--- title: The MIR Space Station's Most Remarkable Moments description: TIME looks back at it's 15 year long orbit in space for the 30th anniversary of it's launch. canonical: https://time.com/4230053/mir-space-station-anniversary/ author: TIME Photo article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-20T17:48:23.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:23.235Z article:section: Science og:title: The MIR Space Station's Most Remarkable Moments og:description: For Mir's 30th anniversary, TIME looks back at it's 15 year orbit in space. og:url: https://time.com/4230053/mir-space-station-anniversary/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8d81e24584d7db3/69887e4ae20a8711eca8f9e1/mir-5.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 2952 og:image:height: 1908 og:image:alt: Mir 1/98: combined crews of mir and us space shuttle endevor on board mir. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The MIR Space Station's Most Remarkable Moments twitter:description: For Mir's 30th anniversary, TIME looks back at it's 15 year orbit in space. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8d81e24584d7db3/69887e4ae20a8711eca8f9e1/mir-5.jpg?branch=production ---  # See the Most Remarkable Moments From the Mir Space Station by [TIME Photo](/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Feb 20, 2016 5:48 PM CUT  NASA/Getty Images; Gif by Javier Sirvent for TIME by [TIME Photo](/author/time-photo/) ## TIME Photo Feb 20, 2016 5:48 PM CUT  German astronaut Klaus Dietrich Flade looks at the spacecraft that will take him to the Mir space station, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan on March 17, 1992. Sven Creutzmann—Getty Images  Assemblers, Ivan Volchenkov and Nikolay Petrov, at a de-classified aerospace facility with one of several newly designed spacesuits to be delivered to the mir space station in 1992. SVF2/UIG/Getty Images  Valery Korzun of Russia, Claudie Andre Deshays and Leopold Eyharts of France during a training session in the outskirts of Moscow on May 31, 1995. STR/Reuters  The STS-76 crew took this 70-mm undated picture of Russia's Mir space station over Australia. NASA/Getty Images  An undated photo of the combined crews of Mir and U.S. space shuttle Endevor. SVF2/UIG/Getty Images  Astronaut Shannon Lucid, who concluded a U.S. record setting six-month voyage aboard Mir, checks on wheat plants on Sept. 23, 1996. STR/Reuters  Astronaut Shannon W. Lucid floats through the tunnel that connects Spacehab to the Atlantis cabin inside the Mir space station, on Sept. 24, 1996. NASA/Getty Images  The Mir complex backdropped against the blackness of space over Earth's horizon on Sept. 24, 1996. NASA/Getty Images  Two Russian cosmonauts hold on to a 14-meter girder outside the aging Mir station discarding a faulty thruster engine on April 11, 1998. AP  French astronaut Jean-Pierre Haignere, part of the last crew on Mir, is carried out of the "Souyz TM- 29" space craft after landing in Kazakhstan on Aug. 28, 1999. Alexander Nemenov—AFP/Getty Images  Mir burns up as it enters the earth's atmosphere after 15 years of service in outer space, at over Nadi, Fiji, on March 23, 2001. Rob Griffith—AP  A scale model of Mir in its Mission Control center outside Moscow on March 7, 2001\. Russian space officials waited until the craft drifted closer to Earth before shoving it towards a fiery plunge into the Pacific Ocean. Ivan Sekretarev—AP ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4230053/mir-space-station-anniversary/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4230053/mir-space-station-anniversary/"},"headline":"See the Most Remarkable Moments From the Mir Space Station","datePublished":"2016-02-20T17:48:23.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:23.235Z","description":"As the 30th anniversary of the station's launch in 1986 approaches, TIME looks back at it's 15 year long orbit in space","url":"https://time.com/4230053/mir-space-station-anniversary/","keywords":["photography","russia","Space","NASA","Science topic","space station"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8d81e24584d7db3/69887e4ae20a8711eca8f9e1/mir-5.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Photo","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-photo/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8d81e24584d7db3/69887e4ae20a8711eca8f9e1/mir-5.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Mir 1/98: combined crews of mir and us space shuttle endevor on board mir.","caption":"An undated photo of the combined crews of Mir and U.S. space shuttle Endevor.","creditText":"NASA/Getty Images; Gif by Javier Sirvent for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/photography/","name":"photography"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4230053/mir-space-station-anniversary/","name":"See the Most Remarkable Moments From the Mir Space Station"}}]}] ```