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The “death warrant” for the Mir space station has finally been signed, a
Russian space agency spokesman announced last week. Russia’s Prime Minister,
Mikhail Kasyanov, signed a resolution on 30 December 2000 that formalised a
decision made by the government in November to decommission Mir due to a lack of
funding. Mir is expected to crash to Earth at the end of next month—just
over 15 years after the launch of its core module. The station will disintegrate
as it re-enters the atmosphere, and fragments of wreckage should either burn up
or splash down in the Pacific Ocean.