MOSCOW, Nov 6 (Interfax)

Russia's space authorities are considering dropping a plan to deorbit the Mir space station in 1999, said the mission control center in Korolev, near Moscow.

The control center, the Energia space rocket company and the Russian Space Agency hope the government will take up the matter next month, the control center's press service told Interfax.

A Russian-French-Slovak crew which is due to start a mission in February may not be the station's last crew and another party may replace it aboard Mir in 1999, the press service said.

Flight director Vladimir Solovyov mentioned this possibility while talking via radio with Mir's current Russian crew, commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Sergei Avdeyev.

Under the current plan, Padalka is to return to the earth with Slovak Ivan Bella while Avdeyev stays on board with Russian Viktor Afanasyev and Frenchman Jean-Pierre Aignere to prepare the station for deorbiting. However, the plan may change and Avdeyev will come back with Padalka, Solovyov said.

Energia Deputy General Director Valery Ryumin, who came to Mir aboard the U.S. Space Shuttle Discovery in June this year, said the station's state of repair warranted keeping it in service until 2002. He said it would be "essentially incorrect" to scrap Mir before the planned International Space Station starts flying.

Yuri Baturin, formerly an aide to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and currently a cosmonaut, recently visited Mir and said he was sure it was possible to raise money for keeping the station in orbit beyond next year. He said it would be a "barbarity" to throw away 11.5 tonnes of research equipment aboard Mir.

The station was put in orbit in 1986.

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