— Ch. 1 · Origins And Development History —
Mir.
~7 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
On the 17th of February 1976, a Soviet decree authorized the design of an improved model for space stations. This directive launched the project that would become Mir, building upon the legacy of four Salyut stations already in orbit since 1971. The initial plan called for a core module with four docking ports to allow future expansion. By August 1978, engineers refined this into a configuration with one aft port and five forward ports housed within a spherical node. A February 1979 government resolution merged the civilian program with Vladimir Chelomei's Almaz military station initiative. NPO Energia took overall responsibility while KB Salyut handled detailed work starting in 1979. Drawings were released in 1982 and 1983 as new systems like gyrodyne flywheels and Elektron oxygen generators were integrated. Work halted in early 1984 when resources shifted to the Buran spacecraft program. Valentin Glushko ordered the Central Committee to meet a political deadline by launching before the 27th Communist Party Congress in 1986. On the 6th of May 1985, the flight model arrived at Baikonur Cosmodrome after 1100 of 2500 cables required rework based on ground tests. The first launch attempt failed on the 16th of February 1986 due to communications issues. The second attempt succeeded on the 19th of February 1986 at 21:28:23 UTC, meeting the strict political timeline.
Modular Architecture And Assembly
The orbital assembly began on the 19th of February 1986 with the Proton-K rocket launch of the core module. Four additional modules followed a specific sequence where they launched independently and docked automatically to the forward port. A Lyappa arm then lifted each module from the forward node and rotated it 90 degrees to a radial port for final docking. This process required manual relocation of Konus drogues between ports because only two existed on the station. Kvant-1 launched on the 31st of March 1987 without its own engines and was delivered by a TKS-based tug to the aft end instead of the node. The docking module arrived aboard STS-74 in November 1995 to simplify future Space Shuttle operations. Eighty spacewalks were conducted over the station's history to attach external components like trusses and experiments. The Sofora girder extended 14 meters from Kvant-1 and supported the VDU thruster block which reduced fuel consumption by 85 percent. Rapana girders provided mounting points for exposure experiments while Strela cranes allowed movement across all modules during EVAs. Each module carried unique equipment such as the Travers radar antenna on Priroda or the Ikar maneuvering unit inside Kvant-2. Power arrays were installed over eleven years, with Spektr eventually providing four solar panels generating 16 kW of electricity.