Moscow - Russia admitted yesterday it had temporarily lost contact with the orbiting Mir space station, but stressed there was no immediate danger that the ageing craft could suddenly drop out of the sky.
Mir fell silent for the first time at noon on Christmas Day, and Moscow ground control was unable to establish any link with the 140-tonne craft until frantic efforts ended in success some 24 hours later.
After years of deliberation, Moscow decided earlier this month that the pioneering craft will be allowed to fall into the south-eastern Pacific between February 26th and 28th. In the course of 28 missions, 16,500 scientific experiments were carried out on the 40-metre long Mir, which was the world's first permanently orbiting spacecraft.