2dayNspace: Ten years ago today the Mir Space Station was deorbited and burned up in the atmosphere. The stansi precrasnaya (beautiful station) was designed to last 5 years. When I was on rotation in the TsUP during the 10 year anniversary, we had quite a massive celebration (vodka flowing of course). The pride and accomplishment was evident in the eyes of the Energia engineers in the control center. To ditch it after fifteen, was painful to say the least. But resources needed to be freed up for the new international space station - ISS.
The official statement from the TsUP echoed the sentiment... "Mir ceased to exist" at 05:59:24am GMT (12:59:24am CDT). That's it - not even able to glorify her achievements. The news release from Pravda includes an interesting statement at the end: "the work of the specialists in ballistics received an excellent mark, although there was no applause at the Mission Control Centre (TsUP)."
The very sad video.
