STS-63 was a mission of historic firsts. When Space Shuttle Discovery launched from Kennedy Space Center on February 3, 1995, Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot an American spacecraft — a milestone that came 32 years after the first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova, 1963) and 12 years after the first American woman in space (Sally Ride, 1983). Collins would later go on to become the first female Shuttle commander on STS-93 in 1999.

The mission’s primary objective was the first rendezvous between the Space Shuttle and the Russian space station Mir, paving the way for the Shuttle-Mir program and ultimately the International Space Station. Commander James Wetherbee and Pilot Collins guided Discovery to within 37 feet of Mir — close enough for the crews to photograph each other through their windows. Cosmonaut Valeriy Polyakov, who was in the midst of his record-setting 437-day stay aboard Mir, peered out of a window and was photographed by the Discovery crew in one of the mission’s most memorable images.

Bernard Harris and Michael Foale conducted a 4-hour, 39-minute spacewalk on February 9, during which Harris became the first African-American to walk in space. They tested modifications to spacesuits designed for use on the future Space Station and evaluated thermal improvements in the extreme cold of orbital night, where temperatures dropped to minus 125°F.

The crew also included Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Titov, a veteran of a 365-day mission aboard Mir in 1987-88. His presence demonstrated the growing cooperation between NASA and the Russian space agency that would define the ISS era. The crew operated the SPACEHAB pressurized module in the payload bay, conducting 20 experiments in biotechnology, advanced materials, and Earth observation.

Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center’s Runway 15 on February 11, 1995, completing a mission that demonstrated the Shuttle’s ability to rendezvous with Mir and opened the door to the cooperative future of human spaceflight.