STS071-S-005 (27 June 1995) --- At the Kennedy Space Center's (KSC) Launch Pad 39A, the 100th United States human space launch gets underway at 3:32:19 p.m. (EDT) on June 27, 1995. Onboard Atlantis are five NASA astronauts and two Russian cosmonauts. In two days, the crew will join up with astronaut Norman E. Thagard and two Russian cosmonauts who have been onboard Russia's Mir Space Station since March of this year. That pair - Vladimir N. Dezhurov and Gennadiy M. Strekalov - will return to Earth aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis with Thagard and the short-term visitors, while Anatoly Y. Solovyev and Nikolai M. Budarin - the two cosmonauts launched today aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis - will remain aboard Mir for a longer tour of duty.