STS-84 MISSION ARCHIVE Updated:05/24/97 Shuttle-Mir Docking Mission By William Harwood CBS News/Kennedy Space Center The following copy originally was posted on the CBS News "Up To The Minute" Current Mission space page (http://uttm.com/space/missions/current.html). Comments and corrections welcome! TABLE OF CONTENTS: -STS-84 Mission Preview -Russians discuss Mir status -Shuttle Atlantis blasts off on Mir docking mission -Atlantis docks with Mir station -5/17-18 mission update: CBS News crew interview -5/18-19 mission update: CNN crew interview -5/19-20 mission update: NASA nixes Russian water transfer -5/20-21 mission update: Crew news conference -Shuttle Atlantis undocks from Mir space station -Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center ==================================================================== STS-84 Mission preview (filed 5/9/97) The primary goals of the 84th shuttle mission are to dock with the Mir space station; pick up astronaut Jerry Linenger after a 132-day stay in space; drop off astronaut Michael Foale in his place; to deliver several tons of equipment, water and other supplies to the station; and to bring experiment samples and hardware back to Earth. For those of you scoring at home, here are the numbers: TO MIR Water..........................1,025 pounds U.S. science...................844 pounds German Space Agency............None French Space Agency............None Russian logistics..............2,577 pounds Miscellaneous..................311 pounds TOTAL TO MIR...................3,732 pounds (not counting water) RETURN TO EARTH U.S. science...................893 pounds German and French agencies.....30 pounds Russian logistics..............1,173 pounds Miscellaneous..................362 pounds TOTAL BACK TO EARTH............2,458 pounds Included among the equipment bound for Mir is a new Russian-built Elektron oxygen generator to replace a similar unit aboard the station that failed earlier this year. NASA managers and their Russian colleagues originally planned to test the new Elektron before Atlantis departed the station, a requirement that would have resulted in a 10-day mission for the shuttle crew. But they ultimately decided there was no need to test the new unit while the shuttle was docked and the flight now is expected to last just nine days. Atlantis' mission promises to generate more attention than usual because of a variety of recent problems that have raised questions about Mir's long-term health and the wisdom of pressing ahead with long-duration stays aboard the Russian outpost. Earlier this year, one of Mir's two Elektron oxygen generators failed. Then, on Feb. 23, one of two backup solid-fuel generators caught fire and was destroyed. Ten days later, the second Elektron malfunctioned, leaving Mir-23 commander Vasily Tsbliev, flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin and Linenger with just one source of oxygen: The lone remaining backup solid-fuel generator. To make matter worse, Mir's primary carbon dioxide removal system had to be taken off line due to problems with the cooling system in the Kvant-1 module. Leaks in other coolant loops caused temperatures to climb and released ethylene glycol antifreeze fumes into the cabin atmosphere. Using hoses shipped up aboard a Progress resupply craft, the crew was able to bypass a clogged filter in one of the Elektrons (the one in the Kvant-2 module), restoring it to service. They also patched up several coolant loop leaks and put the carbon dioxide scrubber back on line, albeit with reduced cooling. When the new Elektron aboard Atlantis arrives, it will take the place of the operational unit now in Kvant-2. That Elektron will be moved to the Kvant-1 module where it will be stored as a backup. The broken Elektron currently in Kvant-1 will be returned to Earth aboard Atlantis. "What we're finding out as we work through these problems with the Russians is that you have a situation that's calming down quite a bit," said Atlantis commander Charles Precourt. "Our intent is to fly Mike and leave him there. I don't see this as much different from any other [Mir docking] flight. Fortunately, things as I say are calming down." In fact, NASA officials say, Mir is in better health now than it has been in several months and Foale clearly has no qualms about the prospects of a long-duration visit. "I'm not worrying about this," Foale told reporters during a launch rehearsal. "What I'm preparing myself for is being away from my family and working four or five months with my crew in space. Those guys up there I already know well, I saw them launch at Baikonur. I'm looking forward very much to seeing them. I already know they're going to look after me, they've already told me that. I know I'll be part of that crew and I know we're going to have a good time together. The difficulties you may have heard about on the Mir, these are typical in a program that's very mature. The station has been up there a long time and there's a lot of work to do to keep repairing it, maintaining it. "To be honest," Foale added, "I actually look forward sometimes to these off nominal situations as we call them, when things don't quite go per plan. It makes life more interesting. I think we're learning the most when things don't quite go to plan and when we have to work together very hard to solve these problems." Joining Foale aboard Atlantis will be commander Charles Precourt, pilot Eileen Collins, flight engineer Carlos Noriega, payload commander and French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy, Edward Lu and Russian cosmonaut Elena Kondakova, veteran of a six-month stay aboard Mir in 1994 and 1995. Precourt served as pilot of a shuttle mission to dock with Mir in 1995 and Collins served as pilot of the Discovery for a Mir rendezvous earlier that year. Noriega and Lu are shuttle rookies. As mentioned above, Atlantis' mission is the sixth of nine shuttle-Mir docking flights making up Phase One of the international space station program. The joint flights aboard Mir are intended to serve as a training ground for joint operations aboard the international space station NASA and the Russian Space Agency plan to begin building in 1998. In addition, the shuttle is being used to ferry critical supplies to Mir that otherwise would require Russian launch vehicles. "The foreign affairs involved in this program are great," Foale said. "America is working with Russia in a very great endeavor, we're pulling in the rest of the world in this endeavor, it is part of our future, part of our children's future. "At the end of all this, we will know how to work together, how to solve problems together, we will have learned about each other's ways of going into space, of doing things in space," he added. "And as a result, I'm sure we will execute a program to the moon and maybe Mars, later, together, much more effectively as a result of all this." And Mir's recent problems have had a very real benefit. "Because of the problems we're having to solve, working both to maintain the station and do our science, we're actually getting more out of our program than before," he said. "Because suddenly, we have more important problems in our faces and we are solving those. So right now, I'm actually quite excited. As I say, it's more interesting, it's more valuable when you face a little toughness and solve it than when it's all easy as glass." Unlike his earlier flights, Foale said the shuttle launch is not foremost in his mind. He is focussed instead on the long-duration stay aboard Mir. "It's fun, but it's work, it's day to day, and I'm looking forward in a quiet, kind of calm way to doing all that," he said. "I am used to being away from my family. I know you just focus on what you're doing day to day and the people you're with. Initially, he said, "I thought I would take a few science fiction books. I'm also an avid programmer." But in the end, Foale said he doesn't plan to spend a lot of off-duty time following his own pursuits. His goal is to become a part of the Mir crew in every respect. "What it comes down to is working together as a crew up there," he said. "And if my crewmates are working hard, fixing things, I think I should be with them working. I enjoy their company, I like speaking Russian and I think we're just going to hang out, do the job and work together." ==================================================================== Russians discuss Mir health (filed 5/13) The goal of Atlantis's flight is to dock with the Russian Mir space station. The outpost has run into a variety of problems in recent months, but Valery Ryumin, Russian director of the shuttle-Mir docking program, told reporters today the station is in good shape thanks to heroic efforts by the on-board crew and engineers on the ground. "It just so happened that within several recent months, we experienced several malfunctions as far as life support systems on board the Mir station," he said through an interpreter. "Those malfunctions occurred primarily in the core module, which is up there for the 12th consecutive year. This is quite normal. We get older, and the hardware gets older as well. "Those malfunctions primarily boiled down to several leakages in the cooling system, the thermal control system. Thanks to outstanding effort on the part of the crew ... everything is back to normal now. At this time, only one loop, one