The heritage of the major Mir complex hardware elements is described. These elements include Soyuz-TM and Progress-M ; the Kvant, Kvant 2, and Kristall modules ; and the Mir base block. Configuration changes and major mission events of Salyut 6, Salyut 7, and Mir multiport space stations are described in detail for the period 1977-1994. A comparative chronology of U.S. and Soviet/Russian manned spaceflight is also given for that period. The 68 illustrations include comparative scale drawings of U.S. and Russian spacecraft as well as sequential drawings depicting missions and mission events.

The purpose of this document is to describe concisely what is known in the West about the heritage of the major hardware elements associated with the Mir space station complex. These are: The Mir base block, launched in 1986 The modules added to the base block in 1987, 1989, and 1990 The Soyuz-TM crew transports and Progress-M supply ships, which first appeared in 1986 and 1989, respectively. This work is divided into four parts. Part 1, "Soyuz," examines the Soyuz spacecraft and its derivatives, including those used in the abandoned manned lunar landing program. Part 2, "Almaz, Salyut, and Mir," looks at the Almaz and Long-Duration Orbital Station (Russians acronym DOS) space stations. The major portion of Part 2 is devoted to the three DOS multiport stations, Salyut 6, Salyut 7, and Mir. Part 3, covering the "Space Station Modules," describes their surprisingly convoluted heritage, with particular attention given to the Mir modules Kvant, Kvant 2, and Kristall. Part 4 is a chronology comparing U.S. and Soviet/Russian manned spaceflight developments in context. It begins with the first manned spaceflight, but attempts completeness only from 1970 to its conclusion (November 1994).

This document chronicles dockings, module additions, configuration changes, and major events of Mir Principal Expeditions 17 through 21, November 1994 through August 1996. It provides a follow-up to David S. F. Portree's "Mir Hardware Heritage" (NASA RP-1357), which described the history of Soviet/Russian space stations, beginning with precursor space modules and continuing through the mid-November 1994 configuration of the Mir space station complex. Although Mir has hosted international crews since its early days, increasing focus was placed on international cooperation beginning in 1995. In the period covered by this document, a series of joint missions with the United States began as part of International Space Station Phase I. The first was the rendezvous of the Space Shuttle Discovery with Mir in February 1995, followed in March by the first mission (Mir 18) in which a U.S. astronaut, Norm Thagard, launched on a Soyuz-TM vehicle and served as a Mir crew member. In June of the same year, during U.S. mission STS-71, the Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with Mir for the first time. It brought with it the Mir 19 crew of two and took the Mir 18 crew of three home to Earth; during this docking the ten members of the combined crews set a record for humans aboard a single space complex. Mir 20 hosted European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Reiter for Euromir 95 and was visited by Atlantis again on mission STS-74. During Mir 21, Atlantis docked with Mir a third time (STS-76), bringing the second U.S. astronaut to serve as a Mir crew member, Shannon Lucid. In August, while Lucid was still aboard, Mir 21 hosted French cosmonaut-researcher Claudie Andre-Deshays and her Cassiopee scientific experiments. The three new modules added to Mir during this period also reflected the trend of international cooperation: • Spektr, a habitable science module added in May 1995, bore an international complement of instruments for Earth observation and sampling and analysis of Earth's atmosphere and the orbital environment. • The Docking Module, built by Russia with U.S. cooperation, was added to Kristall during the November 1995 (STS-74) Atlantis docking to eliminate the need to move Kristall to the -X port each time Atlantis docked with the station. • Priroda, the last permanent habitable module, with experiments designed by 12 nations to gather data on the Earth and its atmosphere, was added in April 1996.

Rex Hall and Dave Shayler provide a unique history of the Soyuz spacecraft programme from conception, through development to its use, detailed in the only English language book available on this topic. Planned for publication in 2003, it will celebrate 40 years since the original concept of the Soyuz craft.

It was all part of man's greatest adventure--landing men on the Moon and sending a rover to Mars, finally seeing the edge of the universe and the birth of stars, and launching planetary explorers across the solar system to Neptune and beyond. The ancient dream of breaking gravity's hold and taking to space became a reality only because of the intense cold-war rivalry between the superpowers, with towering geniuses like Wernher von Braun and Sergei Korolyov shelving dreams of space travel and instead developing rockets for ballistic missiles and space spectaculars. Now that Russian archives are open and thousands of formerly top-secret U.S. documents are declassified, an often startling new picture of the space age emerges: the frantic effort by the Soviet Union to beat the United States to the Moon was doomed from the beginning by gross inefficiency and by infighting so treacherous that Winston Churchill likened it to "dogs fighting under a carpet"; there was more than science behind the United States' suggestion that satellites be launched during the International Geophysical Year, and in one crucial respect, Sputnik was a godsend to Washington; the hundred-odd German V-2s that provided the vital start to the U.S. missile and space programs legally belonged to the Soviet Union and were spirited to the United States in a derring-do operation worthy of a spy thriller; despite NASA's claim that it was a civilian agency, it had an intimate relationship with the military at the outset and still does--a distinction the Soviet Union never pretended to make; constant efforts to portray astronauts and cosmonauts as "Boy Scouts" were often contradicted by reality; the Apollo missions to the Moon may have been an unexcelled political triumph and feat of exploration, but they also created a headache for the space agency that lingers to this day. This New Ocean is based on 175 interviews with Russian and American scientists and engineers; on archival documents, including formerly top-secret National Intelligence Estimates and spy satellite pictures; and on nearly three decades of reporting. The impressive result is this fascinating story--the first comprehensive account--of the space age. Here are the strategists and war planners; engineers and scientists; politicians and industrialists; astronauts and cosmonauts; science fiction writers and journalists; and plain, ordinary, unabashed dreamers who wanted to transcend gravity's shackles for the ultimate ride. The story is written from the perspective of a witness who was present at the beginning and who has seen the conclusion of the first space age and the start of the second.