Mir Space Station: 15 Years in Orbit

The Mir Space Station orbited the earth for 15 years, from 1986 to 2001. The word "mir" literally means both "peace" and "world" in Russian. While Mir marks the very first inhabited long-term research station in space, it also holds the record for having the longest continuous human presence in space, at just eight days short of 10 continuous years.
 
Although officially a Russian space station, the Russians allowed international cosmonauts and astronauts to use the facility. In fact, American space shuttles actually visited Mir 11 times.

Mir: The Construction Process

While all of its component parts were crafted on Earth, completed construction of Mir occurred in outer space. On Feb. 20, 1986, the Soviets launched the core module with their proton booster.
 
Less than a month later on March 15, 1986, two Soviet cosmonauts, Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyov, docked with the core module of the Mir Space Station. They spent 51 days on Mir, during which time they checked the systems and brought Mir online.

Early Expansions of Mir

The expansion of Mir began the following year with the launch of the Kvant-1 module. It carried six gyroscopes that allowed for both X-ray and ultraviolet astrophysical observations of the universe. The Kvant-1 module also brought a deployable solar panel to Mir.
 
Two initial attempts to dock with Mir failed, until finally the cosmonauts at the space station performed a space walk to try and figure out what was going wrong. They discovered a trash bag had gotten stuck on the docking port. It had been left over from loading a cargo ship. Once they removed the trash bag, the docking could be successfully completed.
 
With its first visit to Mir, Kvant-1 remained an essential part of Mir and became virtually inseparable from this space station.
 
Sept. 5, 1989 started the longest human presence in space to date. Also on this day, Russian astronauts began Mir's second expansion with the Kvant-2 and Kristall modules. Kvant-2 brought more scientific equipment to the space station for observations while adding new life support systems for recycling water and generating oxygen on board Mir itself. This reduced the dependence of the space station on the ground.
 
The Kristall module, which docked with Mir on June 10, 1990, was a multipurpose technology, material processing, astrophysics and geophysics lab. The Kristall module included a greenhouse that allowed the cosmonauts to
  • conduct experiments on plant cultivation in space
  • further astronomical observations
  • use furnaces for creating crystals in micro-gravity.
Most importantly, the Kristall brought Mir additional docking ports that were later used with the American Space Shuttle.
 
The last crew to inhabit Mir launched from the USSR on Oct. 2, 1991, and they remained on Mir through the fall of the Soviet Union.

Mir Space Station: International Involvement

Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new expansion to this space station in September 1993. To prepare for this new project, they agreed the United States would be involved in Mir. This meant that U.S. shuttles would bring supplies and people to the Mir Space Station, and American astronauts would be among those living onboard.
 
U.S. funds allowed the Russians to launch the Spektr and Priroda modules, and a Mir Docking Module improved the overall docking process.
 
Spektr had a series of problems, from a serious collision in 1997 to a leak that had to be fixed in 2000. Priorda also had trouble since the station never could provide enough power to use its equipment. However, the new docking compartment proved a huge success after it arrived on Mir in November 1995.

Americans and Russians Living Together

Seven U.S. astronauts, who arrived at Mir starting in March 1995, spent 28 months onboard. Although only three crewmembers lived on Mir at one time, occasionally the space station supported up to six astronauts for up to a month. Mir was occupied continuously, except for two short periods, until August 1999. 
 
The final journey, privately funded, launched on April 4, 2000 and carried Sergei Zalyotin and Alexandr Kaleri to Mir for two months to carry out repairs. Russia wished to continue working on the space station, but since the United States and Russia needed the funds for the joint International Space Station project, there was no money left to continue repairing the aging Mir.

Mir Space Station's Descent

The de-orbit of Mir began with what's known as orbital decay, a slow reduction in the height of a satellite's orbit due to atmospheric drag. Along with orbital decay, Mir's descent was helped along by the docking of the heavy Progress M1-5 spacecraft.
 
Once docked, the Progress M1-5 conducted two burns of the ship's control engines on March 23, 2001, to transfer the Mir Space Station into a 103-by-137-mile orbit.
 
In the third stage of the de-orbit process, scientists on Earth burned the Progress M1-5's control engines and main engine for just over 22 minutes, bringing Mir back into Earth's atmosphere near Nadi, Fiji.

Mir's Legacy

During its 15 years in space, 104 people visited the Mir Space Station from countries around the world, including:
  • Britain
  • France
  • Germany
  • Japan.
Its final re-entry was both flawless and sad since it marked the end of an era. Mir outlasted the nation that first launched it and began a new time of space exploration marked by U.S. and Russian cooperation.
 
Resources
 
RussianSpaceWeb.com (n.d.). Spacecraft: Manned: Mir. Retrieved February 7, 2008, from the RussianSpaceWeb.com Web site.
 
Zak, Anatoly (March 28, 2000). Mir: A Rich Chronology. Retrieved February 7, 2008, from the Space.com Web site.