STS-76 was NASA's 76th Space Shuttle mission, and the 16th mission for Atlantis. STS-76 launched on 22 March 1996 at 3:13 am EST (UTC −5) from Kennedy Space Center launch pad 39B. STS-76 lasted over 9 days, traveled about 3,800,000 miles (6,100,000 km) while orbiting Earth an estimated 145 times, and landing at 5:28 am PST (UTC −8) on 31 March 1996 at Edwards Air Force Base runway 22.
The flight was the third Shuttle mission to dock with the Russian Space Station Mir, as part of the Shuttle-Mir Program, carrying astronaut Shanon Lucid to the orbital laboratory to replace NASA astronaut Norm Thagard. STS-76 also carried a SPACEHAB single module along with Lucid, and on flight day 6 Linda Godwin and Michael R. Clifford performed the first U.S. spacewalk around two docked spacecraft.
This is the A-B Emblem prototype version of the STS-76 patch. It has white thread instead of black for the Mir details and an extra set of solar arrays. The stars have a black shadow, but do not appear behind the yellow contrails like in the souvenir version.
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