Mission STS-71 is the third launch in the Shuttle-Mir programme, but the first to dock with the space station. On 29th of June 1995, Shuttle Atlantis docks with Mir, forming the biggest spacecraft in orbit at that time (approx. 225 tons). Atlantis carries a crew of eight, which, over the course of five days, run joint experiments with the Russian cosmonauts already on board. This mission also marks the first in-orbit changeout of a Shuttle crew.

Until 1998, a total of 9 dockings between a Shuttle and Mir takes place; the program sees a number of crew swaps and hundreds of experiments in areas such as human adaptation to long-duration spaceflight, Earth observation, fundamental biology, and materials science. All throughout, the primary mission of this program remains to prepare for a future international space station, so every failure and accident is treated as a learning experience to take their knowledge forward. For example, a fire on 23 February 1997 leads to changes in astronauts’ fire training as well as in the design of the solid-fuel oxygen canister that started the blaze.

On 2nd of June 1998, Space Shuttle Discovery docks with Mir. For the next few days, the crew loads the last US experiments into the Shuttle and performs the last transfer of equipment and supplies to the space station. When the airlock closes behind the shuttle on 8th of June, it marks the end of the Shuttle-Mir programme, the end of Phase One of the International Space Station, and the end of 907 days of continuous occupation of the space station by American astronauts.

Once in orbit, a space station requires a considerable amount of time, attention and funds to be kept there; without constant boosts, repairs, maintenance and adjustments, anything that is in orbit eventually comes back to Earth. The dissolution of the USSR, coupled with the fact that resources and energy have to be redirected to the building and launching of the International Space Station, brings on a difficult decision: Mir has to be deorbited.

In August 1999, the last cosmonauts undock from Mir and close the hatch behind them, putting an end to almost 10 years of Russian presence on the station. During Mir’s lifespan, over 15,000 scientific and technical experiments are conducted by 28 long-term crews, 86,331 Earth orbits are completed, and 31 spacecraft (9 of which are Shuttles) and 64 cargo vessels dock.

On 23rd of March 2001, Mir goes through a controlled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere and burns up, its debris falling over the Pacific Ocean.

The first module of the International Space Station launches in 1998, while the Mir deorbiting takes place in 2001, which means that, for a few years, the ISS is up in space with the strange, oddly-shaped, accident-prone, and damaged spacecraft that guaranteed its success.