The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

Curt said a few words. He thanked the launch and ground crews at the Cape, Mission Control in Houston, the payload teams who organized the experiments, and the rest of the supporting players. We did the walk around, but kept it short. Dan and Charlie Precourt walked next to me as I made my duck steps. I noticed vaguely that Curt had put Dis-covery’s nose wheel right on the runway’s center line. Then I encountered a six-inch hose carrying air into the shuttle. I wanted to jump over it – jump for joy. I had gone back into space again; I had completed my checklist. Now I was home. Annie was waiting so I stepped over it instead. I was being forced to act my age, but only for a moment.

The crew of STS-95 were feted at a big parade in New York City, before touring Europe and Japan in January.

The results of Glenn’s tests suggested that there is no reason why older astronauts cannot continue to go into space as active mission participants and research subjects.

The Senate was in recess when he returned from space, but he continued in office until his term ended on 3 January 1999.

The end of Mir

The last crew left the station on 28 August 1999 – since 1986 Mir had been host to 27 expeditions, with almost continuous occupation.

On 23 March 2001, the Mir Space Station was de-orbited into the Pacific Ocean.

Following the plan made by the Russian Aviation and Space Agency (Rosaviacosmos) and RKK Energia (Mir’s operator), a Progress M1-5 cargo ship with increased fuel capacity was launched to Mir, taking four days to reach it – twice as long as a conventional cargo flight to the outpost. The longer trip was designed to conserve the cargo ship’s fuel for the robotic de-orbiting procedure, which required a large amount of propellant.

The Progress M1-5 used its smaller engines for approach and orientation. The ship was docked to Kvant and Mir’s gyrodynes were turned off so they would no longer control the station’s attitude.

The Progress fired three pulses designed to brake the station’s orbital velocity. The first two pulses decreased Mir’s speed by 23 feet (7 meters) per second each, while the third one decreased the speed by 46 feet (14 meters) per second.

The Progress generated the final “killing pulse” which decreased Mir’s speed by 56.8 feet (17.3 meters) per second, slow enough for it to drop out of orbit. It plunged into the Pacific Ocean later that day.