STS-84

STS-84 was Atlantis' May 1997 Shuttle-Mir docking mission and the sixth Space Shuttle docking with Russia's Mir station. Atlantis launched from Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39A on May 15, 1997, with Charles Precourt commanding, Eileen Collins as pilot, and Carlos Noriega, Edward Lu, Jean-Francois Clervoy, Yelena Kondakova, and Michael Foale as mission specialists. The flight's central purpose was a Mir crew exchange. Atlantis docked with Mir on May 17, after which Michael Foale formally took over from Jerry Linenger as the U.S. long-duration crewmember aboard the station. The combined crews transferred water, experiment samples, equipment, oxygen-generation hardware, and other logistics between Atlantis and Mir. NASA's mission account emphasizes that the transfer work included support equipment after the fire and systems problems that occurred during Linenger's Mir residency. STS-84 undocked on May 21 and landed at Kennedy Space Center on May 24, 1997, bringing Linenger home after more than four months aboard Mir. The mission strengthened Shuttle-Mir procedures for crew exchange, logistics return, and international docked operations, while continuing the operational bridge from Shuttle-Mir toward the International Space Station era.