Along with these, the shuttle program has seen the depths of tragedy.
On January 28, 1986, a leak in the joints of one of two solid rocket boosters attached to the shuttle orbiter Challenger caused the main liquid fuel tank to explode 73 seconds after launch, killing all seven crew members.
Tragedy struck again on February 1, 2003, with the loss of the orbiter Columbia and its seven astronauts, including Indian American Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, during re-entry.
Three shuttle orbiters remain in NASA's fleet: Atlantis, Discovery and Endeavour. NASA's plan is to fly out the remaining shuttle missions through 2010 for the purposes of ISS assembly and servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Image: Sunita Williams, the second Indian American astronaut, with astronaut Joan E Higginbotham in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station during their stay on it.
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