Svetlana Savitskaya Svetlana Savitskaya Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya (; born 8 August 1948) is a retired Soviet aviator and cosmonaut who flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982, becoming the second woman in space. On her 1984 mission she became the first woman to fly to space twice, and the first woman to perform a spacewalk. She set several FAI world records as a pilot. Svetlana Savitskaya was born in a privileged family. Her father, Yevgeniy Savitskiy, was a highly decorated fighter pilot during the Second World War, which later brought him to the position of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Air Defense. Without the
Astronaut Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days. Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight. The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle Challenger's mission STS-7, on June 18, 1983. In 1992 Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on March