Progress M1-5 was the Progress spacecraft which was launched by Russia in 2001 to deorbit the fifteen-year-old Mir space station in a controlled fashion over a remote area of the southern Pacific Ocean (known as the spacecraft cemetery) otherwise Mir's orbit would have decayed uncontrolled over time (like e.g. Skylab), with debris potentially landing in a populated area. The Russian Aviation and Space Agency, Rosaviakosmos, was responsible for the mission. Launched in January 2001 after a short delay due to a problem with Mir, on 27 January Progress M1-5 became the last spacecraft to dock with the station. It spent two months attached to the Kvant-1 module before deorbiting the station on 23 March 2001. Mir re-entered the atmosphere with Progress M1-5 still docked, disintegrating over the Pacific Ocean, with debris falling into the ocean at around 06:00 UTC. During the early stages of the uncrewed Progress M1-5 mission, a crewed Soyuz was placed on standby to launch in order to complete the mission if a problem occurred. The decision to deorbit Mir attracted both praise and criticism for Rosaviakosmos, while several campaigns to save the station were conducted.
Background Mir was the seventh and last crewed space station to be launched as part of the Soviet space programme, and was the first true modular space station to be launched. The first component, the Core Module, was launched by a Proton-K rocket on 19 February 1986. This had been followed by six more modules, launched between 1987 and 1996, all using Proton-K rockets, except one which was launched aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Mir became the property of the Russian government, and the newly established Russian Aviation and Space Agency. It supported 28 long duration crews, visited by 40 crewed Soyuz and Shuttle missions, whilst 64 uncrewed Progress spacecraft were launched to support it. It was visited by 125 cosmonauts and astronauts, who performed 75 spacewalks. During the Shuttle-Mir programme, a series of American Space Shuttle missions visited Mir between 1995 and 1998 in preparation for the construction of the International Space Station. After the construction of the International Space Station began in 1998, Russian resources were split between the two stations. In 2000, Rosaviakosmos signed an agreement with MirCorp to lease the station for commercial use, with the Soyuz TM-30 mission, intended to prepare the station for future use and conduct some commercial research, being flown in later that year. This was to have been followed by more missions, including flights with space tourists, however due to the Russian government being concerned about MirCorp's ability to fund these missions, Rosaviakosmos decided against funding the continued operation of Mir. In November 2000, Rosaviakosmos decided to deorbit Mir, and the next month Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov signed an order to do so. By this stage Mir was well past the end of its design life, and Rosaviakosmos General Director Yuri Koptev believed that "any of its systems could well fail at any time". Therefore, it was decided to deorbit it whilst it was still functioning, rather than risk it falling back to Earth out of control, like Skylab in 1979 and Salyut 7 in 1991, potentially dropping debris over a populated area. At the time, Mir was the largest spacecraft ever to reenter the Earth's atmosphere, and there were concerns that sizeable pieces of debris, particularly from the docking assemblies, gyrodynes and external structure, could survive reentry. Progress M1-5, which had originally been built to resupply and refuel either Mir or the International Space Station, was selected to perform the deorbit manoeuvre. Its mission earned it the nickname Hearse. It was a Progress-M1 11F615A55 spacecraft, with the serial number 254. An uninhabited area of the southern Pacific Ocean was selected for the station to be deorbited into, as had been done with five earlier Salyut spacecraft.
Mission
Launch and docking
Progress M1-5 was launched by a Soyuz-U carrier rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. It was originally scheduled for launch on 16 January 2001, but by the first week of January, it was targeting 18 January. It was rolled out to the launch pad on 16 January, with the rocket departing the MIK assembly facility at Site 2 of the cosmodrome at 02:00 GMT, and was erected at the launch pad, Site 1/5, within two hours of the start of rollout. Launch was set for 06:56:26 GMT on 18 January. On the day, a problem with the computers aboard Mir developed shortly before fuelling of the Soyuz-U rocket was scheduled to commence, about five and a half hours before the launch was due to occur. The launch attempt was scrubbed, or cancelled, and the launch was expected to be delayed by four or five days. On 19 January, the launch was rescheduled for 24 January, giving controllers time to restart the computer and the station's gyroscopes, which had shut down when the computer failed. Preparations for the launch resumed on 22 January, and the launch occurred successfully at 04:28:42 GMT on 24 January. Following the launch, Progress M1-5 spent three days in free flight before docking with the rear port of the Kvant-1 module of Mir at 05:33:31 GMT on 27 January. The docking port had previously been occupied by Progress M-43, which departed at 05:19:49 on 25 January, and subsequently remained in orbit until Progress M1-5 had docked with Mir. Progress M-43, which had originally been launched to carry supplies and raise Mir's orbit, in anticipation of crewed flights which were never launched, was subsequently deorbited at 02:12 GMT on 29 January, burning up during re-entry at 02:58. Free-flights of Progress spacecraft typically lasted two days from launch to docking with Mir, however Progress M1-5 took three days to reach Mir in order to conserve fuel for the deorbit burn. If it had launched on 18 January it would have spent four days in free flight.
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