"It is impossible to part with this orbital home without thinking of everything that was accomplished within its walls," French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haignere said Saturday during a radio call to French space officials. The call was reported by the Russian news agency Tass.
Haignere and his Russian crewmates, commander Viktor Afanasyev and flight engineer Sergei Avdeyev, are scheduled to leave Mir Friday evening inside a Soyuz TM capsule. The station will be left unstaffed for several months on the chance private funding is found to prolong Mirs life. The station has been in orbit since 1986.
Mir has grown over the years from a single base module to a sprawling complex with five main rooms attached to the core. One room, the Spektr science laboratory, has been sealed off since an unpiloted cargo vessel smashed into it two years ago and punctured the hull. A second module, Priroda the stations newest is scheduled to be closed off by Wednesday.
The Russian Space Agency does not have the $250 million a year it would need to continue operating Mir. The agency is now devoting its budget for human spaceflight to the International Space Station, which is currently under construction in orbit. Nevertheless, Russia has been loath to relinquish this last icon of the hallowed Soviet space era.
The station will be watched over by ground-based control teams over the next several months. One more crew could be sent to Mir to prepare it for a suicidal plunge through the atmosphere next spring.
Mir's hatch will be closed for the last time at about 2 p.m. ET Friday, when the crew settles into the Soyuz TM spacecraft that will bring them back to earth. The capsule is scheduled to leave Mir at 5:14 p.m. ET Friday and land in Kazakstan at 8:36 p.m. ET. Avdeyev will be returning as the worlds most experienced space flier, with a cumulative lifetime total of 740 days in orbit.
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