thermal loop out of 22 we have on board, is leaking and I'm very confident we're going to be able to isolate this leak. The rest of the loops are 100 percent operational. "We also experienced some problems with oxygen generation and CO2 removal. And once again ... everything's back to normal. ... Based on the objective data we have available here on the ground, based on results of medical checkups of the crew, right now we're dealing with the 100 percent nominal situation on board the Mir station." Ryumin and Yuri Glazkov, deputy director of the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, said Mir's recent problems had a hidden benefit. "It is very hard to overestimate the importance of this activity in terms of the lessons learned, the expeience we are gaining," Ryumin said. "We will definitely modify the existing systems based on the experience we have gained. ... I'm convinced if we did not have Mir station and we did not have those malfunctions at this time, we would have had a much more difficult time in the future implementing the international space station program." ==================================================================== Atlantis blasts off on mission STS-84 (filed 5/15/97) Lighting up the pre-dawn sky with a burst of fire, the shuttle Atlantis took off after the Russian Mir space station today, ferrying repair equipment, critical supplies and a fresh crew member to the aging orbital outpost. Under a half moon in a clear sky, Atlantis blasted off on the 84th shuttle mission on time at 4:07:48 a.m., putting on a spectacular sky show visible for hundreds of miles around. Two minutes and three seconds later, the shuttle's two solid-fuel boosters were jettisoned and six-and-a-half minutes after that, Atlantis slipped into its planned preliminary orbit with a high point of about 156 nautical miles and a low point of about 43 nautical miles. The crew then fired the shuttle's two orbital maneuvering system rockets about 43 minutes after liftoff to put the vehicle in a roughly circular orbit as planned. At the time of launch, the Mir station was sailing above the Indian Ocean west of Australia some 11,500 nautical miles from the Kennedy Space Center. While the Mir-23 crew was unable to see Atlantis's fiery launch, commander Vasily Tsibliev was able to see the shuttle's still-lighted launch pad when the station passed overhead a few minutes later. There were no technical problems of any significance during Atlantis's ground-shaking ascent and both of the vehicle's master events controllers, devices that relay commands to fire the explosives used to jettison the boosters and external tank, apparently worked as required. The MECs exhibited somewhat unusual data during power up Tuesday evening, but engineers determined they were safe to fly as is. "The ascent went right by the numbers," said Loren Shriver, chairman of NASA's mission management team. On board are commander Charles Precourt, pilot Eileen Collins, flight engineer Carlos Noriega, Edward Lu, French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy, Russian cosmonaut Elena Kondakova and British-born astronaut Michael Foale, now a U.S. citizen. Precourt served as pilot of Atlantis for the first Mir docking mission in 1995 and Collins piloted the Discovery during an earlier Mir rendezvous flight. Kondakova logged 169 days in space aboard Mir in 1994 and 1995. The crew faced a relatively light schedule for their first day in space, activating systems in their Spacehab logistics module mounted in the orbiter's cargo bay and setting up various pieces of equipment. The first in a series of rendezvous rocket firings was scheduled for shortly before 8 a.m. The astronauts planned to go to bed at 9:08 a.m. and to get up at 5:08 p.m. for their first full day in orbit. The terminal initial rocket firing that will begin the final stage of the Mir rendezvous is scheduled for 7:53 p.m. Friday. Approaching Mir from directly below, Precourt plans to guide Atlantis to a gentle docking with Mir at 10:39 p.m. Friday. Atlantis's flight is the sixth of nine planned shuttle-Mir dockings making up Phase One of the international space station program. The idea is to give NASA experience with long-duration space flight and to iron out joint command and control issues prior to the start of assembly of the much more ambitious international station in June 1998. The primary goal of Atlantis's mission is to pick up astronaut Jerry Linenger after a 132-day stay in space and to replace him with Foale, who will join Mir-23 commander Vasily Tsibliev and flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin. As of this writing, U.S. astronauts have logged 534.1 days aboard Mir, 418.7 of them continuously. Two more astronauts are scheduled to follow in Foale's footsteps, giving NASA a cumulative total of 969 days - 2.6 years - aboard Mir by the spring of 1998. Informed that Atlantis had taken off on time to come pick him up, Linenger replied: "That's great!" Along with replacing Linenger, Atlantis's crew also plans to deliver 1,025 pounds of fresh water, 844 pounds of U.S. science gear, 2,577 pounds of Russian logistics materials and 311 pounds of miscellaneous hardware and equipment. Atlantis also will return a variety of items to Earth, including 893 pounds of U.S. experiment samples and hardware, 30 pounds of material belonging to the German and French space agencies, 1,173 pounds of Russian hardware and 362 pounds of miscellaneous equipment. Among the Russian hardware being ferried to Mir is a new Russian-built Elektron oxygen generator to replace a unit aboard Mir that failed earlier this year. Mir is equipped with two such generators, which extract oxygen from water through electrolysis. Solid fuel generators that burn lithium perchloride candles also are available as a backup. But earlier this year, one of the Elektrons failed. Then, on Feb. 23, one of the two backup solid-fuel generators caught fire and was destroyed. Ten days later, the second Elektron malfunctioned, leaving the Mir-23 crew with just one source of oxygen: The lone remaining backup solid-fuel generator. To make matter worse, Mir's primary carbon dioxide removal system had to be taken off line due to problems with the cooling system in the Kvant-1 module. Leaks in other coolant loops caused temperatures to climb and released ethylene glycol antifreeze fumes into the cabin atmosphere. Using hoses shipped up aboard a Progress resupply craft, the crew was able to bypass a clogged filter in one of the Elektrons (the one in the Kvant-2 module), restoring it to service. They also patched up several coolant loop leaks and put the carbon dioxide scrubber back on line, albeit with reduced cooling. Mir currently is healthier than it's been in several months and Foale said before launch he was looking forward to joining the Mir-23 crew. "To be honest, I actually look forward sometimes to these off nominal situations as we call them, when things don't quite go per plan," he said. "It makes life more interesting. I think we're learning the most when things don't quite go to plan and when we have to work together very hard to solve these problems." ==================================================================== Shuttle Atlantis docks with Mir space station (filed 5/16-17) Afternoon Status Report (2:30 p.m.) After the shuttle Atlantis's picture-perfect docking with the Russian Mir space station late Saturday, the combined 10-member crew got down to business, moving a new Russian-built Elektron oxygen generator into the complex and officially exchanging astronaut Michael Foale for Jerry Linenger. Foale, who plans to spend more than four months aboard Mir, officially joined Mir-23 commander Vasily Tsibliev and flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin at 10:15 a.m. Linenger, who spent 122 days four hours and 30 minutes as a Mir crew member (4:45 a.m. Jan. 15 to 10:15 a.m. May 17), now is a member of Atlantis's crew. At touchdown May 24, he will have logged 132 days in space since launch in January aboard Atlantis. Over the next four days, the astronauts and cosmonauts will have their hands full transferring hardware, supplies and scientific gear from the shuttle to Mir and moving other equipment and experiment samples from the station to the shuttle for return to Earth. The Elektron was transferred a day ahead of schedule and current plans call for a short test Sunday evening to make sure it will work properly. "The crew got right to work," said Frank Culbertson, NASA manager of the shuttle-Mir docking program. "They've swapped the Elektron units and swapped the gyrodynes, which are major transfer items. The new Elektron's over on the Mir and the one that's coming back down for repair has been placed in the Spacehab. It is going to be a busy docked time, almost 4,000 pounds of equipment to be transferred. So we're looking forward to the next few days and the beginning of Mike Foale's mission to the Mir." The Elektron is needed to replace a unit that failed earlier this year when Mir's life support systems were beset by a series of potentially crippling problems. Fittingly, perhaps, a pump in the plumbing that support's Mir's lone operational Elektron shut down Saturday, temporarily knocking the oxygen generator out of action. But the shuttle provides the oxygen for the combined spacecraft during docked activity and Culbertson said a backup pump is available to take over the load. "The Elektron itself is fine," he said at a morning status briefing. "The only issue is with a pump in (Kvant-2's external coolant loop). There are four pumps in that loop, one of which has apparently shut down, the control valve wouldn't open is what I'm told. When they get telemetry to verify exactly what has shut down, then they will turn on one of the redundant pumps and they expect it to work fine. It's just an unfortunate time for it to happen, but it's not an unusual problem. It actually is probably a good time for it to happen if you dont need the Elektron while the shuttle is there. It gives them a little time to work it." The pump problem prompted fresh questions today about Mir's overall health. But Culbertson said he was satisfied the station is a safe place for Foale to live and work. "The Mir is, in fact, safe," Culbertson said. "Yes, the Mir has had problems. Any piece of machinery that exists for any amount of time ages. There's no way we've figured out to reverse the aging process, so things are going to wear out and it's impossible not to have to conduct repairs during that process. That's exactly what's happening on the Mir. So the Russians have dealt with the things they could foresee in a very systematic fashion. They have also reacted to the things they did not foresee, which is also a normal occurrence. I think they've reacted very professionally and with good technical competence. "As far as whether or not Mir is on its last legs, it's not a new space station, it wasn't just launched. So I don't know how you define 'last legs.' Yes, it's in the latter stages of its life, but it's not about to fall out of the sky. If we thought it were unsafe we would never have transferred Michael Foale over to it. I'm convinced we're going to be able to continue the program as planned with the Russians." Morning Status Report (1:30 a.m.) Commander Charles Precourt guided the shuttle Atlantis to a picture-perfect docking with the Russian Mir space station at 10:33 p.m. Friday as the two spacecraft sailed 245 miles above Asia. Approaching from directly below the lab complex, Precourt threaded an imaginary needle, manually keeping Atlantis inside a narrow approach corridor as the shuttle's Russian-built docking system engaged its counterpart on Mir. "Houston, we have contact and capture," Precourt radioed. A few moments later, as motion between the spacecraft damped out, he called: "Rings aligned, Houston." "And no wonder. That was a perfect-looking docking," astronaut Chris Hadfield radioed from mission control. "Thanks, Chris. I had a pretty good team guiding me in there the last few feet," Precourt replied. A few moments later, powerful clamps in the docking mechanism slowly retracted, firmly locking Atlantis and Mir together for five days of joint activity, the sixth of nine planned shuttle-Mir docking missions. The moment was captured by NASA with television views from Mir and from the shuttle. "Houston, auto docking sequence is complete," Precourt confirmed. "We concur and congratulations, Atlantis, that was a gorgeous approach and docking," Hadfield said. "And it's nice to see you back on Mir." "Thanks, Chris, it is great to be back here on Mir. It's a beautiful sight out the window." Mir-23 commander Vasily Tsibliev radioed congratulations in Russian, telling Precourt he was unable to feel any vibration at all when Atlantis docked with the 120-ton station. Looking on from Mir throughout the final rndezvous sequence was astronaut Jerry Linenger, winding up a 132.6-day voyage that began with his launch aboard Atlantis on Jan. 12. Linenger will be officially replaced aboard Mir around 4:48 a.m. Saturday when astronaut Michael Foale's custom-fitted Soyuz seat liner is transferred from Atlantis to Mir. Transfer of the seat liner is a milestone because from that point forward, Foale could return to Earth aboard Mir's Soyuz crew transfer vehicle in the event of an emergency. "You guys look great down there! Beautiful, beautiful view!" Linenger called as Atlantis approached. After making sure seals between the two spacecraft were secure - and waiting for Atlantis to move back into position for transmitting television signals - Precourt opened the shuttle's docking hatch around 12:22 a.m. Saturday. Prior to hatch opening, television from Mir showed a clearly elated Linenger cavorting in the station's shuttle docking module with Tsibliev, waving through a hatch window at the shuttle crew as if to say "Come on in!" Once the hatch was open, Tsibliev and Precourt quickly shook hands and shortly thereafter, the shuttle crew floated into Mir for an emotional welcoming ceremony and a traditional exchange of gifts. Like Gen. Douglas McArthur's return to the Philippines, Tsbliev had the combined crews restage their entrance to the Mir base block with each astronaut floating through a hatch one at a time before gathering at the core module's common table. Cosmonaut Elena Kondakova, a member of Atlantis's crew, seemed especially happy as she floated into Mir bearing traditional Russian gifts of bread and salt, along with fresh pretzels for Linenger. She spent 169 days aboard the station in 1994 and 1995. "I appreciate you getting the crew up here like you did," Linenger told flight controllers in Houston and Moscow. "Charlie just brought it right in, steady as can be. It was great to see him and it's going to be a great celebration here." Tsibliev than welcomed the crew aboard in Russian before Kondakova presented bread, salt, pretzels and fresh tea to her Mir colleagues. "Houston, things couldn't be better right now than what it is for us on the station," Precourt radioed before passing the microphone to his crewmates. French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy: "I have dreamed many, many times I was flying in the Mir and this time it's true. It's a very strong feeling, especially the human aspect of it, opening the door and shaking hands with people who have been there, like in a farther away home, that was a very great feeling. I'm very glad to be here and very glad to share this instance with all these friends I have here." Carlos Noriega: "I can't think of a better way to start off my career as an astronaut. This is the best place I could have thought of to be. It's nice to be back among friends again. Edward Lu: "It's amazing, I can't believe we're actually here. Charlie flew a beautiful docking and I'm sure the mission's just going to get better now." Michael Foale: "Well, I have a big smile on my face. I've been looking forward to seeing these guys. But the one thing I've noticed here especially is I'm probably the only guy who's not hurrying. Vasily and Sasha want to get the ship all ready and get things going and the transfers started, and Jerry wants to get over to the shuttle side and the crew are ready to get to work on their science and stuff. But I have five months to go and I'm quite happy just to relax and take it all in. I've already noticed that Sasha and Vasily move extraordinarily well, as does Jerry, quite differently from the rest of us guys who've only been in space a few days. I hope very much to have that kind of skill they have when they move along." Elena Kondakova, Russian cosmonaut: "I'm very happy because I'm here again! With very dear friends, my American crew and my Russian crew." Shuttle pilot Eileen Collins: "The last time I was here, I only got within 30 feet; they wouldn't let me get any closer. But I finally got a chance to come all the way to Mir. Charlie did such an excellent job of bringing us in there today and we are ready to go to work and keep this space program rolling. Thanks everybody!" After a joint meal, the combined crews faced a busy schedule transferring supplies from Atlantis to Mir and vice versa. The primary goals of Atlantis's flight are to pick up Linenger and drop off Foale for a planned four-month stay; to deliver critical supplies, repair equipment and science gear to Mir; and to bring experiment samples and other material back to Earth for analysis. The main item on the agenda for the Russians is delivery of a new Elektron oxygen generator to replace a unit that failed aboard Mir earlier this year. The failure of the Elektron and a variety of other life support system problems raised concern in the United States about Mir's long-term health. But the Mir-23 crew managed to fix most of the station's problems and NASA officials now say Mir is healthier than it has been in several months. Astronaut Edward Lu and Mir-23 flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin are scheduled to begin moving the bulky Elektron from Atlantis to Mir around 1 a.m. Sunday. See the Reporter's Notebook below for additional logistics transfer details. Early Saturday, British-born Foale discussed the prospect of spending four months on the Mir station with two BBC reporters. "I don't know if other people see it this way, but I see the Mir as a very successful- but old - car, in a way," Foale said. "It's been in space up to 13 years and they've been putting new parts in, replacing old parts, and if anyone's had an old car and maintained it, you know that you have to keep on adding and repairing things that continue to break. That's really a function of the fact that the Mir is living a lot longer than it was originally designed. Yes, there have been some problems. But none of these are ever big show stoppers. They are serious to some extent, but we can always continue to repair, improvise and work around those problems. The Russians have been extremely good at doing that to date." Foale said he especially looked forward to joining Tsibliev and Lazutkin aboard the aging outpost. "On board are two crew members who I'm looking forward to seeing very much," he said. "I trained with them and spent time with them in Russia, I lived there for a year and a half while I was training for this event, as well as our American colleague Jerry Linenger. He will be very glad to see us because we're bringing him home. From that point onward, my task will be to pick up where Jerry is leaving off." Later, an interviewer asked Foale if attending a British boarding school when he was younger prepared him for life aboad Mir. "Well, that's a pertinent question, I guess," he laughed. "There are some simalarities. When I went to boarding school ... there were no girls and there will be no girls on board the Mir, either! We certainly had restricted freedoms, we couldn't go outside of school boundaries for very long and that certainly applies to the Mir, also. So yes, there are some simalarities. But I think in actual fact my experience that I have behind me and the friendships I have on board the Mir mean that in the end it could be a less stressful experience than being in boarding school. So there's one for the boarding school boys." ==================================================================== Morning Status Report (8:30 a.m., 5/18) Despite a rash of recent problems with the Mir space station's life support systems, Mir-23 commander Vasily Tsibliev says the aging outpost has been restored to good health and that it remains a safe place to live and work in space. "As you can see, I'm alive and healthy, smiling, so the condition of the station is the same," Tsibliev, speaking through a translator, told CBS News in a morning interview. "Of course, we've got now quite a bit of cargo and equipment that's old and outdated and we've either got to throw it away or take it away from the station. So we're kind of full of stuff here. But otherwise, the station is normal, everything is very reliable. The problem we had with the thermal control system was fully repaired so everything is working fine, it has a backup now so we practically have no problems." Charles Precourt, commander of the shuttle Atlantis, said he is "very satisfied" that Mir poses no significant safety threat to Michael Foale, a British-born astronaut who joined the Mir-23 crew Saturday and who plans to spend four-and-a-half months aboard the station before returning to Earth in September. "This is a real triumph for humanity, I think, for the two countries, Russia and America, to be able to work together with the best tools we've been able to build, a space station and a shuttle, and make them as productive as possible," he said. "When you come up here on orbit and you look down at our Earth and you look beyond the horizon at the immenseness of the universe, you realize just how much power we're struggling against as humans to just exist here. Space is a very hostile place. "So what we've accomplished is really phenomenal," he said. "And to me, the fact that a space station like Mir could be on orbit for 12 or 13 years is really quite an accomplishment. We're pulling a lot of lessons from that that we're going to use on the international space station." Foale replaced astronaut Jerry Linenger, who spent 122 days four hours and 30 minutes aboard the Russian station. At landing May 24, Linenger's total flight time will exceed 132 days. Linenger was not available for this morning's interview, but Precourt said he is "ecstatic" about the prospect of returning home in just a few more days. "He's had a really good mission and I think he's feeling a real sense of accomplishment, especially now that Mike is here," Precourt said. "He's got lots to be proud of and he's real happy to be coming home with us." Tsibliev said he enjoyed working with American astronauts "because everyone knows their tasks, we don't interfere with each other. We have to help one another, we never have any problems. So we say something like, 'Hey Jerry, help us out with this' and he'll say 'OK.' Or he'll come to me and say, 'I've got a problem' and we'll help him. We work together in this fashion and it's very interesting. The major point is not to interfere with one another because everyone's got to know their own tasks, everyone's got to do their work correctly. This professionalism is what saves us." As for Mir's recent problems and the technical trouble that occasionally hampers shuttle missions, "we understand each other's problems and these negative moments that occur on both sides, in a left-handed way in the future, will help create a new international space station," Tsibliev said. "We can learn from our mistakes and then create ... a wonderful new station that will work not only for the Americans and Russians but for everyone who wants to work there." Evening Status Report (9:30 p.m., 5/17) The Atlantis astronauts were awakened at 9:08 p.m. for a second day of transferring critical supplies and equipment to the Russian Mir space station. With British-born astronaut Michael Foale now a member of the Mir-23 space station crew, mission control in Houston beamed up a recording of "God Save The Queen" to wake up his former crewmates aboard Atlantis. Foale, Mir-23 commander Vasily Tsibliev and flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin were scheduled to start their day one hour later. "Good morning, Atlantis," called up astronaut Bill McArthur in Houston. "And we sure wish Mike godspeed as the newest crew member of Mir and send him off with a tribute to his homeland." "Thank you, BIll. We'll have to pass that over to him as soon as we see him," shuttle commander Charles Precourt replied. "We appreciate the words and we're off to a good start this morning, ready to go start playing loadmaster here." The Atlantis continues to operate in near flawless fashion with no technical problems of any significance. Only three very minor issues were brought to the crew's attention this evening. They were asked to "deselect" one of the orbiter's inertial measurement units to minimize attitude control fuel usage; to monitor the performance of a somewhat suspect payload bay television camera; and to reboot a laptop computer running a biorack experiment that crashed while the astronauts were asleep. Otherwise, there is little to report. For a recap of docking and post-linkup activity, see the Reporter's Notebook below. Otherwise, I am scheduled to interview the two mission commanders at 6:48 a.m. Sunday for CBS News and quotes will be posted here shortly thereafter. ==================================================================== Morning Status Report (10:30 a.m., 05/19/97) The 10-member crew of the Atlantis-Mir orbital complex remains on or ahead of schedule transferring supplies, scientific gear, repair equipment and fresh water from the shuttle to the Russian space station and vice versa. Because the astronauts are working to their own schedule, it's difficult to keep track of just what has been transferred at any given moment, but NASA managers say overall, about 58 percent of the scheduled transfers had been completed by the end of the crew's second docked day. "The mission continues to demonstrate the excellent preparation on the part of both the American and Russian teams and the coordination back and forth has been superb," said Jim van Laak, deputy manager of the shuttle-Mir docking program. "Everytime we do this we discover new opportunities to improve coordination and communication. I think must of us are struck, certainly I am, when I watch the crew in operation how quickly they've integrated together, how quickly Mike has become part of the Mir crew. I think it's an absolutely marvelous thing to behold." Mission manager Lee Briscoe said the crew had transferred seven of 11 bags of fresh water to Mir - about 693 pounds - and completed 80 percent of the transfers going to the station. About 60 percent of Russian transfers to Atlantis are complete, along with about 24 percent of the planned U.S. transfers to the shuttle. NASA managers currently are evaluating a request by the Russians to dump some 600 pounds of possibly contaminated condensate water overboard using the shuttle's waste water vent line. "Normally on board the Mir, they recycle the water," van Laak said. "The condensate gets cleaned up and used for drinking water, the urine is reclaimed and used in the Elektron (oxygen generation) system. Because of the leaks they had earlier this year in the cooling systems, there was some ethylene glycol got into the condensate and they have not been drinking the water. Despite the fact that they have a filter to remove that, they wanted to get ground tests of the water to confirm that it was an effective filtering system." NASA engineers are evaluating the requirements for dumping some of this water overboard through the shuttle to make more room aboard Mir. It does not appear to pose any technical problems, but it would take time for the crew to transfer water containers to the shuttle, hook them up and pump the fluid into the orbiter. Whether that can be accomplished before undocking Wednesday remains to be