The control center in Korolev chose to shorten and simplify Mir's controlled crash process in order to minimize risks, despite safety concerns expressed by international experts
Instead of starting to lower the spacecraft to crash when it will be at an altitude of 250 kilometers, the process will be carried out when the spacecraft reaches an altitude of 220 kilometers. The control center's chief ballistic expert, Nikoli Ivanov, said that at the beginning of the week (March 11 and 12) the spacecraft was lowered to an altitude of 245.6 kilometers.
However, officials at the Russian space agency Rosaviacosmos and experts from the Strategic and Technology Center in Moscow say that lowering the altitude from which the crash will begin will affect the control center's ability to control the engine thrusts necessary for the controlled crash.
The spacecraft is expected to reach a height of 220 kilometers on March 19 and is supposed to hit a defined area in the Pacific Ocean about 1900-2400 kilometers east of Australia on March 20 or 21. These dates may move forward or backward by a day or two. Mar Ivanov.
The control center booted Mir's mainframe to run a series of preliminary crash programs. According to Victor Balagov, Mir's deputy director of control in Korolev, says that in the last week the station has been lowering a little less than a kilometer a day. According to Ivanov, the control center in Korolev could keep the spacecraft under control, as long as it did not descend below an altitude of 200 kilometers. "Only then will the problems begin" he said.
