In the image below, click on the component of the Space Station Mir that you wish to learn more about.

 Mir represents a unique capability -- an operational space station that can be permanently staffed by two or three cosmonauts. Visiting crews have raised Mir's population to six for up to a month.

On Thursday, November 6, another spacewalk was successfully completed by cosmonauts Anatoly Solovyev and Pavel Vinogradov, successfully deploying a new solar array aboard the module. Indications are that they have also remedied the problem with the slow leak in the EVA hatch.

All systems aboard Mir are functioning normally.

See the Mir 24/NASA 5 Daily or Weekly Systems Status Reports for further details when available.

Soyuz TM-26 was launched at 11:35 a.m. EDT August 5, 1997, from Baikonur, carrying Commander Anatoly Solovyev and Flight Engineer Pavel Vinogradov to Mir to replace Vasily Tsibliev and Alexander Lazutkin.

Progress M-35, carrying supplies necessary to perform partial repairs on the damaged Spektr Module, was successfully launched at 12:12 a.m Saturday, July 5 and docked with Mir at 1:58 a.m. EDT on Monday, July 7. The hatch of the Progress vessel was opened on the morning of July 8 and unloading has now been completed by the crew.

On Wednesday, June 25, at 5:18 a.m. EDT, Progress M-34 collided with the Mir Space Station Spektr Module during a test of the TORU, a newly installed Progress guidance system. The Spektr module, which houses many U.S. experiments and all of American astronaut Michael Foale's personal effects, sprung a leak and had to be sealed off completely with its power shut down.

When the Spektr was punctured, air pressure in the Mir complex dropped from its normal 750 mm Hg down to 675 mm Hg.

Spektr is the primary electricity generating module for the entire Mir complex. It is estimated by American sources that the loss of power to the overall Mir complex currently is in the neighborhood of 50%. The internal spacewalk to attempt repairs to Spektr is being planned for around 9:00 p.m. EDT July 11; if the crew is not yet ready by then, it will be put off until the evening of July 14.

Progress M-34 has now been de-orbited and has burned up in the atmosphere. The Progress M-34 resupply vessel, which was launched on April 6, 1997 and had delivered (along with other cargo) the parts used to repair the malfunctioning Elektron oxygen generator, was at the time of the collision loaded with garbage and was only being used to test the new docking equipment before being jettisoned on Saturday to burn up in the atmosphere.

To view with your naked eyes the damaged Mir Space Station as it passes overhead in your town, please see our Mir Viewing Tables.

Photographs of damage to the solar panels and hull of the Spektr module (click on image for large JPEG image):  

When the Mir's two Elektron oxygen-producing systems are unavailable, the crew burns "Oxygen Candles" to produce the oxygen they need. Following is a brief explanation of how these candles work. This technology is well understood, highly reliable and at least as old as WW1 submarines, where it was already used.

The "candles" are stainless-steel cassettes holding "briquets" (as the Russians call it) of the chemical Lithium Perchlorate, LiClO₄, or sometimes Magnesium Biperchlorate, Mg(ClO₄)₂.

Twenty cassettes are inside a generator container which has an 8.5-watt fan (ventilator), a dust collector, and a filter. When heated with a small amount of solid fuel, the chemical decomposes into Lithium (or Magnesium) Chlorate plus Oxygen. The oxygen admixes to the air being blown through the generator by the fan. Each cassette generates 600 liters of oxygen (i.e., about what one person needs for a day), and it takes a cassette about five to twenty minutes to decompose. 

• Mir Visibility Information
• Recent Mir Status Reports
• All Joint International Space Station Phase I Missions
• Mir Hardware Heritage, VERY comprehensive 220-page .pdf document
• Plan for Mir IVA and other Mir information from Energia, Ltd.
• Two Line (TLE) and Translated Orbital Data
• Completed and Scheduled Shuttle/Mir Missions
• U.S. and Russian Mir Missions 1995-1997
• Soyuz Missions to Mir
• Phase I - International Space Station
• International Space Station Program Office
• Shuttle Mir Web (JSC)
• Russian Space Agency
• Russian Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics (KIAM) Ballistic Center Mir Pages
• Russian Aerospace Guide
• Mir Cooperative Solar Array Project (LeRC)
• Mir21/NASA2 (STS-76) Research Program Brochure
• Maximov Mir Space Station Page
• Pictures of Mir and STS-71 from Soyuz
• Recent EuroMir Information
• Commonly Used Frequencies for Mir Radio Traffic
• Mir Mission Statistics
• Mir Data Summary
• Mir Page from Shuttle Web's STS-71 Archive
• MSFC's Mir Information Page
• Modular Optoelectronic Multispectral Scanner (MOMS-2P) experiment aboard Priroda
• Knowledge Base of International Space Activity (formerly "Former Soviet Union Human Spaceflight Knowledge Base." Some portions require account password available only to NASA personnel. Contact responsible NASA official or page curator for details.)
• "The Shuttle-Mir Programme" from the Max Planck Institute
• Mir information from STS-71 Press Kit
• Mir information from STS-74 Press Kit

Two-Line Keplerian Orbital Elements:

The Two-Line Elements" (or TLE) format generally used by PC-based satellite tracking programs contain all necessary numerical data describing the orbit (position, flightpath and motion) of a satellite such as Mir or the coming ISS, as well as its exact position along that orbit at a specific reference time (the "epoch"). This format dates back to the days when NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command, today US Space Command) still used IBM punched cards on its computers. Thus, because each card could only carry one line, today's Two-Line Elements were "Two-Card Elements" back then. TLE files are always in ASCII format, and when they are copied or moved around with "Clip and Paste" commands, non-proportional fonts (like Courier) must be used to preserve the exact positions of the digits and their spacings.

