Vostok 5 was a joint mission of the Soviet space program together with Vostok 6; as with the previous pair of Vostok 3 and Vostok 4 the two Vostok spacecraft came close to one another in orbit and established a radio link.

Vostok 6 was the first human spaceflight to carry a woman, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, into space.