Space History: Last Mir Crew

On August 28, 1999, the final crew of the Russian space station Mir loaded up their Soyuz TM-29 and headed home.

Russian cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Sergei Avdeyev and French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haignere, shut the hatch and closed a door on history.

The Mir space station had been continuously occupied for almost 10 years. But now, it was doomed.

Ground controllers shut off the station's gyros and main computer on September 7 1999.

An uncrewed Progress M-42 supply vehicle was still attached to Mir, and controllers used its engines to control Mir's slow orbital descent.

Mir broke up in Earth's atmosphere over the South Pacific on March 23, 2001.

The New York Times reported that:

"The Mir's demise will mark the end of by far the world's longest-serving space station, which has hurtled around the earth more than 77,000 times, carried 135 people and survived more than 1,600 breakdowns, including a near-fatal collision with a supply ship in 1997."

More info here:

[1] https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/mir/mir.htm

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/28/world/last-full-crew-leaves-mir-to-be-abandoned-after-13-years.html

Russia's Mir space station.

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