Because it’s been a couple of weeks since I was allowed to talk about Space Shuttle missions, This Week in Rocket History is STS-84, part of the Shuttle-Mir program. I’ll also go into detail on one of the long-duration missions conducted by a NASA astronaut on Mir.

Before the Space Shuttle built the International Space Station (ISS), it docked at the Russian Mir space station. It did this a total of nine times, and STS-84 was the sixth of these dockings. Shuttle Atlantis launched on May 15, 1997, carrying a seven-member crew up for just under ten days. The shuttle left one crew member on Mir for a long-duration mission and returned with a different long-duration crew member launched on a previous Shuttle visit. This was one of a few spaceflights where the launching crew and landing crew of the spacecraft were different.

STS-84 was basically just a supply run, exchanging the previously mentioned crewmembers and bringing up several tons of supplies for the station and its research. Despite this, it set several milestones including the conclusion of the first continuous year in space for NASA. Part of that year was conducted by the previous long-duration crewmember, Shannon Lucid, and the rest by Jerry Linenger, who had been on the station since January 15, 1997, on STS-81.

Linenger performed a hundred experiments during his time on Mir as part of the Mir Expedition 22 crew. Before the shuttle came to get him, Linenger became the first American astronaut to do a spacewalk from a foreign space station. Naturally, he wore a Russian spacesuit in the EVA, another first for an American astronaut. Linenger was joined by station commander Vasiliy Tisbiliev for the five-hour spacewalk. NASA astronauts would do EVAs wearing Russian spacesuits in the early years of the ISS as well.

Another exciting thing that happened on Mir during Limenger’s time on the station was one of the worst things that can happen on a space station: a fire in one of the modules. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Linenger also witnessed the impact of the Progress M-34 resupply craft during a manual docking attempt gone wrong. Progress M-34 had autonomously docked using the dependable but expensive Kurs system the previous day. Russian mission control wanted to save money and test using the backup manual docking system as the only method. It was not a good test result.

These were just a few highlights of many things that took place on Mir during his mission. Despite all of the problems encountered, Linenger still completed all of the planned science.

Linenger was replaced on Mir by British-American astronaut Michael Foale from STS-84, who would do 35 experiments in his four months, twelve days in space, including two while the shuttle was still docked. Atlantis was docked from May 16 through 21 as the crew transferred supplies faster than planned. Among these supplies was a new oxygen generator to replace the one damaged in the fire.

The combined Shuttle and Mir crews conducted science experiments in the Spacehab module mounted in the shuttle’s cargo bay. Most of these experiments were repeats of past ones – it’s always worth confirming the results – but seven of the experiments were new.

Elsewhere in the station, the crew took lots of pictures, partially to survey the damage from the fire. The one thing they did not take pictures of was the station from the outside, which previous missions had done.

Atlantis undocked in the evening of May 21, but it stayed around the station for some time to test a rendezvous system for the future European ATV, which would be used on the ISS. The shuttle would serve the same purpose twelve years later on STS-127, testing the rendezvous sensors for SpaceX’s Dragon in a package called DragonEye.

STS-84 landed back at the Kennedy Space Center on May 24, nine days, 23 hours, and nineteen minutes after launch. It orbited the Earth 144 times.

More Information

STS-84 mission page (NASA)

STS-84 mission page (Astronautix)