After 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 — also called Stykovochny Otsek 1, or Docking Compartment 1 (DC-1) — has become the first habitable element of the station to be decommissioned and permanently removed from the orbital complex.Â
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’s atmosphere at 10:51 EDT / 14:51 UTC later that day.
Pirs’ 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.