sts-81

STS-81 was a January 1997 Space Shuttle Atlantis mission to the Mir space station.

STS-81 was the fifth of nine planned missions to Mir and the second one involving an exchange of U.S. astronauts. Astronaut John Blaha, who had been on Mir since 19 September 1996, was replaced by astronaut Jerry Linenger. Linenger spent more than four months on Mir. He returned to Earth on Space Shuttle Mission STS-84.
Atlantis carried the SPACEHAB double module providing additional middeck locker space for secondary experiments. During the five days of docked operations with Mir, the crews transferred water and supplies from one spacecraft to the other. A spacewalk by Linenger and one of his Russian cosmonaut crewmates occurred after the departure of Atlantis.

STS-81 was a January 1997 Space Shuttle Atlantis mission to the Mir space station.

STS-81 was the fifth of nine planned missions to Mir and the second one involving an exchange of U.S. astronauts. Astronaut John Blaha, who had been on Mir since 19 September 1996, was replaced by astronaut Jerry Linenger. Linenger spent more than four months on Mir. He returned to Earth on Space Shuttle Mission STS-84.
Atlantis carried the SPACEHAB double module providing additional middeck locker space for secondary experiments. During the five days of docked operations with Mir, the crews transferred water and supplies from one spacecraft to the other. A spacewalk by Linenger and one of his Russian cosmonaut crewmates occurred after the departure of Atlantis.

Researchers will attempt to determine how the Mir Space Station responds to structural forces, i.e. how the station moves, bends, twists, etc. during exposure to vibrational forces. The MiSDE is an instrument designed to measure the structural vibration caused by key events such as the impact of the Shuttle docking with the Mir or the firing of the space vehicle's positioning thrusters. Launched aboard STS-81

The objective of the MIDAS experiment was to measure the precise electrical properties of several high temperature superconductor (HTS) materials during spaceflight. MIDAS is a space experiment which launched in September of 1996 on the Shuttle (STS-79), and was transferred to the Mir Space Station for several months of operation. MIDAS was returned to Earth in January of 1997 by STS-81. MIDAS was developed at NASA Langley Research Center.