This week in rocket history, we’re going to cover the launch of STS-71, the first spacecraft to dock to another nation’s space station.

When Atlantis launched on June 27, 1995, STS-71 became the one-hundredth crewed launch from Kennedy Space Center. Onboard were five American astronauts and two Russian cosmonauts.

This was the first time Russians went to space on an American spacecraft. Prior to that, the last time Russians and Americans worked together directly was on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program twenty years earlier at the height of the Cold War.

Together, they would continue to achieve several “space firsts” for both nations.

After two days of catching up to Mir, STS-71 became the first American spacecraft to dock to another country’s space station. Shuttle Atlantis came up directly below Mir to dock on the Kristall module. This was the only module the Shuttle could dock to as all others had the standard Soyuz port, which was not compatible with the Shuttle. To make room for the shuttle, the Kristall module was temporarily moved to the forward port of the Mir core.

Eight hundred meters away from the docking port, commander Robert Gibson took over manual controls and brought the Shuttle in for a soft docking. His docking was nearly perfect; the alignment was only off by 2.5 centimeters (one inch). When docked, Atlantis and Mir formed the largest spacecraft ever at the time, over 225 metric tonnes. For comparison, the International Space Station is now over 400 metric tonnes.

After docking and opening the airlocks, the commanders of the two spacecraft, Gibson and Vladimir Dezhurov did a ceremonial handshake, just like their counterparts Thomas Stafford and Alexi Leonov did twenty years earlier.

Atlantis spent five days conducting human biomedical experiments with the combined American and Russian crews. These experiments covered seven different disciplines:

• cardiovascular and pulmonary functions;
• human metabolism;
• neuroscience;
• hygiene, sanitation, and radiation;
• behavioral performance and biology;
• fundamental biology; and
• microgravity research.

Most of these experiments were conducted from the Spacehab module in Atlantis’ payload bay.

Atlantis brought back biological samples including blood, urine, and feces from these different experiments, as well as a broken computer from Mir so it could be fixed on the ground. The crew transferred 450 kilograms of water as well as spacewalking tools needed for repairs to the station.

Before undocking, the Shuttle exchanged crews, leaving behind Nikolai Budarin and Anatoly Solovyevso the Mir Expedition 18 crew could go back to Earth. This resulted in seven crew members going up and eight coming back down, which is the largest crew on any spacecraft for launch or landing. Budarin and Solovyev became Mir Expedition 19 and remained on board until September 1995, when they would depart in the Soyuz that had launched Expedition 18.

Both craft undocked from Mir, temporarily leaving the station empty. This was so that the remaining crew could take photos of the Shuttle undocking. After the photoshoot, the spacecraft went their separate ways: Soyuz re-docking with Mir while Atlantis headed back to Earth. Ten days after launch, the eight-person crew landed safely back at the Kennedy Space Center on July 7, 1995.

The Shuttle-Mir program gave NASA a lot of experience in long-duration missions, space station operations, and working with the Russians. Hardware from the program, specifically the APAS-95 docking port on the Shuttle, would later be used on the International Space Station.

More Information

Mission Archives: STS-71 (NASA)

Shuttle-Mir Background: Lessons Learned (NASA via archive.org)

BOOK: The Twenty-first Century in Space by Ben Evans