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| About MIR
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The Mir Space Station floats above us (390 Km, at an inclination of 51.6 degrees) having completed to date over 75,900 trips around the Earth. In its thirteen years in orbit, cosmonauts and astronauts from dozens of nations have lived on the station and performed experiments of historical significance.
Mir is the culmination of the Russian space program's efforts to maintain long-duration human presence in space. The permanently-manned space station regularly hosts 2 to 3 cosmonauts (on occasion up to 6, for shorter periods of up to a month). At present, Mir is a complex of different modules that have been through many mutations; modules get added and moved around, like a giant tinker toy in the sky.
Living in space, scientists perform scientific and technical experiments, and are able to record real-data on life in space. Mir provides the facilities for wide-reaching research ranging from space life sciences, microgravity, and space technology experiments, to earth observation and sciences, and space sciences.
The MIR was abandoned in the summer of 1999 due to major problems with life support, and under funding in the Soviet Union's Space Program.
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