Latest on Mir 3/08/01


Message posted by Koji on March 09, 2001 at 23:09:35 EST:

Latest on Mir 3/8/2001

According to on-going reports found on the Incredible
Adventures website,
Russian space officials have set March 20 as the date
for dumping the Mir space station, saying they want to
wait until the craft drifts closer to Earth before
giving it the final shove toward a fiery plunge into
the Pacific Ocean.
However, they warned that the latest date for Mir's
long-delayed demise may still vary depending on solar
activity, which expands the atmosphere and creates
friction with the 15-year-old station.

Space officials had previously said they would start a
series of steps to prepare for Mir's controlled
descent after its orbit drops to 250 kilometers
(155 miles) by the end of this week. But Deputy
Mission Control chief Viktor Blagov said yesterday
that space engineers had decided to let the orbiter
descend to 220 kilometers (132 miles) before
discarding it.

According to Russian space officials, the average
altitude of the Russian space station Mir has
descended by another 1.8 km to 253.3 km in the past 24
hours.



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