Space Agency (CSA) have agreed to extend the ISS's mission from 2020 to 2024. In 2018 that was then extended out to 2030. The results of this research will provide considerable information for long-duration expeditions to the Moon and flights to Mars. Following the intentional deorbiting of Mir on 23 March 2001, the ISS became the only space station in orbit around Earth. It retained that distinction until the launch of Chinese Tiangong-1 space laboratory on 29 September 2011. Mir legacy lives on in the station, bringing together five space agencies in the cause of exploration and allowing those space agencies to prepare for their next leap into space, to the Moon, Mars and beyond. Complete list of Shuttle–Mir missions Controversy Safety and scientific return Criticism of the program was primarily concerned with the safety of the aging Mir, particularly following the fire aboard the station and collision with the Progress supply vessel in 1997. The fire, caused by the malfunction of a backup solid-fuel oxygen generator (SFOG), burned for, according to various sources, between 90 seconds and 14 minutes, and produced large amounts of toxic smoke that filled the station for around 45 minutes. This forced the crew to don respirators, but some of the respirator masks initially worn were broken. Fire extinguishers mounted on the walls of the modules were immovable. The fire occurred during a crew rotation, and as such there were six men aboard the station rather than the usual three. Access to one of the docked Soyuz lifeboats was blocked, which would have prevented escape by half of the crew. A similar incident had occurred on an earlier Mir expedition, although in that case the SFOG burned for only a few seconds. The near-miss and collision incidents presented further safety issues. Both were caused by failure of the same piece of equipment, the TORU manual docking system, which was undergoing tests at the time. The tests were called in order to gauge the performance of long-distance docking in order to enable the cash-strapped Russians to remove the expensive Kurs automatic docking system from the Progress ships. In the wake of the collision NASA and the Russian Space Agency instigated numerous safety councils who were to determine the cause of the accident. As their investigations progressed, the two space agencies results began moving in different directions. NASA's results blamed the TORU docking system, as it required