page_title: Shuttle–Mir program
section_title: New cooperation begins (1994)
hierarchical_section_title: Shuttle–Mir program / Timeline / New cooperation begins (1994)
context_page_description: The Shuttle–Mir program was a collaborative 11-mission space program between Russia and the United States that involved American Space Shuttles visiting the Russian space station Mir, Russian cosmonauts flying on the Shuttle, and an American astronaut flying aboard a Soyuz spacecraft to engage in long-duration expeditions aboard Mir.
  The project, sometimes called "Phase One", was intended to allow the United States to learn from Russian experience with long-duration spaceflight and to foster a spirit of cooperation between the two nations and their space agencies, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Russian Federal Space Agency. The project helped to prepare the way for further cooperative space ventures; specifically, "Phase Two" of the joint project, the construction of the International Space Station. The program was announced in 1993, the first mission started in 1994 and the project continued until its scheduled completion in 1998. Eleven Space Shuttle missions, a joint Soyuz flight and almost 1000 cumulative days in space for American astronauts occurred over the course of seven long-duration expeditions.
context_section_description: Phase One of the Shuttle–Mir program began on February 3, 1994, with the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on its 18th mission, STS-60. The eight-day mission was the first shuttle flight of that year, the first flight of a Russian cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalev, aboard the American shuttle, and marked the start of increased cooperation in space for the two nations, 37 years after the Space Race began. Part of an international agreement on human space flight, the mission was the second flight of the Spacehab pressurized module and marked the hundredth "Getaway Special" payload to fly in space. The primary payload for the mission was the Wake Shield Facility (or WSF), a device designed to generate new semiconductor films for advanced electronics. The WSF was flown at the end of Discovery's robotic arm over the course of the flight. During the mission, the astronauts aboard Discovery also carried out various experiments aboard the Spacehab module in the Orbiter's payload bay, and took part in a live bi-directional audio and downlink video hookup between themselves and the three cosmonauts on board Mir, Valeri Polyakov, Viktor Afanasyev and Yury Usachev (flying Mir expeditions LD-4 and EO-15).
caption: A view of Mir following Atlantis's undocking at the end of STS-71
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