The International Space Station is a marvel of engineering and science and has been the basis for international collaboration of 18 countries but it owes its success to the first module space station the Soviet Mir Space Station. Here is a short history of the Mir Space Station but for more information check out my article about the legacy of the Mir Space Station on the Conversation!
Mir was the first spacecraft to be assembled in space with a number of individual modules. The first three were launched between 1986 and 1989 before the fall or the USSR and the formation of a collaboration between the Russia and America.
1: Mir Core module – 19th Feb 1986
2: Kvant-1 – 1987
3: Kvant -2 – 1989
4: Kristall – 1990
Each of these modules were designed to undertake science investigation and experimentation, including, each of which allowed science research to be undertaken including astronomy, biological studies and growing food, all of which will show if humans are capable of undertaking, surviving and even thriving in space during long-duration flights to explore beyond the moon.
A view of the Russian space station Mir on 3 July 1993 as seen from Soyuz TM-17 Jean-Pierre Haigneré – http://www.spacefacts.de/graph/drawing/drawings2/soyuz-tm-17_mir_2.jpg
Post 1991 the collaboration between America and Russia formed the Shuttle-Mir Program where the shuttle was resupplied by the Space Shuttle and the Soyuz and manned by both Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts, the first of which arrived in 1995.
Over the next 11 years, the Mir space station would be hosts to American, ESA, Japanese and Ukrainian astronauts. Two new modules were added, Spektr with 4 solar arrays and equipment for Earth observation, and Priroda was the final module to be added in 1996.
A view of the US Space Shuttle Atlantis and the Russian Space Station Mir during STS-71 as seen by the crew of Mir EO-19 in Soyuz TM-21. http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/IMAGES/LARGE/GPN-2000-001315.jpg
In 1997 failures such as a collision with a resupply ship and fires on board meant that Mir was starting to show her age. Even after the ill-fated year the station was repaired and continued to be used until it was abandoned in 1999. It was in November 2000 that decommission of the Space station was announced. The deorbit of Mir began on Jan 24th, 2001 when the Space Station crashed into the South Pacific Ocean.
With the exception of a few months in 1989 Mir was permanently manned and the lessons learned from this continual habitation led to the development of the highly successful ISS and we now have a greater understanding of the effect the microgravity has on the biology of astronauts meaning that suitable technologies and regimes can be put in place for future long-duration missions into the depths of the Solar System.