MISSION CONTROL CENTER
STS-71 Status Report #4

Thursday, June 29, 1995, 4:00 a.m. CDT

Atlantis' seven astronauts awoke at 1:32 a.m. CDT to "From a
Distance," as sung by Nanci Griffith. The wake-up music was preceded
by special birthday greetings to Pilot Charlie Precourt from his wife
and daughters. Precourt is celebrating his 40th birthday today soaring
216 nautical miles above the surface of the Earth.

The STS-71 crew members almost immediately set to work preparing for
this morning's planned docking with the Mir Space Station.

Shortly before 3 a.m., Atlantis' orbital maneuvering system engines
were fired for 45 seconds. That NC4 burn raised the low end of
Atlantis' orbit and positioned the shuttle roughly eight nautical
miles behind Mir. One orbit later, at about 4:30 a.m., Commander Hoot
Gibson was scheduled to again fire the jets for the terminal
initiation burn which begins the final phase of the rendezvous. That
burn will put Atlantis in position to intercept the Mir Space Station
from a point directly below Mir, on an imaginary line called the R-Bar
or Earth radius vector.

Atlantis will stationkeep in that position at a distance of about 250
feet from the Mir awaiting the approval of NASA Flight Director Bob
Castle and Russian Flight Director Viktor Blagov to proceed with the
docking. Atlantis will eventually close to a point 30 feet from Mir at
about 7:40 a.m. before beginning its final approach toward the docking
port located on the Kristall module.

Link-up of the two vehicles is expected at 8 a.m. CDT. Once docking is
confirmed, the astronauts on board Atlantis and the cosmonauts on
board Mir will perform leak checks of the tunnel connecting the two
spacecraft. With that complete, the hatches will be opened and Gibson
and Mir 18 Commander Vladimir Dezhurov will shake hands as Americans
and Russians meet in space for the first time in 20 years.

 Atlantis remains in excellent mechanical condition in an orbit with a
high point of 216 nautical miles and a low point of 163 nautical
miles.

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