The Space Shuttle Docked with Mir . ... Credit Copyright: Nikolai Budarin , Russian Space Research Institute , NASA Explanation: Before there was the International Space Station , the reigning orbiting spaceport was Russia's Mir. Pictured above in 1995, the United States Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the segmented Mir . ... Last year, after 15 years of successful service, the decaying Mir space station broke up as it entered the Earth's atmosphere . ... A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC . ...