CAPE CANAVERAL, Feb 1: The break-up of Columbia on Saturday was the latest in a series of accidents since space exploration began in 1957 with the launch of the Soviet Sputnik satellite.

The following is a chronology of some key space incidents:

Oct 1960 - Ninety-one people are killed when an R-16 rocket explodes at the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan in the Soviet Union.

Jan 1967 - Three US astronauts — Virgil Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Edward White — die in a “flash fire” aboard Apollo 1 during a simulated launch at Cape Canaveral.

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.

June 1971 - Three Soviet cosmonauts die during re-entry after 24 days in an orbiting space laboratory, a record endurance flight at that time.

March 18, 1980 - Fifty technicians die at Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome when a Vostok booster explodes while being fuelled. The incident is reported only in 1989.

Jan 28, 1986 - Seven US 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.

May 3, 1986 - A Delta rocket carrying a $57 million weather satellite explodes shortly after lift-off from Cape Canaveral.

Feb 22, 1990 - Western Europe’s 36th Ariane rocket, carrying two Japanese satellites, explodes less than two minutes after lift-off from Kourou, French Guiana.

Sept 7, 1990 - Part of a US Titan rocket falls from a crane and explodes at Edwards Air Force Base, sending flames 45 metres into the air and killing at least one person.

June 18, 1991 - A 15-metre Prospector rocket carrying 10 science experiments for the US space agency and several universities is destroyed after veering off course after launch from Cape Canaveral.

Aug 2, 1993 - A Titan 4 rocket believed to be carrying an expensive military spy satellite explodes after lift-off from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Dec 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.

Jan 26, 1995 - The Chinese-designed Long March 2E rocket carrying a telecommunications satellite explodes after blast-off from Xichang in southwest Sichuan province.

Oct 23, 1995 - An unmanned Conestoga rocket whose satellite contains 14 scientific experiments explodes 45 seconds after blast-off from a NASA facility in Virginia.

Feb 15, 1996 - A rocket carrying an Intelsat 708 communications satellite explodes soon after take-off from China’s launch site in Xichang.

May 20, 1996 - A Soyuz-U booster rocket carrying reconnaissance satellites explodes 49 seconds after lift off from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome.

June 4, 1996 - Europe’s Ariane-5 rocket explodes 40 seconds into its maiden flight after blasting off from the European Space Agency launch centre in Kourou, French Guiana.

June 20, 1996 - A Soyuz-U rocket carrying reconnaissance satellites explodes after lift-off at Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

May 20, 1997 - A Russian Zenit-2 booster rocket carrying a Cosmos military satellite explodes 48 seconds after launch.

Aug 12, 1998 - The US Titan rocket programme 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.

Aug 27, 1998 - A Delta 3 rocket carrying a US communications satellite bursts into a $225 million fireball, soon after blast-off from Cape Canaveral on its maiden flight.

Sept 10, 1998 - A computer malfunction brings down a Ukrainian rocket carrying 12 commercial satellites, minutes after blast off from Baikonur.

Sept 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.

Aug 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.

Dec 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.

—Reuters