NADI, Fiji (AP) -- Standing on a tropical beach in the south Pacific, American space enthusiasts and Russian cosmonauts gawked and clapped Tuesday as Russia's doomed space station flashed overhead.

The Mir made a quick, low pass, looking like a shooting star as it flashed across the sky for about 10 seconds. The crowd of about 200 people, including Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase, pointed and clapped before Mir disappeared on its next circle of the globe.

Space experts in the crowd said it could be the last time anyone saw Mir.

The station, scheduled to make a fiery reentry Friday and break up in Earth's atmosphere, passed about 137 miles (220 kilometers) overhead Tuesday as it headed for a space junk graveyard in the southern Pacific. The cash-strapped Russian government is abandoning the 15-year-old station that was the glory of the country's space program.

American space engineer and Mir reentry observation expedition leader Bob Citron told The Associated Press the sighting may have been Mir's last curtain call.

"Tonight we said goodbye to Mir," he said after watching it overhead. "We may have been the last people on Earth to see it."

Moscow aerospace adviser Yuri Karash said it "is very possible that we said goodbye to Mir. Maybe we saw the space station for the last time in the world's history, maybe."

"I hope that this is not true, but God knows," he added.

Karash said the expedition of more than 30 enthusiasts who will fly to the drop zone several thousand miles (kilometers) south of Fiji might see its final reentry. They will try to chase the falling debris in a plane.

The four cosmonauts watching from the beach all served aboard Mir, including Sergei Avdeyev, who spent more time than anyone aboard the station.

"They said goodbye to their home tonight," Citron said. "They have a lot of emotional attachment for what was their home in space."

Karash said it was an exciting and a sad moment for the space scientists on the beach, but it was time to move on. Some 104 cosmonauts and astronauts have lived in Mir during its 15 years aloft.

At a reception for the expedition, Qarase said Fijians marveled at the achievements of Russian scientists, putting Mir into orbit and making it into a place for humans to live.

"All of us, whether Russians or not, benefit from such activity. It's an achievement which benefits mankind,'' he said.

After Mir descends to an altitude of 132 miles (212 kilometers) by early Thursday, Mission Control will switch on the station's computer and align it for descent.

If the computer and orientation system work as expected, a Progress cargo ship docked at the station will fire its engines twice for about 20 minutes each time, around 7:30 p.m. EST Thursday (Friday at 00:30 GMT; 3:30 a.m. Moscow time) and an hour and a half later to slow the station and change its orbit from round to elliptical.

Progress engines will fire one last time to send the station hurtling into the south Pacific between Australia and Chile. Most of Mir is expected to burn up in the atmosphere during the reentry, but up to 27.5 tons of debris are expected to reach Earth's surface.

The station's solar panels are expected to fall away about 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth, and the major structures were likely to break away between 37 and 25 miles (60 and 40 kilometers) over the surface.

The first debris is expected to splash down around 1 a.m. EST (06:00 GMT; 9 a.m. Moscow time) Friday, with the lighter components drifting down for the next half-hour, Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin told The Associated Press in Russia.