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February 20, 1996
Web posted at: 12:40 p.m. EST
MOSCOW (CNN) -- Ten years in orbit (1.3MB QuickTime movie) -- an anniversary few people expected. The question now is: How much longer can Mir last?
The world's only functioning space station was launched by the then-Soviet Union on this day in 1986. Mir has been circling the Earth ever since, but it may be a struggle for post-Soviet Russia to keep the manned spacecraft aloft into the next century.
The current crew of two Russians and a German were thought to be holding their own quiet celebration in orbit somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.
"I suppose they will drink something," said Valery Udaloi, who is deputy chief of flights at the mission control center. "Every cosmonaut has a private bag of personal things, and I presume they will open the bags and drink what they stashed away."
A Soviet rocket carrying the first module for the Mir blasted off from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in central Asia. (459K QuickTime movie) Officially, Mir's 10th anniversary was reached at 12:29 a.m. Tuesday local time (4:29 p.m. EST Monday).
Still immersed in the Cold War 10 years ago, Soviet officials gave no size or weight for the mysterious station, saying only that it contained six docking ports to accommodate visiting spacecraft or laboratory modules. Experts said it was only supposed to last until the early 1990s.
Now, an expanded Mir is the centerpiece of a space program badly in need of cash. Other countries have paid hundreds of millions of dollars to send their astronauts for months-long stays on the Mir.
With funding from NASA, which needs Russia's help in constructing an international space station, Moscow hopes to keep Mir in orbit for another few years.
Cost in space
But the cramped and aging space station, which weighs more than 130 tons, has already endured power supply problems, and needs frequent maintenance from its inhabitants.
"Not even the Russians know how much further the system can be stressed before something catastrophic happens," said James Oberg, an American space engineer and author of a book about the Russian program.
Without someone on board, it is assumed the Mir would soon meet the fate of its predecessor, Salyut-7, which failed and went out of control after becoming unmanned in 1986 -- the year the Mir was launched.
Russian space officials acknowledge the problem, too. Yuri Koptev, the chief of the Russian Space Agency, recently told the Interfax news agency that without immediate and costly repairs to the decrepit launch pad for booster rockets at the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, deadly accidents are possible and the commercial satellite program is in jeopardy.
Russia's space program now receives less than one-fifth the financing it got in Soviet times.
"The situation is indeed dangerous," said Maxim Tarasenko, an independent researcher in Moscow and expert on the Russian space program.
"Without the influx of foreign money, the program would have already collapsed," he said. Even so, it's still "just eating up its reserves. You can't last doing that for too long. At some point you have to refuel."
The latest evidence of trouble emerged last month when it was disclosed that Russia had tried to back out of a contract to build the living quarters on the international space station. It told NASA it wanted to substitute the aging Mir instead and also asked for $200 million, U.S. officials said.
The United States, already paying Moscow $335 million just to use the Mir, agreed to a costly compromise to keep Russia satisfied and on track to meet its previous commitments. NASA pledged funding for two more shuttle-Mir missions and unspecified payments to help keep the Mir flying until 2000.
Meantime, the current three-member Mir crew, which was supposed to return to Earth in January, is temporarily stranded in space. Russia ran short of funds to build a rocket to launch the replacement crew.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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