#sts-71

Cosmonauts Budarin and Solovyev remained on the space station, while carrying cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennadi Strekalov, and astronaut Norman Thagard back to Earth. The return crew of 8 equaled the largest crew in shuttle history.

Mir would continue it’s service life until 2001, after 15 years in orbit, was deorbited and allowed to break up over the south Pacific.

Russian Mir space station, 1995.

Atlantis Docked to Mir par NASA on The Commons Via Flickr : This view of the Space Shuttle Atlantis still connected to Russia's Mir Space Station was photographed by the Mir-19 crew on July 4, 1995. Cosmonauts Anatoliy Y. Solovyev and Nikolai M. Budarin, Mir-19 Commander and Flight Engineer, respectively, temporarily undocked the Soyuz spacecraft from the cluster of Mir elements to perform a brief fly-around. They took pictures while the STS-71 crew, with Mir-18's three crew members aboard, undocked Atlantis for the completion of this leg of the joint activities. Solovyev and Budarin had been taxied to the Mir Space Station by the STS-71 ascent trip of Atlantis. Image # : STS071-S-072

Atlantis Docked to Mir by NASA on The Commons Via Flickr : This view of the Space Shuttle Atlantis still connected to Russia's Mir Space Station was photographed by the Mir-19 crew on July 4, 1995. Cosmonauts Anatoliy Y. Solovyev and Nikolai M. Budarin, Mir-19 Commander and Flight Engineer, respectively, temporarily undocked the Soyuz spacecraft from the cluster of Mir elements to perform a brief fly-around. They took pictures while the STS-71 crew, with Mir-18's three crew members aboard, undocked Atlantis for the completion of this leg of the joint activities. Solovyev and Budarin had been taxied to the Mir Space Station by the STS-71 ascent trip of Atlantis. Image # : STS071-S-072

Tramite Flickr: On June 27, 1995, the Space Shuttle Orbiter Atlantis (STS-71) took off from Kennedy Space Center for what would be a nine day, 19 hour mission. The flight marked the 100th United States human space launch as well as the first docking between the Space Shuttle and the Russian Space Station MIR. During this docking, joint US and Russian life science investigations were performed in the Spacelab module tucked inside Atlantis’ large cargo bay. When talking about the mission, then NASA Administrator Dan Goldin remarked, “this flight heralds a new era of cooperation between our two countries. It will lay the foundation for the construction of an International Space Station later this decade.” Image credit: NASA