On August 28, 1999, the Mir space station was abandoned for the second time since it was launched on February 19, 1986. The first time the station was left uncrewed was in September 1989. By far the world's longest-serving space station, Mir orbited the Earth for over 13 years and hosted 135 people.

The Mir crew, Commander Viktor Afanasyev, Sergei Avdeyev and French astronaut Jean-Paul Haignere safely returned to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

"With grief in our soul we're abandoning a piece of Russia, abandoning something we constructed in space, and it's unclear what we'll build next," Afanasyev said just before leaving Mir.

Russian space officials are seeking private investors to fund a new crewed flight. If they are not able to raise funds for another mission, a so-called "funeral team" will visit Mir for about a month to gradually reduce its orbit and completely shut the station down. It would later be deorbited to burn in the Earth's atmosphere and fall into the Pacific Ocean.

Updated: 23 September 1999 - by Gregory A. Smith

ISS ASSEMBLY SCHEDULE
(Revision D)
(Through December 1999)

Launch Date - Flight - Vehicle

20 NOV 1998 - 1A/R - Russian
04 DEC 1998 - 2A - US STS-88
MAY -- 1999 - 2A.1 - US STS-96
JULY -- 1999 - 1R - Russian
AUG -- 1999 - 2A.2 - US STS-101
OCT -- 1999 - 3A - US STS-92
DEC -- 1999 - 4A - US STS-97

The International Space Station continues to orbit the Earth with its systems operating in good fashion as NASA managers prepare to meet with their Russian counterparts next week in Moscow for updates on the testing of the ISS's next component, the Zvezda Service Module.

Zvezda will be launched atop a Proton rocket to serve as the early living quarters for the first permanent residents of the ISS and will take over control and propulsion capability for the expanding station from the Zarya module, which was launched last November. About nine days after its launch, the ISS will link up with Zvezda using Zarya's jet thrusters during a series of rendezvous maneuvers.

ISS 99-36 International Space Station Status Report
2 p.m. CDT, Thursday, September 23, 1999
Mission Control Center, Houston, Texas

Updated: 24 September 1999 by Gregory A. Smith

The International Space Station on-orbit assembly began with the successful completion of Space Shuttle Endeavour's mission to connect the first two elements of the station. Mission STS-88, also known as Assembly Flight 2A, completed its mission to connect the U.S. built "Unity" module to the Russian built "Zarya" (Sunrise) Control Module and ended its nearly twelve day mission with a landing on runway 15 at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on December 15, 1998 at 10:53pm EST.

Zarya was successfully launched by the Russians on November 20, 1998, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, not far from where Yuri Gagarin became the first human to be launched into space over 37 years ago.

- by Gregory A. Smith

03 Mar 2000 - Mars Mapping Begins
15 Jan 2002 - Mars Relay Mission
01 Dec 2004 - End of Mission

On September 23, 1999, after surviving a 10 month journey to the Red Planet, the Mars Climate Orbiter was lost after it began its Mars Orbit Insertion (MOI) rocket burn. The spacecraft appears to have been lost due to a navigation error which sent the orbiter deep into the atmosphere of Mars.

"We had planned to approach the planet at an altitude of about 150 kilometers (93 miles). We thought we were doing that, but upon review of the last six to eight hours of data leading up to arrival, we saw indications that the actual approach altitude had been much lower. It appears that the actual altitude was about 60 kilometers (37 miles). We are still trying to figure out why that happened," said Richard Cook, project manager for the Mars Surveyor Operations Project at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "We believe that the minimum survivable altitude for the spacecraft would have been 85 kilometers (53 miles)."

The Mars Climate Orbiter was essentially a Mars weather satellite. Its main mission was to analyze the atmospheric composition and weather. The atmospheric sounding and imaging phase was scheduled to last for one Mars year (687 Earth days).

The spacecraft was also to act as a data link to relay information from its companion spacecraft (the Mars Polar Lander) back to Earth. JPL reports, however, that most if not all of the science from the Mars Polar Lander will be acquired by direct links to Earth and through the currently orbiting and operational Mars Global Surveyor.