To completely describe not only the size and shape of an orbit but also its orientation around its central body (for Mir, that would be the Earth, of course), only five independent quantities called "orbital elements" are required. The object in question can be anywhere on that closed path as long as its position at a specified time is not given. Thus, a sixth element is required to pinpoint the satellite's position. From this position, the satellite tracking program then calculates "forward", in effect predicting the object's locations at any desired future time. The real world is not ideal, however, and therefore all orbits are influenced by various disturbances called "orbital perturbations"; in the case of Mir and the Space Shuttle, such "perturbations" might include applications of thrust from the crafts’ maneuvering jets as well as naturally-occurring conditions.

To fully include these perturbations in the predictions would be impractical for PC-based calculation routines. Thus, with time, their influences pile up, causing increasingly noticeable deviations of the real orbital path from the predicted one. To take care of that, predictions need to be "refreshed" periodically with up-to-date TLEs based on the most recent radar tracking measurements of the responsible organizations such as US Space Command.

The element data used by our TLE's to describe the orbit size and shape are: the Mean Motion (2nd line position 53-63) and the Eccentricity (2nd line pos. 27-33). Mean Motion is used because, according to Kepler, an object in an elliptical orbit moves at periodically varying speed, depending on its distance from the mass center at its focal point. From the Mean Motion (in degrees per second) we can calculate the orbital period and, with the Earth's gravitational constant, the semi-major axis of the elliptic orbit (which could, in rare cases, reduce to a perfect circular orbit). With the Eccentricity, the apogee (farthest point) and perigee (closest point) of the ellipse can be determined and, with the known Earth's radius, their altitudes above Earth and also the mean altitude. (When not referring specifically to Earth, we are using "apoapsis" and "periapsis", or "apofocus" and "perifocus" for these characteristic points of an elliptic orbit).

For determining the orientation of the orbit about the Earth, the TLE also contains the Inclination (2nd line pos. 09-16) of the orbit plane in degrees measured from the Earth's equatorial plane, the Right Ascension of the Ascending Node (RAAN, 2nd line pos.18-25), and the Argument of Perigee (2nd line pos. 35-42). The ascending node is the point where Mir crosses the Earth's equatorial plane in the northerly direction. (The opposite point is the descending node, and the line connecting both points is called the Line of Nodes). RAAN, measured in degrees, is the angular distance of the ascending node from the line pointing to the Vernal Equinox on the ecliptic (the point where the Sun crosses the celestial equator in spring around March 21). Argument of Perigee defines the orientation of the elliptical orbit's semi-major axis: measured in Mir's orbit plane in the direction of motion, it is the angle between its ascending node and its perigee.

The sixth element is the Mean Anomaly (2nd line pos. 44-51), which is used for calculating the satellite's exact position at a particular time ("epoch") from perigee.

The first line of the TLE file, under the name, contains the US Space Command-assigned Catalog Number of the object (often called the "NORAD Number"), the Epoch Year and Epoch Date (pos. 19-32) and other identifiers of interest. In line 2, pos. 64-86 are reserved for the number of revolutions accumulated at epoch.

Following are the Two-Line (TLE) Orbital Data Elements as of December 10, 1997, 11:48 p.m. EST:

MIR
1 16609U 86017A   97345.15846204  .00006475  00000-0  80803-4 0  8413
2 16609  51.6554 275.9803 0008189  76.2693 283.9160 15.61266947674657

Name......................................MIR
NORAD ID#.................................16609
Epoch Year................................97
Epoch Day.................................345.1585  12/10/97  11:48pm EST
Mean Altitude (km)........................383.95
Period (min)..............................92.23
Apogee (km)...............................389.49
Perigee (km)..............................378.42
Inclination (degrees).....................51.65
Right Ascension of Ascending
  Node (RAAN, degrees)....................275.9803
Eccentricity..............................0.0008189
Argument of Perigee (degrees).............76.2693
Mean Anomaly (degrees)....................283.916
Mean Motion (revs. per day)...............15.61267
Decay Rate................................0.0000647
Epoch Revolution..........................67465
Element Set#..............................841
Visible up to Latitude (degrees)..........71.06
                                                    12/11/97 1:59 PM EST

Commonly Used Frequencies for Mir Radio Traffic (MHz = mc):

Amateur radio:

145.200 MHz uplink/145.800 MHz downlink

70 cm frequencies for use with SAFEX II on Priroda:

 Mode 2 Packet: 435.775 MHz uplink/437.975 MHz downlink Mode 3 QSO: 435.725 MHz uplink/437.925 MHz downlink
Mode 1 Repeater/FM: 435.750 MHz uplink/437.950 MHz downlink

NOTE: According to our information, Mode 2 Packet and Mode 3 QSO apparently require a tone at 141.3 Hz to open repeater squelch, while Mode 1 needs no tone.

Used during Atlantis visit:

143.625 MHz (VHF-1, Mir to TsUP Moscow)

130.165 MHz (VHF-2, Mir to Shuttle)
121.750 MHz (JSC/MCC to Mir)

Completed and Scheduled Shuttle/Mir Missions
1995-1998

U.S. Mir Missions:

U.S. and Russian Missions, 1995-1997:

Soyuz Crews to Mir

Back to International Space Station Page

Back to OSF Home Page

Responsible NASA Official:

Jesco von Puttkamer

[email protected]

Curator:

Woody Smith

[email protected]
Last updated: December 11, 1997