Tim Furniss/LONDON
The STS74/Atlantis, the second Shuttle mission to dock with the Mir 1 Russian space station, is scheduled to be launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 11 November.
The primary mission is the installation of a docking module on Mir to improve clearance between the Shuttle and the station's solar panels during five subsequent Shuttle-Mir missions in 1996-7. The docking will occur on the fourth day, and the mission is to last eight days (Flight International, 14-20 June).
The five-man crew, led by commander Ken Cameron, will work on the Mir and return to Earth experiment samples, equipment for repair and analysis, and products manufactured on the Mir.
The payload-bay doors of the Atlantis will be closed partially during the mission. This will simulate the possible necessity of such a move on future Mir or Space Station missions, where the orbiter's attitude during docking or docked flight will expose it to orbital debris and micrometeorite impacts for longer periods than planned.
The STS74 launch will come six days after the scheduled landing of the STS73/Columbia, which took off on its US Microgravity Laboratory 2 mission on 20 October, after six launch cancellations.
The STS73 was powered by two Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME) equipped with Pratt & Whitney liquid-oxygen turbopumps. The first flight using a P&W liquid-hydrogen turbopump is scheduled for 1997 (Flight International, 2-8 August).
The STS73 mission carried the Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) cryogenic fuel-cell pallet to allow flights longer than 11 days. Six more EDO Shuttle stand-alone science missions are planned, ending with the Nuerolab Spacelab Life Sciences mission, the STS89/Columbia, in May 1998.
Source: Flight International
