By BBC News Online’s science editor Dr David Whitehouse
The final command in the Mir drama will be issued on Friday.
The platform’s final moments will be as a swarm of incandescent fragments hurtling into the water at near-sonic speeds
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Thrusters on the Progress spacecraft that is docked with the platform will be fired three times to adjust the station’s orbit. The final burn will take the platform into a fatal encounter with the Earth’s atmosphere.
The de-orbiting of Mir would be a routine procedure if it were not for platform’s size. At 135 tonnes, Mir is far larger than any other manmade object brought to Earth before.
Since 1978, mission controllers have used the same technique to bring home about 80 Progress spacecraft and several space stations, the largest being the 40-tonne Salyut 7 in 1991.
