STS-63 was the second mission of the US/Russian
Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried out the first rendezvous of the American
Space Shuttle with Russia's space station
Mir. Known as the 'Near-Mir' mission, the flight used
Space Shuttle Discovery, which lifted off from
launch pad 39B on 3 February 1995 from
Kennedy Space Center, Florida. A night launch and the 20th mission for
Discovery, it marked the first time a Space Shuttle mission had a female pilot,
Eileen Collins, the first EVAs for both a
UK born astronaut
Michael Foale and a
US astronaut of African heritage
Bernard A. Harris, Jr. and it also carried out the successful deployment and retrieval of the Spartan-204 platform, along with the scheduled rendezvous and flyaround of
Mir, in preparation for
STS-71, the first mission to dock with
Mir.