- CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.
(Reuters) - The break-up of the space shuttle Columbia on Saturday with
seven astronauts on board, including the first from Israel, was the latest
in a series of accidents since space exploration began in 1957 with the
launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite.
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- October 1960 -- Ninety-one people are killed when an
R-16 rocket explodes at the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan in the
Soviet Union.
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- January 1967 -- Three U.S. astronauts -- Virgil Grissom,
Roger Chaffee and Edward White -- die in a "flash fire" aboard
Apollo 1 during a simulated launch at Cape Canaveral.
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- April 1967 -- Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovich
Komarov is first man to die in a space mission when a parachute on his
spaceship fails on re-entry and the ship crashes to Earth.
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- June 1971 -- Three Soviet cosmonauts die during re-entry
after 24 days in an orbiting space laboratory, a record endurance flight
at that time.
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- March 18, 1980 -- Fifty technicians die at Russia's Plesetsk
Cosmodrome when a Vostok booster explodes while being fueled. The incident
is reported only in 1989.
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- January 28, 1986 -- Seven U.S. astronauts including a
schoolteacher die aboard the Challenger space shuttle 72 seconds after
lift-off from Cape Canaveral.
-
- April 18, 1986 -- A Titan missile believed to be carrying
a military satellite explodes shortly after launch from the Vandenberg
Air Force Base launch site in California.
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- May 3, 1986 -- A Delta rocket carrying a $57 million
weather satellite explodes shortly after lift-off from Cape Canaveral.
-
- February 22, 1990 -- Western Europe's 36th Ariane rocket,
carrying two Japanese satellites, explodes less than two minutes after
lift-off from Kourou, French Guiana.
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- September 7, 1990 -- Part of a U.S. Titan rocket falls
from a crane and explodes at Edwards Air Force Base, sending flames 150
feet into the air and killing at least one person.
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- June 18, 1991 -- A 46-foot (15-meter) Prospector rocket
carrying 10 science experiments for the U.S. space agency and several universities
is destroyed after veering off course after launch from Cape Canaveral.
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- August 2, 1993 -- A Titan 4 rocket believed to be carrying
an expensive military spy satellite explodes after lift-off from Vandenberg
Air Force Base.
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- December 1, 1994 -- Western Europe's 70th Ariane rocket
crashes into the Atlantic with the $150 million PanAmsat-3 telecoms satellite
after launch from Kourou, French Guiana.
-
- January 26, 1995 -- The Chinese-designed Long March 2E
rocket carrying a telecommunications satellite explodes after blast-off
from Xichang in southwest Sichuan province.
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- October 23, 1995 -- An unmanned Conestoga rocket whose
satellite contains 14 scientific experiments explodes 45 seconds after
blast-off from a NASA facility in Virginia.
-
- February 15, 1996 -- A rocket carrying an Intelsat 708
communications satellite explodes soon after take-off from China's launch
site in Xichang.
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- May 20, 1996 -- A Soyuz-U booster rocket carrying reconnaissance
satellites explodes 49 seconds after lift-off from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome.
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- June 4, 1996 -- Europe's Ariane-5 rocket explodes 40
seconds into its maiden flight after blasting off from the European Space
Agency launch center in Kourou, French Guiana.
-
- June 20, 1996 -- A Soyuz-U rocket carrying reconnaissance
satellites explodes after lift-off at Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
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- May 20, 1997 -- A Russian Zenit-2 booster rocket carrying
a Cosmos military satellite explodes 48 seconds after launch.
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- August 12, 1998 -- The U.S. Titan rocket program is put
on hold when a Titan 4A explodes soon after lift-off in one of history's
most expensive space disasters. The cost of the rocket and its spy satellite
cargo was put at more than $1 billion.
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- August 27, 1998 -- A Delta 3 rocket carrying a U.S. communications
satellite bursts into a $225 million fireball, soon after blast-off from
Cape Canaveral on its maiden flight.
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- September 10, 1998 -- A computer malfunction brings down
a Ukrainian rocket carrying 12 commercial satellites, minutes after blast
off from Baikonur.
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- July 5, 1999 -- A Russian Proton-K heavy booster rocket
launched from Baikonur suffers a malfunction that detaches the engine and
parts of the booster, causing them to crash onto the steppe. A 200-kg (440-lb)
chunk falls into the courtyard of a private house. Kazakhstan briefly closes
Baikonur in a row with Russia over clean-up costs and rent for the base.
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- September 23, 1999 -- NASA's $125 million Mars Climate
Orbiter spacecraft breaks up as it enters the Martian atmosphere due to
confusion among its constructors between metric and old English measuring
units.
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- October 28, 1999 -- A Russian Proton rocket carrying
a communications satellite crashes shortly after take-off from Baikonur.
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- December 3, 1999 -- NASA's Mars Polar lander loses contact
with earth after reaching the Red Planet. The $165 million mission is a
write-off.
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- August 15, 2002 -- NASA's $159 million Contour space
probe, launched on July 3 and designed to chase comets, breaks up on leaving
Earth's atmosphere.
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- December 11, 2002 -- An upgraded European Space Agency
Ariane-5 rocket explodes soon after blast-off from Kourou, French Guiana,
sending two satellites worth about $600 million plunging into the Atlantic
Ocean.
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- February 1, 2003 -- The space shuttle Columbia, carrying
seven astronauts including the first from Israel, breaks up over Texas
on re-entering atmosphere at end of 16-day flight.
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