The crash of a Russian Proton rocket launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan 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.
January 1967: Three U.S. astronauts, Virgil 'Gus' 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 failed on re-entry and the ship crashed to Earth.
July 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.
January 28, 1986: Seven U.S. astronauts including a school teacher 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.
Sep 7, 1990: Part of a U.S. Titan rocket falls from a crane and explodes at Edwards Air Force Base, sending flames 150 feet (45 metres) into the air and killing at least one person.
June 18, 1991: A 46-foot (15-metre) 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.
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 contained 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 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.
August 12, 1998: The U.S. 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.
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.
September 10, 1998: A computer malfunction brings down a Ukrainian rocket carrying 12 commercial satellites, minutes after blast off from Baikonur.
July 5, 1999: A Russian Proton-K heavy booster rocket launched from Baikonur suffers a malfunction which detached 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.
October 28, 1999: A Russian Proton rocket carrying a communications satellite crashes shortly after take-off from Baikonur.