A GROUP of Russian cosmonauts and one of the station’s designers have descended on Fiji to witness this week’s fiery re-entry of the 140-tonne Mir space station into the South Pacific Ocean. The Russians were among a group of scientific observers who had chartered two Fijian aircraft to fly below the space station as it sped past on its final orbit, domestic airline Air Fiji said in a statement. Mir, once the jewel in the crown of the Soviet space programme, is to be scrapped in a controlled descent through the Earth’s atmosphere. Fragments that do not burn up on the way down will plunge into the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Chile around March 22. – Reuters