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Mir,Russian space station designed to provide long-term accommodations for crew members while in orbit around Earth. Launched into orbit on February 19, 1986, Mir was deliberately discarded in the Pacific Ocean on March 23, 2001. Crew members reached Mir aboard Soyuz spacecraft and, later, through the American space program aboard space shuttles. Mir, the first space station designed for expansion, was originally only a single core module, but it eventually consisted of seven modules. Mir replaced the Salyut series of space stations as the centerpiece of the Soviet (now Russian) manned space program. The Salyut series of space stations were smaller, simpler stations that helped develop much of the technology needed to build Mir.
Astronauts and cosmonauts from Afghanistan, Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Japan, Kazakhstan, Syria, and the United States worked aboard Mir beside their Russian colleagues. More people visited Mir than visited all previous space stations (U.S. Skylab and Soviet Salyut series) combined.
The Mir space station was composed of seven modules that together weighed about 109,000 kg (about 240,000 lb) and were 19 m (62 ft) long.
The Mir core module was the control center and living quarters for the Mir station. The 20-ton module measured 4.18 m (13.6 ft) in width and 13 m (40 feet) in length. At each end of the core was a docking port, a hatch fitted to connect with other spacecraft. The aft, or rear, port led through a tunnel into the living compartment, which contained a galley (kitchen), exercise equipment, two sleeping compartments that were smaller than phone booths, and a toilet stall.
The front oft he living compartment was Mir’s control room. A hatch there led to the front docking port and four attachment ports for expansion modules. The Kvant 2, Kristall, Spektr, and Priroda modules first docked at the front port, then pivoted to their respective attachment ports using a robot arm.
The first module added to the Mir core docked at the aft port. The 11-ton Kvant module contained telescopes and life-support equipment and was added to the Mir station in 1987. The core and Kvant were joined by the 19-ton Kvant 2 module in 1989. Kvant 2 contained equipment for steering Mir, exercise equipment, and an airlock for spacewalks. The airlock stored a rocket backpack powered by compressed gas, which cosmonauts Alexandr Viktorenko and Alexandr Serebrov used for the first time in 1990 to fly outside the station. The backpack was discarded in 1996.
The 19-ton Kristall laboratory module, which docked in 1990, had a special docking port intended for the Soviet space shuttle Buran. The Buran program, first flown in 1989, was put on hold after the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed in 1991. But the U.S. shuttle Atlantis was able to use the Buran port for the first shuttle-Mir docking in June 1995. In November 1995 astronauts aboard space shuttle Atlantis attached a docking module designed specifically to fit a U.S. shuttle to Kristall’s Buran port to make shuttle-Mir dockings easier. Space shuttles that docked with Mir used a docking mechanism installed on the shuttle that fit the mechanism on Mir. The space shuttle Atlantis had such a docking mechanism installed in 1995. The space shuttle Endeavour received a Mir docking mechanism in 1997 and docked with Mir in 1998.
The Spektr laboratory module arrived in May 1995, carrying more than 700 kg (1,600 lb) of U.S. science equipment. A collision with an unpiloted supply ship in 1997 punctured Spektr, forcing the cosmonauts onboard to seal off the module from the rest of the station. The Priroda laboratory module, added in 1996, contained both American and European science equipment. Except for the docking module ferried by the U.S. space shuttle, all Mir modules were launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Proton rockets, the largest in Russia’s operational rocket fleet.
More space craft docked with Mir than with all previous space stations combined. More than 50 automated Progress freighters, unmanned delivery vehicles, ferried more than 100 tons of food, fuel, water, air, scientific equipment, and spare parts to the station. Over 20 piloted Soyuz spacecraft and U.S. space shuttles docked with Mir during its last decade.
Mir’s first crew was Salyut 7 veterans Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyov. They flew to the Mir core module in the Soyuz-T 15 spacecraft in March 1986 to activate and check Mir’s systems. They undocked and flew to the abandoned Salyut 7 station to salvage scientific equipment and dropped off the recovered equipment at Mir. They returned to Earth in July 1986. Mir flew unmanned until February 1987.
Except for that brief period from July 1986 to February 1987 and another from March 1989 to September 1989, Mir was staffed without interruption until 1999. Normally, teams of two or three cosmonauts worked on board in six-month shifts. There were, however, occasional exceptions. For example, medical doctor Valeriy Polyakov set a new world space-endurance record by living on Mir for 438 days—long enough for a spacecraft to travel to Mars. During that time, Polyakov studied his body’s reactions to prolonged weightlessness. He returned to Earth aboard Soyuz-TM 20 in March 1995. With him was Yelena Kondakova, the first woman to complete a long-duration stay in space. She lived aboard Mir for 168 days.
Also in March1995,U.S. astronaut Norman Thagard began a 114-day Mir flight, breaking the U.S. 84-day space-endurance record set on Skylab in 1974. Thagard reached Mir on Soyuz-TM 21 with cosmonauts Vladimir Dezhurov and Gennadi Strekalov. He returned to Earth with his Russian crewmates on the space shuttle Atlantis, which docked with Mir for the first time on June 29, 1995. After Thagard’s visit, six other U.S. astronauts lived on Mir.
German astronaut Thomas Reiter arrived at Mir aboard Soyuz-TM 22 in September 1995. He returned to Earth in February 1996, after 179 days in space, having completed two spacewalks to install European instruments outside the station.
By the late 1990s Mir was more than a decade old, and its career was nearing an end. In 1997 the station experienced a small fire, failure of the oxygen generation system, failure of a temperature control that made the living quarters uncomfortably warm, failures of Mir’s main computer and navigation system, and a collision with a supply ship. None of the onboard cosmonauts and astronauts were hurt
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