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 View from Discovery of Mir with the Progress M-25 (top) and Soyuz-TM Vityaz (bottom) spacecraft | |
| Names | Space Transportation System-63 |
|---|---|
| Mission type | Research Mir rendezvous |
| Operator | NASA |
| COSPAR ID | 1995-004A |
| SATCAT no. | 23469 |
| Mission duration | 8 days, 6 hours, 28 minutes, 15 seconds |
| Distance travelled | 4,816,454 kilometers (2,992,806 mi) |
| Orbits completed | 129 |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft | Space Shuttle Discovery |
| Payload mass | 8,641 kilograms (19,050 lb) |
| Crew | |
| Crew size | 6 |
| Members | |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | February 3, 1995, 05:22:04 UTC |
| Launch site | Kennedy, LC-39B |
| End of mission | |
| Landing date | February 11, 1995, 11:50:19 UTC |
| Landing site | Kennedy, SLF Runway 15 |
| Orbital parameters | |
| Reference system | Geocentric |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Perigee altitude | 275 kilometres (171 mi) |
| Apogee altitude | 342 kilometres (213 mi) |
| Inclination | 51.6 degrees |
| Period | 92.3 minutes |
 Left to right - Seated: Voss, Collins, Wetherbee, Titov; Standing: Harris, Foale | |
STS-63 was the second mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program and the 20th flight of Discovery, which carried out the first rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia's space station Mir. Known as the 'Near-Mir' mission, the flight used Space Shuttle Discovery, which lifted off from launch pad 39B on February 3, 1995, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. A night launch and the 20th mission for Discovery, it marked the first time a Space Shuttle mission had a female pilot, Eileen Collins, and the first EVAs for both a UK born astronaut, Michael Foale, and a US astronaut of African heritage, Bernard A. Harris, Jr. It also carried out the successful deployment and retrieval of the Spartan-204 platform, along with the scheduled rendezvous and flyaround of Mir, in preparation for STS-71, the first mission to dock with Mir.