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<\/p>\nAfter nearly 20 years in orbit serving as a docking port and airlock for the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS), the Pirs module \u2014 also called Stykovochny Otsek 1, or Docking Compartment 1 (DC-1) \u2014 has become the first habitable element of the station to be decommissioned and permanently removed from the orbital complex. <\/p>\n
Pirs was undocked from the nadir port of the Zvezda service module at 06:55 EDT \/ 10:55 UTC on Monday, July 26 ahead of a fiery destruction in Earth\u2019s atmosphere at 10:51 EDT \/ 14:51 UTC later that day.<\/p>\n
Pirs\u2019 time at the ISS came to a close after the successful launch of the Nauka multipurpose laboratory module which, after some initial issues post-launch, is on its way to a docking on Thursday, July 29.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Pirs \u2013 the more-permanent-than-planned temporary docking compartment<\/b><\/p>\n
Pirs, meaning \u201cpier,\u201d traces its origins back to the Mir-2 space station \u2014 which was itself a Soviet project that\u2019s design began in 1976. Mir-2\u2019s long and troubled history would eventually find it in the early 1990s where major design changes to launch its various modules via the Buran space shuttle were underway.<\/p>\n
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Mir-2 emerged the following year as a four-module station \u2014 including a Docking Module, which would become Pirs. In 1993, Mir-2 officially merged with the long-delayed NASA\/European\/Japanese\/Canadian space station Freedom project to become the building blocks of the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
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Pirs, seen in final assembly and checkout prior to launch in 2001. (Credit: Roscomos\/NASA)<\/p>\n
At the time of the ISS\u2019s inception, Pirs was meant to be a temporary addition to solve an immediate issue of a lack of docking locations on the Russian side. The main nadir and zenith ports on the Zvezda service module were designed for the larger, main modules Russia originally planned. <\/b><\/p>\n
NASA mission updates (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});<\/p>\n They were not meant for Soyuz and Progress dockings, significantly limiting and complicating resupply and crew mission scheduling. Pirs would help alleviate that issue by adding a third Soyuz\/Progress docking port by attaching itself to Zvezda\u2019s nadir port.<\/p>\n Following the successful launches of the Zarya control module and the Zvezda service module, Pirs was launched on September 14, 2001 at 23:34:55 UTC atop a Soyuz-U booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n After being placed in an initial parking orbit, a modified Progress power and propulsion section attached to the base of Pirs deployed its solar arrays and began maneuvering the module up to the ISS\u2019s orbital altitude following a two-day rendezvous profile.<\/p>\n Pirs successfully performed an automated docking to Zvezda nadir at 01:05 UTC on September 17, 2001. The Progress power and propulsion module was disconnected from Pirs on September 26, clearing the passive Soyuz\/Progress docking port.<\/p>\n At the time of its arrival, the original plan called for Pirs be removed and replaced in 2006 with the Universal Docking Module, a much larger and multifunctional component of the ISS.<\/p>\n