STS-79 Mission Control Center
Status Report  #7

Thursday, September 19, 1996,  7 a.m. CDT

Atlantis and the Mir Space Station are joined together for the fourth
time following an on-time docking at 10:13 Central time last night.
After two hours of pressure and leak checks, the hatches between the
two spacecraft were opened at 12:40 a.m. Central time and the two
crews greeted one another to begin five days of joint operations.

The rendezvous and docking went flawlessly as Atlantis' Commander Bill
Readdy flew the orbiter manually through the final 2,000 feet.
Docking occurred within seconds of the pre-planned time and flight
controllers reported that only slight oscillations were felt through
the Orbiter Docking System as the two spacecraft locked
together. Within hours of the hatch opening, crew members John Blaha
and Shannon Lucid formally swapped places before going to bed with
Blaha becoming a member of the Mir-22 crew and Lucid joining the
STS-79 crew to wrap up 179 days as a member of the Mir station.

The official time of the crew exchange was recorded at 6 a.m. Central
time, at the point which Blaha brought a custom-made Soyuz seatliner
over to the Mir from Atlantis for installation in the Russian
capsule. Blaha would return to Earth in the Soyuz in the event of a
contingency aboard the Mir which would require the crew to abandon the
complex.

Blaha joins Mir 22 Commander Valery Korzun and Flight Engineer
Alexander Kaleri on Mir for the next four months.  He will be replaced
by Astronaut Jerry Linenger, scheduled to arrive on Atlantis' next
visit scheduled for early January 1997 on mission STS-81.

Soon after the crew members completed their welcoming ceremony, they
went to work, hauling bags of water and other supplies from the
Shuttle's Spacehab module into the Mir. More than 4000 pounds of
equipment and logistical supplies will be transferred to the Mir
before Atlantis undocks from the space outpost next Monday night.

Atlantis is scheduled to return home on September 26 with Lucid having
logged 188 days in orbit, a U.S.  endurance record and a record for
the longest single spaceflight by a woman.

Atlantis' astronauts will begin an extended 10-hour sleep period at
10:54 a.m. CDT and will be awakened tonight at 8:54 p.m.  The next
STS-79 status report will be issued at 5 p.m. CDT.

###
 
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