STS-86 Day 4 Highlights

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On Sunday, September 28, 1997, 8:00 a.m. CDT, STS-86 MCC Status Report # 6 reports:

The 10 astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the Atlantis-Mir space complex are spending their first full day of joint operations exchanging American crew members on the Russian complex and beginning the transfer of more than four tons of logistical supplies.

Shortly before 11 a.m. central time today, Dave Wolf's custom made Soyuz seatliner should be transferred from Atlantis to Mir marking the official start of his stay on Mir. With that transfer, Mike Foale will conclude 134 days as a Mir crew member and board Atlantis as a member of the STS-86 crew. Over the course of the next few days, Foale will spend considerable time with Wolf, acquainting him with his new home and showing him the location of experiments and hardware.

Much of the joint crews' day will be spent transferring logistical supplies between the two spacecraft. In addition to transferring more than four tons of material from Atlantis to Mir, the crew members will move science return items, experiment hardware and other supplies from Mir to Atlantis for a return trip to Earth. Five bags of water totalling more than 500 pounds should be transferred to the Mir by the end of the day. In all, a total of 17 bags of water totalling 1400 pounds will have been transferred by the time Atlantis undocks from the Mir on Friday.

Also on tap today is the Mir Structural Dynamics Experiment which will measure the effects of jet firings and crew exercise on the Shuttle-Mir complex. Data gathered through this experiment will be used in performing structural dynamics evaluations for the International Space Station.

Late this afternoon, Foale, Wolf and Mir Commander Anatoly Solovyev will take time out from their activities to discuss their joint flight in interviews with both ABC News and CBS News.

The Atlantis-Mir space complex is orbiting the Earth at an altitude of about 215 nautical miles with both spacecraft's systems operating in excellent shape.

On Sunday, September 28, 1997, 6:00 p.m. CDT, STS-86 MCC Status Report # 7 reports:

Atlantis' astronauts and the Mir Space Station cosmonauts traded crew members today as David Wolf formally began a four-month research mission as a member of the Mir 24 crew and astronaut Mike Foale ended his 134-day stint by returning as a Shuttle crew member in the first full day of docked operations between the two spacecraft.

One day after Atlantis docked to the Mir, Wolf transferred his custom-made Soyuz capsule seatliner and associated gear to the Russian complex, officially joining Mir 24 Commander Anatoly Solovyev and Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov at approximately 11 a.m. Central time. Wolf quickly set up shop in the Kvant-2 module, which he will use as his sleeping quarters and a place from which to coordinate scientific experiments during his stay on orbit.

Foale, who began his role as a Mir crew member back on May 17th, moved his personal belongings back into Atlantis, just one week before he is scheduled to complete his long duration flight with a landing back in Florida.

Among the items transferred from Atlantis to Mir today included seven bags of water totaling about 500 pounds, more than one-third of the water to be hauled into the Russian station for use over the next several months. Several large air pressurization units and a variety of experiment hardware to collect data for the International Space Station program office also were carried over to the Mir.

This afternoon, Commander Jim Wetherbee and Pilot Mike Bloomfield fired small jet thrusters on Atlantis to provide data for the Mir Structual Dynamics Experiment (MISDE), which measures disturbances to space station components and its solar arrays. The data will also be used by International Space Station engineers in their fine-tuning of hardware for the new outpost.

The Mir cosmonauts and Wolf will begin their 9-hour sleep period at about 8:30 p.m. CDT this evening and the Shuttle crew goes to sleep about 10:30 p.m. The Mir crew will wake up at about 5:30 a.m. CDT Monday followed an hour later by the Shuttle crew. Monday is another full day of transfer operations along with data gather on some of the secondary shuttle payloads and photography of the Mir complex from Atlantis' SPACEHAB windows. The next major mission event comes on Wednesday with the spacewalk by Scott Parazynski and Vladimir Titov.

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