STS-84 Day 5 Highlights

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On Monday, May 19, 1997, 5:00 a.m. CDT, STS-84 MCC Status Report # 9 reports:

The ten astronauts and cosmonauts of the Atlantis-Mir space complex continued their work through the overnight hours, transferring water, hardware and logistical supplies to and from each other's spacecraft in the third day of joint operations between the Shuttle and the Russian Space Station crewmembers.

While that work continued, European Space Agency astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy and Russian Space Agency cosmonaut Elena Kondakova, both Atlantis Mission Specialists, continued work in the Spacehab module at the rear of the Shuttle's cargo bay, conducting experiments in the Biorack facility. Kondakova also collected both cold and hot water samples from the Mir's water system to return to Earth to be analyzed for their purity.

As planned, the newest member of the Mir 23 crew, Mike Foale, and astronaut Jerry Linenger continued their handover activities to prepare Foale for his 4 month stay on Mir. Foale will serve aboard the Russian outpost until he is replaced by astronaut Wendy Lawrence during Atlantis' next visit to Mir in September.

Atlantis' seven crew members were awakened Sunday night to begin their fifth day of work on orbit by the French National Anthem,."La Marseillaise," before starting the transfer activities, which are already ahead of schedule with more than 50 percent of the total items to be delivered to and from the Mir having been moved to their final locations.

Working in tandem, Commander Charlie Precourt and Pilot Eileen Collins set up equipment to take environmental air samples and also installed a radiation detection monitor Effects and Activation Monitor at each of four locations in the Mir.

While Clervoy and Kondakova conducted scientific work in the Spacehab module, Carlos Noriega relocated a Protein Crystal Growth dewar system from Mir to Atlantis for return to Earth while Ed Lu conducted a photo survey of the Mir station

Earlier today, Precourt downlinked a videotape of an international meal conducted by the ten crew members of the Atlantis-Mir complex shortly after their docking and sent a congratulatory message to the Air Force's 4th Air Expeditionary Wing in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the military service and the completion of wing's tour of duty in Qatar in the Middle East.

Several crew members took time out this morning to answer questions from viewers of the C-SPAN cable television network, discussing the progress of the mission and the condition of the Mir Space Station.

Atlantis and Mir continue to orbit the Earth every 90 minutes at an altitude of 213 nautical miles with all systems functioning normally.

The crewmembers are scheduled to begin a sleep period at 12:08 p.m. Central time. Atlantis' crew will be awakened at 8:08 p.m. this evening, with the Mir crewmembers receiving their wakeup call one hour later.

On Monday, May 19, 1997, 5:30 p.m. CDT, STS-84 MCC Status Report # 10 reports:

The STS-84 crew will begin Flight Day 6 activities at 8:08 p.m. CDT this evening when they receive a wake up call from Mission Control-Houston. The Mir 23crews's wake up alarm on the Russian station will sound about one hour later.

Now more than 67 hours into docked operations, the crews aboard the Atlantis-Mir complex are nearing the completion of their transfer activities for the STS-84 mission. The crews will begin their fourth day of docked operations with 76% of transfer operations complete with 188 of 249 items having already been moved between the two vehicles. More than 87% of the resupply items for the Mir station are already onboard. For the items coming back on Atlantis, 59% of the U.S. items and 71% of the Russia items are already stowed for the return to Earth.

In addition to continuing their transfer efforts and working with the Biorack, activities this evening will include tests with the Mir Structural Dynamics Experiment (MiSDE). This experiment will gather structural dynamics data on the Mir-Atlantis mated configuration by firing maneuvering thrusters on either the Shuttle or Mir. For tonight's data collection, only Atlantis' thrusters will be used.

The two crews will take a break from their transfer activities and science work to conduct an interview with the Cable News Network (CNN) early tomorrow morning. The CNN event will take place just after 7 a.m. CDT Tuesday morning.

The Atlantis-Mir complex continues to circle the Earth every 92 minutes at an altitude of 248 x 234 statute miles.

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