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The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
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Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
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Mir
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1992-09-03
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935b
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23 lines
Russian `peace' Soviet space station, the
core of which was launched 20 Feb 1986. Mir
is intended to be a permanently occupied
space station. Mir weighs almost 21 tonnes,
is approximately 13.5 m/44 ft long, and has a
maximum diameter of 4.15 m/13.6 ft. It
carries a number of improvements over the
earlier Salyut series of space stations,
including six docking ports; four of these
can have scientific and technical modules
attached to them. The first of these was the
Kvant (quantum) astrophysics module, launched
1987. This had two main sections: a main
experimental module and a service module that
would be separated in orbit. The experimental
module was 5.8 m/19 ft long and had a maximum
diameter matching that of Mir. When attached
to the Mir core, Kvant added a further 40 cu
m/1,413 cu ft of working space to that
already there. Among the equipment carried by
Kvant were several X-ray telescopes and an
ultraviolet telescope.