STS-81
Report # 06 
Tuesday, January 14, 1997  5 p.m. CST 
 
   STS-81 Commander Mike Baker's first words to Mission Control this
morning were"Good morning, Houston - 500 miles to go."

  Baker and the rest of the crew - Pilot Brent Jett and Mission
Specialists Jeff Wisoff, John Grunsfeld, Marsha Ivins and Jerry
Linenger - immediately began working on the final preparations for
rendezvous and docking with the Russian Mir Space Station, conducting
a waste water dump, preparing the Spacehab module and hatches for the
link-up, and readying items that will be transferred to Mir for the
journey through the permanent docking adapter tunnel.

  The crew was awakened at 3:38 p.m. CST Tuesday with the
song "Hitchin' a Ride" by Vanity Fare, in honor of both Linenger and
John Blaha. Linenger is hitching a ride aboard Atlantis to the Russian
space station and a four-month stay, and Blaha will be hitching a ride
back to Earth after a four-month stay on Mir.

  Docking remains scheduled for 9:53 p.m. CST tonight. The crew's next
maneuver in support of the rendezvous will be a jet firing at 5:40
p.m. The terminal initiation burn that begins the final approach phase
is scheduled for 7:14 p.m. CST. Atlantis is closing in on Mir at a
rate of about 310 nautical miles every orbit and will be about 8 miles
behind the station at the time of the terminal initiation burn.

  Yesterday, the crew finished the checkout of navigation tools that
will be used during the rendezvous, set up a camera in the Orbiter
Docking System to provide television views of the Mir docking target
for Baker to use at the shuttle's aft flight deck control panel, and
extending the outer ring of the Orbiter Docking System.

  The two spacecraft will be about 210 miles above and southeast of
Moscow at the time of docking. 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 Blaha and the transfer of nearly 6,000 pounds of water,
experiments and logistical items.

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