Mir
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|
AMSL | |
Apoapsis altitude | 374 km (216 nmi) AMSL |
---|---|
Orbital inclination | 51.6 degrees |
Orbital speed | 7.7 km/s (27,700 km/h, 17,200 mph) |
Orbital period | 91.9 minutes |
Orbits per day | 15.7 |
Days in orbit | 5,511 (15 years and 32 days) |
Days occupied | 4,592 |
No. of orbits | 86,331 |
Statistics as of 23 March 2001 (unless noted otherwise) References:[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][unreliable source?][11][unreliable source?][12] | |
Configuration | |
Part of a series of articles on the |
Soviet space program |
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Mir (
Mir was the first continuously inhabited long-term research station in orbit and held the record for the longest continuous human presence in space at 3,644 days, until it was surpassed by the ISS on 23 October 2010.[13] It holds the record for the longest single human spaceflight, with Valeri Polyakov spending 437 days and 18 hours on the station between 1994 and 1995. 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.
Following the success of the
The station was launched as part of the Soviet Union's
Origins
Mir was authorised by a 17 February 1976 decree, to design an improved model of the
It was originally planned that the ports would connect to 7.5-tonne (8.3-short-ton) modules derived from the
By early 1984, work on Mir had halted while all resources were being put into the Buran programme in order to prepare the Buran spacecraft for flight testing. Funding resumed in early 1984 when Valentin Glushko was ordered by the Central Committee's Secretary for Space and Defence to orbit Mir by early 1986, in time for the 27th Communist Party Congress.[15][failed verification][unreliable source?]
It was clear that the planned processing flow could not be followed and still meet the 1986 launch date. It was decided on
Station structure
Assembly
The orbital assembly of Mir began on 19 February 1986 with the launch of the Proton-K rocket. Four of the six modules which were later added (Kvant-2 in 1989, Kristall in 1990, Spektr in 1995 and Priroda in 1996) followed the same sequence to be added to the main Mir complex. Firstly, the module would be launched independently on its own Proton-K and chase the station automatically. It would then dock to the forward docking port on the core module's docking node, then extend its Lyappa arm to mate with a fixture on the node's exterior. The arm would then lift the module away from the forward docking port and rotate it on to the radial port where it was to mate, before lowering it to dock. The node was equipped with only two Konus drogues, which were required for dockings. This meant that, prior to the arrival of each new module, the node would have to be depressurised to allow spacewalking cosmonauts to manually relocate the drogue to the next port to be occupied.[6][page needed][17][page needed]
The other two expansion modules,
The station's assembly marked the beginning of the third generation of space station design, being the first to consist of more than one primary spacecraft (thus opening a new era in space architecture). First generation stations such as Salyut 1 and Skylab had monolithic designs, consisting of one module with no resupply capability; the second generation stations Salyut 6 and Salyut 7 comprised a monolithic station with two ports to allow consumables to be replenished by cargo spacecraft such as Progress. The capability of Mir to be expanded with add-on modules meant that each could be designed with a specific purpose in mind (for instance, the core module functioned largely as living quarters), thus eliminating the need to install all the station's equipment in one module.[17][page needed]
Pressurised modules
In its completed configuration, the space station consisted of seven different modules, each launched into orbit separately over a period of ten years by either Proton-K rockets or Space Shuttle Atlantis.
