Ray Castillo

Headquarters, Washington, DC January 30, 1996

(Phone: 202/358-4555)

RELEASE: 96-18

NASA AND RSA AGREE TO EXTEND SHUTTLE-MIR ACTIVITIES

Expanding on the success of the Shuttle-Mir program,

NASA and the Russian Space Agency have agreed in principle to
extend Shuttle-Mir activities into 1998.

NASA will add two missions to Mir, bringing the total

number of planned Shuttle-to-Mir docking missions to nine,
while Russia will meet its commitment to deliver on schedule
key elements used in the early assembly of the international
Space Station.

STS-90, which had not been previously designated as a

Mir mission, will now dock with the Russian station. A
second mission, a new flight to Mir, was added to the Shuttle
manifest. Both will occur in 1998.

It was also announced today that U.S. astronaut William

M. Shepherd and Russian cosmonaut Sergei K. Krikalev will be
on the first team of crew members to occupy the international
Space Station. A three person crew will be able to live and
work on the Space Station beginning in May 1998. They will
be launched to the Space Station aboard a Soyuz rocket from
the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan.

The additional flights to Mir and the selection of the

two crew members were announced in a press conference today
by Vice President Albert Gore and Russian Prime Minister
Victor Chernomyrdin at the conclusion of their two-day
meeting.

"The Shuttle-Mir program is already paying back

benefits," said NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin. "We are
laying the foundation for construction of the international
Space Station with these docking flights," he said. "Mir is
proving to be an ideal test site for vital engineering
research and expanding our knowledge of the effects of long-
duration weightlessness on people," said Goldin.
 Goldin said the two docking flights completed thus far
have proved to be enormously beneficial. "We have simulated
an early construction flight and conducted proximity and
docking operations," said Goldin. He added that the
agreement enables the Russians to use the Space Shuttle to
help them with a significant logistics shortfall. Goldin said
NASA would study the extension of the Phase One program into
1999.
-more-

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Russia will meets its commitments, deliver the

Functional Cargo Block (FGB) for a November 1997 launch, and
deliver the Service Module in 1998.

The details of these arrangements, including the

technical and financial aspects, will be worked out in
subsequent NASA/RSA negotiations beginning in March. Under
this arrangement, the following would occur:

¥ The jointly-developed Science Power Platform would be

launched to the Space Station on the Space Shuttle. The
Power Platform includes solar arrays to power experiments in
the Russian research modules, and attitude control equipment.

¥ Russia would modify the Soyuz space capsules to

accommodate a larger percentage of the U.S. astronaut corps.
The Soyuz will serve as the emergency return vehicle for crew
members living and working aboard the Space Station through
the end of construction in June 2002 when a new NASA-
developed vehicle becomes available. Size restrictions of
the Soyuz capsules currently would prevent nearly half of the
U.S. astronaut corps from being eligible for tours on the
Station.

¥ Russia would increase the payload-carrying capability

of the Progress resupply craft by 440 pounds, and would
develop a new resupply vehicle, called the FGB cargo vehicle,
which would haul station-keeping propellant to the Space
Station.

¥ As part of the Phase One extension, NASA would have

opportunities for additional NASA astronauts to perform long-
duration missions on Mir.
 -end-

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