A quarter of a century ago, on February 3, 1994, the “Discovery” shuttle was launched under the STS-60 program.
It is significant, because for the first time a Russian cosmonaut flew on an American spacecraft.
It was Sergey Krikalev, for whom STS-60 was the third expedition in his career.
American astronauts recognized the high qualifications and personal qualities of Sergey Krikalev.
“Sergey is a full member of our crew, and he is as important as me,” said “Discovery” Flight Engineer Ronald Sega. – This is exactly the difference from the previous flights, in which foreigners flew the shuttle. This is really a joint Russian-American crew. ”
The main tasks of the expedition STS-60 was treated with experiments on the international program “ODERACS”, aimed at detection of small space objects and to calibrate the radar and optical devices to track space garbage, the WCF satellite launch and operations with the module SPACEHAB.
Having made 130 turns and flying millions of kilometers, on February 11, 1994 the ship “Discovery” landed.
The flight duration was 8 days 7 hours.
STS-60 went down in history as the first joint Russian-American launch.