Module | Expedition | Launch date | Launch system | Nation | Isolated view | Station view |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mir Core Module (Core Module) |
N/A | 19 February 1986 | Proton-K | Soviet Union | ||
The base block for the entire Mir complex, the core module, or DOS-7, provided the main living quarters for resident crews and contained environmental systems, early attitude control systems and the station's main engines. The module was based on hardware developed as part of the Salyut programme, and consisted of a stepped-cylinder main compartment and a spherical 'node' module, which served as an airlock and provided ports to which four of the station's expansion modules were berthed and to which a Soyuz or Progress spacecraft could dock. The module's aft port served as the berthing location for Kvant-1.[19][page needed ]
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Kvant-1 (Astrophysics Module) |
EO-2 | 31 March 1987 | Proton-K | Soviet Union | ||
The first expansion module to be launched, Kvant-1 consisted of two pressurised working compartments and one unpressurised experiment compartment. Scientific equipment included an ] | ||||||
Kvant-2 (Augmentation Module) |
EO-5 | 26 November 1989 | Proton-K | Soviet Union | ||
The first gyrodynes to augment those already located in Kvant-1. Scientific equipment included a high-resolution camera, spectrometers, X-ray sensors, the Volna 2 fluid flow experiment, and the Inkubator-2 unit, which was used for hatching and raising quail.[19][page needed ]
| ||||||
Kristall (Technology Module) |
EO-6 | 31 May 1990 | Proton-K | Soviet Union | ||
Kristall, the fourth module, consisted of two main sections. The first was largely used for materials processing (via various processing furnaces), astronomical observations, and a biotechnology experiment utilising the Aniur electrophoresis unit. The second section was a docking compartment which featured two Shuttle-Mir programme. The docking compartment also contained the Priroda 5 camera used for Earth resources experiments. Kristall also carried six control moment gyroscopes (CMGs, or "gyrodynes") for attitude control to augment those already on the station, and two collapsible solar arrays.[19][page needed ]
| ||||||
Spektr (Power Module) |
EO-18
|
20 May 1995 | Proton-K | Russia | ||
Spektr was the first of the three modules launched during the Shuttle-Mir programme; it served as the living quarters for American astronauts and housed NASA-sponsored experiments. The module was designed for remote observation of Earth's environment and contained atmospheric and surface research equipment. It featured four solar arrays which generated approximately half of the station's electrical power. The module also had a science airlock to expose experiments to the vacuum of space selectively. Spektr was rendered unusable following the collision with Progress M-34 in 1997 which damaged the module, exposing it to the vacuum of space.[17][page needed] | ||||||
Docking Module | EO-20
|
15 November 1995 | Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-74) |
US | ||
The docking module was designed to help simplify APAS-89 docking ports, one attached to the distal port of Kristall with the other available for shuttle docking.[17] : 247–249
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Priroda (Earth Sensing Module) |
EO-21 | 26 April 1996 | Proton-K | Russia | ||
The seventh and final Mir module, Priroda's primary purpose was to conduct Earth resource experiments through remote sensing and to develop and verify remote sensing methods. The module's experiments were provided by twelve different nations, and covered microwave, visible, near infrared, and infrared spectral regions using both passive and active sounding methods. The module possessed both pressurised and unpressurised segments, and featured a large, externally mounted synthetic aperture radar dish.[17] : 251–253
|
Unpressurised elements
In addition to the pressurised modules, Mir featured several external components. The largest component was the Sofora girder, a large scaffolding-like structure consisting of 20 segments which, when assembled, projected 14 metres from its mount on Kvant-1. A self-contained thruster block, the VDU (Vynosnaya Dvigatyelnaya Ustanovka), was mounted on the end of Sofora and was used to augment the roll-control thrusters on the core module. The VDU's increased distance from Mir's axis allowed an 85% decrease in fuel consumption, reducing the amount of propellant required to orient the station.[17][page needed] A second girder, Rapana, was mounted aft of Sofora on Kvant-1. This girder, a small prototype of a structure intended to be used on Mir-2 to hold large parabolic dishes away from the main station structure, was 5 metres long and used as a mounting point for externally mounted exposure experiments.[17][page needed]
To assist in moving objects around the exterior of the station during
Each module was fitted with external components specific to the experiments that were carried out within that module, the most obvious being the Travers antenna mounted to Priroda. This
In addition to module-specific equipment, Kvant-2, Kristall, Spektr and Priroda were each equipped with one Lyappa arm, a robotic arm which, after the module had docked to the core module's forward port, grappled one of two fixtures positioned on the core module's docking node. The arriving module's docking probe was then retracted, and the arm raised the module so that it could be pivoted 90° for docking to one of the four radial docking ports.[19][page needed]
Power supply
The solar arrays themselves were launched and installed over a period of eleven years, more slowly than originally planned, with the station continually suffering from a shortage of power as a result. The first two arrays, each 38 m2 (409 ft2) in area, were launched on the core module, and together provided a total of 9 kW of power. A third,
This relocation was begun in 1995, when the panels were retracted and the left panel installed on Kvant-1. By this time all the arrays had degraded and were supplying much less power. To rectify this, Spektr (launched in 1995), which had initially been designed to carry two arrays, was modified to hold four, providing a total of 126 m2 (1360 ft2) of array with a 16 kW supply.[17] Two further arrays were flown to the station on board the Space Shuttle Atlantis during STS-74, carried on the docking module. The first of these, the Mir cooperative solar array, consisted of American photovoltaic cells mounted on a Russian frame. It was installed on the unoccupied mount on Kvant-1 in May 1996 and was connected to the socket that had previously been occupied by the core module's dorsal panel, which was by this point barely supplying 1 kW.[17] The other panel, originally intended to be launched on Priroda, replaced the Kristall panel on Kvant-1 in November 1997, completing the station's electrical system.[17]
Orbit control
Mir was maintained in a near circular orbit with an average perigee of 354 km (220 mi) and an average apogee of 374 km (232 mi), travelling at an average speed of 27,700 km/h (17,200 mph) and completing 15.7 orbits per day.
