With a final engine blast, the Mir space station hurtled Friday toward a fiery plunge into the South Pacific, the last leg of a 15-year, 2.1 billion-mile space odyssey
Engines of the cargo ship Progress, attached to Mir, fired twice to slow the spacecraft and put it into an elliptical orbit. Then, shortly after midnight Eastern time, the engines blasted one last time to hurl the station into the waters between Australia and Chile.
The aim was to bring Mir back to Earth where it could do no harm, and authorities said everything was going according to plan. The chief of Mission Control, Vladimir Solovyov, put the chances
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.