Progress M1-5

Mir was the seventh and last crewed space station to be launched as part of the Soviet space programme, and was the first true modular space station to be launched. The first component, the Core Module, was launched by a Proton-K rocket on 19 February 1986. It was visited by 125 cosmonauts and astronauts, who performed 75 spacewalks. After the construction of the International Space Station began in 1998, Russian resources were split between the two stations. In 2000, Rosaviakosmos signed an agreement with MirCorp to lease the station for commercial use, with the Soyuz TM-30 mission, intended to prepare the station for future use and conduct some commercial research, being flown in later that year. This was to have been followed by more missions, including flights with space tourists, however due to the Russian government being concerned about MirCorp's ability to fund these missions, Rosaviakosmos decided against funding the continued operation of Mir. and the next month Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed an order to do so. By this stage Mir was well past the end of its design life, and Rosaviakosmos General Director Yuri Koptev believed that "any of its systems could well fail at any time". and Salyut 7 in 1991, potentially dropping debris over a populated area. Progress M1-5, which had originally been built to resupply and refuel either Mir or the International Space Station, was selected to perform the deorbit manoeuvre. Its mission earned it the nickname Hearse. An uninhabited area of the southern Pacific Ocean was selected for the station to be deorbited into, as had been done with five earlier Salyut spacecraft. == Mission ==

Launch and docking Progress M1-5 was launched by a Soyuz-U carrier rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. It was originally scheduled for launch on 16 January 2001, but by the first week of January, it was targeting 18 January. Launch was set for 06:56:26 GMT on 18 January. On the day, a problem with the computers aboard Mir developed shortly before fuelling of the Soyuz-U rocket was scheduled to commence, about five and a half hours before the launch was due to occur. The launch attempt was scrubbed, or cancelled, and the launch was expected to be delayed by four or five days. On 19 January, the launch was rescheduled for 24 January, giving controllers time to restart the computer and the station's gyroscopes, which had shut down when the computer failed. Preparations for the launch resumed on 22 January, and the launch occurred successfully at 04:28:42 GMT on 24 January. Following the launch, Progress M1-5 spent three days in free flight before docking with the rear port of the Kvant-1 module of Mir at 05:33:31 GMT on 27 January. The docking port had previously been occupied by Progress M-43, which departed at 05:19:49 on 25 January, Progress M-43, which had originally been launched to carry supplies and raise Mir's orbit, in anticipation of crewed flights which were never launched, was subsequently deorbited at 02:12 GMT on 29 January, burning up during re-entry at 02:58. Following the docking, Mir's attitude control system was used to spin the station, to provide spin-stabilisation in order to further conserve the fuel, as the station had descended to an altitude at which its gyroscopes could not be used for attitude control. The station would remain in this spin until the deorbit manoeuvres began. On 20 February, Mir was predicted to descend to 250 kilometres within five days of 9 March. along with the control system on 13 March. On 14 March it was announced that the procedure would be conducted on 22 March. On 19 March it was delayed one day further due to a lower than expected descent rate, with the start of the first deorbit burn being set for 00:31 GMT. Deorbit Progress M1-5 carried of fuel with which to perform the manoeuvres to deorbit Mir. These were completed on 23 March, when three deorbit burns were made; the first two using just docking and attitude control thrusters, and the third using the main engine as well as the thrusters. The first burn began at 00:32:28 GMT, and lasted 21.5 minutes, leaving Mir in an orbit with a perigee of and an apogee of . It was scheduled to last 20 minutes, however flight controllers decided to let the Progress burn to depletion to ensure that the station re-entered as expected. Mir re-entered the atmosphere over the southern Pacific with Progress M1-5 still docked at 05:44 GMT. It began to disintegrate at 05:52, beginning with the detachment of solar panels, followed by other peripheral structures. The modules then buckled, before detaching completely. Debris was intended to fall at around . An official statement announced that Mir "ceased to exist" at 05:59:24 GMT. The European Space Agency, German Federal Ministry of Defence and US National Aeronautics and Space Administration also assisted with tracking Mir during its final orbit and reentry. Former cosmonaut Vladimir Solovyov, who had been a member of the first crew to visit Mir, led the mission control team which was on station during the deorbit. == Contingency planning ==

