June 18, 1983: Sally Ride- 1st American woman in space
The United States caught up with the Soviet space program in terms of women's participation when NASA astronaut Sally Ride joined the STS-7 mission to deploy communications satellites, a mission that later earned her the namesake holiday. One of the satellites she helped set up was the Anik C2—the first in a series of satellites that were three times more powerful than any of their predecessors. Ride's historic mission occurred aboard the Challenger, the same spacecraft that exploded three years later due to a structural failure.
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