stations. Each Shuttle was designed for a projected lifespan of 100 launches or 10 years' operational life. Nine docking missions were flown to Mir, from 1995 to 1997 during "Phase One": Space Shuttle docked seven times to Mir, with and each flying one docking mission to Mir. As Space Shuttle was the oldest and heaviest of the fleet, it was not suited for efficient operations at Mir (and later the ISS's) 51.6-degree inclination – Columbia was therefore not retrofitted with the necessary external airlock and Orbital Docking System, and never flew to a space station. Timeline New cooperation begins (1994) Phase One of the Shuttle–Mir program began on February 3, 1994, with the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on its 18th mission, STS-60. The eight-day mission was the first shuttle flight of that year, the first flight of a Russian cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalev, aboard the American shuttle, and marked the start of increased cooperation in space for the two nations, 37 years after the Space Race began. Part of an international agreement on human space flight, the mission was the second flight of the Spacehab pressurized module and marked the hundredth "Getaway Special" payload to fly in space. The primary payload for the mission was the Wake Shield Facility (or WSF), a device designed to generate new semiconductor films for advanced electronics. The WSF was flown at the end of Discovery robotic arm over the course of the flight. During the mission, the astronauts aboard Discovery also carried out various experiments aboard the Spacehab module in the Orbiter's payload bay, and took part in a live bi-directional audio and downlink video hookup between themselves and the three cosmonauts on board Mir, Valeri Polyakov, Viktor Afanasyev and Yury Usachev (flying Mir expeditions LD-4 and EO-15). America arrives at Mir (1995) 1995 began with the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on February 3. Discovery's mission, STS-63, was the second Space Shuttle flight in the program and the first flight of the shuttle with a female pilot, Eileen Collins. Referred to as the "near-Mir" mission, the eight-day flight saw the first rendezvous of a Space Shuttle with Mir, as Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Titov and the rest of Discovery crew approached within of Mir. Following the rendezvous, Collins performed a flyaround of the station. The mission, a dress rehearsal for the first docked mission in the program, STS-71, also carried out testing of