Ed Campion                                                        August 22, 1996
Headquarters, Washington, DC
(Phone:  202/358-1778)

Eileen Hawley
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
(Phone:  713 483-5111)


RELEASE:  96-171

COSMONAUT KONDAKOVA NAMED TO STS-84 CREW

     Veteran Russian cosmonaut Elena Kondakova has been named 
as a mission specialist for STS-84, joining six astronauts already 
named to Atlantis' 1997 flight to dock with Russia's Mir space 
station.

     Kondakova, an engineer with RSC Energia in Russia, currently 
holds the single spaceflight endurance record for a woman, having 
spent 169 days in space as part of the Mir 17 crew from October 
1994 to March 1995.  (That record will be surpassed by U.S. 
astronaut Shannon Lucid on Sept. 7)  She will join STS-84 
Commander Charlie Precourt (Col., USAF), Pilot Eileen Collins (Lt. 
Col., USAF) and fellow Mission Specialists Carlos Noriega (Major, 
USMC), Edward Lu, Ph.D., Jean-Francois Clervoy (European 
Space Agency) and Michael Foale, Ph.D.

     Foale will be launched aboard Atlantis for a four and a half month 
stay on Mir. 
Jerry Linenger will return to Earth on board Atlantis at the 
conclusion of his stay on Mir as part of the STS-84 crew.  Linenger 
will be launched to the Mir in January 1997 aboard Atlantis as part 
of the STS-81 crew.

     As part of the Mir 17 crew, Kondakova served as flight engineer, 
joining Commander Alexander Viktorenko and Physician 
Researcher Valery Polyakov.  Highlights of that mission included the 
first rendezvous of the Space Shuttle Discovery with Mir during 
STS-63 and the arrival of the Mir-18 crew that included the first 
American on board Mir, former astronaut Norman Thagard.  
Kondakova becomes the third Russian cosmonaut to fly on the 
Shuttle as a mission specialist following Sergei Krikalev (STS-60) 
and Vladimir Titov (STS-63).

     For complete biographical information on the STS-84 crew, and 
other astronauts, see the NASA Internet biography home page at 
URL: http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/
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