The term 'Former Russian Space Station' refers to the MIR space station, which was a Soviet and later Russian space station that operated in low Earth orbit from 1986 to 2001. It was the first modular space station and was assembled in orbit from 1986 to 1996. The station served as a microgravity research laboratory in which numerous experiments were conducted in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology, and other fields.