Mir Space Station (upper center) seen above the Earth, with the Moon at upper right. Heavy thunderclouds are seen on Earth (across bottom). Mir was launched by the USSR in 1986, and spent 15 years in orbit. It carried out a wide variety of scientific experiments. On March 23rd 2001, it was allowed to fall back to Earth, breaking up in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. Photographed in June 1998 from the space shuttle Discovery, during mission STS-091.