21 Facts About Mir

Mir was occupied for a total of twelve and a half years out of its fifteen-year lifespan, having the capacity to support a resident crew of three, or larger crews for short visits.

Mir was deorbited in March 2001 after funding was cut off.

The cost of the Mir programme was estimated by former RKA General Director Yuri Koptev in 2001 as $4.

Mir was authorised by a 17 February 1976 decree, to design an improved model of the Salyut DOS-17K space stations.

Orbital assembly of Mir began on 19 February 1986 with the launch of the Proton-K rocket.

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The capability of Mir to be expanded with add-on modules meant that each could be designed with a specific purpose in mind, thus eliminating the need to install all the station's equipment in one module.

Conversely, materials processing experiments required the minimisation of movement on board the station, and so Mir would be oriented in a gravity gradient attitude for stability.

Inside, the 130-tonne Mir resembled a cramped labyrinth, crowded with hoses, cables and scientific instruments—as well as articles of everyday life, such as photos, children's drawings, books and a guitar.

NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger related how life on board Mir was structured and lived according to the detailed itineraries provided by ground control.

Mir decided to perform his tasks in an order that he felt enabled him to work more efficiently, be less fatigued, and suffer less from stress.

Linenger noted that his comrades on Mir did not "improvise" in this way, and as a medical doctor he observed the effects of stress on his comrades that he believed was the outcome of following an itinerary without making modifications to it.

The molds in Mir were found growing behind panels and inside air-conditioning equipment.

Mir was visited by a total of 28 long-duration or "principal" crews, each of which was given a sequential expedition number formatted as EO-X.

The EO-1 crew spent their last 20 days on Mir conducting Earth observations before returning to Earth on 16 July 1986, leaving the new station unoccupied.

Alexander Viktorenko and Aleksandr Serebrov docked with Mir and brought the station out of its five-month hibernation.

Kvant-2 added a second set of control moment gyroscopes to Mir, and brought the new life support systems for recycling water and generating oxygen, reducing dependence on ground resupply.

All of Mir's ports were occupied, and so Soyuz TM-17 had to station-keep 200 metres away from the station for half an hour before docking while Progress M-18 vacated the core module's front port and departed.

Mir's stay on the station improved operations in several areas, including transfer procedures for a docked space shuttle, "hand-over" procedures for long-duration American crew members and "ham" amateur radio communications, and saw two spacewalks to reconfigure the station's power grid.

Mir was primarily supported by the Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft and had two ports available for docking them.

Mir was visited by three separate models of Progress; the original 7K-TG variant equipped with Igla, the Progress-M model equipped with Kurs, and the modified Progress-M1 version, which together flew a total of 64 resupply missions.

Mir says that it was especially noticeable after he had made a spacewalk and become used to the bottled air in his spacesuit.