LOS ANGELES – A small group of space enthusiasts plans to charter an aircraft to witness up-close the event of a lifetime – the fiery death next month of the Russian Mir space station as it hurtles into the south Pacific.

The expedition, thought to be the only one of its kind in the world, will take some 120 researchers and paying members of the public 9,144 meters up into the skies south of Tahiti.

There they hope to view a display of pyrotechnics expected to be one of the most memorable celestial events of the 21st century.

"I have been planning to do this for 15 years. I missed the Skylab re-entry in 1979 because it was an uncontrolled re-entry," said expedition organizer Bob Citron.

"As far as I know, we are the only ones doing it. When I started doing my research, I was amazed that no one else was planning to observe this re-entry, which is going to be the most spectacular event since the Tunguska meteorite struck the earth in 1908," Citron, a space-industry businessman, said from Seattle.

Russian space officials are to bring the 130-ton Mir space lab – the 15-year-old former crown jewel of the Soviet space program – crashing through the earth's atmosphere in the first half of March.

Two-thirds of the aging and accident-prone station will burn up in the controlled descent but the remainder is expected to plunge into a remote area of the Pacific Ocean about 2,000 nautical miles south of Tahiti.

Citron, founder of the commercial space firm Spacehab Inc. and with 30 years' experience in the U.S. space program, said he believes the chances of seeing anything from land will be remote.

"The only place you will be able to see anything at all from earth, if you are lucky, will be from one of the central south-Pacific islands and the chances of that are very, very small. You really have to be over open ocean," he said.

Citron said about 20 friends, colleagues and serious amateur astronomers have expressed interest in paying about $6,000 each for the trip.