As you know, the Mir station is currently in its twelfth year on orbit, and of course all of its systems are operating beyond their intended service life. Our philosophy on service life is that we assess the impact of failure of any instruments or assemblies, and if such failure poses no threat to crew safety, then we allow them to operate not only for the length of their service […]

Apr 22 1997 Valery Ryumin RSC Energiya 4 Lenin Street Kaliningrad Moscow Region, 141070 RUSSIA Greetings, Valeri! The information you have sent us recently on the Mir systems status, plans for repair, and the consumables status has been very helpful in preparing for the upcoming Flight Readiness Reviews. I would like, However, for us to be able to present a joint picture of the Russian criteria for mission continuation and […]