MOSCOW (AP) _ Russia earmarked funds Thursday for two supply rockets to the Mir space station, but left the fate of the nearly 15-year-old outpost undecided, an official said.

The remote-controlled Progress ships will carry fuel to Mir, which could be used to boost the orbit of the massive station higher above the Earth and extend its life, or to blast it back into the atmosphere for destruction.

The Cabinet allocated $27 million to pay for the two cargo ships, but put off a decision about the Mir's fate until February, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said.

He has previously said the decision would depend on whether private funds are made available to keep the station in orbit. The government has wavered over the station's fate for more than a year.

MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber said this week that the company might raise enough money to build a new core module to replace the existing one, which was launched in February 1986.

But Russian space officials have grown skeptical about MirCorp, following its failure to pay $10 million for the launch of a Progress cargo ship earlier this month. Manber said that increased solar activity had forced a launch earlier than planned, and promised that the company would reimburse the government.

The United States has pressured Russia to dump the Mir and concentrate its scarce resources on the new International Space Station, a 16-nation project led by the United States.

On Thursday, U.S. astronaut Bill Shepherd and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Krikalyov and Yuri Gidzenko left Moscow for the Baikonur cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakstan for a planned blastoff to the ISS on Tuesday. They are to become the first residents on the ISS.