The end of Mir

The last crew left the station on 28 August 1999 – since 1986 Mir had been host to 27 expeditions, with almost continuous occupation .

On 23 March 2001, the Mir Space Station was de‑orbited into the Pacific Ocean .

Following the plan made by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviacosmos) and RKK Energia (Mir’s operator), a Progress M1‑5 cargo ship with increased fuel capacity was launched to Mir, taking four days to reach it – twice as long as a conventional cargo flight to the outpost. The longer trip was designed to conserve the cargo ship’s fuel for the robotic de‑orbiting procedure, which required a large amount of propellant .

The Progress M1‑5 used its smaller engines for approach and orientation. The ship was docked to Kvant and Mir’s gyrodynes were turned off so they would no longer control the station’s attitude .

The Progress fired three pulses designed to brake the station’s orbital velocity. The first two pulses decreased Mir’s speed by 23 feet (7 meters) per second each, while the third one decreased the speed by 46 feet (14 meters) per second .

The Progress generated the final “killing pulse” which decreased Mir’s speed by 56.8 feet (17.3 meters) per second, slow enough for it to drop out of orbit. It plunged into the Pacific Ocean later that day .

Assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) began in 1998. The European Space Agency, Japan, Canada and Brazil have also contributed to the project. The first crew launched on 31 October 2000 for a five‑month test flight although completion of the additional modules was delayed by the grounding of the Shuttle fleet early in 2003. In the meanwhile, the station was supplied by remote‑controlled Russian Progress vehicles. Additional modules are scheduled to be added until 2006, for example, a Multi‑Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) is currently scheduled for January 2006 .

Michael Foale returned to space as commander of ISS Expedition 8, launched on 18 October 2003. On 26 March 2004 Foale and engineer Alexander Kaleri were scheduled to spend a further six months in orbit .

While in orbit, Foale noticed a huge smoke plume over Northern Iraq, which he reported during a video conference with some schoolchildren from Sheffield, England. He said, “There is a huge fire burning in Iraq at the moment. I haven’t seen anything about it on the news.”

Several hours later the fire was confirmed .