STS-79 Mission Control Center
Status Report  #13

Sunday, September 22, 1996, 6 a.m. CDT

STS-79 Commander Bill Readdy and Mission Specialist Jay Apt shared a
brief video tour of the Mir Space Station with flight controllers this
morning, taking a break from the transfer activities that have
occupied much of the astronauts' time during three days of docked
operations.

Readdy and Apt floated through several of Mir's modules and back into
Atlantis' double Spacehab module during the tour pointing out the
numerous transfer items stowed on both spacecraft.  Transfer of
equipment and supplies continues to go smoothly on board Atlantis/Mir
with close to 90 percent of the transfer activity complete.
 
The final powered transfer item, the Material in Devices as
Supercondctors (MIDAS), which will gather data on superconductor
materials over the next four months, was transferred to Mir early this
morning.  MIDAS is just one of the investigations that Mir 22 Flight
Engineer 2 John Blaha will support during his on-orbit stay.

Shortly after 4:30 this morning Readdy and Mir Commander Valery Korzun
again pulsed small maneuvering jets on their spacecraft to test the
capability of the Active Rack Isolation System to damp out any
vibrations caused by those firings.  ARIS is designed to isolate micro
gravity payloads from disturbances caused by crew activity or jet
firings.  With that test complete, Mission Specialists Carl Walz and
Jay Apt will once again perform some troubleshooting on ARIS to
inspect and possibly repair a bent pushrod.

Shortly after 6 a.m. central time today, Readdy, Pilot Terry Wilcutt,
Lucid and Blaha discussed their mission so far in an interview with
CNN's John Holliman.

The joined spacecraft continue to travel around the world at 17,500
miles an hour at an altitude of about 235 miles, with all of their
systems working well.  Hatch closure between the two spacecraft will
occur at 8:54 a.m. CDT Monday, with undocking scheduled for 8:33
p.m. CDT Monday. The next STS-79 status report will be issued at 5
p.m. CDT today.

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