Yelena Kondakova
First long-duration flight by a woman
Timeline - Kondakova in the record
4 entries from the Secret Dawn - Among the Stars archive, 4 of them events in Kondakova's own life.
Yelena Kondakova trains as an engineer and joins RKK Energia; she marries cosmonaut Valery Ryumin.
Kondakova launches to Mir on 3 October 1994 (4 October in one source) for a mission of 169 days, the first genuinely long-duration flight by a woman, demonstrating that women can endure the missions the men had monopolised.
Kondakova flies aboard Atlantis to Mir, the first Russian woman to fly on the American shuttle, the international era of Russian spaceflight in person.
Kondakova is elected to the Russian parliament in December 1999 and sits as a deputy until 2003, her flights having quietly closed the gap Tereshkova's single mission had left open for three decades.
The research file for this dossier holds 6 verified source entries, 6 of them distinct works. The sources page lists every one of them with what it covers, how it was reached, and the sharpest point at which this page and its sources come apart.