Mir Plunged Into Ocean Before Time

The Mir space station could have been kept aloft a little longer, although this would hardly be viable financially, a Russian space agency Roscosmos executive in charge of manned missions said. The Soviet Union began putting parts of the modular space station into low orbit in 1986. Mir was deorbited and fell into the Pacific in 2001 after 15 years in space. "It could have been maintained, although the question is whether this would have been practical," Sergei Krikalev, a former cosmonaut, told RIA Novosti. More

(Source: Space Daily - May 25)