STS-71 Day 6 Highlights

Back to STS-71 Flight Day 05 Highlights:

On Sunday, July 2, 1995, 6 a.m. CDT, STS-71 MCC Status Report # 10 reports:

Flight Day 6 on board Atlantis/Mir began with a Caribbean flair as the astronauts and cosmonauts awoke to Jimmy Buffet's "Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes." Crew members are already hard at work as another busy day of scientific and medical investigations in the Spacelab module gets under way. Today’s investigations focus primarily on understanding how the cardiovascular system responds to microgravity.

The Mir 18 crew members -- Commander Vladimir Dezhurov, Engineer Gennady Strekalov and Cosmonaut Researcher Norm Thagard -- are using a neck collar of sorts to mimic increasing and decreasing arterial pressure on the baroceptor sensors located in the arteries of the neck. These sensors constantly monitor blood pressure and send messages to the brain to increase or decrease heart rate to compensate for rising or dropping blood pressure. This investigation may help researchers understand and reduce the phenomenom of orthostatic intolerance, or lightheadedness, sometimes experienced by astronauts upon return to Earth.

The cosmonauts also are continuing their scheduled exercise sessions designed to help minimize their readapation to Earth’s one-gravity environment. Dezhurov, Strekalov and Thagard will walk or run on the treadmill, ride the bicycle ergometer, or perform resistive exercise for 1-2 hours every day as part of this countermeasures program.

In parallel with the joint medical investigations, remaining crew members continue the transfer, package and storing of equipment to be returned to Earth on board Atlantis. Transfer of excess water from Atlantis to the Mir space station will continue throughout the day.

Mir 18 Commander Vladimir Dezhurov spent several minutes discussing his flight plan with flight controllers at the Russian Mission Control Center in Kaliningrad. Dezhurov raised questions earlier today about the volume of work he was being asked to accomplish and was reassured that, as a member of the Atlantis crew, his flight plan was being coordinated properly between flight controllers in Houston and flight controllers in Russia.

Atlantis' Pilot Charlie Precourt tested a pair of VHF radio systems which enable Shuttle crewmembers to converse with the Mir Space Station or the Soyuz capsule. One of the systems has apparently experienced a malfunction but the backup system is functioning properly and will be used on Tuesday when Atlantis undocks from the Mir.

Mir 19 Commander Anatoly Solovyev and Flight Engineer Nikolai Budarin conducted leak checks to the launch and entry suits they will wear Tuesday for Atlantis' departure from the Mir. Current plans call for Solovyev and Budarin to undock the Soyuz 15 minutes before Atlantis' undocking to capture still photos and video images of the event from a stationkeeping position several hundred feet away from Mir. Shuttle crewmembers also plan to photograph and record the redocking of the Soyuz to the Mir after an hour and a half of proximity operations by Atlantis, the Soyuz and the Mir.

Several crew members took a break from morning activities to speak with National Public Radio at 6 a.m. central time today. Commander Hoot Gibson, Pilot Charlie Precourt, Thagard, Dezhurov and Strekalov shared their feelings about their historic flight and docking, and discussed the many scientific and medical investigations ongoing aboard Atlantis.

On Sunday, July 2, 1995, 2 p.m. CDT, STS-71 MCC Status Report # 11 reports:

Atlantis and Mir crews spent a third day together working steadily at medical experiments, cargo transfers, and some preparations for Tuesday's departure, uninterrupted by any problems with the respective spacecraft.

During the last half of the day aboard the orbiting complex, medical investigations using the lower body negative pressure device, called LBNP, were performed in the Shuttle's laboratory module. Mir 18 astronaut Norm Thagard and Flight Engineer cosmonaut Gennady Strekalov, now on their 110th day in orbit, both underwent sessions in the device, which decreases air pressure around the lower portion of the body to imitate the effect of gravity in pulling fluids to the legs. Body fluids pool in the upper half of the body in weightlessness.

Simultaneously, Atlantis' Commander Hoot Gibson, Pilot Charlie Precourt, and Flight Engineer Greg Harbaugh continued stowing gear retrieved from Mir aboard the Shuttle for the trip home. Also, the offloading of supplies for the Mir continued. Those supplies include about 860 pounds of water, almost 108 gallons, loaded into 14 Russian portable water tanks and two Shuttle portable water bags.

By the time Atlantis departs Mir early Tuesday, consumable supplies transferred to Mir are planned to include almost a half ton of water, 53 pounds of oxygen, and 80 pounds of nitrogen. The oxygen and nitrogen are being transferred to Mir by using the Shuttle's atmospheric system to raise the air pressure in the station.

Gibson, Precourt and the Mir-19 cosmonauts also checked out various communications systems today that may be used on Mir, the Soyuz capsule and Atlantis during the undocking and flyaround Tuesday. Precourt also gave Strekalov a televised tour of Atlantis and the laboratory module.

Go to STS-71 Flight Day 7 Highlights: