Irina Bayanovna Solovyova (born September 6, 1937) was one of the five women chosen in the female group, now a retired Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 cosmonaut

Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

. She never flew into space, but was chosen as the backup to Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova is a retired Soviet cosmonaut, and was the first woman in space. She was selected out of more than four hundred applicants, and then out of five finalists, to pilot Vostok 6 on the 16 June, 1963, becoming both the first woman and the first civilian to fly in...

, the first woman in space via Vostok 6

Vostok 6

-Backup crew:-Reserve crew:Vostok VI-Mission parameters:*Mass: *Apogee: *Perigee: *Inclination: 64.9°*Period: 87.8 minutes9090...

 in June, 1963. Solovyova was also chosen to fly on Voskhod 5, in which she would have become the first woman to walk in space (that honor went to Svetlana Savitskaya

Svetlana Savitskaya

Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya She started training as a cosmonaut in 1980. Upon returning to Earth, Savitskaya was assigned as the commander of an all-female Soyuz crew to Salyut 7 in commemoration of the International Women's Day, a mission that was later canceled.She was twice awarded the Hero...

in 1984), but the Voskhod program was canceled after Voskhod 2 in favor of the Soyuz program.

Before being recruited as a cosmonaut, Solovyova was a world champion member of the Soviet national parachutists.