Prepared to be either its burial team or renovation crew, two cosmonauts will leave for the Mir space station on April 4. The mission, officially planned for 45 days with a possibility of extending up to 60 days, will be the 28^th expedition to the station.

Cosmonauts Sergei Zaletin and Alexander Kaleri, while trained to prepare the 15-year-old outpost for deorbiting, will also be the first crew to ever run a commercially operated outpost in space.

The Netherlands-based MirCorp is financing the current mission to the station in the hope of eventually renovating it for commercial purposes. In an agreement signed on February 17, MirCorp rented all the "resources" of the station from RKK Energia. The Russian government still formally owns the orbital facility and RKK Energia operates it.

The deadline for this decision will be determined largely by the amount of supplies remaining on Mir. The most crucial is Mir's remaining amount of fuel: Is there enough for a safe reentry or for maintaining the orbit? At present, the Progress M 1-1 cargo ship is docked to the station serving as a tanker and propulsion unit for the outpost. The craft's engines have been used to raise Mir's orbit and currently only a minimal supply of fuel remains on board.

The next cargo ship to go to Mir is a Progress M 1-2, scheduled to lift off on April 25. It can be used to either push the complex to a higher orbit to prolong its lifetime or to facilitate deorbiting maneuvers. The RKK Energia officials said that the cargo ship has to be configured and fueled either for one mission or the other. In addition, the crew will need at least two weeks to prepare all systems on the station for de-orbiting.

Andrew Eddy, senior vice president at MirCorp, said he is well aware of a dilemma the Russians face, but he is confident his company can meet the deadlines. Eddy said MirCorp is working with potential investors to finalize a second round of financing in the time frame, allowing RKK Energia to proceed with the mission or to deorbit the station safely.

"We know we are at the crossroads…we will make a decision sometime into that 45-day mission as to whether or not we are prepared to extend that mission all the way to the September time frame," Eddy told SPACE.com.

"Will MirCorp be able to meet its payment schedule? That question is one we are all anxiously awaiting the answer for," Eddy said. "We are in the process of approaching a number of potential new investors and our existing investors are also considering an option of reinvesting. We have a number of weeks yet, before we have to make any firm commitment on that payment schedule. We knew when we got involved in this that this is not going to be worthwhile if it was simply a four-to-five-month effort; and the initial investors did not put their money in simply to expand lifetime of Mir by five months."

If the money is secured, MirCorp's next step will be to make a financial commitment to RKK Energia to extend the Mir mission. In return RKK Energia will have to demonstrate to the Russian government that MirCorp's commitment is firm enough to operate the station in the safe fashion. The Russian government is still responsible for the outpost's safe operation and its deorbiting.

Considering future commercial operations, MirCorp hired two major consulting firms, McKinsey and KPMG, to assist in the development of potential revenue streams. Eddy said that the company expects the initial results of this analysis to be back in a few weeks.

"Depending on where we view the main focus of the commercial revenue to be, we will make either [an] immediate near-term commercial upgrade, or [a] more incremental approach," Eddy said.

Alexander Derechin, head of the International Marketing Division at RKK Energia, said that time is critical. Unlike many previous potential investors, MirCorp demonstrated real interest in the Mir's fate.

"So far, MirCorp has always delivered on its promises and the company was very accurate with its payments," Derechin told SPACE.com.

Derechin said that even though RKK Energia pursued several potential avenues to finance the space station, MirCorp is currently the only source of funds for the program.

"Although the Duma [Russian legislature] allocated $53 million (1.5 billion rubles) to Mir in the year 2000, we have not received a kopeck as of today," Derechin said. The parliament expected to finance Mir from a surplus in the Russian federal budget.

The Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Rosaviacosmos, argued that federal funds for space would be better spent to meet Russian commitments to the International Space Station (ISS) and other projects like satellite communications and robotic science spacecraft. NASA pushed Rosaviacosmos to deorbit Mir as soon as possible to concentrate its resources on the ISS.

Meanwhile preparations for the piloted launch to Mir are proceeding on schedule. The liftoff of the Soyuz spacecraft carrying the crew to the station is scheduled for 1:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (05:01 GMT) on April 4 from Area 1 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Cosmonauts Sergei Zaletin and Alexander Kaleri will be the 28^th long-duration expedition working on the orbital outpost, since its first element was launched in February 1986.

The rollout of the launch vehicle with the Soyuz spacecraft on board is expected on April 2. In orbit, everything is also ready for the crew arrival, RKK Energia officials said.

After Mir's computer was turned on last week, Mission Control in Korolev, Russia uploaded the new set of instructions on board and activated spacecraft's gyrodines. These complex mechanical wheels allow highly accurate orientation of the station in orbit.

The station's main computer is now controlling the orientation of the entire complex, Yuri Girigoriev, deputy to the designer general of RKK Energia said.

This week Mission Control tested the Kurs rendezvous system on board Mir. This will be used during the docking of the Soyuz with the station which is expected around 2:30 a.m. EDT (06:30 GMT) on April 6.