STS-71 (Atlantis)

 1995-030A

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The first docking between American and Russian spaceships in twenty years was the culmination of years of planning and the beginning of an expected long term integration of the American and Russian piloted space programs. Atlantis and Mir were easily visible to observers in the US and Western Europe in the hours before docking on 1995 Jun 29.

The payload bay of Atlantis contained a new element, the Orbiter Docking System (ODS). This was placed between the standard Tunnel Adapter and the Spacelab Long Tunnel, leading to a Spacelab long module placed unusually far back in the bay. An extra tunnel extension was used between the LT and the ODS. Atop the ODS a docking tunnel culminated in a Russian-build androgynous docking system designed for Buran and descended from the ASTP system.

The all-veteran crew of five NASA astronauts was commanded by former chief astronaut Hoot Gibson. Joining them aboard STS-71 as passengers were the Mir EO-19 crew, Anatoliy Solov'yov and Nikolai Budarin. The US crew included Bonnie Dunbar, who had trained as the backup for Mir EO-18 astronaut Norm Thagard. Thagard had been aboard Mir for over 100 days at the time of the Atlantis launch, together with Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennadiy Strekalov.

Launch of Atlantis was delayed several times but on Tuesday 1995 Jun 27 the weather cleared and OV-104 left the pad at the start of the seven minute long launch window. During the flight of the solid rocket motors, hot gas reached and charred the O-ring of an internal nozzle joint at the base of the left hand booster, the first O-ring damage since the loss of 51-L. This would lead to concerns for the STS-69 flight, but the Atlantis crew were oblivious to the the problem. Indeed, the damage was not discovered until the following mission, STS-70, had already reached orbit.

The R-bar rendezvous saw Atlantis within 100m of the station at around 1100 on Jun 29. At 1240 the Orbiter closed to 10m and paused for a few minutes before the final approach. Gibson flew the ODS into Kristall's clutches within five seconds of the target time; relative motion between the two hundred-ton space complexes was quickly damped out and by 1309 the hard dock was complete.

After pressure checks, the hatch was opened at 1500 UTC and Gibson and Dezhurov shook hands. All ten space travellers gathered in the Mir base module for mutual greetings and a photo opportunity, followed by a safety briefing. Finally, work began in the Spacelab module to prepare for the week's medical experiments.

Transfers to Mir included Russian and US EVA tools, Russian soft bag with pressure sealant, Russian food, TREK storage boxes, Mir-19 data file, and the PCG and SAMS experiments. Returned from Mir were a command processor, the Salyut-5B computer, surface and airborne samples, Spektr TORU boxes, urine bags, cold storage bio containers, water samples,and Spektr foam padding.

The next few days aboard the joint station, visible in the early evening skies over the United States as a brilliant star outshining Jupiter, included gift exchanges, press conferences, and farewell ceremonies as well as scientific experiments. Finally on Jul 3 the hatch to Atlantis was closed as the STS-71 crew and the returning EO-18 crew slept in the Shuttle, with the EO-19 crew sleeping aboard Mir.

Jul 4 saw some of the most spectacular images of the space program with three spacecraft involved in proximity operations. Solov'yov and Budarin undocked Soyuz TM-21 from the Kvant module, and backed off to 200m to observe the station. Budarin videotaped as Atlantis undocked from the Kristall module.

Atlantis slowly backed off to 200m and then began a 360 degree flyaround of the station. Meanwhile, Soyuz was reapproaching Kvant, when an attitude control computer on Mir crashed and the station began to drift away from its intended orientation. Solov'yov completed the redocking over a minute ahead of schedule, piloting the Soyuz to compensate for the rotating station and drawing on the experience of his six previous dockings with Mir.

Atlantis fired its engines at the completion of the flyaround, as the Mir crew reentered the station. The next several days saw extensive medical tests on the EO-18 crew, before the Spacelab module was deactivated for the last time. Reentry and landing were nominal, with Dezhurov, Strekalov and Thagard carried from the Shuttle on stretchers - although Thagard had reportedly been walking around on the Shuttle middeck shortly after landing. 

STS-71
Date	Time	Event	Orbit
1995 Apr 20	1320	Roll to VAB	VAB
1995 Apr 21		Mate to ET
1995 Apr 26	0743	Rollout to LC39A
1995 Jun 23		Scrub due to weather
1995 Jun 24		Scrub due to weather
1995 Jun 27	1932:19	Launch
	1934	SRB sep 123.56s
	1940	MECO 510.48s
	1941	ET 70 sep	88.27 81 x 298 x 51.6
	2015:16	OMS-2 48s 22m/s	89.02 158 x 294 x 51.6
	2106	Payload bay open
	2110?	ET-70 reentry
	2310:25	NC1 (OMS-3) 137s 67m/s	91.35 293 x 387 x 51.6
1995 Jun 28	1049:35	OMS-4L 12s 3m/s	91.47 302 x 390 x 51.6
1995 Jun 29	0758	NC4 (OMS-5 0:45) 23m/s	92.37 382 x 389 x 51.6
	0931:02	TI, OMS-6L 9s 2m/s range 16km
	1024	MC burn
	1035	MC burn
	1050	R-bar rendezvous with Mir complex, 580m	92.48 393 x 399 x 51.6
	1125	Begin stationkeeping at 82m
	1223	Begin approach
	1250	At 10 m from Kristall
	1255	Resume approach
	1300:05	Docked with Mir/Kristall	92.48 392 x 399 x 51.6
	1308	Hard dock
	1500	Hatch open to Kristall
1995 Jul 3	1935	Hatch closed
1995 Jul 4	1109:41	Undock
	1138	At 200m distance, flyaround
	1235	Complete flyaround, sep burn
1995 Jul 5			92.44 390 x 398 x 51.7
1995 Jul 7	1106	Payload bay doors closed
	1345:19	OMS DO (3:32) 114m/s	48 x 398 x 51.7
	1422	Entry interface
	1454.36	Main gear touchdown, RW15 KSC
	1454.39	Chute dep
	1454.44	NGTD
	1455.10	Chute sep
	1455.27	Wheels stop
	1830	Tow OPF/2