebrov on the Soyuz T-7 spacecraft to Salyut 7. Their mission lasted eight days, and when the crew returned to Earth, Savitskaya made headlines as the second woman to travel into space, beating NASA astronaut Sally Ride by ten months.
Just two years later, on 17 July 1984,
Savitskaya returned to Salyut 7 on the Soyuz
T-12 mission alongside Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Igor Volk. During this mission, Savitskaya not only became the first woman to return to space, but was also the first woman to perform a spacewalk. After nearly 12 days in space, the crew returned to Earth. Soyuz T-12 would mark Savitskaya’s last trip to space.
There were plans for Savitskaya to return to Salyut 7 as commander of an all-female crew for International Women’s Day in 1986, but the mission was cancelled due to problems with the ageing station. Since her retirement from the cosmonaut corps in 1993, Savitskaya has led a successful political career.
Savitskaya is one of the most revered women in spaceflight history. She was twice awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, and also received two Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Badge of Honour in 1976. But Savitskaya’s accolades are not limited to Earth: asteroid 4118 Sveta, which resides within the main asteroid belt, is named in her honour.