A Russian female cosmonaut may fly to the International Space Station in 2013, Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) chief Vladimir Popovkin said on Wednesday.
Cosmonaut Yelena Serova, the first female cosmonaut of the post-Soviet era, should be trained and prepared for a flight lasting up to 170 days he said.
The flight could take place some time in 2013, as it takes 2½ years to prepare a crew, Alexei Krasnov, director of Roscomos manned flight programs, said.
Serova said she had always dreamed of making a space flight, adding that her husband (also a cosmonaut) and her nine-year-old daughter, approved of her decision.
The world’s first woman cosmonaut, Soviet citizen Valentina Tereshkova, flew into space on board the Vostok 6 on June 16, 1963.
The second woman in space, Svetlana Savitskaya, also from the Soviet Union, blasted off 19 years later.