Before leaving, they will install a new flight computer on the station that will allow it to be more reliably controlled from the ground. Rather than deorbiting the station immediately after the crew's departure, controllers will allow Mir's orbit to slowly decay until it can be deorbited in early 2000. The delay will allow Energia, the company that operates Mir for the Russian Space Agency, to make one final effort to raise funds to keep operating the station. Energia had made several efforts to raise funding from private foreign sources, but those efforts fell through. However, Llewellyn apparently did not raise the money and he was dismissed from cosmonaut training last month for reportedly being too tall to safely fit in a Soyuz capsule.
All cosmonauts agree that it's a great pity to abandon it.
Barring a last-minute source of new funding, the current crew will be the last to occupy Mir.