A photo of Mir taken from a shuttle (STS-81) window.
Click on image for full size
Courtesy of NASA

Mir's Long Journey Comes to an End
News story originally written on June 1, 1999

The Mir Space Station will stop working! The Russians can't pay anymore money to keep it working, so the station will be shut down. If other people want to pay for it, the ship can stay in space.

The last crew will leave Mir in August. Scientists think the space station will burn up when it falls through the Earth's atmosphere. Whew! I was getting worried that a space station would fall on my roof!

Scientists from Earth will control Mir with computers until it burns up in March. Russia will now work on the International Space Station.

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