Editing Shuttle–Mir program (section)

===''Mir''===
{{Main|Mir}}
[[Image:Mir on 12 June 1998edit1.jpg|left|thumb|The view of ''Mir'' from [[Space Shuttle Discovery|Space Shuttle ''Discovery'']] in 1998 as it left the station during [[STS-91]]|alt=A cluster of cylindrical modules with projecting feathery solar arrays, with Earth's horizon visible in the background.]]
''Mir'' was constructed between 1986 and 1996 and was the world's first modular space station. It was the first consistently inhabited long-term [[research station]] in space, and previously held the record for longest continuous human presence in space, at eight days short of ten years. ''Mir''{{'s}} purpose was to provide a large and habitable scientific laboratory in space, and, through a number of collaborations, including [[Intercosmos]] and Shuttle–''Mir'', was made internationally accessible to cosmonauts and astronauts of many different countries. The station existed until March 23, 2001, at which point it was deliberately deorbited, and broke apart during atmospheric re-entry.<ref name="SSSM"/>

''Mir'' was based upon the [[Salyut]] series of space stations previously launched by the [[Soviet Union]] (seven Salyut space stations had been launched since 1971), and was mainly serviced by Russian-crewed [[Soyuz spacecraft]] and [[Progress spacecraft|Progress]] cargo ships. The [[Buran (spacecraft)|Buran]] space shuttle was anticipated to visit ''Mir'', but its program was canceled after its first uncrewed spaceflight. Visiting US Space Shuttles used an [[Androgynous Peripheral Attach System]] docking collar originally designed for Buran, mounted on a bracket originally designed for use with the American [[Space Station Freedom]].<ref name="SSSM"/>

With the Space Shuttle docked to ''Mir'', the temporary enlargements of living and working areas amounted to a complex that was the world's largest [[spacecraft]] at that time, with a combined mass of {{convert|250|MT|lk=on}}.<ref name="SSSM"/><ref>{{cite journal|author=David S. F. Portree |title=Mir Hardware Heritage |journal=NASA Sti/Recon Technical Report N |volume=95 |pages=23249 |date=March 1995 |url=http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/RP1357.pdf |access-date=March 30, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090907191412/http://ston.jsc.nasa.gov/collections/TRS/_techrep/RP1357.pdf |archive-date=7 September 2009  }}</ref>