Sometime this week, space station Mir -- the brightest star in the once mighty Soviet and Russian space program -- will flicker out. After circling the planet for 15 years, at least three times its planned life span, the massive, aging station is scheduled to finally "deorbit" on Tuesday, "give or take a day."
If all goes according to plan, what is left of it will splash down into an empty bit of the Pacific Ocean, somewhere east of New Zealand. If plans go awry, sizable remains could land anywhere along an arc of inhabited Earth from Australia to Japan, though experts say the chances of that happening are remote. For one thing, Russia has had more experience bringing things down from space than any other country, mainly because it has had more experience than just about anyone else putting things up there.
But there has only ever been one Mir. The station was launched in February 1986 and has long since earned its place among the most successful space ventures ever undertaken. Endurance records for living in space were set on Mir. Numerous experiments were carried out in its labs and modules, with useful implications in fields ranging from medicine and meteorology to astrophysics and industrial manufacturing.