An unmanned Russian cargo craft successfully docked with the Mir space station today, starting the countdown to the destruction of the Soviet-built orbiter.
Space officials at flight control outside Moscow broke into applause after the two vessels hooked up smoothly, and expressed confidence that Mir would be safely ditched in the Pacific Ocean in early March.
The 15-year-old station has become increasingly accident-prone in recent years, and ground controllers last month feared they had lost control of the 130-tonne vessel for good when a sudden power outage cut communications for 24 hours.
"This was a very, very important moment. Now we can control the station," a relieved Mr Yuri Semyonov, head of the Energiya corporation which operates Mir, said of today's docking.
"Not everything has gone smoothly (recently), as you know, starting with December when we had certain problems with power supply and orientation of the station.
The Progress vessel, carrying some 2.6 tonnes of fuel and supplies of oxygen, docked automatically today. Two specially-trained Russian cosmonauts had been on standby in case the procedure went wrong, ready to blast off within two weeks to manually prepare Mir for its fiery descent.
"We have enough fuel aboard the station to be able to ditch Mir in a safe and civilized way," said Mr Vladimir Solovyov, head of Russian flight control.
Officials will now have to decide whether to burn up precious fuel that is keeping Mir stable or let it rotate slowly as it continues to orbit Earth.
Reuters