The Mir Space Station is a Russian space station that was the only operating space station since 1998. It has hosted several cosmonauts and international space travelers. The name derives from the Russian word for "peace" or "community living in harmony."
On March 23, 1996, 53 year old American astronaut Shannon Lucid was sent to Mir in a space shuttle known as the Atlantis. She remained on the space station for six months, which was the longest time ever for a US astronaut to spend in space.
Design and configuration
Mir was 13 meters long, 4.3 meters wide, and has 30-meter long energy-producing solar panels. The station consist of four areas: living quarters, work area, docking compartments, and propulsion chamber. The people spend most of their time in the living and working areas of the Mir space station.
Living quarters: The living space is two small sleep cabins and a common area with dining facilities and exercise equipment to prevent malnutrition, lack of muscle support, and bone structure weakening. The space also has a toilet, sink, and a water-recycling center. It can have six people in it for short stays but only three to comfortably live out longer periods. In hope that crew members would come for long stays the Mir was designed to establish the crews privacy and comfort.
Work area: The work center is like the nervous system for the space station. It has the primary navigational, communication, and power controls. Attached to the sides of the work area are two solar panels that provide the space station's power.
Docking compartments: One of its more useful features is its six docking ports. It can take in piloted and unpiloted spacecraft plus there leaves plenty of room for experiments with interchangeable modules. The way these docking ports work is that it lies on one end of the station and has in it television equipment and the electrical power supply, as well as five of the vessel's six ports. These ports are where piloted spacecrafts land and the modules and crews are exchanged.
Scientific modules: A few scientific modules have been attached to Mir. The first was in 1987, which had an observatory with ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma ray telescopes. The second module came in 1989; it had two solar panels and an air lock for repairs on the outside of the station in space. In 1990 a third module was installed and it had a lot of different scientific equipment and a docking port for extremely heavy spacecrafts. In 1995 two more modules arrived with more equipment, solar arrays, and ports.
Propulsion compartment: At one end of the Mir station is the propulsion compartment. There is no oxygen to breathe in this area so space suits are needed to go into these areas. This area has in it the station's rocket motors, fuel supply, heating systems, and sixth docking bay, which brings in the unpiloted spacecrafts. Outside this area and the docking compartment are antennae used to communicate with Earth.
Problems
In the first half of 1997 Mir and her cosmonauts have survived disasters including a fire, a cooling system that leaked antifreeze, a faulty oxygen processing system, a collision with a space cargo ship, and a computer crash caused by a exhausted cosmonaut pulling out the wrong cable. The Mir space station has lasted six years past its five-year life span so safety is a big issue.
