Litany of disasters in space

The break-up of the space shuttle 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:

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