Atlantis Docks Mir: Cold War Thaws in Space

Two spacecraft built by Cold War enemies locked together 245 miles above the Earth, and the handshake through the docking tunnel marked the end of the Space Race. On June 29, 1995, Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir during the STS-71 mission, creating the largest spacecraft ever assembled in orbit at that time and beginning a cooperative program that would lead directly to the International Space Station. The docking was a technical achievement that required years of engineering work to make two incompatible space systems function together. American and Russian engineers had to develop a new docking mechanism, align communication frequencies, and synchronize navigation systems designed during decades of mutual hostility. Commander Robert "Hoot" Gibson manually guided the 100-ton shuttle to within inches of Mir’s docking port, matching the station’s orbital speed of 17,500 miles per hour with extraordinary precision. The mission exchanged crews: cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennady Strekalov and astronaut Norman Thagard, who had been aboard Mir for 115 days, returned on Atlantis, while astronauts Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin transferred to the station. Thagard’s stay had set a new American record for time in space, though it had also revealed the difficulties of living on the aging Mir station, which suffered from equipment failures, supply shortages, and a fire that nearly forced evacuation. The Shuttle-Mir program encompassed nine shuttle dockings and seven American long-duration stays between 1995 and 1998. The lessons learned in joint operations, crew psychology, and station logistics were essential preparation for the International Space Station, whose first module launched in 1998. The program also served a strategic purpose: by funding Russian participation, the United States kept Russian aerospace engineers employed and prevented their expertise from flowing to countries developing missile programs.