During STS-71, on June 29,1995, the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir. It marked the first time since the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Project that the two nations had linked up in space.
Rendezvous and docking are among the big successes of the Shuttle-Mir Program. Rendezvous required what shuttle commander "Hoot" Gibson called an orbital "ballet" between two spacecraft. Docking required a precision approach and specially designed equipment to mate the shuttle with Mir.
The following links cover different aspects and descriptions of rendezvous and docking.
Related
Links:
Apollo-Soyuz
Wetherbee on First Rendezvous
STS-71 First
Docking (video)
Docking Module
Blaha on Launch
and Docking
Gemini 6 & 7 Rendezvous (video)
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Curator:
Kim Dismukes
Responsible NASA Official: John Ira Petty |
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