The cost of the Mir programme was estimated by former RKA General Director Yuri Koptev in 2001 as $4.2 billion over its lifetime (including development, assembly and orbital operation).

[17] The solar arrays themselves were launched and installed over a period of eleven years, more slowly than originally planned, with the station continually suffering from a shortage of power as a result.

[21] This was done fairly regularly depending on experimental needs; for instance, Earth or astronomical observations required that the instrument recording images be continuously aimed at the target, and so the station was oriented to make this possible.

The Lira antenna also had the capability to use the Luch data relay satellite system (which fell into disrepair in the 1990s) and the network of Soviet tracking ships deployed in various locations around the world (which also became unavailable in the 1990s).

UHF was also employed by other spacecraft that docked to or undocked from the station, such as Soyuz, Progress, and the Space Shuttle, in order to receive commands from the TsUP and Mir crew members via the TORU system.

[17][page needed] Because of budget and design constraints, Freedom never progressed past mock-ups and minor component tests and, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Space Race, the project was nearly cancelled entirely by the United States House of Representatives.

[17] In September 1993, US Vice President Al Gore Jr., and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin announced plans for a new space station, which eventually became the ISS.

Inside, the 130-tonne (140-short-ton) Mir resembled a cramped labyrinth, crowded with hoses, cables and scientific instruments—as well as articles of everyday life, such as photos, children's drawings, books and a guitar.

[38] As a result, NASA astronaut John Blaha reported that, with the exception of Priroda and Spektr, which were added late in the station's life, Mir did look used, which is to be expected given it had been lived in for ten to eleven years without being brought home and cleaned.

[22] NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger related how life on board Mir was structured and lived according to the detailed itineraries provided by ground control.

The shower, which featured a plastic curtain and fan to collect water via an airflow, was later converted into a steam room; it eventually had its plumbing removed and the space was reused.

When the shower was unavailable, crew members washed using wet wipes, with soap dispensed from a toothpaste tube-like container, or using a washbasin equipped with a plastic hood, located in the core module.

[44] The station provided two permanent crew quarters, the Kayutkas, phonebox-sized booths set towards the rear of the core module, each featuring a tethered sleeping bag, a fold-out desk, a porthole, and storage for personal effects.

The resulting mycelium-based material offers notable thermal insulation and radiation protection, making it an ideal candidate for construction, particularly in severe environments like outer space or other interplanetary habitats.

On 29 September the cosmonauts installed equipment in the docking system in preparation for the arrival of Kvant-2, the first of the 20 tonne add-on modules based on the TKS spacecraft from the Almaz programme.

Kvant-2 added a second set of control moment gyroscopes (CMGs, or "gyrodynes") to Mir, and brought the new life support systems for recycling water and generating oxygen, reducing dependence on ground resupply.

Due to the delay in the docking of Kristall, EO-6 was extended by 10 days to permit the activation of the module's systems and to accommodate an EVA to repair the loose thermal blankets on Soyuz TM-9.

The newly formed Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) was unable to finance the unlaunched Spektr and Priroda modules, instead putting them into storage and ending Mir's second expansion.

[52][page needed] On 3 February 1994, Mir veteran Sergei Krikalev became the first Russian cosmonaut to launch on a US spacecraft, flying on Space Shuttle Discovery during STS-60.

During EO-18, the Spektr science module (which served as living and working space for American astronauts) was launched aboard a Proton rocket and docked to the station, carrying research equipment from America and other nations.

During Lucid's time aboard Mir, Priroda, the station's final module, arrived as did French visitor Claudie Haigneré flying the Cassiopée mission.

[22][page needed][65] In an effort to restore some of the power and systems lost following the isolation of Spektr and to attempt to locate the leak, EO-24 commander Anatoly Solovyev and flight engineer Pavel Vinogradov carried out a risky salvage operation later in the flight, entering the empty module during a so-called "intra-vehicular activity" or "IVA" spacewalk and inspecting the condition of hardware and running cables through a special hatch from Spektr's systems to the rest of the station.

During the orbiter's stay, Titov and Parazynski conducted a spacewalk to affix a cap to the docking module for a future attempt by crew members to seal the leak in Spektr's hull.

The crew loaded their results into Soyuz TM-29 and departed Mir on 28 August 1999, ending a run of continuous occupation, which had lasted for eight days short of ten years.

Each port was equipped with the plumbing required for Progress cargo ferries to replace the station's fluids and also the guidance systems needed to guide the spacecraft for docking.

With a space shuttle docked to Mir, the temporary enlargements of living and working areas amounted to a complex that was the largest spacecraft in history at that time, with a combined mass of 250 tonnes (280 short tons).

It had been designed for five years of use, but eventually flew for fifteen, and in the 1990s was showing its age, with frequent computer crashes, loss of power, uncontrolled tumbles through space and leaking pipes.

Jerry Linenger in his book about his time on the facility says that the cooling system had developed tiny leaks too small and numerous to be repaired, that permitted the constant release of coolant.

[17][22][page needed] (see also ISS ECLSS) Several accidents occurred which threatened the station's safety, such as the glancing collision between Kristall and Soyuz TM-17 during proximity operations in January 1994.

[17][22][page needed] Without the protection of the Earth's atmosphere, cosmonauts were exposed to higher levels of radiation from a steady flux of cosmic rays and trapped protons from the South Atlantic Anomaly.