STS-71 astronauts training in Russia

S94-45643 (20 Sept 1994) --- Astronaut Norman E. Thagard in a cosmonaut space suit in the Training Simulator Facility at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (Star City), near Moscow, Russia. In March 1995, astronaut Thagard is scheduled to be launched in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with two cosmonauts to begin a three-month tour of duty on the Russian Mir Space Station. Thagard, along with his back-up, astronaut Bonnie J. Dunbar, has been training in Russia since February 1994. During his stay on Mir, he will conduct a variety of life sciences experiments that will provide U.S. investigators with the first long-duration exposure data since Skylab in the late 1970's. Thagard's mission will end in July when the Space Shuttle Atlantis, carrying the newly installed docking mechanism, docks with Mir Space Station for the first United States - Russian docking operation since Apollo-Soyuz in 1975. The Orbiter will remain attached to Mir for five days of joint scientific operations before returning home with Thagard and his Russian crew mates and leaving behind two cosmonauts on Mir.