Russia confirmed today the Mirspace station will be ditched in the Pacific Ocean on Friday at 9:30 a.m. Moscow time (06.30 GMT), Interfax reported.
The destruction of the 15-year-old orbiter, originally planned for February, has been repeatedly delayed because of technical breakdowns and the fact that Mir is descending earthwards at a slower speed than space experts calculated.
Most of the Soviet-era space station is expected to break up and burn as it hurtles through Earth's atmosphere.
But around 20 tonnes of the platform's 137-tonne mass are expected to survive the burn-up, with 1,500 pieces of debris, mostly very small but a few of them as large as a car, falling to Earth.
Debris is expected to rain down on the South Pacific ocean in a target area 200 kilometres wide and 6,000 kilometres long between New Zealand and Chile.
AFP