STS-71 Day 9 Highlights

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On Wednesday, July 5, 1995, 6 a.m. CDT, STS-71 MCC Status Report # 16 reports:

Flying solo and ahead of the Mir space station by about 120 nautical miles, the crew on board Atlantis awoke to a children's song, "I Love My Moon," a special dedication to Commander Hoot Gibson from his 26-day old daughter Emilee Louise.

Atlantis carried seven crew members into orbit, and following the conclusion of its joint operations with the Mir space station, is scheduled to return to Earth on Friday morning with eight passengers on board, equalling the largest crew (STS-61A, Oct. `85) in Shuttle history. The Mir 19 cosmonauts-- Commander Anatoly Solovyev and Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin -- who reached orbit on board Atlantis, now begin a two-month stay on board the space station while the Mir 18 crew -- Vladimir Dezhurov, Gennady Strekalov and Norm Thagard -- are returning to Earth on board Atlantis. Solovyev and Budarin are scheduled to take the first of three planned spacewalks during their flight on July 14th to inspect a side docking port on the Mir and to free a balky solar panel on the Kvant-2 science module.

The primary activities today aboard Atlantis focus on the continuing medical and scientific investigations being conducted in the Spacelab science workshop in the Shuttle's cargo bay. The Mir 18 crew members, beginning their 113th day on orbit, are the primary test subjects for the ongoing studies into how the human body responds to extended spaceflight.

The investigations are designed to increase understanding of, and countermeasures for, a phenomenon referred to as orthostatic intolerance. This is a feeling of lightheadedness that astronauts may experience when attempting to stand upright after returning to Earth. Mir 18 crew members will use either the Lower Body Negative Pressure unit -- a bag-like device that pulls fluids from the upper portion of the body to the lower extremities -- or a baroreflex neck cuff that mimics arterial pressure on sensors located in the arteries of the neck, to see how autonomic control of cardiovascular orthostatic function responds to microgravity.

Earlier this morning, Commander Hoot Gibson, Pilot Charlie Precourt, Dezhurov and Thagard took time from their schedules to discuss their docking mission to the Mir Station with NBC's "Today" show.

On Wednesday, July 5, 1995, 5 p.m. CDT, STS-71 MCC Status Report # 17 reports:

With the Mir space station growing ever more dim behind them, Atlantis' crew members concentrated today on biomedical research in the Shuttle's Spacelab module.

The Mir space station is now about 200 nautical miles behind Atlantis and continuing to fall behind by about 9 nautical miles per orbit. Nevertheless, Commander Hoot Gibson reported he can still clearly see the station as a distant star with each sunrise.

The Mir's former inhabitants--Mir 18 crewmen Vladimir Dezhurov, Gennady Strekalov and astronaut Norm Thagard--now in orbit for 113 days, were the subjects of the scientific investigations aboard Atlantis. Strekalov and Thagard each spent a session in the Lower Body Negative Pressure device--a device that simulates the effects of gravity by using lower air pressure to pull body fluids to the legs. Also, a series of experiments was performed dealing with the reflex responses of the cardiovascular system. Each crewman also exercised on the treadmill.

To fix a minor problem onboard, Gibson and Pilot Charlie Precourt rigged an alternate method of supplying power to equipment that allows the crew to send electronic still photographs to the ground. The fix is working well, and several new images were received by controllers this afternoon. The crew began an 8-hour sleep period at 5:32 p.m. and will awaken Thursday at 1:32 a.m. Central for another day of medical work and several standard checks of equipment Atlantis will need for its landing on Friday.

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