LONDON.- Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman and first civilian to travel into space, visited the Science Museum, to open Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age, the greatest exhibition of Soviet spacecraft and artefacts ever to be seen outside Russia.

In opening the exhibition, Valentina Tereshkova was reunited with Vostok-6, the actual 2.6 tonne spacecraft that carried her into and back from orbit in 1963. Complete with the scorched remains of its heat shield, Vostok-6 is just one of many unique spacecraft and artefacts in the exhibition to have travelled into space.

Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age, supported by BP, runs from 18 September 2015 – 13 March 2016.

Cosmonauts tells the remarkable story of the scientific and technological ingenuity that kick-started the space age with a record number of firsts for the Soviet Union: in 1957, it launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite and four years later sent the first human into space - Yuri Gagarin. Following the success of Sputnik, the Soviet Union launched the first animal, man and woman into orbit – all within six years.

Lead Soviet rocket engineer and designer Sergei Korolev is said to have insisted on Sputnik’s shiny appearance because he believed that one day replicas would be displayed in the world’s museums. Visitors to Cosmonauts are able to look inside an original engineering model of Sputnik from 1957.

Among the 150 exhibits in Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age are:

The monumental 5-metre tall LK-3 lunar lander (1969), the most complete Soviet lunar lander still in existence. Designed to take a single cosmonaut to the Moon’s surface and kept secret until 1989, this lunar lander was declassified especially for this exhibition

· A dog ejector seat and suit, engineering models as used on Soviet suborbital rocket flights (1960)

· A space toilet, shower, fridge and other space kit designed to help cosmonauts live on Mir space station

· Gold phantom mannequin made in the image of Yuri Gagarin, flown around the Moon on Zond-7 (1969) to test the effects of radiation

· Rocket pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s extraordinary 1933 drawings of space flight, depicting spacewalks, weightlessness and life in orbit almost thirty years before they became a reality

· Rarely-seen collection of original Soviet space poster art which fixed the image of the cosmonaut in the minds of the Soviet people

On seeing the exhibition, Professor Brian Cox said:“I think you will leave the Cosmonauts exhibition with a different view of humanity’s place in the cosmos.”

Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was chosen to become the first woman to travel into space on 16 June 1963. She had been a keen parachutist before joining the space programme and this experience stood her in good stead when training for ejecting from the Vostok spacecraft. During launch, Tereshkova shouted, ‘Hey sky, take off your hat! I’m coming to see you!’ Her mission lasted three days (70.8 hours) and she orbited the Earth 48 times.

The push to send a woman into space had come from Lt General Kamanin, head of the cosmonaut training programme, who wrote in his diary, ‘Under no circumstances should an American become the first woman in space – this would be an insult to the patriotic feeling of Soviet women.’ It would be twenty years before the first American woman was launched into space (Sally Ride aboard the Space Shuttle).

From the work of late 19th century Cosmist thinkers who proposed that humanity's destiny lay in space, to the reality of living in space on board Mir and the International Space Station, Cosmonauts gives visitors a unique opportunity to get up close to many of the key innovations that made space exploration possible.

It explores the science and technology of Russian space travel in its cultural and spiritual context, revealing a deep-rooted national yearning for space that was shaped by the turbulent early decades of the 20th century.

Ian Blatchford, Director of the Science Museum, said: “Cosmonauts is a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition that has taken years of dedication and skill from the Science Museum team to make a reality. The Russian space programme is one of the great intellectual, scientific and engineering successes of the 20th century and I am thrilled that we have been able to bring together such an outstanding collection of Russian space artefacts to celebrate these achievements. I want to thank all our partners and funders who have made this exhibition possible.”

With the move by both Russia and America to create a more permanent human presence in space from the 1970s, international co-operation became increasingly necessary. Visitors to Cosmonauts have the opportunity to see some of the ingenious technologies developed by Russia for use on board the Salyut and Mir space stations and now used on board the International Space Station.

“Cosmonauts tells the story of the Russian space programme as never before – and in doing so it also tells the story of Russia through its history, technology, culture and its people,” said Bob Dudley, Group Chief Executive, BP. “BP has a long-standing relationship with the Science Museum aimed at increasing public engagement with science and technology. Our support of Cosmonauts is also an extension of BP’s broader efforts in Russia to promote the development of science and engineering as well as excellence in arts and culture.”