STAR CITY, Russia—As Sergei Zalyotin turned off the lights and closed the hatch of the Mir space station, he left bread and salt on the table, in keeping with Russian custom, for the next crew of cosmonauts due to arrive.
But as it turned out, there would be no next crew. Unbeknown to Zalyotin when he returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz capsule last June, he would be the final commander aboard the world's longest-manned orbiting space platform. Bereft of money, Russia plans to transmit an 11-minute pulse next week that will send the abandoned station to a watery grave in the Pacific Ocean.
Sergei Zalyotin was commander of the last team of Russian cosmonauts to live aboard the Mir space station. After 15 years in orbit, Mir will be sent hurtling to a watery grave in the Pacific Ocean.
(Peter Baker - The Washington Post)
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The demise of Mir ends an important chapter in the history of space exploration, the first time men and women have occupied a home above the planet more or less permanently and the prototype for the kind of cross-border cooperation that led to the International Space Station now being constructed 250 miles overhead. It was an adventurous 15-year ride, filled with harrowing and heroic tales of great breakthroughs and near-fatal catastrophes.
The storied station has also become—even more so in its final days—a metaphor for Russia itself, the all-too-visible symbol of a once-pioneering space program humbled by the fall of the superpower that sponsored it. The blow to Russian pride has led to numerous protests in recent weeks, as well as a resolution by the State Duma begging the government to somehow save Mir, all to no avail.
"It's been there 15 years and everything has an end," Zalyotin reflected during an interview at the cosmonaut training center here outside Moscow.
To others, though, the finale is overdue. U.S. officials have long urged Russia to discard Mir, which in its waning years often resembled a favorite old car that spent more time in the shop than on the road. NASA would prefer that Russia concentrate its meager resources on the international station.
"Mir is clearly seen by the Russians as the last remaining symbol of space glory," said James Oberg, a former U.S. flight control engineer and author of several books on the Russian space program. "But it's a delusional nostalgia. For all the robustness of Mir, the Soviets never figured out what to do with it . . . outside of feel-good propaganda."
Now its final legacy will be determined by the success or failure of its splashdown. Mir has been drifting down in its orbit steadily for months—it was about 145 miles above the Earth as of Tuesday—and, if all goes according to plan, Russian officials will transmit a signal that will trigger its final plunge next Thursday (Wednesday night Washington time). Russians expect most of it to burn up in the atmosphere, but about 1,500 fragments should fall into a 120-by-3,600-mile zone in the South Pacific east of New Zealand.
The most massive man-made object ever to plummet from orbit, Mir resembles a sprawling, 135-ton mobile home complex. Its nearest rival in terms of mass was the 76-ton U.S. Skylab, which fell out of control in 1979, scattering debris in Australia.
Japan and a number of South Pacific islands have expressed concern that a repeat of that experience could spell disaster. U.S. military and civilian space experts dismiss these worries as unwarranted, noting that large objects, from meteorites to spent rocket stages, plow unnoticed into Earth's atmosphere regularly.
Nonetheless, even the Russians—while insisting that "it's 100 percent impossible" for station wreckage to rain down on inhabited areas, as space agency spokesman Sergei Gorbunov put it—decided to take out $200 million in insurance.
Named for the Russian word that means both "world" and "peace," Mir has been circling the globe since Feb. 20, 1986. It has played host to more than 100 residents from 15 countries, including seven U.S. astronauts, and served as a laboratory for more than 17,000 scientific experiments.
But as it kept orbiting long after its official five-year lifespan, Mir began showing its age as it experienced one calamity after another. The nadir came during a docking procedure on June 25, 1997, when an unmanned Progress cargo ship smashed into the station and nearly forced the two Russian cosmonauts and American astronaut Michael Foale to evacuate.
Through it all, the Russians refused to give up. "We were sure of ourselves. We were sure we could repair anything," said former cosmonaut Yelena Kondakova.
Ultimately,, the decrepit Russian economy could no longer support the program. Instead, Russia under its space director Yuri Koptev has joined the United States in a 16-nation consortium to build the $60 billion international station.
This rankles those here who see a once-proud Russia taking a subservient role to NASA.
"This is perhaps one of the last symbols," complained Sergei Akifev, president of an organization formed to support Mir. "We used to have strong power—now it's gone. We used to have strong industry—now it's gone. We had a huge, strong, capable army—now we have an army which is capable of fulfilling orders, but combat morale is very weak."
Mir will occupy a special place in the annals of falling satellites, given its sheer heft, as well as lingering suspense about how well the thrusters can control such an unwieldy mass once it enters the atmosphere and the slight possibility that an engine might fail.
In January, Russian handlers dispatched a fresh cargo ship to attach itself to Mir, providing the thruster power to maneuver the station safely on its final descent. That phase is to begin at 3:32 a.m. next Thursday (7:32 p.m. Wednesday EST) with two "set-up" engine firings. The most suspenseful phase will come five hours later when the attached rocket will fire in a sustained burst to point the sprawling complex toward its target zone. If all goes well, fragments will hit the Pacific at 9:21 a.m. (1:21 a.m. EST Thursday).
The Russians have asked the U.S. government and the European Space Agency to help track Mir. Using its global network of radar and optical sensors, the Colorado-based U.S. Space Command is monitoring Mir along with more than 8,300 other orbiting objects and forwarding information to Russian mission control near Moscow.
No one can predict exactly how Mir will behave or how it will be torn apart on the way down. Although most of the pieces are expected to melt in the atmosphere, engineers expect pieces totaling 20 to 25 metric tons to reach the surface. The largest individual piece, they estimate, should weigh under 1,600 pounds.
At about 60 miles up, the facility should start heating and glowing red from friction with the thickening atmosphere. It should begin breaking up, experts estimated, at about 50 miles up, with the lightest pieces, such as the insect-like solar power wings, falling off first. The surviving pieces should resemble comets as they streak toward impact.
"The question is, can [the Russians] maintain control all the way down," said Nicholas Johnson, chief scientist for orbital debris at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Sawyer reported from Washington.