Attitude control was maintained by a combination of two mechanisms; in order to hold a set attitude, a system of twelve control moment gyroscopes (CMGs, or "gyrodynes") rotating at 10,000 rpm kept the station oriented, six CMGs being located in each of the Kvant-1 and Kvant-2 modules.[19][21] When the attitude of the station needed to be changed, the gyrodynes were disengaged, thrusters (including those mounted directly to the modules, and the VDU thruster used for roll control mounted to the Sofora girder) were used to attain the new attitude and the CMGs were reengaged.[21] This was done fairly regularly depending on experimental needs; for instance, Earth or astronomical observations required that the instrument recording images be continuously aimed at the target, and so the station was oriented to make this possible.[17] 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.[17] Prior to the arrival of the modules containing these gyrodynes, the station's attitude was controlled using thrusters located on the core module alone, and, in an emergency, the thrusters on docked Soyuz spacecraft could be used to maintain the station's orientation.[17][22][page needed]
Communications
Microgravity
At Mir's orbital altitude, the force of Earth's gravity was 88% of sea level gravity. While the constant free fall of the station offered a perceived sensation of
- The drag resulting from the residual atmosphere;
- Vibratory acceleration caused by mechanical systems and the crew on the station;
- Orbital corrections by the on-board gyroscopes (which spun at 10,000 rpm, producing vibrations of 166.67 Hz[21]) or thrusters;
- Tidal forces. Any parts of Mir not at exactly the same distance from Earth tended to follow separate orbits. As each point was physically part of the station, this was impossible, and so each component was subject to small accelerations from tidal forces;
- The differences in orbital plane between different locations on the station.
Life support
Mir's
The atmosphere on Mir was similar to
International cooperation
Interkosmos
Interkosmos (Russian: ИнтерКосмос) was a Soviet Union space exploration programme which allowed members from countries allied with the Soviet Union to participate in crewed and uncrewed space exploration missions. Participation was also made available to governments of countries such as France and India.
Only the last three of the programme's fourteen missions consisted of an expedition to Mir but none resulted in an extended stay in the station:
- ]
- ]
- ]
European involvement
Various European astronauts visited Mir as part of several cooperative programmes:[28]
- Aragatz (1988) France
- Helen Sharman – Project Juno (1991) UK
- Franz Viehböck – Austromir '91 (1991) Austria
- Klaus-Dietrich Flade – Mir '92 (1992) Germany
- Michel Tognini – Antarès (1992) France
- Jean-Pierre Haigneré – Altair (1993) France
- Ulf Merbold – Euromir '94 (1994) Germany
- Thomas Reiter – Euromir '95 (1995) Germany
- Claudie Haigneré – Cassiopée (1996) France
- Reinhold Ewald – Mir '97 (1997) Germany
- Léopold Eyharts – Pégase (1998) France
- Ivan Bella – Stefanik (1999) Slovakia
Shuttle–Mir program
In the early 1980s, NASA planned to launch a modular space station called
In September 1993, US Vice President
Other visitors
- Toyohiro Akiyama – Kosmoreporter (1990) Japan[17]
- Chris Hadfield – STS-74 (1995) Canada[31]
- A British
Life on board
Inside, the 130-tonne (140-short-ton) 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. It commonly housed three crew members, but was capable of supporting as many as six for up to a month. The station was designed to remain in orbit for around five years; it remained in orbit for fifteen.[34] As a result, NASA astronaut John Blaha reported that, with the exception of Priroda and Spektr, which were added late in the station's life, Mir did look used, which is to be expected given it had been lived in for ten to eleven years without being brought home and cleaned.[35]
Crew schedule
The time zone used on board Mir was Moscow Time (UTC+03). The windows were covered during night hours to give the impression of darkness because the station experienced 16 sunrises and sunsets a day. A typical day for the crew began with a wake-up at 08:00, followed by two hours of personal hygiene and breakfast. Work was conducted from 10:00 until 13:00, followed by an hour of exercise and an hour's lunch break. Three more hours of work and another hour of exercise followed lunch, and the crews began preparing for their evening meal at about 19:00. The cosmonauts were free to do as they wished in the evening, and largely worked to their own pace during the day.[17]
In their spare time, crews were able to catch up with work, observe the Earth below, respond to letters, drawings and other items brought from Earth (and give them an official stamp to show they had been aboard Mir), or make use of the station's ham radio.
NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger related how life on board Mir was structured and lived according to the detailed itineraries provided by ground control. Every second on board was accounted for and all activities were timetabled. After working some time on Mir, Linenger came to feel that the order in which his activities were allocated did not represent the most logical or efficient order possible for these activities. He 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. Despite this, he commented that his comrades performed all their tasks in a supremely professional manner.[37][page needed]
Astronaut Shannon Lucid, who set the record for longest stay in space by a woman while aboard Mir (surpassed by Sunita Williams 11 years later on the ISS), also commented about working aboard Mir saying "I think going to work on a daily basis on Mir is very similar to going to work on a daily basis on an outstation in Antarctica. The big difference with going to work here is the isolation, because you really are isolated. You don't have a lot of support from the ground. You really are on your own."[35]
Exercise
The most significant adverse effects of long-term weightlessness are
To prevent some of these effects, the station was equipped with two treadmills (in the core module and Kvant-2) and a stationary bicycle (in the core module); each cosmonaut was to cycle the equivalent of 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) and run the equivalent of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) per day.[17] Cosmonauts used bungee cords to strap themselves to the treadmill. Researchers believe that exercise is a good countermeasure for the bone and muscle density loss that occurs in low-gravity situations.[39]
Hygiene
There were two
Mir featured a shower, the Bania, located in Kvant-2. It was an improvement on the units installed in previous
On a 1998 visit to Mir, bacteria and larger organisms were found to have proliferated in water globules formed from moisture that had condensed behind service panels.[40]
Sleeping in space
The station provided two permanent crew quarters, the Kayutkas, phonebox-sized booths set towards the rear of the core module, each featuring a tethered sleeping bag, a fold-out desk, a porthole, and storage for personal effects. Visiting crews had no allocated sleep module, instead attaching a sleeping bag to an available space on a wall; US astronauts installed themselves within
Food and drink
Most of the food eaten by station crews was frozen, refrigerated or canned. Meals were prepared by the cosmonauts, with the help of a
Microbiological environmental hazards
In the 1990s ninety species of micro-organisms were found inside Mir, four years after the station's launch. By the time of its decommission in 2001, the number of known different micro-organisms had grown to 140. As space stations get older, the problems with contamination get worse.[citation needed] Molds that develop aboard space stations can produce acids that degrade metal, glass and rubber.[42] The molds in Mir were found growing behind panels and inside air-conditioning equipment. The molds also caused a foul smell, which was often cited as visitors' strongest impression.[43] Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue ensuring a medically healthy environment for the astronauts.[44][45]
Some biologists were concerned about the mutant fungi being a major microbiological hazard for humans, and reaching Earth in the splashdown, after having been in an isolated environment for 15 years.[43]
Station operations
Expeditions
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. Expeditions varied in length (from the 72-day flight of the crew of
Early existence
Due to pressure to launch the station on schedule, mission planners were left without Soyuz spacecraft or modules to launch to the station at first. It was decided to launch Soyuz T-15 on a dual mission to both Mir and Salyut 7.[15][unreliable source?]
