On February 20, 1986 launch vehicle Proton carrying core module of Orbital Complex Mir lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

Launch of core module has marked the start of construction of the Soviet/Russian multi-module research orbital station designed by NPO Energia (currently RSC Energia). The module was equipped with six docking assemblies. For ten years, modules Kvant, Kvant-2, technological module Cristal, optical module Spectr, research module Priroda and the docking compartment intended to receive the US Space Shuttles docked to the Core Module one after another. Two hundred and eighty organizations under the authority of 20 ministries worked on the development of Station Mir.

The first crew consisting of spacecraft commander Leonid Kizim and flight engineer Vladimir Solovyov was delivered to Mir by spacecraft Soyuz T-15 on March 15, 1986. After that, the Station was operated in a manned mode until June 16, 2000. Since 1995, foreign crews began to visit Station Mir. There were visiting crews delivered by Space Shuttle Atlantis, Endeavour and Discovery. About 23 thousand experiments involving more than 100 cosmonauts and astronauts from 12 countries were conducted on the Station.

Orbital Complex Mir having a mass of about 137 tons was on the Earth's orbit for 5511 days. It was supported by Soyuz and Progress-series spacecraft. The active lifetime was three times as much as the originally planned one. The station was de-orbited on March 23, 2001 into a non-navigational area of the Pacific Ocean.