KOROLYOV, Russia, March 11 — The doomed Mir space station passed the point of no return over the weekend, with Russian controllers reporting that its orbit sank to less than 155 miles in altitude. Russia’s Mission Control is now making preparations for the station’s death on March 20 — 15 years and one month after its birth.
THE FIRST PIECE of the outpost was launched on Feb. 20, 1986. In time, Mir grew to a 138-ton orbital complex that was the crown jewel of the Soviet space effort. After the Soviet breakup of the early 1990s, it housed the first extended Russian-American space missions — serving as a model for International Space Station Alpha, which is now under construction.
“Mir just represents an extraordinary technological achievement on the part of Russia,” Bill McArthur, NASA’s director of operations for Russia, told MSNBC.com.
“Its creation will go down in history books because the International Space Station now being created in orbit would not have been possible without it,” Yuri Koptev, director of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, told reporters in Moscow.
But in the end, even the Russians conceded that the station had outlived its usefulness.
As of Saturday, the lowest point in Mir’s altitude was below the 155-mile (250-kilometer) mark — the point at which Russian controllers say the orbit’s decay cannot be reversed. The orbit is declining by about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) a day.
Russia’s space agency estimates that on March 20, Mir will be in the proper position for a final series of engine firings aimed at causing the station to plummet through Earth’s atmosphere. Officials caution, however, that the schedule could still shift by a day or so.
Most of the structure will burn up during the descent, but up to 40 tons of flaming debris could rain down on Earth. If the operation comes off as planned, those fireballs will fall into the Pacific Ocean about 1,850 miles (3,000 kilometers) east of New Zealand’s southern tip.
“Of course we all feel sad that the station should be deorbited. But this is the kind of measure we had to do, because it’s been in service for a long time and it’s time to take it out,” said Valery Ryumin, a cosmonaut who served as Mir’s first flight director. Ryumin is now deputy chief designer at Energia, the company that manages the space station for the Russian government.
FADING SPACE JEWEL
A string of problems aboard Mir in 1997 — ranging from an onboard fire to computer breakdowns to a near-fatal collision with a cargo ship — took the shine off the jewel. Then the cash-strapped Russian government said it had to cut off money for Mir to follow through on its financial commitments to Alpha.
Energia tried to keep the station alive with millions of dollars in backing from Western investors, through a venture called MirCorp. The investors funded the station’s final manned mission, which ended last June. Since then, Mir has been guided remotely by Mission Control here in Korolyov, north of Moscow.
Last November, the Russians finally decided to sink Mir. MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber complained that the decision was primarily motivated by politics and economics rather than the station’s age.
The Mir needed funds,” he told MSNBC.com. “There’s nothing intuitively wrong with it. It’s like a car. If you maintain your car, it runs. If you can’t maintain it, it does eventually get into mechanical problems.”
Manber said he suspects that NASA pressured the Russians to sacrifice their own spacecraft for the sake of the much more expensive Alpha station, a sentiment shared by many Russians. In response, NASA officials say Mir’s fate was a matter for the Russians alone to decide. But over the past year, they’ve also strongly opposed the idea that Russia might shift any of its scarce resources from Alpha to Mir.
Want to learn more? http://www.msnbc.com/news/490797.asp
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THE FIRST PIECE of the outpost was launched on Feb. 20, 1986. In time, Mir grew to a 138-ton orbital complex that was the crown jewel of the Soviet space effort. After the Soviet breakup of the early 1990s, it housed the first extended Russian-American space missions — serving as a model for International Space Station Alpha, which is now under construction.
“Mir just represents an extraordinary technological achievement on the part of Russia,” Bill McArthur, NASA’s director of operations for Russia, told MSNBC.com.
“Its creation will go down in history books because the International Space Station now being created in orbit would not have been possible without it,” Yuri Koptev, director of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency, told reporters in Moscow.
But in the end, even the Russians conceded that the station had outlived its usefulness.
As of Saturday, the lowest point in Mir’s altitude was below the 155-mile (250-kilometer) mark — the point at which Russian controllers say the orbit’s decay cannot be reversed. The orbit is declining by about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) a day.
Russia’s space agency estimates that on March 20, Mir will be in the proper position for a final series of engine firings aimed at causing the station to plummet through Earth’s atmosphere. Officials caution, however, that the schedule could still shift by a day or so.
Most of the structure will burn up during the descent, but up to 40 tons of flaming debris could rain down on Earth. If the operation comes off as planned, those fireballs will fall into the Pacific Ocean about 1,850 miles (3,000 kilometers) east of New Zealand’s southern tip.
“Of course we all feel sad that the station should be deorbited. But this is the kind of measure we had to do, because it’s been in service for a long time and it’s time to take it out,” said Valery Ryumin, a cosmonaut who served as Mir’s first flight director. Ryumin is now deputy chief designer at Energia, the company that manages the space station for the Russian government.
FADING SPACE JEWEL
A string of problems aboard Mir in 1997 — ranging from an onboard fire to computer breakdowns to a near-fatal collision with a cargo ship — took the shine off the jewel. Then the cash-strapped Russian government said it had to cut off money for Mir to follow through on its financial commitments to Alpha.
Energia tried to keep the station alive with millions of dollars in backing from Western investors, through a venture called MirCorp. The investors funded the station’s final manned mission, which ended last June. Since then, Mir has been guided remotely by Mission Control here in Korolyov, north of Moscow.
Last November, the Russians finally decided to sink Mir. MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber complained that the decision was primarily motivated by politics and economics rather than the station’s age.
The Mir needed funds,” he told MSNBC.com. “There’s nothing intuitively wrong with it. It’s like a car. If you maintain your car, it runs. If you can’t maintain it, it does eventually get into mechanical problems.”
Manber said he suspects that NASA pressured the Russians to sacrifice their own spacecraft for the sake of the much more expensive Alpha station, a sentiment shared by many Russians. In response, NASA officials say Mir’s fate was a matter for the Russians alone to decide. But over the past year, they’ve also strongly opposed the idea that Russia might shift any of its scarce resources from Alpha to Mir.
Want to learn more? http://www.msnbc.com/news/490797.asp
------------------
"I'd like an order of fries, a quarter pounder with cheese, I love the light in your eyes, would you go out with me please? I am in love with a McDonald's Girl, she has a smile of innocence so tender and warm, she is an angel in a polyester uniform."