Yu.P. Semenov,
General Designer
of S.P. Korolev
RSC Energia:

We met this event with a bitter feeling, because our team of scientists, engineers and workers devoted more than 20 years of their life to the Orbital Complex. It hurts us to realize that deorbiting of the station was accelerated. New solutions providing background for the program would have allowed the station to operate 2 or 3 years longer. Unfortunately, there were no enough funds, so we had to give up the idea of the crew flight and, as a consequence, concentrate on a final flight phase of the Orbital Complex.
The operation performed today was really a unique one. It was as complex as many other operations implemented at the Mir Station, which will further become part of the world's cosmonautics history. The Mir Station is, no doubt, one of the crowning engineering achievements of the 20th century. It has laid the ground work for the future orbital complexes: maintainability, adaptability to different jobs, etc. The final stage of the Complex activities, deorbiting, is a most sophisticated engineering operation, which we have managed to handle properly. I appreciate highly the contribution of all the specialists to the Mir station development and operational use, the selfless work of the committed people involved throughout 15 years in the station operation. It was indeed an exciting job, which will surely add a glorious page to the history of the world's cosmonautics. It is a satisfaction to know that the problem we faced that involved completing the flight of the huge Orbital Complex in a civilized way, has been solved decently by the entire team of our enterprise. It would have been much worse if we had not managed to cope with it. Thank you once again, including civil agencies, research institutes, the military, launch site and MCC personnel and all those who were engaged in these activities.