Mir space station as seen from shuttle Atlantis

STS074-716-021 (18 Nov 1995) --- With Earth?s horizon providing the backdrop, this is the Russia?s Mir Space Station as seen from the Space Shuttle Atlantis, soon after the two spacecraft began their relative separation on November 18, 1995. With five NASA astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, the flight began with a November 12, 1995, launch from Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and ended with landing there on November 20, 1995. The STS-74 crew members were astronauts Kenneth D. Cameron, mission commander; James D. Halsell Jr., pilot; William S. McArthur Jr., Jerry L. Ross and Canadian astronaut Chris A. Hadfield, all mission specialists. On November 15, 1995, the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the Mir Space Station, on which the STS-74 astronauts joined the Mir-20 crew. The Mir-20 crew is composed of cosmonauts Yuriy P. Gidzenko, commander; and Sergei V. Avdeyev, engineer; along with the European Space Agency?s (ESA) Thomas Reiter, cosmonaut researcher. Joint activities on the Mir Space Station and the Space Shuttle Atlantis ended November 18, 1995, when the two spacecraft separated.