seen. Otherwise, there is little to report. The mission is proceeding smoothly and project managers are pleased with the results to date. "The orbiter continues to be in great shape, our consumables are good, things are just really rolling along," Briscoe said. Evening Status Report (9:30 p.m., 05/18/97) The crew of the shuttle Atlantis was awakened at 9:08 p.m. Sunday to begin another busy day of transferring supplies and equipment from the orbiter to the Russian space station Mir. The astronauts were awakened by a recording of the French national anthem radioed up from mission control in Houston in honor of French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy, making his second shuttle flight. The entire flight control team stood at attention while the music played. "Bon jour, Atlantis," radioed astronaut Bill McArthur from Houston. "Another nice day in space." "Hey, bon jour, all the team on the ground," Clervoy replied. "What a nice touch for the French guy on board. I was really thrilled listening to this music on board the complex. Now, living with all this international crew on board, sometimes I wonder if I am French, European or just a citizen of the whole world. This is really a very, very exciting experience here." During a news conference Sunday, Frank Culbertson, NASA manager of the shuttle-Mir docking program, said the combined 10-member crew of the shuttle and the space station was on or ahead of schedule transferring supplies, experiment hardware, repair equipment and other gear between Atlantis and Mir. "Things are continuing to go very well on the joint mission," he said. "The crew has transferred a significant portion of the items to be transferred to the Mir as well as beginning in earnest the transfer of return items back to the shuttle to be returned to Earth. ... We've returned 60 percent of the Russian items that were planned for return to the shuttle and 23 percent of the U.S. items." He said 103 of 129 items scheduled for transfer from Atlantis to Mir had been moved as planned by the end of the crew's second full day of docked activity. "I think the two crews together are working extremely well," Culbertson said. "What we continue to see on these missions is that when the shuttle and Mir come together, you end up with one crew that works very well together. ... The plan right now is to continue as we had scheduled before the flight, to go five docked days. We could go to six if necessary, but there's been no indication that we need that yet. The crew is running at or ahead of the timeline on the significant activities." A new Russian-built Elektron oxygen generator was transferred to Mir on Saturday a few hours after the docking. Despite earlier talk to the contrary, the unit will not be tested before Atlantis departs. "There was a placeholder in the schedule for conducting a test of it with a test setup, not a permanent installation," Culbertson said. "However, we had no requirement for that and we've discussed that with the Russians so they deleted that from the timeline. They'll install it after the cooling loops are repaired after the shuttle leaves." ==================================================================== NASA nixes Russian request to dump water (filed 5/19-20) Notes from May 20 mission status briefing (11 a.m.) At today's mission status briefing, Frank Culbertson, director of NASA's shuttle-Mir docking program, said the agency was unable to honor a request by the Russians to use Atlantis's waste water system to jettison 300 liters of possibly contaminated water reclaimed from station condensate. While the Russians aboard Mir were clearly eager to get rid of the water, Culbertson said there simply wasn't enough time to make sure such a dump could be carried out safely using procedures planned in relative haste during an on-going mission. "We had a request that came during the mission to discard some water through the shuttle system," he said. "Technically, we probably could have done it. However, this was a late request and we don't have a lot of what we call shelf life on the procedure, using hardware for this purpose. In addition, it does take some crew time to accomplish this and we want to make sure our primary objectives are satisfactorily completed and we don't end up in a rush at the end to try to get everything done before we close the hatch." Safety wise, he said, NASA's mission management team was concerned about a variety of factors. "Anytime you've got large volumes of water in a spacecraft, leakage is a concern, if it were uncontained such as a split in a bag," Culbertson said. "Other concerns, of course, would be with as many connections and disconnects as you would have to effect transferring 14 or 15 (Russian water bags) you run the risk of damaging the hardware. We also didn't know exactly what is in the water and although not a major concern, it's still an issue we have to make sure we've addressed before we introduce anything into the shuttle. I suspect we can resolve all of these given enough time, but during the mission it was pretty late to deal with it." Mir crews get their drinking water from two sources: Supplies transferred from visiting space shuttles and from a Russian system that reclaims water vapor from the station's cabin air supply. Because of coolant leaks earlier this year that released ethylene glycol fumes into the cabin, the Russians have been concerned about the possibility that recovered condensate might have high levels of the antifreeze despite the presence of filters in the system designed specifically to remove ethylene glycol. Samples have been taken of the condensate water for analysis on the ground. In the meantime, the crew has been drinking water transferred to the Mir during the last shuttle docking mission in January. Culbertson said a detailed analysis of the Mir condensate and shuttle transfer and dump procedures will be carried out before the next shuttle-Mir docking flight in September. "What we'll end up doing is taking a sample of this water to give a better evaluation to the Russians as to whether this might be usable in the future or not and then they can make a future decision on whether they would like to discard it on a later mission or not," Culbertson said. "We can also spend some time on the ground working on how we would do that and make sure we understand what the impacts to the timeline would be as well as any safety concerns if there are any." Otherwise, there was little news to report from this morning's briefing. Mission operations director Lee Briscoe said Atlantis continues to operate in fine fashion and that undocking will take place on schedule Wednesday evening. While up-to-date numbers from logistics transfer activity today are not yet available, Briscoe said about 87 percent of the Mir resupply transfers had been completed by the end of the crew's day Monday. About 71 percent of the Russian items scheduled for return to Earth had been transferred in the other direction, along with 59 percent of the U.S. experiment samples and other equipment bound for return. In addition, some 790 pounds of fresh water have been transferred to the space station. "Most of what we had planned has been accomplished," Culbertson said. "A few things are still being discussed. But in general, we're very confident we'll be able to undock on time with essentially everything completed. The crews are performing very well also and it looks like Mike has settled in very well on the Mir. In fact, I think he's probably pretty anxious to get going with his program and get on with the mission. Jerry, I'm sure, is ready to come home. However, he's continuing to work ... on the operation of the closeout of his science as well as the research he's handing over to Jerry. In general, I'd say this has been a terrific mission." Morning Status Report (8:30 a.m., 05/20/97) The combined 10-member crew of the shuttle Atlantis and the Russian Mir space station are in the final stages of transferring equipment and supplies from the orbiter to the station and vice versa. An update on where they stand will be posted after today's 10 a.m. mission status briefing in Houston. In an interview with CNN earlier today, commander Charles Precourt said the work was going smoothly and that Mir, the victim of a series of problems in recent months, is healthy and working as well as can be expected. "The Mir has gone through a few maintenance problems here in the recent few months as everyone is aware," Precourt said. "I can compare it for you with what I experienced a couple of years ago when I docked with the mission of STS-71. I would say it is not much different overall, with the exception that they've added two more modules. They have more volume, but they have also more equipment on board now. I would say the health is in really good shape at this point. They've recovered nicely from the failures of the last couple of months." Astronaut Jerry Linenger is wrapping up a 132.6-day space voyage, spending 122 days, four hours and 30 minutes as a Mir crew member since blastoff Jan. 12. He was replaced aboard Mir Saturday by British-born astronaut Michael Foale, who plans to remain aboard the station until mid September. Linenger agreed with Precourt that Mir is healthier now than it has been in several months. "We've had difficulties throughout those four months, but I think we've overcome them and I