The Mir Space Station finally makes it home

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A. Yes, the 15-year-old space station which has been beset with problems finally ended its life crashing safely into the Pacific Ocean. During its 15 years it travelled over 2.2 billion miles, circling the Earth some 86,331 times.
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Q. Where and when did it land
A. The remnants of the space station crashed into the Pacific on Friday (March 23) at 5.58am GMT, some 20 minutes earlier than planned. Around 30 tonnes of the space station wreckage hurtled into the sea hundreds of miles south east of Fiji and some 900 miles south of the centre of the target area between Australia and Chile.

Q. Was there much to see
A. As the space station entered earth's atmosphere between five and nine fragments of the wreckage were briefly visible as silver fireballs in the sky leaving colossal trails of smoke in their wake and creating two sonic booms. Footage of the station burning up on re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere should be available at www.mirreentry.com. A Mir re-entry observation plane carrying film crews was flying 200 miles from the projected track of re-entry to capture the event. Also in the air were two 'tourist' planes carrying people who had paid a total of �1.4 million to see the re-entry. A fleet of 27 tuna boats fishing in the splash down zone escaped being hit by any debris.

Q. All sounds quite exciting!!
A. Yes, the space station would have entered the atmosphere burning up with the antennae and solar panels being the first to go, around 30 to 50 miles above the surface. Then the whole metal wreckage would have begun to glow as the craft ripped apart under the braking force of earth's atmosphere, slowing it down from 18,000mph to under 1,000mph in just a few minutes. Only the central core and larger modules would have made it into our atmosphere.

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By Oliver Goggi