Pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR, Svetlana Savitskaya, the first woman to perform a spacewalk, twice Hero of the USSR, turned 65.
Svetlana Savitskaya – cosmonaut, test pilot, Major of the air forces, Honored Master of Sports, Candidate of science. She is the second female cosmonaut in the world and the first woman to perform a spacewalk.
Svetlana Savitskaya was born on August 8th 1948 in Moscow. She graduated from Moscow Aviation Institute and finished the Central flight technical school of DOSAAF of USSR (Voluntary Association for Assistance to Army, Air Force and Navy) in Kaluga.
After the graduation she worked as a pilot-instructor and studied in the school of test pilots. She started working at NPO Vzlet as a test-pilot in 1976. She worked as a test pilot for Moscow machine-building plant Skorost (Yakovlev design bureau) during the period from May 1978 to June 1981.
She joined the squad of pilot-cosmonauts in August 1980. She was appointed cosmonaut-researcher of MMBP Skorost in June 1981. She performed flights onboard Soyuz T-5, Soyuz T-7 spaceships and Salyut-7 orbital station during a period from August 19th to August 27th 1982.
She also performed a flight as an onboard engineer of Soyuz T-12 spaceship and Salyut-7 orbital station during a period from July 17th to July 29th 1984. During this flight she performed her first spacewalk.
Svetlana Savitskaya presented a thesis and gained a Candidate of science degree in 1986. She left the squad of pilot-cosmonauts in October 1993 holding a rank of Major.
From October 27th 1993 to April 15th 1994 she worked as a Deputy Head of 291th department of RSC Energia and then – as an associate professor of Moscow Aviation Institute. She was elected people’s deputy of USSR in 1989 and the people’s deputy of Russia in 1990. She was elected deputy of the State Duma in 1995 as part of Communist Party of Russian Federation (CPRF). She was also elected CPRF deputy of the State Duma in 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011. At present she is the vice-chairman of the Duma’s Defense committee.