think at this point, yes, I'd say we're back to the condition that we were at when I arrived," he said. "On the other hand, I think Mike is going to have a challenge ahead of him. It's part of the exploration process out here, we're pushing the limit and it's tough being out on the frontier. So Mike's got a challenge ahead for him. As for advice, Linenger said "Mike is a really experienced, courageous, well-travelled space traveller. So I guess the thing I did more for Mike is just show him around, show him where the equipment is, some of the little things that I learned over the four or five months up here and just given him little pointers that I think a month from now he'll say, 'Oh yeah, I remember Jerry telling me something about that.' And just making his life a little more pleasant up here by learning some little tricks about living in space." Foale said he has been "pleasantly surprised" by the Mir station and his initial glimpses of what the next four-and-a-half months will be like. "In fact, I'm now realizing rapidly the food is even better than I first thought it would be. I'm enjoying very much just having regular meals with Vasily (Tsibliev) here and Sasha (flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin). We have a very relaxed and easy going relationship. I think when you're on board a space station rather than a space shuttle you basically live (a more normal life). I've noticed a difference even already. The shuttle guys are having to work a timeline that's compressed, they have to get back on Earth. The beauty of being here with a long-term crew is you get to relax and think about the long term, enjoy your meals, enjoy your conversations, pace your work out. It's actually quite a new way to work and I'm enjoying this transition." Asked what he hoped would be the most he could accomplish during his stay, Foale said "it sounds flippant, but I'll say it: To have a good time." "I really think that's the most important thing here," he said. "I'm quite efficient anyway getting my scientific work done and I'll do that anyway. The most important thing is all of us, the three of us on board the station, that we all get along together and enjoy each other's company." For those of you scoring at home, here are the numbers as of 8:34 a.m. today for U.S. astronauts aboard the Russian space station (numbers generated by SpaceCalc): Linenger............128.1 days in space Time to go..........004.5 days Flight duration.....132.6 days (launch to landing) Time on Mir.........122 days four hours 30 minutes Russian record......438.0 days (world space endurance record) U.S. record.........188.2 days (Shannon Lucid) U.S. to date........539.4 total days aboard Mir Continuous U.S......424.0 days in a row aboard Mir Total planned.......970.0 days through ninth shuttle-Mir flight Only two of the 10 crew members aboard the shuttle-Mir complex are rookies: Edward Lu and Peruvian born Carlos Noriega. Both gave their impressions of the mission so far. "It's just an incredible feeling being on your first mission, especially with this group of people here," Noriega said. "I've got a great crew that I belong to and I've got some great friends on the Mir. We had a chance to work with them before we came up here and being able to renew that friendship, to continue to work together, is just great." Noriega gave crewmate Edward Lu a lot of the credit for a smooth logistics transfer operation, saying Lu served as the "loadmaster" for the project. For his part, Lu said he will remember his first spaceflight by the friendship and camaraderie he found in orbit. "There are a lot of really memorable things, of course, about flying in space," he said, "from the launch, to looking out the window and seeing the Earth go by to the docking day when we first saw Mir from 30 or 40 miles away. Surprisingly enough, I think the most memorable thing about all this is the people around me, the people I've gotten to work with for the last year and my friends from Russia, who we first met almost a year ago. They're a really special group of people, they work really hard, and I'll always remember this mostly for the people, I think." Evening Status Report (9:30 p.m., 05/19/97) The Atlantis astronauts were awakened this evening by a recording of the Peruvian national anthem radioed up from Houston for astronaut Carlos Noriega, who was born in Lima, Peru. Mission control has been beaming up a variety of national anthems in recent days for each of Atlantis's international crew members and as has been normal practice, the entire flight control team stood at attention while this evening's music was uplinked to the shuttle. "Buenos dias, Atlantis," astronaut Bill McArthur called up from Houston. "Carlos, in about two revs it'll be a good pass over Peru. Unfortunately, it'll be dark." "Hey, good morning, Bill," Noriega replied. "Thank you for playing the national anthem there. I hadn't heard that since I was down there last summer. Unfortunately, it will be dark, but I got a good day view the other night just before we fell asleep." The 10 astronauts and cosmonauts aboard Atlantis and Mir face another busy day of work transferring supplies, fresh water and scientific equipment from the shuttle to the station and moving other equipment and experiment samples from Mir to Atlantis for return to Earth. At a daily status briefing Monday, Andrew van Laak, deputy program manager of the shuttle-Mir docking project, said the combined crew was on or ahead of schedule and that the work was going smoothly. There is little else to report this evening as the crew begins its fourth day of joint activity aboard the shuttle-Mir complex. At 5:18 a.m., the crew will answer questions from reporters in Moscow and at 8:01, CNN will conduct an interview. Quotes and details will be posted here as warranted. In the meantime, see the Reporter's Notebook below for earlier status reports, or check out the STS-84 Mission Archive for back issues. ==================================================================== 08:45 a.m. update (shuttle-Mir hatches closed) After a final handshake and farewell, shuttle commander Charles Precourt and Mir-23 skipper Vasily Tsibliev floated back into their respective spacecraft and shut the hatches between Atlantis and the Mir space station at 8:40 a.m., setting the stage for undocking this evening at 9:03:48 p.m. "Houston, Vasily's ready to close the hatch," Precourt radioed. "We've wished them well, had a great flight, and we're kind of sorry to see them close the hatch on us here, but we're sure they're going to do great." 08:00 a.m. update (crew news conference) For the combined crew of the shuttle-Mir station complex, undocking this evening will mark a bittersweet moment. Jerry Linenger will leave his Mir-23 crewmates, commander Vasily Tsibliev and flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin, after a 122-day stay aboard the Russian station. His replacement, British-born astronaut Michael Foale, will be left behind to begin his own odyssey, remaining aboard Mir until September. "This is a great day for us," Atlantis skipper Charles Precourt said at a morning news conference. "It's a little bit sad, of course, because a thrilling flight is coming to an end and we're going to have to separate the vehicles here tomorrow morning and that will be a bittersweet memory for us. We've had a great time getting Mike ready to take over the place and fill the big shoes Jerry's left behind here. We've had great progress toward making things work better for our joint science program and we're happy we were able to pull it off." Tsibiev added, "There's a feeling that everything went by in one day, everything went so quickly. Everything was very well organized so the work on the station and shuttle went very well. Everyone is happy, everyone is smiling." If all goes well, Atlantis will undock at 9:03:48 p.m. During the past five days, the combined crew has moved critical supplies, repair equipment, fresh water and scientific gear from the shuttle to Mir and transferred experiment samples and no longer needed hardware from the station to Atlantis for return to Earth. The shuttle is scheduled to land at the Kennedy Space Center around 7:53 a.m. Saturday. "It's a great experience being up here, I was very content, very satisfied being up here, very challenged," Linenger reflected. "But once you see the shuttle in the window, there's no finer sight in the world for me." As for what he plans to do after getting back to Earth, he said simply: "I'm going fishing." Linenger said he has exercised regularly throughout his stay in space and that he expects to walk off the shuttle after landing with a little motivation from crewmate Carlos Noriega, a Marine. "I'm going to be just fine physically and psychologically," Linenger said. "I'm happy as can be to be heading back to planet Earth. I think what I miss most is things like fresh air, the breeze in my face and just some very basic elemental things of the Earth I've been without for four-and-a-half months. ... I've been able to exercise very stronly every day. I've got Carlos over here who's a Marine and I'm going to have him yell in my ear to get up and walk! So I plan on walking off the orbiter." Asked about his initial impression of Mir, Foale said "the most important thing I discovered is how great the food and company is. I hadn't really expected the food to be so tasty, but it really is. As for advice, Jerry and I have talked so much the last five days that I am totally saturated." And he, too, will be somewhat saddened when Atlantis departs. "I love this crew, the crew of the shuttle, and I've really enjoyed their company," Foale said. "But I have a new crew to look forward to, which is Sasha and Vasily, and we're already sort of settling in together, I think. So it's a mixture of sadness but also, to be quite honest, we'll be able to start getting on with the science program and the work that we do in the long haul here on the station. So I'm sure there will be some sighs of easiness as we kind of clean up after this hurricane leaves the house." 