From Thuraya and Chang Ah to Nancy Roman Women who made history in space

In June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova sat inside the Soviet Vostok 6 spacecraft, becoming the first woman to leave Earth for space. She wasn't just a cosmonaut breaking a human barrier; she carried with her into orbit a question that had long preoccupied men: Could women be part of the future of space exploration?

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After more than six decades, women's presence in space is no longer limited to those sitting inside spacecraft; their names now soar above the Earth, orbit planets, walk on their surfaces, and peer from telescopes into the depths of the universe.

Interestingly, these names do not come from one country or one culture. From real-life scientists like Nancy Grace Roman, Rosalind Franklin, Caroline Herschel, and Vera Rubin, to queens, goddesses, and princesses in Chinese, Japanese, and Greek mythology, female names have become part of the space exploration lexicon.

From the first woman in orbit to women who bear the names of spacecraft

Tereshkova was the first woman in space, but the Soviet Union did not name its spacecraft after her. Years later, Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to visit a space station in 1982, and then the first woman to perform an extravehicular activity in 1984.

This paradox reveals something important: women were present in the history of space travel before their names appeared on the spacecraft themselves.

In the United States, the names of female astronauts and scientists later appeared on supply vehicles and satellites. Cygnus spacecraft bore the names of female astronauts such as Janice Voss, Sally Ride, and Kalpana Chawla, as well as the mathematician Katherine Johnson.

But the most significant shift occurred when the scientific vehicles themselves began to bear the names of women who were associated with the science that the vehicle came to study.

Rosalind Franklin: A woman waiting on Mars

In Europe, the name "Rosalind Franklin" is hard to ignore. the British scientist's name for its ExoMars rover, which was designed to search for traces of ancient life on Mars and drill into its surface.

The name was not just a passing tribute; Rosalind Franklin was chosen from among more than 36,000 proposals submitted by citizens of the European Space Agency's member states, in honor of the scientist whose work in X-ray crystallography contributed to revealing the structure of DNA.