Feb 3 1995
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery (mission STS-63). On February 6 Discovery approached to within 37 feet of the Kristall module of the Russian Space Station Mir, where the two 100-ton spaceships flew in formation for a time. This rendezvous was a dress rehearsal for the first in a series of seven shuttle docking flights to Mir that would begin in June. This series, which will involve the Space Shuttle Atlantis, is intended to give the United States and Russia an unprecedented opportunity to combine flight operations, ground control, training activities, and research.
A spacewalk, in which Dr. Bernard Harris practiced lifting the 2,600-pound SPARTAN astronomy satellite before stowing it for the return trip, helped prepare NASA for assembling the International Space Station. STS-63 was historic in several other respects. First, it was the first time that a woman pilot, Eileen M. Collins, flew the Space Shuttle. Second, it was the second time that a Russian, Vladimir G. Titov (who spent a record 365 days aboard Mir in 1987-88), was launched aboard a U.S. spacecraft. The shuttle flight ended with a predawn landing at Kennedy Space Center on February 11. (NASA Release 95-5; NY Times, Feb 4/95, Feb 5/95, Feb 6/95, Feb 7/95, Feb 8/95, Feb 10/95, Feb 11/95 & Feb 12/95; W Post, Jan 29/95, Feb 2/95, Feb 3/95, Feb 5/95, Feb 6/95, Feb 7/95, Feb 8/95, Feb 9/95, Feb 10/95 & Feb 12/95; CSM, Feb 8/95 & Feb 13/95; Fla Today, Jan 29/95; Reuters, Jan 31/95)
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