STS-79 Mission Control Center
Status Report #21

Thursday, September 26, 1996

The Space Shuttle Atlantis glided into the Kennedy Space Center at 7:13
a.m. CDT today, marking the end of the fourth docking flight with Mir
and the end of Shannon Lucid's record setting 188 day stay on board the
Russian space station.

Commander Bill Readdy and Pilot Terry Wilcutt fired Atlantis' braking
rockets at 6:06 a.m. CDT to enable the shuttle to drop out of orbit for
its hour-long slide back to Earth. Atlantis streaked across the Pacific
Ocean, western Canada, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan and the Chicago
area before gliding over Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas
then traveling into Florida and landing on runway 15. Atlantis
originally had been slated to land on runway 33 but mission managers
changed the designated runway after reviewing winds aloft.

The two auxiliary power units on board Atlantis used to support the
landing performed well and as expected. Auxiliary power unit #2 which
had shutdown prematurely just after Atlantis launched on Sept. 16 was
not started to support landing.

Following the landing, veteran space traveler Shannon Lucid began a
series of medical evaluations and data collection in support of her
historic, record breaking flight. Atlantis traveled about 3.9 million
miles during its 10 day flight. Because the landing occurred at the end
of the crew's work day, the six astronauts will remain in Florida
overnight and will return to Ellington Field in Houston in mid- to late
afternoon Friday.

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###

NASA Johnson Space Center Mission Status Reports and other information
are available automatically by sending an Internet electronic mail
message to jscnews-request@listserver.jsc.nasa.gov . In the body of the
message (not the subject line) users should type "subscribe" (no
quotes). This will add the email address that sent the subscibe message
to the news release distribution list. The system will reply with a
confirmation via E-mail of each subscription. Once you have subscribed
you will receive future news releases via e-mail.