Mir

Mir (???, which can mean both world and peace in Russian) was a highly successful Soviet (and later Russian) space station. It was humanity's first consistently inhabited long-term research station in space. Through a number of collaborations, it was made internationally accessible to cosmonauts and astronauts of many different countries. Mir was assembled in orbit by successively connecting several modules, each launched separately from February 19, 1986 to 1996. The station existed until March 23, 2001, at which point it was deliberately de-orbited and broke apart during atmospheric re-entry.

References

• Mir Hardware Heritage - NASA report (PDF format)
• Mir Mission Chronicle - NASA report (PDF format)
• Mir-Shuttle:Phase 1 Program Joint Report (PDF format)
• Soviet Space Stations as Analogs - NASA report (PDF format)