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Spacecraft propulsion is used to change the velocity of spacecraft and artificial satellites, or in short, to provide delta-v. There are many different methods. Each method has drawbacks and advantages, and spacecraft propulsion is an active area of research. Most spacecraft today are propelled by heating the reaction mass and allowing it to flow out the back of the vehicle. This sort of engine is called a rocket engine.
All current spacecraft use chemical rocket (bipropellant or solid-fuel) for launch, though some (such as the Pegasus rocket and SpaceShipOne) have used air-breathing engines on their first stage. Most satellites have simple reliable chemical rockets (often monopropellant rockets) or resistojet rockets to keep their station, although some use momentum wheels for attitude control. Newer geo-orbiting spacecraft are starting to use electric propulsion for north-south stationkeeping. Interplanetary vehicles mostly use chemical rockets as well, although a few have experimentally used ion thrusters with some success (a form of electric propulsion).
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Mercury-Redstone 1 Launch Escape System ignition.
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Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova (Russian: Валенти́на Влади́мировна Терешко́ва; born March 6, 1937), is a retired Soviet cosmonaut and was the first woman to fly in space, aboard Vostok 6 on the 16th of June 1963.
After the flight of Yuri Gagarin in 1961, Sergey Korolyov, the head Soviet rocket engineer, came up with the idea of putting a woman in space. On 16 February 1962 Valentina Tereshkova was selected to join the female cosmonaut corps. Out of more than four hundred applicants, five were selected: Tatiana Kuznetsova, Irina Solovyova, Zhanna Yerkina, Valentina Ponomareva, and Tereshkova. Qualifications included that they be parachutists under 30 years of age, under 170 cm tall and under 70 kg in weight.