M A I N   N E W S

Mir plunges into Pacific

Korolyov, Russia, March 23
Russia ended the final chapter in a 15-year space adventure today when mission controllers sent the Soviet-built Mir orbiter crashing safely down to earth in a ball of fire.

Up to 30 tonnes of burning debris streaked across the sky above the South Pacific island of Fiji before splashing into an uninhabited stretch of the ocean half-way between New Zealand and Chile.

Eyewitnesses reported seeing a yellowish hail of dots falling out of the sky. “It was an incredible show,” said Hugh Williams, CNN correspondent in Nadi, Fiji.

“We have completed a glorious endeavour and we have done so with dignity,” Russian Space Agency chief Yury Koptev said.

In Auckland, New Zealand Maritime Safety Authority Deputy Director Tony Martin said a fleet of tuna boats operating in the destruction target zone had survived undamaged.

Mission controllers dealt the fatal blow to Mir when a progress supply ship, docked with the 137-tonne orbiter since January, fired the last of three powerful engine boosters, sending the doomed orbiter hurtling earthwards.

The vast structure, a mass of heavy metal modules and solar panels, broke up into an estimated 1,500 chunks when it re-entered the red-hot layers of the earth’s atmosphere.

At 0559 GMT (1129 am IST), Russian space chiefs declared solemnly that Mir, once the pride of the Soviet space programme, had ceased to exist.

A sombre mood hung over mission control, near Moscow, as space controllers were given the green light to destroy the much-loved station, flying high above the Indian Ocean. AFP, Reuters