Russia said yesterday its pioneer space station Mir could fall out of the sky if its three-man crew is forced to evacuate the ageing vessel because of a dispute with Kazakhstan.
The chief of Russia's space programme, Mr Yury Koptev, said Mir's occupants may run out of food and water next month, forcing them to come back to the ground in space capsules attached to Mir.
"We may find ourselves in an unpleasant situation," Mr Koptev was quoted as saying by the Inter fax news agency. "A station that is not prepared for unmanned flights, and which also weighs 140 tonnes, can turn into an uncontrollable object.
"At any moment it can interrupt its orbit and start an emergency landing down to earth. Of course this may lead to catastrophic consequences for all countries that Mir flies over."
Russia and Kazakhstan have been locked in a dispute since a Russian rocket exploded on June 6th and poured more than 40 tonnes of dangerous fuel over the Central Asia republic.
A Russian cargo vessel called Progress was placed on the launching pad at the Baikonur cosmo drome yesterday ready for lift-off despite a Kazakh ban on launches from the space centre. It is scheduled to blast off from Baikonur tomorrow to carry supplies to the crew of the Mir space station.
A Russian-Ukrainian OKEAN satellite's launch has been repeatedly postponed because of the Russian rocket crash.
Kazakhstan imposed a ban on Russian rocket launches from the Baikonur space centre one day after the Raduga-1 military satellite crashed following lift-off.
The Kazakh government is demanding millions of dollars in compensation for environmental damage from the botched mission, which resulted in part of the Proton rocket falling in the backyard of a villager. No one was reported hurt in the incident.