STS-71 was the third mission of the US/Russian
Shuttle-Mir Program and the first
Space Shuttle docking to Russian
space station Mir. It started on June 27, 1995 with the launch of
Space Shuttle Atlantis from
launch pad 39A at the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
As part of the mission, Atlantis engaged in the Shuttle program's first space station crew transfer. The shuttle delivered the Mir Expedition 19 crew of Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin; and returned the Expedition 18 crew of cosmonauts Gennadi Strekalov and Vladimir Dezhurov, and astronaut Norman Thagard. It was the first of seven straight missions to Mir flown by Atlantis.
For the five days the shuttle was docked to Mir they were the largest spacecraft in orbit at the time. In addition to the crew transfer, STS-71 marked the first docking of a space shuttle to a space station, and the 100th manned space launch by the United States. The mission carried Spacelab, and included a logistical resupply of Mir. Together the shuttle and station crews conducted various on-orbit joint US/Russian life science investigations with Spacelab along with the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment-II (SAREX-II) experiment.
Atlantis returned to Earth on July 7, becoming the first mission to land with a crew of eight since STS-61-A in 1985.
Joseph Francis Shea (September 5, 1925 – February 14, 1999) was an
American aerospace engineer and
NASA manager. Born in the
New York City borough of
the Bronx, he was educated at the
University of Michigan, receiving a
Ph.D. in
Engineering Mechanics in 1955. After working for
Bell Labs on the radio
inertial guidance system of the
Titan I intercontinental ballistic missile, he was hired by NASA in 1961. As Deputy Director of NASA's Office of Manned Space Flight, and later as head of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, Shea played a key role in shaping the course of the
Apollo program, helping to lead NASA to the decision in favor of
lunar orbit rendezvous and supporting "all up" testing of the
Saturn V rocket. While sometimes causing controversy within the agency, Shea was remembered by his former colleague
George Mueller as "one of the greatest
systems engineers of our time".
Deeply involved in the investigation of the 1967 Apollo 1 fire, Shea suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of the stress that he suffered. He was removed from his position and left NASA shortly afterwards. From 1968 until 1990 he worked as a senior manager at Raytheon in Lexington, Massachusetts, and thereafter became an adjunct professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. While Shea served as a consultant for NASA on the redesign of the International Space Station in 1993, he was forced to resign from the position due to health issues.