It can be oddly peaceful inside a dying spacecraft. That was not something Michael Foale ever suspected—and with good reason. When you’re inside a spacecraft that’s dying, you’re likely to die right along with it. But now that Foale was in that very situation, after six weeks aboard Russia’s Mir space station, he was surprised at the sense of serenity that came over him.

TIME’s Jeffrey Kluger takes you through the events that make it one of the most harrowing space missions of all time.