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November 18, 1995
Web posted at: 11:50 a.m. EST
From Correspondent John Holliman
SPACE CENTER, Houston, Texas (CNN) -- The ballet that allowed the shuttle Atlantis to dock with the Russian space station Mir last Wednesday was reversed and performed to near perfection Saturday morning. Commander Ken Cameron backed his spaceship away from the newly-improved space station 248 miles over eastern Europe.
All four cameras available to take television pictures of a shuttle mission provided a good look at the undocking. A camera, inside the docking tunnel installed by the Atlantis crew, showed the docking sections drifting farther apart, and several in the shuttle's cargo bay showed Atlantis moving slowly away from Mir.
As the two craft parted, Mir's cosmonauts radioed a Russian version of the 1960s hit "Those Were the Days" -- the song the combined crews sang during farewell ceremonies on Friday.
"It's a beautiful song," Cameron told the cosmonauts in Russian. "We'll remember our time together when we hear it from now on."
Atlantis will team up with Mir again next March, leaving U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid for five months of scientific research.
After completing close-up maneuvers Saturday morning, the Atlantis crew members conducted standard experiments, such as photographing the glow caused when the shuttle passes through space above the earth's atmosphere.
But they were always looking over their shoulders at Mir, their home away from home for three days. And the picture that will go into textbooks from this mission is Mir, with the earth behind it -- a picture that changed as Atlantis moved farther and farther away.
Mir flies 245 miles above the earth; Atlantis descended to 180 miles, an altitude which will give the crew several opportunities to land at the Kennedy Space Center on Monday or, if necessary, Tuesday.
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