Like all Progress spacecraft, M1-5 carried two docking systems, Kurs and TORU. The automated Kurs system was the primary docking system, with TORU, which required manual input, as the backup. Because Mir was uncrewed at the time of its docking, and a cosmonaut aboard the station would have been required to perform a TORU docking, or to troubleshoot any other problems during the docking, the Soyuz-TM spacecraft Kristall was made ready for a flight to Mir should the flight control system aboard the station have failed and human intervention be required. Cosmonauts Salizhan Sharipov and Pavel Vinogradov were originally scheduled to have been on standby for this mission, with Talgat Musabayev and Yuri Baturin, the crew who eventually flew Kristall to the International Space Station during the Soyuz TM-32 mission, as the backup crew. However, in December 2000, they were replaced by Gennady Padalka and Nikolai Budarin, a crew which became known as Expedition Zero. These cosmonauts were chosen because of their training for a similar emergency mission to the International Space Station the previous year, which would have been launched if the Zvezda module had failed to dock. If a crewed flight had been launched, controllers would have waited until after it had landed to begin the deorbit of Mir. The risk of debris from the station reaching land was estimated to be 3%. Countries located near the target zone monitored events surrounding the deorbit to determine whether precautions should be taken. as the station was scheduled to pass over several Japanese islands on its final orbit. Residents of Okinawa were warned to stay indoors as the station passed overhead. Members of the South Pacific Forum requested assurance from Russia that they would not be hit by falling debris. Chan Sek Keong, the attorney general of Singapore, called for greater regulation of space debris. == Reaction ==

The reaction to Russia's announcement and subsequent execution of its plan to deorbit Mir was mixed. Several cosmonauts expressed regrets at the loss of the station, but support for the decision to end the programme; Vladimir Titov described the station as "a good ship", but said that he agreed with the decision to prioritise the International Space Station, while Vladimir Dezhurov said that he felt "sad about Mir but we have to look into the future." On 8 February 2001, a protest against the deorbiting of the station was held in Moscow, and a petition was subsequently sent to Russian president Vladimir Putin. Gennady Zyuganov, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, described deorbiting the station to be "incorrect and harmful", and the act of a "helpless, weak-willed, inefficient and not very responsible" government. Iran attempted to buy the space station, with president Mohammad Khatami offering to fund it for two to three years in return for Russian assistance with cosmonaut training, however by this stage it was too late for such a transaction to be completed. The major Russian ORT TV station organised a national televised debate as to what should be done with the station. Former cosmonaut Georgi Grechko suggested that it should be kept in orbit long enough to salvage any useful equipment from it, for transfer to the International Space Station or other spacecraft, however Konstantin Feoktistov argued that it would cost more to retrieve the equipment than to replace it. Anatoly Artsebarsky argued that Mir should be kept because he believed that once it had been deorbited, the US would try to marginalise Russian involvement in the ISS. An online opinion poll showed 67% support worldwide for keeping it in orbit. Rosaviakosmos and RKK Energia responded to criticism of the decision in an open letter in mid February, which explained that the "actual condition of the onboard systems...[does] not make possible the safe and reliable operation of Mir", and that attempts to prolong its life "may lead to the loss of control of Mir..and, as a result, to catastrophic consequences not only for Russia but for the whole world." The US Government welcomed the decision to deorbit Mir, as it freed up Russian resources for the International Space Station programme. In anticipation of the reentry of Mir, the owners of Taco Bell towed a target, measuring 12 by 12 metres (40 ft × 40 ft) out into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Australia. If the target was hit by a falling piece of Mir, every person in the continental United States would be entitled to a free Taco Bell taco. The company bought a sizeable insurance policy for this "gamble." No piece of the station struck the target. A group of enthusiasts from the United States, led by Bob Citron, chartered an aircraft to fly over the Pacific and view the reentry. == See also ==