Sergei Avdeyev talks to Amelia Gentleman. The Soviet Union launches the core module of the Mir on February 20, predicting the station will last three to five years. The first crew takes off for the station on March 13.
Crew members find refuse stuck on the docking port.
A Japanese cosmonaut reporter, Toyohiro Akiyama, visits the space station. The chaos and financial troubles accompanying the collapse of the Soviet Union force the Mir's crew to stay in orbit several months longer than scheduled. Norman Thagard becomes the first American astronaut to visit the Mir. On June 25, a cargo ship rams the station during a docking test, piercing a laboratory module and causing pressure inside the Mir to fall. Two days later, a computer crashes.