Ed Campion 
Headquarters, Washington, DC               June 16, 1995
(Phone:  202/358-1778)

RELEASE:  95-95

NASA AND RSA SET JUNE 23 FOR LAUNCH OF STS-71 MISSION

     Officials at NASA and the Russian Space Agency set 
June 23, 1995, as the launch date for the first docking 
mission between the U.S. Space Shuttle Atlantis and the 
Russian space station Mir.

     This historic mission is the first of seven planned 
joint missions and comes almost twenty years after the two 
nations took the first steps towards joint cooperation with 
the Apollo-Soyuz linkup in July 1975.  Atlantis' crew will 
consist of five Americans and two Russian cosmonauts.

     The STS-71 launch is targeted for 5:08:37 p.m. EDT at 
the opening of a seven minute window.  A launch on June 23 
should allow docking with Mir to take place on flight day 
four of the mission at about 10:30 a.m. EDT.  Atlantis will 
remained docked to Mir for almost five days during which 
the crews aboard both vehicles will conduct joint life 
sciences research experiments.

     At the end of joint docked activities, the two Russian 
cosmonauts launched aboard Atlantis will assume 
responsibility for operations of the Mir station.  The Mir-
18 crew, who have been aboard Mir since March 16th, will 
join the STS-71 crew for the return trip to Earth.  One of 
the Mir-18 crewmembers, American astronaut Norm Thagard, 
will return home with the American record for a single 
space flight with more than 100 days in space.  The 
previous record was held by the Skylab-4 crew with 84 days 
in 1973-1974.

      The STS-71 mission has a planned duration of 
approximately 10 days, 19 hours, 15 minutes if launch takes 
place on June 23, with landing scheduled to take place at 
the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility on July 
4 at approximately 12:30 p.m. EDT.

			- end -

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