It will  never be seen again in our evening and morning skies. 

All Planet, and our  friends, strongly believed that in the not too distant future, when people are enroute to the moon or Mars, that this monument would be a highlight to fly past.

We are very saddened to see this end of a "First Era" relic destroyed, and although we strongly support the incredible ISS - International Space Station, we wish there could have been a way to not kill off MIR in order to assure full attention to ISS.  Times are very hard in Russia, and funding for Space Exploration is always critical.  Nonetheless, we felt there could have been a way structured for both to occur, and for Russia to not need to bear any further investment in preserving MIR's orbit, while still being a strong participating party in the ISS project.

The most recent space station to descend over the Pacific was Salyut 6. 
That weighed 40 tons and came down in July of 1982. The deorbiting technique is exactly the same -- Mir's just a bit bigger.

All Planet, Gabreal Franklin and our staff again wishes to thank NASA, our friends at NASA AMES, the SCIENCE@NASA site, liftoff.msfc.nasa, all the Russian Cosmonauts and American Astronauts.  Additionally,  all the other great folks we have had the pleasure and honor to work with through the 15 years of this historic mission, and last, but not least, "Spaseebo!" to Rosaviakosmos [Russian Aviation and Space Agency] Moscow, Russia, and all the ground support and industries that contributed through the years to making MIR the exciting success it was.

Click here to see where MIR WOULD HAVE BEEN! at this moment

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Click here for an ALL PLANET  PRESS RELEASE from Mar  10, 2001
 

Only 600 representatives from 100 Russian and foreign mass media companies got accredited at MCC at the town of Korolev near Moscow. 

  Besides, over 109 Russian Government officials and embassies representatives from 63 countries expressed their willingness to attend the event at MCC.

  Since the major function of the MCC is to control space missions it is not designed to host that many visitors. In fact, the visiting space of the "Mir" Flight Control is too small, so the ISS Flight Control Room and other Flight Control Rooms were used today as well.

  The MCC Management would like to offer their appologies in advance for being unable to let all wishing Mass Media representatives to attend the event.

  The MCC Management have to ask all the companies having accreditation at MCC to bring the number of their representatives at MCC during the event to minimum. The MCC will have to restrict admittance to MCC to 2 individuals for each company including TV, newspaper, radio reporters and photographers.

"Mir" de-orbit - De-orbit impulse 
(the cargo ship "Progress M1-5" 8 control engines and the main engine are on):

* Burn start - 08:08 [05:08 UTC], H - 213 km
* Burn end - 08:30 [05:30 UTC], H - 159 km
* Burn duration - 1335 s.

- Re-entry time - 08:44 [05:44 UTC] at the altitude of 100 km.

 The time of the destruction start - 08:52 [05:52 UTC] at the altitude of 80 km.

- The calculated impact time of unburned fragments: 09:00 [06:00 UTC].

Link to Interview with 
American Astronauts and
Russian Cosmonauts  ISS TEAM
 
 
 
 

WANT MORE?  Visit this  page  and links to more information on the MIR COMES HOME AND DIES Topic

 

More info on VX2000

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