04:00 a.m. update Former Mir astronaut Jerry Linenger and his replacement, Mike Foale, took the public on a guided tour of the Mir station early today, providing an unprecedented glimpse at what it's like to live and work aboard the Russian outpost. Starting in the Mir core module, or base block, Linenger showed off commander Vasily Tsibliev's stateroom, the station's ham radio, the treadmill, a compact medical "office," dozens of camera lenses and the station's audio tape library. From the base block, Linenger floated into the Kvant-1 module where a backup oxygen generator caught fire Feb. 23. The module today is packed with trash and other material that ultimately will be dumped overboard on a Progress ferry craft current docked with Kvant-1. Shuttle commander Charlie Precourt, serving as Linenger's cameraman, panned about the crowded module while Linenger discussed how difficult it's been to repair elusive coolant leaks in the cramped, remarkably cluttered confines of Kvant-1. Describing the fire, Linenger said the smoke was so thick he couldn't see his hand in front of his face, adding later that oxygen masks "saved our lives." "I was passing the fire extinguisher, but we could only get one person in here to fight the fire because of the location," he said. "At that time, the other Soyuz was on the other side (of Kvant-1) where the Progress is now docked. So you can see it would have been very difficult to get through the flame itself to get to one of the rescue vehicles. It was very difficult to fight the fire because you could only get one body close enough to the fire itself. Visibility in here was basically no visibility. You could sort of see your fingers if you looked hard. It was very, very dense smoke. An interesting experience, something you don't want to repeat, of course. But fire in space is a different sort of entity than fire down on the Earth." Leaving Kvant-1, Linenger floated back through the core module, pausing briefly to show off Mir's central command post and the station's caution and warning system, saying the crew was very used to the high-pitched master alarm and flashing lights signaling a technical problem. "We've seen a few of those through my stay the last four-and-a-half months," Linenger laughed. "It's been a busy panel." Evening Status Report (9:30 p.m., 05/20/97) The Atlantis astronauts were awakened this evening by a recording of the Russian national anthem to kick off their fifth and final day of work to resupply the Mir space station. The flight plan calls for the 10 astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the Atlantis-Mir complex to hold a joint crew news conference starting at 6:28 a.m. followed by a brief, informal farewell ceremony. Hatches between Mir and Atlantis will be closed at 7:48 a.m. Wednesday and the shuttle will undock and back away at 9:05 p.m. Going into their final day of joint activity, the combined crew had transferred 95 percent of the supplies, scientific gear and other equipment bound for Mir and moved 87 percent of the Russian and U.S. experiment samples bound for return to Earth to the shuttle. There have been no problems of any significance and Atlantis continues to operate in fine fashion. A video tour of the Mir station is planned for around 2:08 a.m. This status report will be updated after the tour or as conditions warrant. ==================================================================== Shuttle Atlantis undocks from Mir space station (10:30 p.m., 05/21/97) The Atlantis astronauts, with the addition of former Mir crew member Jerry Linenger, undocked from the Russian space station at 9:04 p.m. after five days of joint activity. Pushed by powerful springs in the Russian-built docking system, Atlantis slowly fell straight away from Mir along an imaginary line called the r-bar, or radius vector, connecting the station and the center of the Earth. Pilot Eileen Collins, assisted by commander Charles Precourt, was at the controls throughout the separation sequence, which began at a graceful two-tenths of a foot per second. "Houston, we have separation," Precourt radioed as Atlantis slowly dropped away. "Bye bye," an astronaut called. The Mir-23 crew aboard the station wished their shuttle colleagues "soft landings" Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center. "Bye, bye, Atlantis," one called a few moments later. In the background, the Mir-23 crew, which now includes U.S. astronaut Michael Foale, played Russian music over the ship-to-ship radio and at 9:43 p.m., members of the shuttle crew broke into song, serenading their Mir colleagues with a bit of orbital verse. In Russian, no less. "We apologize if we were a little out of tune," Precourt said. "It probably means we ought to keep our day jobs. We were singing the Russian cosmonaut song to the air crew on departure." "That's what we thought it was," astronaut Chris Hadfield replied from mission control. "I guess that means it was so bad you weren't quite sure," Precourt said. Undocking occurred on time over the Moscow region of Russia at 50.2 degrees north latitude and 32.5 degrees east longitude. NASA television carried the maneuver live on split-screen TV, showing Mir as viewed from Atlantis and the shuttle as viewed from flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin's stateroom window in the Mir base block. "Atlantis, Houston. Vladimir Titov is here looking over my shoulder at the view he's going to be looking at in about four months when he's coming to pick Mike up," Hadfield said. "And everybody's real proud of the super job you folks did. It's just been letter perfect: Great vehicle and great crew. We're looking forward to coming back in four months to take advantage of all the things Mike's learned up there." "Thanks, Chris," Precourt replied, passing along an additional comment in Russian. Titov, a Mir veteran who flew aboard the shuttle Discovery in 1995, is a member of the shuttle crew that will visit Mir in September. "And for the whole crew, Frank Culbertson (manager of the shuttle-Mir docking program) is here as well over the shoulder and sending along his congratulations," Hadfield called. "It's been a great flight and all the work he did for Phase One really paid off," Precourt said. Unlike past Mir flyaways, the shuttle did not perform any loops around the station for photo documentation. This time around, Atlantis to simply drifted down along the r-bar, stopping three times for five minutes at 90 feet, 300 feet and 1,500 feet to test a European-built proximity operations and docking sensor. Less than one hour before undocking, flight controllers ordered a last-minute series of jet pulses to enable Atlantis to reach the 300-foot mark a bit quicker than originally scheduled, allowing Mir's crew to quickly reorient the station for better solar array positioning. Finally, after dropping about 3,000 feet below Mir, orbital mechanics took over and the shuttle sailed away on its own without the need for any major rocket firings. "Atlantis, Houston. We get reports that Mir is pivoting itself back to a power-generating attitude," Hadfield radioed around 10 p.m. "The Phase One folks are in the back congratulating you on the super job you did. Eileen, your daughter Bridget stayed up long enough to watch you separate and clear out, now she's back home. Congratulations on the home front. And great job all around." "Thanks a lot, Chris, and thanks to all you guys down there in (mission control)," Collins replied. "We appreciate all the great support and thanks to all the great guys in Phase One. We're real happy to do this mission and we're going to be happy to come home." Mission Operations Director Lee Briscoe said the combined 10-member crew of the Atlantis-Mir complex had accomplished all of the mission's objectives, transferring equipment, supplies, spare parts and science gear from Atlantis to the station and moving additional hardware and experiment samples back to the shuttle for return to Earth. All told, 128 items were transferred to Mir totaling 3,872 pounds; 75 U.S. items totaling 1,399 pounds were moved from the station to Atlantis for return to Earth; and 39 Russian items massing 1,231 pounds were moved to the shuttle. Total mass of all transferred items: 6,503.74 pounds. "We did over a hundred percent of what we expected to do pre-flight because we brought down more than what we had planned to," Briscoe said. "We delivered a little over 1,000 pounds of water, we did repress and bump up the Mir cabin pressure, gave them about 70 pounds of O2 and about 15 pounds of N2. ... So from the orbiter standpoint, we've had a real good docked mission." Jim van Laak, deputy program manager of the shuttle-Mir