Cosmonauts Solovyev and Budarin conduct checkout of communications systems

STS071-763-007 (27 June-7 July 1995) --- Onboard the docked Soyuz spacecraft, cosmonauts Anatoly Y. Solovyev (left) and Nikolai M. Budarin, Mir 19 commander and flight engineer, respectively, conduct a checkout of communications systems. The two represent the new in a change of guard aboard Russia's Mir Space Station, as Mir-18 astronaut Norman E. Thagard and two Mir-18 cosmonauts prepare to come back to Earth with the STS-71 crew aboard the space shuttle Atlantis. Later in the joint mission, Solovyev and Budarin backed the Soyuz spacecraft away from the Mir/Atlantis tandem to allow for the space shuttle Atlantis to undock with its crew of six astronauts and two cosmonauts aboard.