26 years ago, June 29, 1995, for the first time the docking of the American Reusable Cosmic Space Ship “Atlantis” was carried out (the Mission STS-71) with the World Orbital Complex.
Associating system of APSS for “Atlantis” was developed by Rocket and Space Corporation “Energy” named after S.P. Queen (today is part of the state corporation “Roscosmos”), the head developer of the orbital complex “Peace”. This system was designed to dock the MTCC “Buran” with Soviet orbital stations. American shuttles did not provide for docking and did not have docking systems. The integration of the APSS docking system in the Atlantis MTTC helped the Branch of the Rockwell International Space Systems. Androgynno-peripheral assembly units (APAS-89) developed ideas used in the development of a docking unit used in 1975 in the Soyuz – Apollo program. Apas for Shuttle was ordered to company Rockwell International in June 1993 and entered the customer in September 1994.
Initially, the start of the STS-71 shuttle was scheduled for June 23, 1995. However, due to adverse meteo conditions, he was postponed first at 24, and then on June 27. As part of the crew of STS-71 there were two Russian astronauts – Anatoly Solovyov and Nikolai Budarin, who had to change the crew of the main 18th expedition at the Mir station. After docking, they continued to perform a joint scientific program started with their predecessors.
The historical touch of “Atlantis” and “World” happened at 17:00:16 Moscow time. Thus, at the near-earth orbit, the largest artificial space object was formed. The mass of the complex consisting of the base block “World”, the Kvant modules, Kvant-2, “Crystal”, “Spectrum”, the ships “Union TM-21” and “Atlantis” exceeded 200 tons.
Atlantis’s docking with the “world” caused a huge interest of officials and representatives of the press, because the break in joint space flights of Russia and the United States was exactly two decades by that time. The leadership of the flight management center (now enters the perimeter of the Roskosmos State Corporation) seriously feared that the balcony of the main control room would not withstand the guests gathered on it. In Moscow, the chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Viktor Chernomyrdin and Vice-President of the United States Albert Mountains, who visited our official visit visited our official visit.