Landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-81) Poster

The Space Shuttle orbiter Atlantis glides out of a morning sky as it prepares to land on Runway 33 at a scheduled time of about 9:23 a.m. EST Jan. 22 to conclude the fifth Shuttle-Mir docking mission and return NASA astronaut John Blaha to Earth after four months in space. At main gear touchdown, the STS-81 mission duration will be 10 days, 4 hours, 55 minutes. This is the 34th KSC landing in Shuttle history. Mission Commander Michael A. Baker is steering Atlantis to a perfect landing, with help from Pilot Brent W. Jett, Jr. Other returning STS-81 crew members are Mission Specialists John M. Grunsfeld, Peter J. K. "Jeff" Wisoff and Marsha S. Ivins. Atlantis also brought back experiment samples from the Russian space station Mir for analysis on Earth.