Astronauts Greet Russians After Shuttle Docks

NASA astronaut Shannon Lucid floated into Russia’s space station for a five-month “great adventure” after the shuttle Atlantis docked there Saturday night.

Atlantis slowly and gracefully moved in and linked with the Mir station as the spacecraft soared 245 miles above Russia. Two hours later, the hatches were opened and the six shuttle astronauts and two station cosmonauts embraced and shook hands, laughing.

“Everybody’s real excited to be together here,” said Atlantis’ commander, Kevin Chilton.

The top priority for the eight space-farers was moving Lucid and her personal gear from Atlantis into Mir. She is the first American woman to live on the Russian station.

“I think it’ll be a great adventure,” she said in a TV interview Saturday. “I’ll be doing things that I haven’t done before, staying a long time in space and seeing how I react when I spend a long time in space.”

It was NASA’s third docking with the Russian station in less than a year.

NASA’s communication lines were quiet as Chilton guided Atlantis into Mir’s docking port. Until then, there had been almost nonstop chatter between the six shuttle astronauts and two station cosmonauts, in English and Russian.

Lucid had been preparing for more than a year for her five-month stay, 10 times longer than her longest space stint to date, and four times longer than her four previous space flights combined.

No other American has ever spent so much time in orbit. Norman Thagard spent nearly four months on Mir last year, but NASA needs more long-duration trips before it starts to build and staff an international space station in a few years.

Lucid, 53, a biochemist and the first woman to fly in space five times, is to remain aboard Mir until August, when Atlantis returns with her replacement, NASA astronaut John Blaha.

Lucid expects her stay to be tolerable, if not enjoyable. Unlike Thagard, Lucid got to choose her meals in advance and has been promised regular calls home.

On Friday, NASA considered cutting the shuttle flight short because of a leak in a steering system, but officials decided the vehicle was safe and the escaped hydraulic fluid would not damage any shuttle equipment or Mir.