In its role as a data relay the Mars Climate Orbiter was to have been operational for at least 5 years in order to support the '01 Mars mission, which is to arrive at Mars in January 2002, and other future missions.

Full Story at: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco990923.html

Updated: 27 September 1999 - by Gregory A. Smith

The Mars Polar Lander was successfully launched on a Delta II launch vehicle from Launch Complex 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida on January 3, 1999.

Mars Polar Lander's interplanetary cruise to Mars will take 11 months. In December, 1999, the lander will enter the Martian atmosphere directly from the hyperbolic transfer orbit at 7 km/s. The Mars Polar Lander must decellerate from 7 km/sec to 2.4 meters/sec for a safe Martian touchdown. This will be accomplished by aerobraking with an ablative heatshield, a parachute deployment and a final rocket propulsion firing for a soft landing.

The target landing zone is close to Mars' south pole at 73 to 76 degrees south latitude. This high latitude region has "layered terrain" which should have water ice near the surface and might show evidence of past climatic variations.

The science payload on the Mars Polar Lander includes:

Deep Space 2 New Millennium Microprobes (see Deep Space 2)
Mars Descent Imager (MARDI)
Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR)
Mars Volatiles and Climate Surveyor (MVACS)
Stereo Surface Imager (SSI)
Robotic Arm & Camera
Meteorological Package (MET)
Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA)
Mars Microphone

The lander's primary mission is 90 days.

Updated: 27 September 1999 - by Gregory A. Smith

Piggybacked on the Mars Polar Lander spacecraft are two "Deep Space 2" (DS2) microprobes.

About the size of basketballs, the microprobes will separate from the Mars Polar Lander after 11 months in transit to Mars. The DS2 probes are designed for a "passive" atmospheric entry using only their heat shields. There are no parachutes or rockets to slow the probes prior to impacting the surface of Mars. The spacecraft are designed to survive an 80,000 G impact, penetrate the surface up to 3 feet, and gather subsurface data.

The DS2 probe mission's scientific objectives are to: 1) test for the presence of water ice below the surface and, if ice exists, attempt to resolve the mineral phases in which the ice is stored; 2) determine the thermal and physical properties and temperature gradient of the subsurface material; 3) measure the atmospheric pressure and temperature. The Deep Space 2 probes are designed to operate and transmit data until the batteries are depleted, which is expected to occur 1 to 3 days after impact.

Scientist hope these probes will help discover clues to Mars' past climate, including the apparent mystery of the "disappeared" surface water. Does the water that may have caused the erosional features we can see today now exist as permafrost? If so, what implications would that have for possible life forms? Information on soil temperature, ices, air pressure, and solar measurements will be relayed to earth via the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Spacecraft, which has been orbiting the Red Planet since September 1997.

The target area is located within the northern boundary of the martian polar layered terrain, near 76 degrees south latitude, 195 degrees west longitude. The landing area for both probes should be about 50 to 100 km from the Mars Polar Lander touchdown site. This area is considered to be an important reservoir of water, carbon dioxide and other volatiles on Mars. The total cost of development of the Deep Space 2 probes was $29.2 million.

Updated: 27 September 1999 - by Gregory A. Smith

"The STARDUST spacecraft continues to operate normally in cruise sequence SC009, cruising in the main asteroid belt about 2 AU from both the Earth and Sun."

- STARDUST Status Report - September 24, 1999

The primary goal of the Stardust mission is to collect dust and volatile samples of comet Wild 2, and samples of interstellar dust grains, and return the samples to Earth for analysis. The spacecraft will also send back images of the comet, counts of comet particles striking the spacecraft and conduct real-time analysis of the compositions of the particles and volatiles.

Stardust will use a unique substance called aerogel to capture and preserve the cometary and interstellar materials for return to Earth.

Stardust will be the first space mission ever to return extraterrestrial material from beyond the orbit of the Moon. Stardust is also the first U.S. mission dedicated solely to cometary research.

Updated: 27 September 1999 - by Gregory A. Smith