KSC Release No. 48-95
                                                                                                                                 
STS-71
Atlantis/First Shuttle-Mir Docking Mission

    The first of seven scheduled docking missions between 
the U.S. Space Shuttle and the Russian Mir space station 
will take place during the 11-day STS-71 mission. The 
Space Shuttle Atlantis, fitted with the U.S.-and-Russian-
built Orbiter Docking System (ODS) and the Spacelab 
module, will lift off from Launch Pad 39A and then 
rendezvous with Mir at an altitude of 213 nautical  miles 
and an inclination of  51.6 degrees. Docking is expected 
to take place on Flight Day 3.
 Within hours after docking, the two Russian  
cosmonauts who flew into orbit as STS-71 crew 
members, Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin, will 
transfer into the Mir to assume command  as the Mir 19 
crew while the Mir 18 crew will move aboard Atlantis. 
During the four-day docking operations, hardware and 
supplies will be transferred to the space station, while 
medical samples taken during the Mir 18 mission  will be 
stored in refrigerator-freezer units aboard Atlantis. The 
Mir 18 crew onboard the orbiter will be the subjects of   
medical investigations that are a part of the Shuttle-Mir 
Medical Project designed to collect data on the human 
body's adaptation to long- duration space flight.
   The two spacecraft will undock on Flight Day 8. 
Atlantis will then perform a Mir flyaround and maneuver  
away into a different  orbit. The medical experiments will 
continue through Flight Day 10.
   Dr. Norman E. Thagard (M.D.), who has been aboard 
the Mir since March. 16, 1995, will have been in space 
longer than any other U. S. astronaut as of June 6, 
breaking the Skylab 4 crew record of 84 days set in 1973. 
He and the two Russian members of  the Mir 18 crew, 
Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov,  will be the 
first  Mir crew to return to Earth via the Space Shuttle. 
The three, along  with five STS-71 crew members, will 
make up the largest contingent of spacefarers ever to land 
via the Shuttle.  The two Mir crews, along with the  five  
U.S. astronauts, will set the record at ten as the most 
people who have flown in an orbiter  during a mission.  


The STS-71/Mir 19 Crew
    Commander  of the STS-71 flight crew is Robert L. 
(Hoot) Gibson (Captain, USN, who will be on  his fifth 
space flight, having flown on STS 41-B in 1984, STS 61-
C in 1986, STS-27 in 1988 and STS-47 in 1992. Charles 
J. Precourt (Lt. Col., USAF) is the STS-71 pilot. He has 
flown once before, as a mission specialist on  STS-55 in 
1993. Mission specialist Ellen S. Baker (M.D.) has flown 
on STS-34 in 1989 and STS-50 in 1992. Gregory J. 
Harbaugh is also on his third flight as a mission 
specialist, having flown on STS-39 in 1991 and  STS-54 
in 1993. Mission specialist Bonnie J. Dunbar  (Ph.D.) is 
a veteran of three space flights, STS 61-A in 1985,  STS-
32 in 1990 and STS-50 in 1992. She also   trained in 
Russia  as Thagard's  backup.   
   Mir 19 commander Anatoly Solovyev and flight 
engineer Nikolai Budarin make up the first Mir flight 
crew  to  be delivered to the Russian space station via the  
Space Shuttle. This will be Solovyev's fourth Mir 
mission. He has been in space for a total of  377 days. 
This will be Budarin's first  space flight.   


Orbiter Docking System

The ODS in  Atlantis' payload bay will not only allow 
the  orbiter and the  Mir to dock, but is connected to the 
orbiter airlock by a short tunnel to provide a means for  
both U.S. and Russian crews to move in a shirt-sleeve 
environment from one spacecraft to another. The 3,500-
pound (1,640 kilogram) ODS consists of an airlock, a 
supporting truss structure, a docking base and the 
Russian-built Androgynous Peripheral Docking  System 
(APDS) atop   the 131/2 -(4.2-meter)foot-high structure. 
   The APDS features a capture ring containing three 
petals that are each equipped with two capture latches. 
These latch assemblies are designed to grapple body 
mounts on the Mir APDS attached to the docking port of 
the space station's Krystall module. The latches will 
engage once the capture rings on both APDS units are 
properly aligned. The Shuttle APDS is mounted on shock 
absorbers to reduce the relative motion of the two 
spacecraft and to prevent a collision. Once the capture is 
complete, motors on  this APDS will move its capture 
ring to its fully extended position. 


