STS-76 Mission Control Center 
Status Report # 11

Wednesday, March 27, 1996, 4 p.m. CST

The Johnson Space Center Newsroom closes at 5 p.m. Wednesday and will
reopen at 2 a.m. Thursday for continuing coverage of the STS-76
mission.

The Atlantis astronauts are due to awaken just before 7 p.m. tonight
to begin their final full day of joint docked operations with the Mir
space station.  Transfer of water, supplies and experiment equipment
was nearly completed early Wednesday, moving 1500 pounds of water from
the Atlantis to Mir.

A farewell ceremony is planned for 4:38 a.m. Thursday, followed by
closing of the hatches at 6:43 a.m.  After the crew's sleep period
during the day Thursday, the orbiter will undock from Mir at
approximately 7 p.m. CST.  Atlantis will fly around Mir for about an
hour and a half, taking photos before firing its engines at 8:53
p.m. and dropping into a lower orbit of about 220 nautical miles.

Atlantis is expected to return home Sunday, landing at the Kennedy
Space Center in Florida about 6 a.m. CST.  Weather considerations
could alter the landing site or day of landing.

Earlier Wednesday, 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, the two 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.

Shortly after the spacewalk was completed, the hatches between Mir and
Atlantis were reopened, reuniting the two space crews.