A night launch and the 20th mission for "Discovery", it marked the first time a Space Shuttle mission had a female pilot, Eileen Collins, the first EVAs for both a UK born astronaut Michael Foale and a US astronaut of African heritage Bernard A. Harris, Jr. and it also carried out the successful deployment and retrieval of the Spartan-204 platform, along with the scheduled rendezvous and flyaround of "Mir", in preparation for STS-71, the first mission to dock with "Mir".