STS-81
Report # 09 
Thursday, January 16, 1997 -- 7 a.m. CST 
 
The nine astronauts and cosmonauts of the Atlantis-Mir space complex
pressed ahead this morning with the transfer of food, water and
supplies to each other's spacecraft in the second day of joint
operations of the STS-81 mission.

With both spacecraft in excellent shape, the nine crewmembers floated
back and forth between Atlantis and the Mir, hauling bags of water,
satchels of logistical supplies and experiment hardware. The supplies
and hardware will be used by cosmonauts and U.S.  astronaut Jerry
Linenger during his four months of scientific research aboard the Mir.

Linenger, who officially became a Mir crewmember early Wednesday,
spent more than two hours with his precedessor on the Russian space
station, John Blaha, who helped familiarize Linenger with his new home
during a handover period. A handover period will be conducted each
night during the docked phase of the mission.

As their workday began late Wednesday, the crewmembers had already
exchanged almost half of all of the items earmarked for transfer
during this fifth Shuttle-Mir docking flight.  In all, about three
tons of supplies will have been exchanged by the time Atlantis undocks
from the Mir Sunday night.

Crew members are scheduled to go to sleep about 11:30 this morning and
wake up at 7:27 p.m. today.

###




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.