Portal:Spaceflight/Selected article/Week 31 2009

Progress M1-5 was the Progress spacecraft which was launched by Russia in 2001 to deorbit the Mir space station, a mission which earned it the nickname Hearse. It was a Progress-M1 11F615A55 spacecraft, with the serial number 254.

Launched in January 2001, Progress M1-5 became the last spacecraft to dock with Mir. It spent two months attached to the Kvant-1 module before performing the station's deorbit burn on 23 March 2001. During the early stages of its mission, a manned Soyuz was placed on standby to launch in order to ensure that the Progress spacecraft could still perform its mission if a problem occurred.

The manoeuvres to deorbit Mir were made on 23 March. Mir re-entered the atmosphere with Progress M1-5 still docked at 05:44 GMT. It began to disintegrate at 05:52, and debris came down in the ocean at around 06:00 GMT. Debris was intended to fall at around 47°S 140°W. The final tracking of Mir was conducted by a United States Army site on Kwajalein Atoll. (more...)