MARKING THE FORMAL end of the space race, a record ten people were orbiting the Earth aboard a single spacecraft as the US Space Shuttle Atlantis/STS 71 docked to the Russian Mir 1 space station on 29 June.
The assembly of a 223t spacecraft in orbit was the first step in a plan to build a US/Russian-led international space station, code-named the Alpha, starting in 1997 (Flight International, 14-20 June).
The Atlantis docking, performed flawlessly by commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson, was the first of a series of seven such Shuttle flights to prepare the way for the Alpha programme. The Atlantis was launched on 27 June from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, after weather-related delays.
The Atlantis is scheduled to return to Earth on 7 July after five days docked with the Mir 1. It will carry five of its original NASA astronaut crew, plus two Russian cosmonauts and US astronaut-doctor Norman Thagard, who have been in orbit since 14 March. Two Russians, Anatoli Solovyov and Nikolai Budarin, who were launched aboard the Atlantis, will remain on the Mir 1.
Source: Flight International