Mission Control and Docking Operations

   The Shuttle-Mir docking missions are  the first 
elements of a three-phase plan for human space 
cooperation between the U.S. and Russia that will 
culminate in the completion of an international space 
station. Flight control during docking operations will be 
provided by both NASA's Mission Control Center at 
Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, and the Russian 
Space Agency's Mission Control Center in Kaliningrad, 
Moscow. The two centers will share all communications 
links throughout this phase of the STS-71 mission. 
    As Atlantis begins its docking approach, the STS-71 
crew will communicate directly with the Mir 18 crew 
with a new VHF radio that has an antenna located in the 
orbiter's payload bay. Another docking aid will be a 
television camera  mounted on the ODS that will be 
directed at the docking target on the Krystall  docking 
port. This camera will  provide an image to a monitor on 
the flight deck that will be used by  Gibson and Precourt 
as they make the final  approach. The two will also be 
using a laser-ranging device  mounted in the payload bay  
that will tell them the orbiter's exact distance to the Mir 
docking port and its  precise rate of approach. 
   Unlike the velocity bar, or "V-bar", final approach  
from the side which was conducted by the STS-63 crew 
in February 1995, Atlantis will come up from below in a 
course that follows  an imaginary line from the Earth's 
center to the Mir known as a radial bar, or "R-bar". 
When the orbiter is 30 feet away, Gibson will halt the 
approach and stationkeep for five minutes until  a final 
"go" is given by the joint mission control. Then  he will  
direct Atlantis upward at a rate of  less than one foot per 
second until the orbiter APDS completes a capture of the 
Mir  APDS and docking is complete.


Spacelab-Mir
  
   The Spacelab-Mir module in Atlantis' payload bay  is 
connected with the ODS by a Spacelab long transfer 
tunnel. It will serve as both a storage area for Mir 19 
crew hardware and supplies that will be transferred to the 
space station and as an on-orbit life sciences laboratory 
for the Shuttle-Mir Medical Project investigations 
conducted by the Mir 18 and STS-71 flight crews. The 
module will also house two refrigerator/freezers that will 
preserve medical samples from these experiments and 
those taken by Dr. Thagard during the Mir 18 mission. 
Some of the  equipment mounted in the module for the 
experiments include a bicycle ergometer, a treadmill and 
an echocardiograph/Baroreflex unit.   


Shuttle-Mir Experiments

   Many of the 28 Shuttle-Mir experiments will study 
metabolic physiology with emphasis in the areas of  
cardiopulmonary systems, human behavior and 
performance, environmental health and  neurosensory  
functions. One biology experiment will use quail eggs to 
help understand how organisms develop in space. The 
Greenhouse experiment calls for Mir 18 crew members to  
harvest  plants they grew  during the Mir mission and 
transfer them to Atlantis so that these samples can be 
studied on Earth for the effects of  long exposure to 
microgravity. Two microgravity experiments will study 
the growth of semiconductor materials and protein 
crystals in space.


Other Payloads

    An IMAX 70-millimeter motion picture camera will 
be housed in the crew cabin middeck locker area for use  
during docking operations, on board the Mir, and in the 
Spacelab-Mir module. The Shuttle Amateur Radio 
Experiment-II (SAREX-II) will also be stowed in this 
area  for use by the crew  throughout the mission.

 
KSC Processing
 
    Atlantis returned to KSC on Nov. 22, 1994 after 
completing the STS-66 mission with a landing in 
California. It was then moved to Orbiter Processing 
Facility 3 for preparation for  the  STS-71 mission. The 
ODS arrived  at the center  on Nov. 25. Installation of the 
ODS and Spacelab into Atlantis' payload bay was 
completed March 22, 1995. The Shuttle was rolled out to 
Pad 39A April 26 in preparation for liftoff in late June.