STS-81 Report # 20 Wednesday, January 22, 1997 9:30 a.m. CST NASA's first Shuttle mission of 1997 came to an end early this morning when Atlantis landed at Kennedy Space Center to conclude Shuttle Mission STS-81. The shuttle touched down on KSC's runway 33 at 8:23 a.m. at the end of a 10 day, 3.8 million mile journey. Atlantis' return home was delayed one orbit while the flight control team evaluated dynamic weather in the vicinity KSC. The STS-81 flight was the fifth in a series of joint missions between the U.S. Space Shuttle and the Russian Space Station Mir and the second one involving an exchange of U.S. astronauts. Shortly after docking, STS-81 crewmember Jerry Linenger transferred over to the station, becoming a member of the Mir 22 crew. Linenger replaced astronaut John Blaha, who had been aboard the orbiting facility since mid-September. Blaha spent a total of 128 days in space, 118 of them as a Mir crewmember. Linenger will live and work on Mir until he is replaced by astronaut Mike Foale when Atlantis once again docks to the station in May on Mission STS-84. About an hour after landing, the STS-81 crew moved from Atlantis into the Crew Transport Vehicle (CTV). The crew will then be transported to the Operations and Checkout building at KSC where they will be reunited with their families. Once the crew is out of the vehicle, technicians can begin removing time critical payloads from the SPACEHAB module. Later today, Atlantis will be towed off the runway and into the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) at KSC. Following standard post-flight deservicing work, Atlantis will be prepared for the sixth Shuttle-Mir mission on STS-84. The STS-31 crew will remain overnight at Kennedy Space Center. They are scheduled to depart KSC tomorrow morning around 12 noon CST and arrive back in Houston at Ellington Air Field around 3:00 p.m. CST. The next Shuttle flight scheduled to be conducted is Discovery on Mission STS-82, the second servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. The current STS-82 target launch date is February 11. NASA managers will set the official launch date at a flight readiness review meeting at KSC on January 30. ### 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.