On 5 May 1986, they undocked from Mir for a day-long journey to Salyut 7. They spent 51 days there and gathered 400 kg of scientific material from Salyut 7 for return to Mir. While Soyuz T-15 was at Salyut 7, the uncrewed
The second expedition to Mir, EO-2, launched on Soyuz TM-2 on 5 February 1987. During their stay, the Kvant-1 module, launched on 30 March 1987, arrived. It was the first experimental version of a planned series of '37K' modules scheduled to be launched to Mir on Buran. Kvant-1 was originally planned to dock with Salyut 7; due to technical problems during its development, it was reassigned to Mir. The module carried the first set of six gyroscopes for attitude control. The module also carried instruments for X-ray and ultraviolet astrophysical observations.[19]
The initial rendezvous of the Kvant-1 module with Mir on 5 April 1987 was troubled by the failure of the onboard control system. After the failure of the second attempt to dock, the resident cosmonauts, Yuri Romanenko and Aleksandr Laveykin, conducted an EVA to fix the problem. They found a trash bag which had been left in orbit after the departure of one of the previous cargo ships and was now located between the module and the station, which prevented the docking. After removing the bag, docking was completed on 12 April.[49][unreliable source?][50]
The Soyuz TM-2 launch was the beginning of a string of 6 Soyuz launches and three long-duration crews between 5 February 1987 and 27 April 1989. This period also saw the first international visitors,
Third start
The launch of
]After a 40-day delay caused by faulty computer chips, Kvant-2 was launched on 26 November 1989. After problems deploying the craft's solar array and with the automated docking systems on both Kvant-2 and Mir, the new module was docked manually on 6 December. Kvant-2 added a second set of control moment gyroscopes (CMGs, or "gyrodynes") to Mir, and brought the new life support systems for recycling water and generating oxygen, reducing dependence on ground resupply. The module featured a large airlock with a one-metre hatch. A special backpack unit (known as Ikar), an equivalent of the US Manned Maneuvering Unit, was located inside Kvant-2's airlock.[51][52]
Soyuz TM-9 launched EO-6 crew members Anatoly Solovyev and Aleksandr Balandin on 11 February 1990. While docking, the EO-5 crew noted that three thermal blankets on the ferry were loose, potentially creating problems on reentry, but it was decided that they would be manageable. Their stay on board Mir saw the addition of the Kristall module, launched 31 May 1990. The first docking attempt on 6 June was aborted due to an attitude control thruster failure. Kristall arrived at the front port on 10 June and was relocated to the lateral port opposite Kvant-2 the next day, restoring the equilibrium of the complex. Due to the delay in the docking of Kristall, EO-6 was extended by 10 days to permit the activation of the module's systems and to accommodate an EVA to repair the loose thermal blankets on Soyuz TM-9.[53][unreliable source?]
Kristall contained furnaces for use in producing crystals under microgravity conditions (hence the choice of name for the module). The module was also equipped with biotechnology research equipment, including a small greenhouse for plant cultivation experiments which was equipped with a source of light and a feeding system, in addition to equipment for astronomical observations. The most obvious features of the module were the two Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS-89) docking ports designed to be compatible with the Buran spacecraft. Although they were never used in a Buran docking, they were useful later during the Shuttle-Mir programme, providing a berthing location for US Space Shuttles.[54]
The EO-7 relief crew arrived aboard Soyuz TM-10 on 3 August 1990. The new crew arrived at Mir with quail for Kvant-2's cages, one of which laid an egg en route to the station. It was returned to Earth, along with 130 kg of experiment results and industrial products, in Soyuz TM-9.[53] Two more expeditions, EO-8 and EO-9, continued the work of their predecessors whilst tensions grew back on Earth.
