Editing Shuttle–Mir program (section)

===New cooperation begins (1994)===
Phase One of the Shuttle–''Mir'' program began on February 3, 1994, with the launch of [[Space Shuttle Discovery|Space Shuttle ''Discovery'']] on its 18th mission, [[STS-60]]. The eight-day mission was the first shuttle flight of that year, the first flight of a Russian [[cosmonaut]], [[Sergei Krikalev]], aboard the American shuttle, and marked the start of increased cooperation in space for the two nations, 37 years after the [[Space Race]] began.<ref>{{cite news|author=William Harwood|title=Space Shuttle Launch Begins Era of US-Russian Cooperation|newspaper=Washington Post|page=a3|date=February 4, 1994|publisher=Retrieved March 9, 2007 from NewsBank}}</ref> Part of an [[Treaty|international agreement]] on human space flight, the mission was the second flight of the [[Spacehab]] pressurized module and marked the hundredth "[[Getaway Special]]" payload to fly in space. The primary payload for the mission was the [[Wake Shield Facility]] (or WSF), a device designed to generate new semiconductor films for advanced electronics. The WSF was flown at the end of ''Discovery''{{'s}} robotic arm over the course of the flight. During the mission, the astronauts aboard ''Discovery'' also carried out various experiments aboard the [[Spacehab]] module in the Orbiter's payload bay, and took part in a live bi-directional audio and downlink video hookup between themselves and the three cosmonauts on board ''Mir'', [[Valeri Polyakov]], [[Viktor M. Afanasyev|Viktor Afanasyev]] and [[Yury Usachev]] (flying ''Mir'' expeditions LD-4 and EO-15).<ref name="MissionChronicle"/><ref name="SMH Flights">
{{cite web|title=Shuttle–Mir History/Shuttle Flights and Mir Increments|publisher=NASA|url=http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/history/h-flights.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011111081412/http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/shuttle-mir/history/h-flights.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 11, 2001|access-date=March 30, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=STS-60 Mission Summary|publisher=NASA|author=Jim Dumoulin|date=June 29, 2001|url=http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-60/mission-sts-60.html|access-date=March 30, 2007|archive-date=March 3, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303213447/http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-60/mission-sts-60.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Image:Earth & Mir (STS-71).jpg|thumb|A view of ''Mir'' following ''Atlantis''{{'s}} undocking at the end of [[STS-71]]|alt=A cluster of modules and feathery solar arrays floats in the middle distance before an image of the Earth and the blackness of space above its horizon. Sunrays project from the top centre of the image.]]