Mir enters its final few hours

Russian ground controllers have restarted Mir's computer so they can control its fall to Earth.

Until now the space station has been drifting without power to conserve supplies for its final few hours.

Mission control will now point the station's solar panels to the sun so Mir's batteries can be recharged.

In December, mission control lost contact with the station for more than 20 hours when the batteries suddenly lost power.

If that happens again the re-entry would become uncontrollable so a backup system is now in place on board the Progress cargo vessel linked to Mir.

Once the station is in position, Progress will fire its engines to slow the station and change its orbit.

Then, at around 5am GMT, the Progress engines will fire one last time for 23 minutes to send the station into the South Pacific. Mir is due land at around 6.30am GMT.