Russia's Mir space station plunged into the Pacific Ocean on Friday, spectacularly streaking over the islands of Fiji with a huge smoke trail after engineers ended the laboratory's "triumphant" 15-year mission.
Mission Control outside Moscow said a final signal at 1:07pm Taipei time switched on engines for a 20-minute burst that irrevocably altered the station's trajectory, pitching it into a designated splash-down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.
"We saw five or six fragments with a huge smoke trail that lasted for 10 to 15 seconds. [It was] followed some time later by a couple of sonic booms," said photographer Mark Baker in Nadi, Fiji.
"It was above our heads, below the clouds. It was a once in a lifetime experience."
In Canberra, Australian officials said they believed Mir ended up in an unpopulated part of the Pacific known as the "graveyard" some 3,000km southwest of Britain's Pitcairn Islands.
"It occurred in the exact area that the Russian space agency had predicted, between Australia and Chile," said Emergency Management Australia managing director David Templeman. "As far as we are aware, all the debris ended up in the graveyard area."
South Pacific nations had been on standby in case chunks hit land instead of water.
Across the globe at Mission Control, there were long faces as the reality hit home but pride in Russia's achievement at keeping Mir aloft three times longer than planned.
"Mir has completed its triumphant mission," said an announcer at Mission Control outside Moscow. "It was unprecedented in the history of space research."
The giant 136-tonne structure -- a collection of cylindrical modules sprouting a profusion of antennae and solar panels -- had been in orbit since 1986.
"Mir proved Russia cannot just build things but can operate them too," Russian Space Agency chief Yuri Koptev said. "It once again shows Russia is and will remain a space power."
Mir finally lost touch with Mission Control when the last communications window closed at 1:30pm Taipei time and screens showing data flickered into static. Mission Control showed archive footage on its main control room screen of Mir in orbit and later pictures of Mir crews and modules.
Chunks of the craft were expected to burn up on re-entry into the atmosphere but some 20-40 tonnes of metal were expected to splash into the sea around 2pm Taipei time.
Officials had said Mir, long the pride of Soviet and Russian space programs, would disappear from screens during the last 40 minutes. But they later cited US monitoring data.
Mir's demise caps 15 years of record-breaking but also an accident-prone career. Koptev said the mission had cost US$4.2 billion, not least because of constant running repairs in the past 18 months.
"Given the state of the station we are obliged to do this," Koptev said. "One should not see this in purely emotional terms."
Russia will now concentrate its efforts, and limited funds, on the US$95-billion International Space Station, which is a joint venture with the US, Canada, Europe and Japan.
Mir's recharged guidance systems maneuvered the craft into position before the first and second bursts were fired to slow the giant structure. They forced Mir to reduce its orbit until it could no longer resist the pull of earth's gravity.
The final burst tipped the craft on its way to oblivion.
RSS