MOSCOW -- The State Duma, the lower and more powerful chamber of Russias parliament, voted Feb. 21 to call on President Vladimir Putin to halt the plans to bring down the countrys Mir space station.
The Duma voted 298-3-1, with one abstention, to pass the non-binding appeal that urges Putin to suspend a Dec. 30 edict calling for the 15-year-old, 136-ton station to make a controlled reentry into the atmosphere. The edict was issued by Russian Premier Mikhail Kasyanov.
Putin has publicly voiced his support for deorbiting the creaky Mir station, saying Russia can benefit from participating in the U.S.-led International Space Station program.
The vote in favor of keeping Mir aloft was initiated by the Communists, the Dumas largest faction. The leader of that party, Gennady Zyuganov, sent an open letter to Putin Feb. 7 arguing that U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system makes "equal cooperation" between Russia and United States in the International Space Station (ISS) project "problematic."
The possibility of such problems should prompt the Kremlin to put Mirs deorbiting on hold, Zyuganov said in his letter.
Neither Putin nor his press service had responded publicly to the letter or the Dumas appeal as of late Feb. 21.
According to Yuri Koptev, director general of the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviacosmos), Russia has neither the funds nor any time left to save Mir.
Koptev said at a Feb. 19 press conference in Moscow that Rosaviacosmos does not have the money to launch the four Progress logistics vehicles that would be needed to boost Mir to a stable orbit. Mir has been losing orbital altitude rapidly in recent weeks.
Mir "has become a danger to the entire world" and should "gracefully end its life" in March, Koptev said.
An open letter signed by 30 managers of Russias leading space companies and research institutes also called for Mir to be brought down. A copy of the letter was obtained by Spacenews.com.
Any attempt to continue Mirs mission could "lead to unpredictable consequences," according to the letter, whose signatories include by Yuri Semenov, president of Mirs operator, Rocket Space Corporation (RSC) Energia, and Nikolai Anfimov, director general of the Central Machine-Building Scientific Research Institute.
The station is set to come down in the first weeks of March into a designated area roughly 950 to 1,250 miles (1,500 to 2,000 kilometers) from Australia, according to the Flight Control Center. The deorbiting impulse will come from a Progress vehicle currently docked to Mir.
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