STS71 Atlantis, 23 June, 1995
Mir 19 launch-phase crew: Anatoli Solovyov, Nikolai Budarin.
Mir 18 re-entry and landing phase crew: Vladimir Dezhurov, Gennadi Strekalov, Norman Thagard.
Gibson will fly the Atlantis towards the Mir from below and will perform the docking using television monitors showing his final approach to the Kristal. Docking will take place over eastern Russia. The STS71 will deliver the Mir 19 crew and return the Mir 18 crew, and will conduct five days of joint life-sciences and science-operations experiments aboard the Mir and a Spacelab laboratory in the Atlantis payload bay, which connects to the ODS by a transfer tunnel.
The Spacelab holds a range of medical equipment, which will be used to assess the health of the resident Mir crew. The Shuttle-Mir project involves 28 investigations designed to collect data on the human body's adaptation to long-term spaceflight. The Atlantis will undock on flight day eight and continue with two days of science experiments. Solovyov and Budarin may fly the Soyuz TM21 away from the Mir, to photograph the Shuttle and the Mir together in space. The Soyuz would be photographed from the Atlantis, as will its re-docking with the Mir 1. Dezhurov, Strekalov and Thagard will re-enter using special reclining seats in the Shuttle's mid-deck to reduce the ill effects of the onset of weightlessness after their long flight. The mission duration of the STS71 will be 10 days 19h 31min.
Source: Flight International
