Space Shuttle Atlantis - STS-79 Launch (Fragment)
On this day in 1996, Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on STS-79, a flight to the Mir Space Station. This flight was punctuated by the return to earth of astronaut Shannon Lucid, whose 188-day stay aboard Mir was a U.S. spaceflight record at the time, and was an overall record for a female astronaut.
This video is taken from NASA's official flight day 1 highlights reel from STS-79 and had been heavily upscaled via AI protocol. The launch sequence is slightly compressed, with about 10 seconds having been cut by NASA’s editors between liftoff and SRB jettison. I found the cut to be relatively unobtrusive, though, and decided to proceed with this restoration. The audio is a custom composite, using recordings from STS-116, STS-117, STS-133, and STS-134.
Lastly, I have also prepared a reconstructed, contiguous edit, which aims to provide the 10 seconds that are missing from this video. You can find that version here:
https://youtu.be/sa2mjBZI3To
#NASA
#SpaceShuttle