Post-Soviet period
The
The first human mission flown from an independent
Throughout the period following the collapse of the USSR, crews on Mir experienced occasional reminders of the
The EO-13 crew departed on 22 July, and soon after Mir passed through the annual Perseid meteor shower, during which the station was hit by several particles. A spacewalk was conducted on 28 September to inspect the station's hull, but no serious damage was reported. Soyuz TM-18 arrived on 10 January 1994 carrying the EO-15 crew (including Valeri Polyakov, who was to remain on Mir for 14 months), and Soyuz TM-17 left on 14 January. The undocking was unusual in that the spacecraft was to pass along Kristall in order to obtain photographs of the APAS to assist in the training of space shuttle pilots. Due to an error in setting up the control system, the spacecraft struck the station a glancing blow during the manoeuvre, scratching the exterior of Kristall.[46][page needed]
On 3 February 1994, Mir veteran Sergei Krikalev became the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on a US spacecraft, flying on Space Shuttle Discovery during STS-60.[58]
The launch of Soyuz TM-19, carrying the EO-16 crew, was delayed due to the unavailability of a payload fairing for the booster that was to carry it, but the spacecraft eventually left Earth on 1 July 1994 and docked two days later. They stayed only four months to allow the Soyuz schedule to line up with the planned Space Shuttle manifest, and so Polyakov greeted a second resident crew in October, prior to the undocking of Soyuz TM-19, when the EO-17 crew arrived in Soyuz TM-20.[46][page needed]
Shuttle–Mir
The 3 February launch of
The two-man EO-21 crew was launched on 21 February 1996 aboard Soyuz TM-23 and were soon joined by US crew member Shannon Lucid, who was brought to the station by Atlantis during STS-76. This mission saw the first joint US spacewalk on Mir take place deploying the Mir Environmental Effects Payload package on the docking module.[67] Lucid became the first American to carry out a long-duration mission aboard Mir with her 188-day mission, which set the US single spaceflight record. During Lucid's time aboard Mir, Priroda, the station's final module, arrived as did French visitor Claudie Haigneré flying the Cassiopée mission. The flight aboard Soyuz TM-24 also delivered the EO-22 crew of Valery Korzun and Aleksandr Kaleri.[17][59][68]
Lucid's stay aboard Mir ended with the flight of Atlantis on
Linenger was succeeded by
After these incidents, the US Congress and NASA considered whether to abandon the programme out of concern for the astronauts' safety, but NASA administrator Daniel Goldin decided to continue.[37][page needed] The next flight to Mir, STS-86, carried David Wolf aboard Atlantis. During the orbiter's stay, Titov and Parazynski conducted a spacewalk to affix a cap to the docking module for a future attempt by crew members to seal the leak in Spektr's hull.[59][72] Wolf spent 119 days aboard Mir with the EO-24 crew and was replaced during STS-89 with Andy Thomas, who carried out the last US expedition on Mir.[59][73] The EO-25 crew arrived in Soyuz TM-27 in January 1998 before Thomas returned to Earth on the final Shuttle–Mir mission, STS-91.[59][74][75]
Final days and deorbit
Following the 8 June 1998 departure of Discovery, the EO-25 crew of
The crew of
Near the end of its life, there were plans for private interests to purchase Mir, possibly for use as the first orbital
Mir's deorbit was carried out in three stages. The first stage involved waiting for
Visiting spacecraft
Mir was primarily supported by the Russian
Soyuz spacecraft provided personnel access to and from the station allowing for crew rotations and cargo return, and also functioned as a lifeboat for the station, allowing for a relatively quick return to Earth in the event of an emergency.[46][page needed][79] Two models of Soyuz flew to Mir; Soyuz T-15 was the only Igla-equipped Soyuz-T to visit the station, whilst all other flights used the newer, Kurs-equipped Soyuz-TM. A total of 31 (30 crewed, 1 uncrewed) Soyuz spacecraft flew to the station over a fourteen-year period.[46][page needed]
The uncrewed Progress cargo vehicles were only used to resupply the station, carrying a variety of cargoes including water, fuel, food and experimental equipment. The spacecraft were not equipped with reentry shielding and so, unlike their Soyuz counterparts, were incapable of surviving reentry.[80] As a result, when its cargo had been unloaded, each Progress was refilled with rubbish, spent equipment and other waste which was destroyed, along with the Progress itself, on reentry.[46][page needed] In order to facilitate cargo return, ten Progress flights carried Raduga capsules, which could return around 150 kg of experimental results to Earth automatically.[46] Mir was visited by three separate models of Progress; the original 7K-TG variant equipped with Igla (18 flights), the Progress-M model equipped with Kurs (43 flights), and the modified Progress-M1 version (3 flights), which together flew a total of 64 resupply missions.[46] Whilst the Progress spacecraft usually docked automatically without incident, the station was equipped with a remote manual docking system, TORU, in case problems were encountered during the automatic approaches. With TORU, cosmonauts could guide the spacecraft safely in to dock (with the exception of the catastrophic docking of Progress M-34, when the long-range use of the system resulted in the spacecraft striking the station, damaging Spektr and causing decompression).[17]: 265
