OV-102, STS-1.

Not only is today Cosmonautics Day - the Russian holiday in honour of Yuri Gagarin's historic 1961 flight - and the International Day of Human Space Flight, but it is also the thirty-second anniversary of the maidenvoyage of the Space Shuttle Columbia; the flight that heralded three decades of NASA's Space Shuttle Program.

The second orbiter to be constructed, Columbia was launched from Cape Canaveral on April 12th 1981 on a two-day proving mission, flown by astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen. After 27 spaceflights - spending just over 300 days in space over 4,808 orbits, travelling 125,204,911 miles - the orbiter was lost during re-entry on her 28th mission on February 1st 2007, killing all seven astronauts.

A reminder of the truth behind the motto of the Royal Air Force: per ardua as astra.