Doomed Mir space station drops to critical altitude

The station would now be brought into the right orbit for a controlled burning-up in the earth's atmosphere early this Friday, the acting chief flight controller told the news agency Interfax. She added that Mir's flight path was precisely following calculations and all systems aboard the 15-year-old space station were operating normally. According to earlier Russian disclosures, Mir must be brought into an elliptical orbit from its current near-circular orbit at 220 kilometres. The elliptical orbit would vary in height between 165 and 220 kilometres above the earth's surface.

Starting at 0033 GMT on Friday March 23, three powerful braking impulses would be given from the thrusters of a cargo ship attached to the station, slowing the 137-ton complex enough to drop it from orbit to be incinerated in the earth's atmosphere. At 0630 GMT about 25 tons of charred debris will fall into the Pacific Ocean east of New Zealand in a stretch of water that has become a cemetery for parts of spacecraft previously dropped from orbit.

(dpa)