1980:

12 November: Saturn's rings are caught on film by the Voyager 1 space probe
The photographs showed bands of yellow and orange clouds circling the planet at several hundred miles an hour.




1981:

12 April: Maiden voyage of first space shuttle Columbia

1983:

24 June: the United States' first woman astronaut Sally Ride returns in the Challenger space shuttle after a six day flight

1986:

28 January: Seven dead in space shuttle disaster as Challenger explodes live on TV, just a minute after take-off

20 February: Soviets open a new phase in space exploration with the launch of the world's biggest space station, Mir

1988:

29 September: Space Shuttle Discovery blasts the US back into space after two and half years

1989:

25 August: Voyager 2 spacecraft reaches Neptune

Next: The 1990s

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