This will be the 17th flight of the orbiter Atlantis and the 79th flight overall in NASA's Space Shuttle program. Atlantis launch was previously delayed because of weather and hardware. All of this has resulted in Lucid spending more time on Mir. Lucid holds the endurance record for American astronauts in space, and for women of any country in space. The U.S. Magellan spacecraft began its complete radar mapping of the surface of Venus.
Radar is able to penetrate Venus' thick, cloudy atmosphere.
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