In addition to the routine Soyuz and Progress flights, it was anticipated that Mir would also be the destination for flights by the Soviet Buran space shuttle, which was intended to deliver extra modules (based on the same "37K" bus as Kvant-1) and provide a much improved cargo return service to the station. Kristall carried two Androgynous Peripheral Attach System (APAS-89) docking ports designed to be compatible with the shuttle. One port was to be used for Buran; the other for the planned Pulsar X-2 telescope, also to be delivered by Buran.[17][54] The cancellation of the Buran programme meant these capabilities were not realised until the 1990s when the ports were used instead by US Space Shuttles as part of the Shuttle-Mir programme (after testing by the specially modified Soyuz TM-16 in 1993). Initially, visiting Space Shuttle orbiters docked directly to Kristall, but this required the relocation of the module to ensure sufficient distance between the shuttle and Mir's solar arrays.[17] To eliminate the need to move the module and retract solar arrays for clearance issues, a Mir Docking Module was later added to the end of Kristall.[81] The shuttles provided crew rotation of the American astronauts on station and carried cargo to and from the station, performing some of the largest transfers of cargo of the time. With a space shuttle docked to Mir, the temporary enlargements of living and working areas amounted to a complex that was the largest spacecraft in history at that time, with a combined mass of 250 tonnes (280 short tons).[17]
Mission control centre
Mir and its resupply missions were controlled from the Russian
- The Flight Director, who provided policy guidance and communicated with the mission management team;
- The Flight Shift Director, who was responsible for real-time decisions within a set of flight rules;
- The Mission Deputy Shift Manager (MDSM) for the MCC was responsible for the control room's consoles, computers and peripherals;
- The MDSM for Ground Control was responsible for communications;
- The MDSM for Crew Training was similar to NASA's 'capcom,' or capsule communicator; usually someone who had served as the Mir crew's lead trainer.
Unused equipment
Three command and control modules were constructed for the Mir program. One was used in space; one remained in a Moscow warehouse as a source of repair parts if needed,[84] and the third was sold to an educational and entertainment complex in the US in 1997. Tommy Bartlett Exploratory purchased the unit and had it shipped to Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, where it became the centrepiece of the complex's Space Exploration wing.[85]
Safety aspects
Ageing systems and atmosphere
In the later years of the programme, particularly during the Shuttle-Mir programme, Mir suffered from various systems failures. It had been designed for five years of use, but eventually flew for fifteen, and in the 1990s was showing its age, with frequent computer crashes, loss of power, uncontrolled tumbles through space and leaking pipes.
Various breakdowns of the Elektron oxygen-generating system were a concern; they led crews to become increasingly reliant on the backup Vika solid-fuel oxygen generator (SFOG) systems, which led to a fire during the handover between EO-22 and EO-23.[17][22][page needed] (see also ISS ECLSS)
Accidents
Several accidents occurred which threatened the station's safety, such as the glancing collision between Kristall and Soyuz TM-17 during proximity operations in January 1994. The three most alarming incidents occurred during EO-23. The first was on 23 February 1997 during the handover period from EO-22 to EO-23, when a malfunction occurred in the backup Vika system, a chemical oxygen generator later known as solid-fuel oxygen generator (SFOG). The Vika malfunction led to a fire which burned for around 90 seconds (according to official sources at the TsUP; astronaut Jerry Linenger insists the fire burned for around 14 minutes), and produced large amounts of toxic smoke that filled the station for around 45 minutes. This forced the crew to don respirators, but some of the respirator masks initially worn were broken. Some of the fire extinguishers mounted on the walls of the newer modules were immovable.[22][page needed][37][page needed]
The other two accidents concerned testing of the station's
Radiation and orbital debris
Without the protection of the Earth's atmosphere, cosmonauts were exposed to higher levels of
The increased radiation levels pose a higher risk of crews developing cancer, and can cause damage to the
At the low altitudes at which Mir orbited there is a variety of
See also
- Skylab, a defunct predecessor space station
- Out of the Present, 1995 documentary
- Orphans of Apollo, a 2008 documentary film which describes how a band of entrepreneurs tried to privatize the space station Mir and the resulting story of MirCorp.
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