Archive footage filmed in 1963 features Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, the first ever woman in space.

26-year-old Tereshkova is seen preparing for her trip, with footage showing her during the space flight and after returning to Earth.

Five women were selected for the mission out of hundreds of candidates; only those up to the age of 30, with a maximum height of 170 cm and weight of 70 kg were eligible.

Tereshkova enrolled in the cosmonaut corps on March 12 1962 and underwent intensive training to build up her body's resistance to the space flight, before being chosen.

The schedule included time spent in a special heat capsule, at a temperature of +70 degrees Celsius (158 degrees Fahrenheit) and 30 per cent humidity, as well as an isolation unit where candidates were required to spend 10 days alone.

Tereshkova started her space flight, which lasted almost three days, on June 16, 1963. She travelled on the Vostok-6 spacecraft, launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome.

On the day of the flight, Tereshkova told her family that she was leaving for a parachute competition. They learned about her successful mission from the radio news.

The groundbreaking cosmonaut went on to become a member of Russia's State Duma in 2011.

This archive footage is released as part of the '100 Key Events in Russia in the 20th and 21st Centuries', a project with the Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive (rgakfd.ru).