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Russian Prime Minister Signs Decree to Deorbit Mir
By Simon Saradzhyan
Spacenews.com Correspondent
posted: 08:42 am ET
05 January 2001
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dead_mir_writethrough_010105 MOSCOW Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has signed an edict to deorbit the Mir space station, an aide to the high-ranking official told Spacenews.com. The aide, who asked not to be named, said Kasyanov signed the decree Dec. 30 to send the $3 billion, 136-ton station into a controlled dive into the Earths atmosphere. No exact date has been set for the deorbiting, said the aide, who declined to elaborate.[inset] Last month, a Russian state commission comprised of the countrys leading space officials issued a vaguely worded resolution to sink Mir, but left it to the federal government to formally seal the fate of the 15-year-old outpost. The resolution was signed by several top space officials including Valery Grin, head of the Mir state commission and deputy commander of Russias Strategic Missile Force, and Yuri Semenov, president of Rocket Space Corporation Energia, which operates Mir. A Progress M1-5 cargo ship will be launched Jan. 18 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to dock with Mir and then give the station a deorbiting impulse, according to a senior Energia official, who asked not to be named.The official told Spacenews.com Jan. 5 that a cosmonaut crew will be launched if the Progress vehicle fails to dock with Mir in automated mode, or if the space stations main computer malfunctions. He said a group of top officials from Energia and the Mir Flight Control Center met in Korolev Jan. 4 and decided that Energia will proceed with efforts to deorbit Mir using the Progress vehicle while the two-cosmonaut crew stands by in case of an emergency.Rosaviacosmos spokesman Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko told Spacenews.com Jan. 4 that the recent loss of communications with Mir, which has been flying without a crew for months, "only strengthened our belief that the station has to be downed to avoid an uncontrolled crash." The Korolev control center lost contact with Mir Dec. 25 and managed to restore communications 19 hours later after power levels on several of the stations batteries dropped to low levels. Even after restoring contact, the center continued to experience problems receiving telemetry from the outpost, an official at the center told Spacenews.com Jan. 5.
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