On this day in space: Feb. 19, 1986: Russia's Mir space station launched into orbit

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On Feb. 19, 1986, the Soviet Union launched the Mir space station.

On Feb. 19, 1986, the Soviet Union launched the Mir space station.

The Mir Space Station and Earth limb observed from the Orbiter Endeavour during NASA's STS-89 mission in 1998.

Clyde Tombaugh (Image credit: NASA)

Mir enabled the first long-duration human spaceflight missions. The current record for the longest stay in space was set aboard the Mir space station by cosmonaut Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov, who spent 437 consecutive days in orbit.

The Soviets used Mir to do all kinds of scientific research for 15 years before funding for the program was cut, and Mir fell back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere along the way.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

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