The president of the private company that kept the Mir space station from becoming space junk committed Thursday April 6 to financing a second human mission to Russia's orbiting outpost in September.

MirCorp, which financed the mission that sent two cosmonauts to the station this week, will provide funding to extend their current stay, as well as send a new crew to spell the two cosmonauts presently on Mir in September.

MirCorp President Jeffrey Manber made the announcement after an early Thursday docking between a Soyuz spacecraft and Mir.

"With the opening of Mirs hatch, a pathway was created to an exciting new era of business in space," Manber said. The commitment was made in an agreement signed Thursday by Manber and Yuri Semenov, president of RKK Energia, the company that operates and leases Mir.

Three key people hold Mir's future in their hands. From left to right: Jeffrey Manber, MirCorp president; Chirinjeev Kathuria, a major MirCorp investor and Yuri Semenov, RKK Energia president.

During the next mission, cosmonauts will deliver hardware to Mir to set up a space portal for internet-data content delivery.

Chirinjeev Kathuria, a MirCorp investor who is also an internet and telecom entrepreneur, said the internet portal is typical of the commercial space business that the company expects to develop in coming months.

The portal will allow for data transmissions, as well as live images of Earth from space.

"We have built successful internet companies in Europe and Japan that have valuations in the billions of dollars," Kathuria said, "and we feel our first-ever internet space portal on Mir will have a value as well."

The current mission to Mir would not be possible without MirCorp, the company that holds a lease agreement for commercial operation of the station.

MirCorp is an international firm established by the Gold & Appel Transfer S.A. holding company and RKK Energia. The Netherlands-based MirCorp brings Western financial support and management expertise together with Russias experience in the operation of piloted orbital space stations.

MirCorp is 60 percent owned by RKK Energia, while the remaining 40 percent is held by investors. Among the MirCorps official goals is "to preserve the heritage of Mir, the first international space station, through the commercialization of space enterprise."

On February 17, MirCorp got authorization from RKK Energia to lease Mir to users and individuals worldwide. According to the Russian Kommersant newspaper, MirCorp paid RKK Energia $21 million for the current mission. Some $7 million was transferred to Energias account after the Soyuz liftoff.

Semenov, president of RKK Energia, called the 28^th main mission to Mir, which got under way this week, a "landmark" in space exploration history because the effort was commercially, not federally, financed. MirCorp had previously pledged $20 million to RKK Energia to rescue Mir from its presumed destruction following its abandonment by cosmonauts last August. The Russian government said it had no more funds for continued missions to Mir.

Semenov on Thursday also addressed the touchy political question -- will cash-strapped Russia be able to meet its International Space Station (ISS) commitments with Mir unexpectedly operational?

"I would like to stress one more time," Semenov said, "that our Mir activities do not have any negative impact on the realization of our ISS commitments. Financially, these are two separate things."

Moreover, Semenov said, RKK Energia spent some of its own, non-governmental money on ISS efforts.

"We invested 460 million rubles (about $15 million) in the new station," said Semenov. "And the state still owes us 570 million rubles (about $19 million) for 1997-99. We also invested about 127 million rubles (approximately $4 million) in the construction of the Progress and Soyuz spacecraft."

The Soyuz spacecraft carried the cosmonauts to Mir this week, while the Progress cargo ship currently attached to the station helps keep it oriented in space. Cosmonauts successfully docked the Soyuz to Mir Thursday and boarded the station.

Semenov also said that Mir activities help RKK Energia "keep the industry going."

Semenov totally ruled out the possibility of deorbiting Mir this year.

"The Progress now docked to Mir was supposed to decelerate the station and ultimately plunge it into ocean," he said. "However, I can say for sure that the Progress and Mirs thrusters now will rise the stations orbit."

Semenov also stressed that Mir is a state property leased by his company and that decisions regarding Mirs fate should be made by the state, not by RKK Energia.

In a move designed to demonstrate international support for Mir, Vsevolod Latyshev, a press secretary at the Russian space agency's Mission Control Center, presented during a post-docking news conference an envelope and letter to Semenov from a Chinese boy containing $25. The boy donated the money for Mirs rescue.

Many of those attending the news conference were touched by the gesture.

"If I managed to convince a Chinese boy to donate money to save Mir, hopefully I will succeed in convincing the Russian government to support the station as well," joked Semenov.

Overall, NASA retains a neutral attitude towards Mir.

"NASAs official opinion is that what Russia does with the Mir space station is totally up to Russia," said Michael Baker, a NASA director of human spaceflight operations in Moscow .

"We are only concerned that our Russian partners meet their commitments to the ISS," he said. "There may be something what they can learn from this [the continuous Mir operation] but we have to make sure that the ISS program is successful and this will be very important for the future of the world."