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Mir Space Station

Dr Duncan L Copp

January 2002

Russia's Mir Space Station was the stage on which some of the most notable and dramatic episodes in space were played out. It hosted the longest human stay in space, survived an onboard fire and a collision with a visiting module. For 15 years, Mir's maze of tunnelling orbited 330 kilometres above our heads, before being dropped into the Pacific Ocean.

Building site in the sky

On 19 February 1986, a new era in space exploration began when the first component of the Mir Space Station rocketed skyward from the soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome. Mir (Russian for 'peace') was designed to continue the impressive track record of space station experience and experimentation that the Soviets had gained since they lost the race to the Moon in 1969.

Initially, Mir was no larger than its predecessor, the Salyut Space Station. But its design was a clue to what was in store: the station had six docking ports. Over the coming years these ports would receive large modules, attached to the main core. Fixed together like Lego, the space station grew in size during its time in orbit to become the largest structure ever built in space – growing much larger than was originally intended.

The Mir core module served as the nerve centre for the station. Contained within were the crew's cabins, a kitchen and shower, and all the operational equipment needed to monitor and pilot the station. For its inhabitants, Mir must have resembled a luxurious hotel compared to the earlier space stations. The floor was carpeted, the walls were painted in soothing pastel colours, and the ceiling had fluorescent lighting. Not only did this give cosmonauts a sense of up and down, it also gave the station a more homely feel, essential for the long missions which would take place there.

Between 1987 and 1996 Mir received a further five modules. Kvant and Kvant 2 joined the station in April 1987 and December 1989. The Kvant modules carried an assortment of international scientific payloads as well as supplies and an airlock mechanism. X-ray and ultraviolet telescopes kept cosmonauts busy for many months studying the structure of the galaxy and probing the very edge of the Universe.

The Kristall module was slotted into place in June 1990. Very much a technological module, it carried biological science and materials science experiments. It was also an important docking unit to be used by either the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which ferried crews up and down from Mir, or the Russian space shuttle, Buran. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Buran was scrapped after just one unmanned test flight.

The final two modules attached to an already oversized station were Spectr and Priroda, in June 1995 and April 1996. Spectr added a further 23.5 tonnes to Mir and carried a number of experiments designed to observe the Earth's atmosphere. Priroda too was a remote sensing module containing experiments to study the Earth. On completion Mir weighed in at nearly 143 tonnes.

An international flavour

The Soyuz TM12 mission launched to Mir in May 1991 was the last Soviet mission ever flown. Onboard were cosmonauts Anatoli Artsebarski and Sergei Krikalev as well as the first Briton in Space, 27-year-old research technologist, Helen Sharman. Sharman returned after an 8-day mission. Artsebarski returned in October 1991.

However, the Soviet political upheaval in the summer of 1991 stretched as far as Mir, leading to events that effectively marooned Krikalev in space. He was still carrying his communist party membership card when, on New Years Eve 1991, the red flag fluttered over the Kremlin for the last time. Krikalev finally returned to a land of independent states in March 1992, and to this day is still dubbed the 'last Soviet citizen'.

During its lifetime, Mir was home to 104 people from many different countries. Nationals who experienced Russian hospitality in space came from Austria, Germany, France, Afghanistan and the US.

The US featured heavily in the history of the space station. In March 1995, Norman Thagard became the first US astronaut to stay onboard after riding with two Russian cosmonauts onboard Soyuz TM21. Over the next 5 years, the space shuttle made numerous dockings with Mir. Each time leaving a US astronaut onboard for a stint typically lasting three months. This Russian-US collaboration paved the way for the International Space Station, currently under construction in orbit.

Ups and downs on Mir

Life on Mir certainly had its ups and downs. Numerous records were broken on the station. Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov set the record for the longest continuous amount of time spent in space, a staggering 438 days, between 1994 and 1995. He orbited the Earth 7000 times, witnessing 7000 sunrises and 7000 sunsets. Sergei Avdeyev clocked up a total amount of time spent in space record – 747 days, over three missions. Anatoly Solovyov spent a total of 77 hours outside Mir during a record 16 space walks.

Life-threatening emergencies plagued the crew on more than one occasion. In June 1997, during the manual docking of Russian supply spacecraft, Progress, the failure of Mir's docking radar resulted in the craft crashing into the Spectr module. This caused localised depressurisation and a loss of power which plunged the station into darkness and temporarily left it drifting in space.

Earlier in the same year, Mir experienced the most threatening of onboard disasters. A two-foot long flame shot out from a faulty oxygen canister designed to produce a steady supply of oxygen for those onboard. The quick-witted crew managed to extinguish the ensuing fire, saving the station and more importantly, their own lives.

By the late 1990s, Mir was showing considerable signs of age. Equipment failure was commonplace and the once freshly painted walls were covered with mildew and condensation. Those who visited the aging station were greeted by a dank, musty smell and a maze of tunnels choked with electrical wiring and tubing. Fears for the safety of those onboard meant Mir was abandoned in 2000.

But what to do with the largest structure in space? Various mavericks came forward with grand proposals, such as turning Mir into the first hotel in space and even a film set. However, after one final visit in 2001, Mir's fate was sealed. On 22 March 2001, Russian controllers fired thrusters sending the station into the atmosphere where the majority of it burnt up, with the charred remains plummeting into the Pacific Ocean.

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