project, added that from his viewpoint "the mission's going absolutely superbly, we're very pleased with the work of the crew on orbit." ==================================================================== Atlantis glides to smooth landing (05/24/97) Running one orbit late, the shuttle Atlantis glided to a smooth touchdown on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center today, bringing astronaut Jerry Linenger back to Earth after 132 days in space and leaving astronaut Michael Foale behind aboard the Russian Mir space station for a planned four-month stay. Shuttle commander Charles Precourt and pilot Eileen Collins fired the Atlantis's twin orbital maneuvering system braking rockets for three minutes and seven seconds starting at 8:22 a.m., dropping the spaceplane out of orbit. After a high-speed plunge across the heartland of America, the shuttle swooped to a slightly left-of-centerline touchdown at 9:27:44 a.m. to wrap up a 3.8-million-mile voyage spanning 144 complete orbits since blastoff May 15 from nearby pad 39A. "Houston, Atlantis, we have wheels stopped," Precourt radioed as the shuttle rolled to a halt. "Charlie, copy, wheels stopped," replied astronaut Dom Gorie in mission control. "And we'd like to offer congratulations on a flawless flight and a special welcome home for Jerry." "We thank you all," Precourt said. "You guys did a super job putting a great mission together for us." "It's good to be home," a healthy sounding Linenger chimed in from Atlantis's lower deck. Television replays of Atlantis's landing from a camera looking down the runway headong at the orbiter showed the shuttle slipping to the left of the centerline moments before touchdown, requiring what appeared to be a fairly significant correction on Precourt's part after main gear touchdown to steer back to the center of the runway. Precourt said later this was due to a stiff tailwind and crosswinds from the pilot's right of six knots with gusts up to nine (the limit is 15 knots). In any case, Precourt had plenty of room and entry flight director Wayne Hale said the landing itself was uneventful. Mission duration at main gear touchdown was nine days five hours 19 minutes and 56 seconds. Precourt, Collins, Carlos Noriega, Edward Lu, French astronaut Jean-Francois Clervoy and Russian cosmonaut Elena Kondakova left the shuttle about an hour after landing. NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, launch director Jim Harrington and KSC Director Roy Bridges were on hand to greet the crew, along with Valery Ryumin, Russian director of the shuttle-Mir docking program and Kondakova's husband. Greeting his wife with a kiss and a hug, Ryumin, dressed in a sport coat and a plaid shirt, gave Kondakova a dozen long-stem roses. All of the astronauts appeared healthy and in good spirits. "We're very happy to have had the opportunity to bring Jerry home," Precourt said at the runway. "I can report he's up and about, feeling really great, in good spirits. Mr. Goldin delivered him some flowers, which he'll pass onto his wife. That was his one request for landing, which is a pretty simple request. This crew did a wonderful job, we had a great opportunity to work with our colleagues on the Russian Mir. Things worked like clockwork for us and it couldn't have been a better flight all around. We made some great progress towards working together for the international space station." Later in the day, NASA released a videotaped interview with Linenger, who stood smiling with his wife, Kathryn, and their 18-month-old son, John. While he tended to move somewhat gingerly, the physician astronaut obviously had no major problem with his immediate readaptation to gravity. "I was very surprised, I felt way better than I thought I would feel," he said. "I felt strong and I still feel physically strong. "There's some disorientation that I think everyone feels after landing," he added. "But it was no different than a short-duration flight for me. I just walked on the treadmill and I felt fine. So physically, I don't feel that heavy. It's amazing to me. I really thought it would be a lot tougher." Posing for photographers, Linenger even managed to pick up his son, although he asked his wife to stand close by. "It's good to be home, I'll tell you," he said. "There's nothing like being back home with my family and my little boy." Precourt and company originally planned to land at 7:52 a.m., but low clouds over the Kennedy Space Center forced entry flight director Hale to keep Atlantis in space for an additional 92-minute orbit, with forecasters predicting the rising sun would burn off much of the low-altitude cloud cover. The final down-to-the-wire decision to proceed for a one-orbit late landing came just minutes before the deorbit burn, but in the end, conditions improved enough to permit a "go" for entry. Linenger spent 122 days four hours and 30 minutes as a member of the Russian Mir space station's crew. He was replaced May 17 by British-born astronaut Michael Foale, who plans to spend four-and-a-half months aboard Mir before returning to Earth aboard Atlantis in mid September. Atlantis's just completed mission was the sixth in a series of nine planned shuttle-Mir linkups intended to give NASA and the Russian Space Agency experience working together before astronauts and cosmonauts begin building the much more ambitious international space station next year. At the same time, the Mir dockings give the Russians a chance to resupply the aging station and NASA gets a chance to gain experience with long-duration spaceflight. Here are the numbers as of today: Russian record...................438.0 days U.S. record......................188.2 days (Shannon Lucid) Linenger's total time in space...132.6 days LInenger's time on Mir...........122 days four hours 30 minutes U.S. time aboard Mir to date.....543.4 days Continuous U.S. time on Mir......428.0 days Total planned U.S. time on Mir...970.0 days "This mission was very successful for us," said Frank Culbertson, NASA's manager of shuttle-Mir docking missions. "We transferred more hardware than we had in the past, over 6,500 pounds total, plus 1,000 pounds of water. That brings us to a total in the program of over 24,000 pounds of hardware transferred up and down on the shuttle during the time we've been operating with the Mir. That's a lot of hard work on people's part." Linenger faces a battery of medical tests after landing to measure how his body readapts to gravity and to ensure he remains healthy throughout the weeks-long process. After extensive tests at the Kennedy Space Center immediately after touchdown, Linenger will undergo supervised physical therapy at home and at work for the next several weeks. "I've adjusted very well to space and that means it's going to be maybe a little tougher adjusting to getting back to Earth," Linenger said from space Friday. "Up here, I feel as natural as walking down on Earth six months ago. So it's going to be a readjustment getting my Earth legs back." As for his mission aboard Mir, Linenger said "we had 100 percent success, we accomplished all the goals we wanted to accomplish. We also had a lot of sidetracks along the way repairing some equipment aboard Mir. But overall, we had a great mission, (it was) a once-in-a-lifetime experience." After extensive tests at the Kennedy Space Center, Linenger "will have opportunity to rest and relax, eat some good food and spend some time with his family," Billica said. "The crew will remain at Kennedy Space Center that first day. The next morning, Jerry has a couple of hours of additional medical evaluation and following that, the crew will return to Houston. Once back in Houston, Linenger will spend several weeks slowly readapting to life in Earth's gravity field. "He will have days off in there and plenty of time for family and relaxation, as well as supervised exercise and thorough medical evaluation and testing," Billica said. The goal is "to gradually and safely return him to his preflight level of fitness and health and also to make sure there aren't any long-term or immediate consequences to his health from the spaceflight. We don't expect there will be." Billica said the rehabilitation process will go through several somewhat arbitrary phases over a 30-day period. The first phase is known as the acute recovery phase, which lasts two to three days. "Mostly what we do during this time is just support the crew member, allow him to rest and get his land legs back," Billica said. "We don't do a lot of aggressive rehabilitation. The next phase of the rehabilitation lasts two to three weeks. This is the time we are actively rehabilitating, doing supervised exercise, testing, medical evaluations. This is the very intense rehabilitation program. Following that, usually at about the 30-day point, we're able to pretty well give the astronauts a clean bill of health for most of the medical parameters we monitor and return them to their normal duties. "At that point, we're recommending that a lot of the crew members take some time off. THere's still some recovery going on at that point. There's still some long-term recovery of bone, mineral mass, some of the neurologic, very fine-tuned reflexes. But overall, most of the crew members have been ... in a good state of health and fitness at about the 30-day point." ====================================================================