According to an MIR spokeswoman, the best months to visit Nukus are mid-August through the end of November, and from March until mid-June.
Juan-Miguel Villar Mir, an 82-year-old former finance minister of Spain, has quietly been building a global engineering and construction empire for decades.
FORBES: Spain's Juan-Miguel Villar Mir Builds Way To Billionaire Ranks
On Wednesday, top Russian space officials will meet to decide whether the new station should be launched into an orbit closer to Mir, allowing astronauts to salvage some of its equipment for the new station.
Pakistan also sent as an observer senior police investigator Mir Zubair Mahmood, who led the investigation into the murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
Haignere, an air force pilot who visited Mir for three weeks in 1993, plans two space walks during his mission.
Russian efforts to keep Mir in orbit past an original retirement date of June have irritated the United States, which has pressed Moscow to focus its meager resources on the International Space Station.
But BBC News Online science editor David Whitehouse says that if contact with Mir is lost for an extended period, it will start to spin, and it would become impossible for a rescue team to dock.
"Of course everyone at Energiya is in favor of keeping Mir flying, " said an aide to the deputy director.
In the late 1980s, six Napoleons turned up to an event at Waterloo, says Jean-Pierre Mir, a French Napoleonic re-enactment veteran.
The period of instability ended in the late 1990s when an Italian made the role his own, Mr. Mir says.
The United States will keep an eye on the spacecraft too, but with no specific emergency plan designed for Mir.
Despite widespread misgivings, yet another American -- Michael Foale -- was placed on Mir when astronaut Jerry Linenger's 4 month-long tour came to an end last month.
Usachev could have an easier time recovering, having spent two long-duration missions on the retired Russian space station Mir.
The Post reported that a malfunction in Mir's attitude-control system also occurred in March, causing it to list until an alternate back-up system was activated.
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