STS-76 was

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's 76th

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

mission, and the 16th mission for ''Atlantis''. STS-76 launched on 22 March 1996 at 08:13:04

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from

Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

, launch pad 39B. STS-76 lasted over 9 days, traveled about while orbiting Earth an estimated 145 times, and landing at 13:28:57 UTC on 31 March 1996 at

Edwards Air Force Base Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, California, Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County, California, San Bernardino County and a souther ...

, runway 22. The flight was the third Shuttle mission to dock with the

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Space Station Mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

, as part of the

Shuttle–Mir program The Shuttle–''Mir'' program () was a collaborative space program between Russia and the United States that involved American Space Shuttles visiting the Russian space station ''Mir'', Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle, and an American ...

, carrying astronaut Shannon Lucid to the orbital laboratory to replace NASA astronaut Norman Thagard. STS-76 also carried a

SPACEHAB Astrotech Corporation, formerly Spacehab Inc., is a technology incubator headquartered in Austin, Texas. Astrotech uses technology sourced internally and from research institutions, government laboratories, and universities to fund, manage and se ...

single module along with Lucid, and on flight day 6, Linda M. Godwin and Michael R. Clifford performed the first U.S.

spacewalk Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environme ...

around two docked spacecraft since the last

Skylab Skylab was the United States' first space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three trios of astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Skylab was constructe ...

mission in 1974.

Crew

Spacewalks

* '' Godwin and Clifford '' – EVA 1 * EVA 1 Start: 27 March 1996 – 06:34 UTC * EVA 1 End: 27 March 1996 – 12:36 UTC * Duration: 6 hours, 02 minutes

Crew seat assignments

Mission highlights

The mission was the third linkup between a U.S. Space Shuttle and Russian space station

Mir ''Mir'' (, ; ) was a space station operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001, first by the Soviet Union and later by the Russia, Russian Federation. ''Mir'' was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to ...

, and brought veteran astronaut Shannon Lucid to Mir to become the first American woman to live on the station. Her approximately four-and-a-half-month stay also eclipsed the long-duration U.S. spaceflight record set by the first American to live on Mir, Norman Thagard. Lucid was succeeded by astronaut John E. Blaha during STS-79 in August 1996, giving her the distinction of membership in four different flight crews — two U.S. and two Russian—and her stay on Mir kicked off the continuous U.S. presence in space for the next two years. Payload bay configuration included the Orbiter Docking System in the forward area and a

single module toward the aft. STS-76 marked the first flight of a SPACEHAB pressurized module to support Shuttle-Mir dockings. The single module primarily served as a stowage area for a large supply of equipment for transfer to space station, but also carried the

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's Biorack experiment rack for on-orbit research. ''Atlantis'' hooked up with Mir on flight day three, following same R-bar approach employed on STS-74. Actual connection between Orbiter Docking System and the Kristall module's docking port occurred at 02:50 UTC on 24 March 1996. Hatches opened a little less than two hours later. Awaiting ''Atlantis'' arrival were Mir 21 Commander Yury Onufriyenko and Flight Engineer Yuri Usachov, who were launched to Mir on 21 February 1996. In July, they were joined by Mir 22 Commander Valery Korzun, Flight Engineer Aleksandr Kaleri and

CNES CNES () is the French national space agency. Headquartered in central Paris, the agency is overseen by the ministries of the Armed Forces, Economy and Finance and Higher Education, Research and Innovation. It operates from the Toulouse Spac ...

astronaut Claudie André-Deshays. After a two-week stay, André-Deshays would return to Earth with Onufriyenko and Usachov while Korzun and Kaleri remained on board with Lucid. During five days of docked operations, about of water and two tons of scientific equipment, logistical material and resupply items were transferred to Mir. Experiment samples and miscellaneous equipment brought over to orbiter. In Biorack, 11 separate scientific investigations were conducted. Study topics included the effect of microgravity and cosmic radiation on plants, tissues, cells, bacteria and insects, and the effects of microgravity on bone loss. Also transferred to the station were the Mir Glovebox Stowage (MGBX) equipment to replenish the glovebox already on station, the Queen's University Experiment in Liquid Diffusion (QUELD) flown in the orbiter's middeck locker, and the High Temperature Liquid Phase Sintering (LPS) experiment. On flight day six, Godwin and Clifford conducted what some claim to be the first U.S.

extravehicular activity Extravehicular activity (EVA) is any activity done by an astronaut in outer space outside a spacecraft. In the absence of a breathable atmosphere of Earth, Earthlike atmosphere, the astronaut is completely reliant on a space suit for environme ...

(EVA) around two mated spacecraft. However, this appears to ignore the

Apollo 9 Apollo 9 (March 3–13, 1969) was the third human spaceflight in NASA's Apollo program, which successfully tested systems and procedures critical to landing on the Moon. The three-man crew consisted of Commander James McDivitt, Command Modul ...

EVA, and EVAs during

. During six-hour, two-minute, 28-second EVA, they attached four Mir Environmental Effects Payload (MEEP) experiments to the station's docking module - designed to characterize the environment around Mir over an 18-month period. Godwin and Clifford wore

Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER) is a small, self-contained, propulsive backpack system ( jet pack) worn during spacewalks, to be used in case of emergency only. If an untethered astronaut were to lose physical contact with the vessel, it w ...

(SAFER) propulsive devices - first flight-tested during

STS-64 STS-64 was a Space Shuttle Space Shuttle Discovery, ''Discovery'' mission that was set to perform multiple experiment packages. It was Discovery's 19th flight. STS-64 was launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 9 September 1994, and land ...

. Other payloads included Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX), KidSat, a project that gives middle school students opportunity to participate in space exploration, and Trapped Ions in Space (TRIS), a

Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Washington, DC, it was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, appl ...

experiment flown in a Getaway Special canister in the payload bay.

Gallery

Image:Sts076 Linda Godwin Spacewalk.jpg, Astronaut Linda M. Godwin translates along the longeron of ''Atlantis cargo bay starboard side during EVA 1. Image:STS-76 Atlantis Landing.jpg, ''Atlantis'' lands at the Edwards Air Force Base on 31 March 1996. Image:Shuttle_Atlantis_at_Davis_Monthan_AFB.jpg, Shuttle ''Atlantis'' arriving at

Davis–Monthan Air Force Base Davis–Monthan Air Force Base (DM AFB) is a United States Air Force base southeast of downtown Tucson, Arizona. It was established in 1925 as Davis–Monthan Landing Field. The host unit for Davis–Monthan AFB is the 355th Wing (355 WG) ass ...

Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...

during the return trip from

in April 1996.

References

External links

NASA mission summary

STS-76 - Letters from the Lead FDO
{{Orbital launches in 1996 Spacecraft launched in 1996 Edwards Air Force Base STS-076