STS-76 Mission Control Center 
Status Report # 10

Wednesday, March 27, 1996, 7 a.m. CST

Astronauts Linda Godwin and Rich Clifford successfully completed the
first ever spacewalk from a docked Space Shuttle this morning,
installing four experiments on the exterior of the Russian Mir space
station.

Starting at 12:36 a.m. CST, Godwin and Clifford spent six hours, two
minutes and twenty-eight seconds spacewalking in Atlantis's cargo
bay and on the exterior of the Mir's docking module. They smoothly
performed all of the objectives planned for the spacewalk, the most
important of which was to install the four experiments to monitor the
space environment on the exterior of Mir for the next year and a half.

The Mir Environmental Effects Payload, as the experiments are called,
were clamped to outside rails on the docking module. They will gather
information on space debris encountered outside the Mir; the amounts
and types of contaminants around the station; and the corrosive
effects of space on various materials. When retrieved and brought back
to Earth, the experiments will provide valuable insight to engineers
about the space environment likely to be encountered by the future
International Space Station.

Godwin and Clifford also detached a television camera from the outside
of the Mir docking module to return it to Earth, and they evaluated a
variety of new spacewalking tools capable of being used on both
U.S. and Russian spacecraft.

Shortly after the spacewalk was completed, the hatches between Mir and
Atlantis were reopened, reuniting the two space crews. Atlantis'
crew will begin a sleep period at 10:43 a.m. CST and awaken to begin
Day 7 of their mission at 6:43 p.m. CST.

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