The objectives of the Mir rendezvous were to verify flight techniques, communications and navigation aid sensor interfaces, and engineering analyses associated with Shuttle/Mir proximity operations in preparation for the STS-71 docking mission.

Other objectives of the flight were to perform the operations necessary to fulfill the requirements of experiments located in SPACEHAB-3 and to fly captively, then deploy and retrieve the Spartan-204 payload.

Beginning on flight day one, a series of thruster burns were performed daily to bring Discovery in line with Mir.

The original plan called for the orbiter to approach to no closer than 10 meters (33 ft) from Mir, and then complete a flyaround of the Russian space station.

However, three of the 44 orbiter Reaction Control System (RCS) thrusters—small firing jets used for on-orbit maneuvering—sprang leaks prior to rendezvous.

Wetherbee then backed the orbiter away to 122 metres (400 ft) and performed a one and a quarter-loop flyaround of Mir while the station was filmed and photographed.

Charlotte, an experimental robotic device being flown for the first time, also reduced crew workload by taking over simple tasks such as changing experiment samples.

Also on flight day two, the crew lifted with the orbiter remote manipulator system arm SPARTAN-204 from its support structure in payload bay.

Foale and Harris began their EVA suspended at the end of the robot arm, away from the payload bay, to test modifications to their spacesuits to keep spacewalkers warmer in the extreme cold of space.

BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, developed the Fluids Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus-1 (FGBA-1) in cooperation with Coca-Cola and several other groups.

The six rays of the Sun and the three stars on the right of the insignia symbolize the flight's numerical designation in the Space Transportation System's mission sequence.