Russian official: Mir likely to be brought down in February

Mir

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- A senior Russian official said on Monday the country's aging orbital station Mir would most likely be ditched in the Pacific Ocean in February, Interfax news agency reported.

Russia is focusing its limited resources on participation in the International Space Station (ISS) to which it has provided two modules.

The first long-term expedition to the ISS will start from the Russian-run Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday.

"We are planning to bring Mir down and sink it in the ocean in late February," Interfax quoted Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov as saying.

Russia's efforts to find extra funds to preserve Mir, in orbit since 1986, have clearly failed. Last month the council of chief designers urged the government to make a formal decision on dumping the station and Klebanov said this was expected soon.

Russia launched the ISS living quarters, basically an updated Mir, in July. But its launch was two years late, a delay which the Americans blamed on Russian reluctance to scrap Mir.

Klebanov was quoted as saying Russia would send space cargo craft Progress to Mir, with fuel needed to safely down the station in a designated location in the Pacific Ocean.

Mir's demise could blast a big hole in MirCorp, a joint venture led by Western investors which has bought the rights to sell tickets to the public to fly to the space station.

Earlier this month MirCorp said it had raised some $40 million to keep Mir aloft into next year, as interest grew in sending civilians into orbit.

James Cameron, director of the film "Titanic," has said he wants a ticket to fulfill a lifelong dream, and America's NBC television station has announced plans to blast a winning game show contestant into orbit in the coming months.

After being in space almost three times longer than its Soviet-designers envisaged, Mir has suffered a number of glitches in recent years, including a fire and a collision with a supply ship.

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