STS-81
Report # 05 
Tuesday, January 14, 6 a.m. CST 
 
Atlantis' astronauts continued their chase of the Mir Space Station
and closed in for a docking with the Russian outpost tonight as they
wrapped up their third day of orbital operations.

With Atlantis narrowing the gap between itself and the Mir, the
astronauts spent most of their workday completing preparations for the
rendezvous and linkup of the two spacecraft, which is scheduled for
9:53 p.m. tonight.  Pilot Brent Jett finished the checkout of
navigation tools which will be used during the rendezvous and joined
John Grunsfeld to install a camera in the Orbiter Docking System to
provide television views of the docking target on the Mir for
Commander Mike Baker to use as he flys Atlantis to its docking from
the Shuttle's aft flight deck control panel.

Jeff Wisoff and Grunsfeld then extended the outer ring of the Orbiter
Docking System to verify its health and place it in the proper
configuration for its contact and capture of the docking mechanism on
the docking port attached to the Mir.

Last night, Wisoff, Marsha Ivins and Jerry Linenger spent several
hours assembling a device called TVIS, the Treadmill Vibration
Isolation and Stabilization System, which is an experiment for the
International Space Station program designed to minimize vibrations
caused by crew exercise.  Minimizing or eliminating vibration is
critical to maintaining a quiet environment during processing activity
of sensitive experiments.

The crew will wake up at 3:37 this afternoon to begin the final
rendezvous activities leading toward the docking tonight.  About an
hour and a half after docking, the hatches between the two spacecraft
will be opened and the five days of docked operations will begin,
including the crew exchange of Linenger with John Blaha and the
transfer of nearly 6,000 pounds of water, experiments and logistical
items.

Baker and Linenger talked about the rendezvous and docking as well as
life aboard Mir in an interview with CNN prior to going to be this
morning.

Atlantis is closing in on Mir at a rate of about 310 nautical miles
every orbit.  That closing rate will place the orbiter behind the
station at about 8 miles at the time of the terminal initiation burn
tonight at 7:14 setting the stage for the final approach and docking.

###

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" or
"unsubscribe"(no quotes). This will add or remove 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.