Mar 23 2001
From The Space Library
After months of debate over whether Russia should bring Mir out of orbit and what damage the space station might cause when it fell to Earth, the 15-year-old Mir space station plunged into Earth’s atmosphere, spraying some of its remnants into the Pacific Ocean. The splashdown marked the end of a 2.2 billion-mile journey for Mir. Witnesses in Fiji reported seeing streaks of gold and silver lights across the sky when Mir fell, but nobody reported any damage from pieces of the falling space station. U.S. officials at the Pentagon tracked the descent, while Japan’s public safety chief urged people to stay indoors to avoid falling debris. Anatoly Y. Solovyev, a Russian cosmonaut who had spent 651 days aboard Mir, remarked that he was sad to see the end of the pathbreaking space station: “An entire era of our Soviet space program is ending, into which we invested not only our money, but what is more important, our intellectual potential.” Once Mir had descended safely, officials of the Russian Space Agency praised the precise sequence of maneuvers that had brought the space station safely from orbit. (Patrick E. Tyler, “Mir Space Station Sizzles To Ending Over Pacific,” New York Times, 23 March 2001; Vladimir Isachenkov for Associated Press, “Russian Space Officials Exultant After Flawlessly Bringing Down Mir,” 23 March 2001; Peter Baker, “Mir’s Fall to Earth Marks a Fiery End to Bumpy Mission,” Washington Post, 23 March 2001; Associated Press, “Japan’s Public Safety Chief Urges People To Stay Inside To Avoid Mir Debris,” 16 March 2001; World Reporter, “Pentagon To Track Mir Station’s Descent from Orbit,” 10 March 2001.)
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