Russia to Dump Mir Space
Station in February 2001
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia decided on Thursday to dump its
the troubled Mir space station in the Pacific Ocean next February but warned
some debris from the aging Soviet-era vehicle might hit land.
The decision signals the end of an era for Russia's cash-strapped space
program, which has been urged by its partners to concentrate its resources on a
16-nation International Space Station (news
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sites) project.
Yuri Koptev, head of the Russian space agency, told reporters after a
government meeting the decision was made because Mir, designed for a three-year
stay in space when launched in 1986, was becoming a safety hazard due to aging
components and corrosion.
``You have to stop in time. The station has got to the point where it would
be normal for any system to fail,'' he said.
Koptev said a cargo craft would dock with Mir in late January and use its
booster rockets to steer the station back toward Earth.
``That would ensure the station's organized re-entry into the Earth's
atmosphere around the 26th, 27th or 28th of February, with the main fragments
of the station falling into the Pacific Ocean between 900 and 1,200 miles from
Australia,'' he said.
Moscow has set aside $27 million to cover the cost of sending Mir to a
watery grave.
No Absolute Safety Guarantees
Anatoly Kiselyov, head of the Khrunichev center that designed and built Mir,
said ballistic experts reckoned parts of the vehicle would hit an area up to
6,250 miles long and 125 miles wide, Interfax reported.
He said there was no way to guarantee that all sections would fall safely
into the ocean.
``To calculate precisely the mathematical model of the process...of passing
through the atmosphere and falling into the ocean of a 130-ton multi-module
orbital complex with enormous paneling is not feasible,'' Kiselyov said.
Koptev said that on re-entry, Mir would break up into thousands of
fragments, some weighing as much as 1,500 lbs. They would hurtle toward Earth
with enough force to smash a way through reinforced concrete six feet thick.
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Under international law, Russia is bound to provide safety
guarantees for space craft and satellites returning to Earth from space, but
re-entry is far from an exact science.
In 1979, the U.S. Skylab was supposed to land in the south Atlantic but
instead scattered itself over the Indian Ocean and parts of western Australia,
its sonic boom waking sheep farmers and Aborigines. No one was hit.
In another case, a Russian military satellite, Cosmos 954, scattered a
suitcase sized cylinder of uranium over Canada's Northwest Territories.
Rise And Fall Of A Space Legend
During its eventful life Mir helped Soviet and Russian cosmonauts set a
string of space endurance records that have been the envy of its better-funded
U.S. rivals.
But in recent years the station lost its luster due to a series of mishaps,
including a near catastrophic collision with a cargo craft, an on-board fire
and computer failures which sent the station spinning aimlessly through space.
The decision marks a defeat for the commercial MirCorp consortium which had
tried to raise millions of dollars of private cash to keep Mir in operation.
Dutch-based MirCorp, which devised a series of novel money-spinning ventures
including space tourism in an effort to save Mir, was not immediately available
for comment on the news. But the announcement will dash the hopes of U.S.
businessman Dennis Tito, a former NASA (news
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sites) engineer who has already paid MirCorp part of a multimillion dollar
fee for a once in a lifetime trip to Mir.
James Cameron, director of hit movie Titanic, was another possible space
tourist, while U.S. television network NBC planned to send a winning game show
contestant into orbit as part of a true-life show dreamed up by the producer of
the hit show ''Survivor.''
MirCorp has spent some $40 million on keeping the station aloft but various
Russian officials have said in private that the financing fell short of what
was needed to keep Mir going.
And with the first international crew housewarming the $60 billion
International Space Station, Moscow has clearly lost interest in the venture.