Tentative Retirement Plans for Mir

The following post from the FPSpace listserver outlines the tentative plans to de-orbit Mir in early 2000. It starts with a series of four Progress *launches beginning in February '99, May '99, Sept '99 and an uprated Progress M-1 that carries twice as much fuel, in Nov '99.
Source: Novosti Kosmonavtiki No. 4/5, March 1998

From: "Bart Hendrickx" 
To: Multiple recipients of list 
Subject: latest Mir schedule
April 13, 1998

Hi everyone,

I have just returned from a very interesting one-week workshop in Moscow
organised by the Youth Space Center of Bauman University. Besides visits to
various facilities (TsUP, TsPK, RKK Energia, NPO Lavochkin, NPO
Energomash, Zvezda, Orevo, NII Khimmash) the workshop included lectures by
numerous officials and cosmonauts (Aleksandrov, Polyakov, Serebrov,
Strekalov, Kaleri, Lazutkin).

Along the way I picked up the first three 1998 issues of "Novosti
Kosmonavtiki", which has now been turned into a colourful A4 format
magazine (not to the detriment of its contents, I'm glad to say).
Congratulations to the Videocosmos guys. The third issue has details on a
Mir schedule approved by RKK Energia in December 1997. The plan is to
gradually lower Mir's orbit with the help of four Progress vehicles in 1999
and then finally deorbit it in early 2000 after the departure of the final
crew.

These plans are of course preliminary and the number of Progress vehicles
required to support both Mir and ISS raises serious doubts. Nevertheless, I
thought it would be interesting to reproduce the schedule here, beginning
with the EO-26 mission :

EO-26 (August 1998 - February 1999)
prime crew :
Padalka, Avdeyev, Baturin
back-up crew :
Zalyotin, Kaleri, Shargin

(2 Aug) : launch of Soyuz TM-28 (serial N+ 77)
(10 Aug) : EO-25 crew returns to Earth with Baturin
(11 Aug) : Soyuz TM-28 redocks to the Mir front port
(15 Aug) : launch of Progress M-40 (serial N+ 239). Will carry "Flagman"
experiment (not identified), first batch of experiments for Russian-French
mission
(early Oct) : two EVAs to install "Flagman"
(early Nov) : Progress M-40 undocks and deploys the "Znamya-2,5" solar
reflector. This is a continuation of the "Znamya-2" experiment carried out
during the EO-16 mission in early 1993.
(10 Nov) : launch of Progress M-41 (serial N+ 241)
(mid Dec) : two EVAs to deploy "Modul-M" apparatus (unidentified) delivered
by Progress M-40


EO-27 (February 1999 - August 1999)
prime crew :
Afanasyev, Treshchov, Slovak cosmonaut
back-up crew :
not given in the article, but I was told by one source that STS-89 veteran
Salizhan Sharipov will back up BOTH the commander and flight engineer for
the two final missions. If Mir is deorbited as planned in early 2000 the
EO-27 and EO-28 back-up slots are dead-end assignments.

(2 Feb) : launch of Soyuz TM (serial N+ 78) (digits of remaining
Soyuz/Progress vehicles depends on ISS)
(10 Feb) : EO-26 crew returns to Earth with Slovak cosmonaut
(11 Feb) : redocking of Soyuz TM to Mir's front port
*(27 Feb) : launch of Progress-M (serial N+ 242). This vehicle should begin
the gradual process of lowering Mir's orbit. Primary payload is referred to
as Kompas-1. No objectives given in the RKK Energia schedule, but it may be
related to the Kompas scientific satellite to be launched by a Shtil-2
converted SLBM from a Kalmar submarine in the third quarter of 1998)
(late Mar) : two EVAs to install Rapira-E equipment (not identified) and
service Flagman equipment
(mid Apr) : EVA to install equipment for the Kompas-1 and Arfa-I experiments
*(6 May) : launch of Progress-M (serial N+ 243). Primary payload is Tros-1,
which is believed to be a tether experiment
(late Jun) : three EVAs with following objectives : installation of French
scientific equipment, Panorama-99 to study condition of station's outer
surface (similar to EVAs performed in 1994 and 1996), installation of
scientific instrument Ekran (not identified).


EO-28 (August 1999 - December 1999)
prime crew : Zalyotin, Kaleri, French cosmonaut
back-up crew : Sharipov (?), French cosmonaut

(12 Aug) : launch of Soyuz TM (serial N+ 79)
(20 Aug) : EO-27 crew returns to Earth
(21 Aug) : redocking of Soyuz TM to Mir's front port
*(10 Sep) : launch of Progress M (serial N+ 244). Will carry Vulkan equipment
(not identified)
*(1 Nov) : launch of Progress M1 (serial N+ 256)
(late Nov) : EVA to recover Flagman and Ekran experiments (EVA crew members
have not been decided yet)
(10 Dec) : EO-28 crew returns to Earth after mothballing Mir
following further natural decay the Progress M1 vehicle will deorbit Mir in
early 2000

Progress M1 (sometimes referred to as Progress-Rus) is an uprated Progress
vehicle designed for ISS. At one of the YSC '98 lectures RKK Energia Deputy
General Designer Pavel Vorobyov said it will have 8 fuel tanks in its
propellant compartment (compared to 4 on the current Progress M), allowing
it to carry about 2 tons of propellant (compared to about 1 tons on the
current Progress M). If fully fuelled, it will be launched by Soyuz-2 (one of the
uprated Soyuz rockets being developed under the Rus programme), if not, it
remains within the payload capacity of the standard Soyuz rocket. According
to the NK article no more standard Progress-M vehicles are on order beyond
vehicle N+ 244, meaning the Mir programme will have to borrow one of the M1
vehicles (if the current plan holds).  The M1 launch to Mir (using vehicle
N+ 256) is supposed to be preceded by no fewer than six M1 launches
(vehicles N+ 250-255) to ISS, meaning the Russians would have to launch
about a dozen Progress missions between now and late 1999 to support both
the Mir and ISS programmes, a launch rate they did not achieve even during
the glory days of the Salyut and Mir programmes.

Despite these official plans some officials are apparently secretly hoping
that Mir will remain operational longer than 1999. During last Saturday's
EVA flight director Vladimir Solovyov told us he thought Mir could stay up
for another three years. At one of the lectures cosmonaut Aleksandr Kaleri
(supposed to be the last flight engineer on Mir) said that from a purely
sentimental standpoint of view he would not like to go down in history as
one of the cosmonauts who "killed Mir".

According to the NK article an attempt to repressurize Spektr may still be
made towards the end of Mir's mission. Vladimir Solovyov said Saturday
that efforts to pinpoint the leak will continue during the STS-91 mission
by blowing a special type of gas through Spektr. The gas will be delivered
by Discovery.

Bart Hendrickx

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