Atlantis flew the sixth Shuttle-Mir docking in May 1997, exchanging long-duration crew members at a tense moment for the Russian station. The mission delivered astronaut Michael Foale to Mir and brought home Jerry Linenger, who had endured a serious onboard fire during his stay — an ordeal that sharpened NASA's understanding of the hazards of long missions.
The international crew of seven, which included Russian and French astronauts, transferred supplies and experiments between the spacecraft over several days of joint operations. Foale's residency would soon become the most harrowing of the programme when a cargo ship collided with Mir that summer, but the docking itself reflected how thoroughly cooperative operations had matured as the two nations prepared to build a station together.
This flight collected Jerry Linenger after an increment that had included a serious fire, repeated failures of the oxygen and cooling systems, and a spacewalk in Russian suits that he described in unsparing detail afterwards. He had spent four months on a station that was, by any reasonable engineering standard, wearing out.
In his place Atlantis delivered Michael Foale, who would live through the next disaster — the collision that punctured Spektr in June. NASA's decision to keep flying Americans to Mir through this period was contested inside and outside the agency, and the debate was conducted publicly, in congressional hearings, with astronauts' own accounts as evidence.
The mission was otherwise a workmanlike resupply, transferring several tonnes of cargo and carrying an unusually international crew that included Jean-François Clervoy of France and Elena Kondakova, the Russian cosmonaut who had already spent five months aboard Mir and was now visiting it aboard an American spacecraft.
