mir space station:
The first component of Mir, the 20-tonne core component, was launched in February 1986. Coming just weeks after the US Challenger space shuttle accident, the core module was given much fanfare from the USSR. They said it was the first part of a space city that would grow to house dozens of cosmonauts.
The core module was also fitted two tiny crew cabins, each featuring a window. In design it was similar to the previous Salyut 7 space station but with one important exception. Unlike Salyut 7, Mir was designed to have extra modules docked to its exterior. That meant it could grow.
Mir’s first crew, Leonid Kizim and Vladimir Solovyou, made space history when they left Mir to travel to the still in orbit Salyut 7 for two months. They later returned to Mir.
It was the first ever space-station-to-space-station flight. But later that year disaster almost struck when a departing crew’s Soyuz spacecraft malfunctioned, threatening to strand the cosmonauts in space. Eventually they limped home.
Mir celebrated 15 years in space in 2001 - 10 years longer than the original projected lifespan of the station. But on 23 March, the final command was sent to the pride of the Russian space programme.
The command lit the engines of the Progress supply ship, which was docked to the platform, for one last time. The engines plunged the space station into a collision with the Earth's atmosphere.
The final manoeuvres all went according to plan and were a triumph for Russian ground controllers. Since 1978, 85 craft, including several previous space stations, have been safely brought to Earth in the South Pacific and Mir was no exception.
Most of the space station burnt up on re-entry.
At 0530GMT the disintegrating remains, which had split into between nine and 12 pieces, passed over Japan.
The 25 tonnes of wreckage finally streaked across the sky and hit the intended target area in the South Pacific, 5,800 km (3,600 miles) off the eastern coast of Australia, at about 0600GMT.
