Altogether, Discovery will leave Alpha a little more than seven miles higher than when it arrived. The John B. Reible School, in Santa Rosa, California is scheduled for the week of March 26th, with the Vicksburg, Mississippi High School group scheduled for early April. I was able to talk to her for 45 seconds. When the space station Mir returns to Earth over the remote South Pacific in a few days, it will be big news. During its 15-year stint in space, Mir has set endurance and space adventure records, along with providing hundreds of amateur radio contacts between ham radio satellite operators and onboard cosmonauts and astronauts.
Scientists expect the space station to put on a good show when it returns.
Mir is put together much like an erector set. It's an assortment of solar arrays, laboratories and living quarters that was not designed for aerodynamic flight through the atmosphere. Mir has a core module and five other components weighing about 143 tons in all. With a cargo ship and an escape capsule attached, it weighs up to 154 tons. The station will quickly fall apart as it descends toward Earth.