MOSCOW (AP) -- The Russian space agency chief said Wednesday that the government will work out a plan to safely discard the Mir space station to prevent its uncontrolled plunge to Earth.

"We must guarantee that, crudely speaking, the Mir doesn't fall on someone," Russian Space Agency chief Yuri Koptev said, according to the Interfax news agency. In a note of caution, he recalled a Soviet defense satellite that plunged out of control into the Canadian Arctic in 1978.

Officials have said the massive, 14-year-old Mir will be dropped in the Pacific Ocean at the end of February if private investors fail to come up with funds to keep it in orbit.

Koptev said several government ministries and agencies would give advice at a Cabinet meeting Thursday on how best to control the 140-ton space station's descent.

In the case of the crashed satellite, fragments survived a fiery plunge through the atmosphere and landed in a lightly populated area of northern Canada. No one was hurt, but Canadian and U.S. experts found that the debris was dangerously radioactive. The fragments were promptly located and destroyed.

The Mir is more than three times bigger than Salyut, increasing the risk of damage if fragments fall on populated areas.

A likely scenario for lowering Mir's orbit safely involves a cargo ship docking with the station, and then firing rockets to push the station quickly into the atmosphere over an unpopulated area. Officials have said they may send up a new crew to Mir in January to prepare the craft for the final descent.