The deorbit of the Mir space station has been tentatively set for March 23, an official said. The date was targeted by Ballistics experts of the Mission Control Center (MCC) and the Moscow-based Keldysh Institute of Applied Mechanics who gathered in Korolyov on March 19.
Deputy flight control chief of the Korolyov-based center Viktor Blagov told SPACE.com in a phone interview that the experts have agreed to fire the Progress cargo ship's engines for Mir's first of the three braking impulses around 7:30 p.m. EST on March 22 (00:30 GMT; 3:30 a.m. Moscow time on March 23).
He said the deorbiting plan, which is to be officially endorsed by officials from MCC, Rocket Space Corporation (RSC) Energia and the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviacosmos) at the agency's Moscow headquarters on March 20, provides for debris of the 15-year old station to hit the surface of the Pacific Ocean March 23 at 1 a.m. EST (06:00 GMT; 9:00 a.m. Moscow time).
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The plan also calls for MCC to begin active preparations for deorbiting at around on March 22 at 7:30 p.m. EST (March 23 at 00:30 GMT; 3:30 a.m. Moscow time). The second one will occur two hours later at around 9 p.m. EST (March 23 at 02:00 GMT; 5:00 a.m. Moscow time) and the third and final one will take place at midnight EST March 23 (05:00 GMT; 8:00 a.m. Moscow time). He said MCC will issue commands to Mir's main computer to fire the station's own engines 24 hours prior to the first Progress firing in order to orient the aged outpost for the pending reentry.
The 15-year-old, 135-ton spacecraft is expected to break up when it hits Earth's atmosphere and plunges into the Pacific east of New Zealand.
Blagov also sought to alleviate concerns expressed by such countries as Japan about the possibility that Mir debris may miss the
in the south Pacific and crash on land. He said the plan calls for the space station to be at an altitude of 125 miles (200 kilometers) when flying over Japan.Japan's science ministry confirmed the deorbiting timetable, which would put the splashdown at around 1.a.m. EST Friday (06:00 GMT; 3 p.m. Japan time).
Reprieve impossible
Blagov commented on last-minute pleas to keep the station aloft by saying it is already too late to try to save Mir.
The press service of the state Duma announced on March 19 that speaker of this lower chamber of the federal parliament Gennady Seleznyov had written a letter to President Vladimir Putin earlier this month to urge the Kremlin save Mir.
In his letter, Seleznyov suggested that Rosaviacosmos use the FGB 2 module, which was built by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center as a backup for the International Space Station's Zarya module to replace Mir's core module.
The Iranian connection
Also Iran's President Mohammed Khatami discussed possible acquisition of the Mir space station during his four-day visit to Russia earlier this month, according to head of the Moscow-based Center for Coordination of Russian-Iranian Programs Radzhab Safarov.
Safarov told reporters on March 19 that Khatami discussed this acquisition when visiting MCC's Korolyov headquarters on March 13. Khatami's delegation also looked into possibility of whether Iran can help Russia fund Mir for two to three years in exchange for having the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center train an Iranian astronaut and launch him to the station.
Blagov said both Seleznyov's letter and Safarov's revelations came "as something from one's lips to God's ears", but said they have come too late. "So far we have seen no concrete offers with detailed business plans...it is too late," the MCC official said.
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