MISSION CONTROL CENTER
STS-63 Status Report #13


Wednesday, February 8, 1995, 2 p.m. CST

Commanders of two space vehicles talked about their missions and their historic  
rendezvous in space today during a special ship-to-ship conversation from the Space  
Shuttle Discovery and the Russian Space Station Mir.

STS-63 Commander Jim Wetherbee and Mir Commander Alexander Viktorenko spoke  
through an interpreter in Houston's Mission Control Center. The conversation focused on  
the missions of the two crews and the success of their rendezvous on Monday. Wetherbee  
said he especially enjoyed the point in the joint operations when Mir maneuvered to a new  
attitude while Discovery was circling it.

"It was like dancing in the cosmos," Wetherbee said. "It was great."

The commanders also said they were looking forward to meeting each other on Earth and  
exchanged compliments about the two space vehicles and the teams that designed them.  

"Together our programs will be even better," Wetherbee said.

A few minutes before the commanders' conversation, Discovery Pilot Eileen Collins  
talked to students and her own former chemistry teacher at the Elmira Free Academy in  
Elmira, New York. Collins graduated from the school in 1974.

The six crew members officially began their eight-hour sleep period at 1:52 a.m. Central.  
When they wake for their seventh day in space, Mission Specialists Bernard Harris and  
Mike Foale will begin preparing for their four and a half hour spacewalk. Harris and Foale  
will test improvements in their spacesuits and perform several mass handling exercises.  
The two spacewalkers checked out their suits earlier today and confirmed that they were  
ready for Thursday's activities.

The spacewalk will begin around 6 a.m. Central, shortly after the retrieval of the Spartan-
204 satellite. Spartan has been flying free of Discovery since Tuesday morning, collecting  
data on the interstellar medium.

Discovery is now about 40 nautical miles behind the Spartan satellite and more than 300  
n.m. in front of  Mir, circling Earth every 92 minutes in a 213 by 207 n.m. orbit.


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