STS-71
 Atlantis docked to Mir, photographed from a departing Soyuz-TM spacecraft | |
| Names | Space Transportation System-71 |
|---|---|
| Mission type | Shuttle-Mir |
| Operator | NASA |
| COSPAR ID | 1995-030A |
| SATCAT no. | 23600 |
| Mission duration | 9 days, 19 hours, 23 minutes, 9 seconds |
| Distance travelled | 6,600,000 kilometres (4,100,000 mi) |
| Orbits completed | 153 |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft | Space Shuttle Atlantis |
| Payload mass | 12,191 kilograms (26,877 lb) |
| Crew | |
| Crew size | 7 up 8 down |
| Members | |
| Launching | |
| Landing | |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | June 27, 1995, 19:32:19 UTC |
| Launch site | Kennedy, LC-39A |
| End of mission | |
| Landing date | July 7, 1995, 14:55:28 UTC |
| Landing site | Kennedy, SLF Runway 15 |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Perigee altitude | 342 kilometres (213 mi) |
| Apogee altitude | 342 kilometres (213 mi) |
| Inclination | 51.6 degrees |
| Period | 88.9 min |
| Docking with Mir | |
| Docking port | Kristall forward |
| Docking date | June 29, 1995, 13:00:16 UTC |
| Undocking date | July 4, 1995, 11:09:42 UTC |
| Time docked | 4 days, 22 hours, 9 minutes 26 seconds |
 Left to right – Seated: Dezhurov, Gibson, Solovyev; Standing: Thagard, Strekalov, Harbaugh, Baker, Precourt, Dunbar, Budarin | |
STS-71 was a crewed spaceflight that was the third mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program. The mission began on June 27, 1995, with the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis from launchpad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Atlantis became the first Space Shuttle to dock with the Russian space station Mir, delivering a relief crew of two cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Nikolai Budarin to the station and recovering Increment astronaut Norman Thagard. Atlantis returned to Earth on July 7 with a crew of eight. It was the first of seven straight missions to Mir flown by Atlantis, and the second Shuttle mission to land with an eight-person crew after STS-61-A in 1985.
During the five days the Shuttle was docked to Mir, the combined spacecraft became the largest in orbit at the time. STS-71 marked several key achievements: it was the first Shuttle docking with a space station, the first crew exchange between a Shuttle and a station, and the 100th crewed space launch by the United States. The mission carried Spacelab and provided logistical resupply for Mir. The joint US/Russian crews conducted various life science investigations using Spacelab and performed the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment-II (SAREX-II).