In February, Mir will mark its 15th year in space. Its service life had initially been set at 3.5 years, but was later prolonged many times. The station remains unmanned since the 28th long-term mission departed on June 16.

Nobody has so far ventured to assume responsibility for pronouncing the death sentence on Mir.

Due to meet on Thursday, the board of the Russian Aerospace Agency should decide the future of Mir and submit its proposals to the government.

The station's operator-the rocket and space corporation Energiya-announced on Monday that as Mir is government property "the decision on its further operation should be made by the president and government."

Earlier, the Council of Chief Designers forced to pass at least some kind of a resolution on Mir issued an astonishingly indistinct text, the message of which could be interpreted as: "Dear government, we are getting out, the matter is for you to decide."

The question of giving up Mir over the lack of funding was debated in Russia in earnest for the first time in the summer of 1998. However, the station was then in excellent condition and on the wave of public enthusiasm it was decided to prolong the life of the pride of the Russian space program. MirCorp was set up in the spring of 1999 to raise funds through the commercial use of the station. However, none of its projects has been completed so far.

MirCorp President Geoffrey Manber recently told Interfax that his company planned to raise $117 million for the continued operation of Mir through floating shares at exchanges in New York, Singapore and probably in London by February 2001.

However, several space experts have told Interfax that the decision-even if interest in company shares is great-is quite belated. MirCorp has not yet paid for the launch of the Progress M-43 cargo spaceship on October 17.

Officials from the Aerospace Agency have stressed that, given its financial problems, Energiya is unable to work on two manned space programs: Mir and the International Space Station (ISS). The construction and launch of a cargo spaceship takes one and a half to two years and costs about $7 million. It costs $200-$250 million a year to keep Mir running.

The disastrous shortage of money for Mir is forcing Russia to cut slices from the ISS pie, prompting other parties involved in the building of the ISS to reproach Russia for failing to meet its commitments.

Energiya has launched one Progress and one Soyuz manned ship to Mir, removing them from its part in the international program. The postponement from December to February of the launch of a Russian tanker spacecraft to the ISS is also attributed to the fact that Energiya had to intensify its efforts to build another tanker to be launched to Mir in January.

Russia has thus not found non-budgetary resources for funding the operation of Mir, and the additional 1.5 billion rubles envisaged by the 2000 budget have still not been disbursed.

The recent government resolution of October 10 is unlikely to save the station, although it allows the channeling of up to 70% of government revenues from the sale of R&D results to R&D programs "of military, special or dual purpose, including government support for the manned operation of the Mir space station."

"The resolution does not specify what part of the returns should be assigned to Mir, and so nothing is assigned at all," spokesman for the head of the Russian Aerospace Agency Sergei Gorbunov has said.

"The government will be able to find money only to sink the station. And it must find these 600 million rubles because Russia is responsible to the world for its [Mir's] safe operation," Gorbunov told Interfax in comments on the possible decision of the Thursday board session.

Evidently on Thursday we will hear the Agency's final decision on the Mir's future. However, from experience we know that another analysis of all the pros and cons ("live" or "die") may again not lead with a clear statement and higher instances will have to assume the responsibility for the difficult decision.

Copyright 2000 Interfax. All rights reserved. The material on this page is provided by Interfax and may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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