SPACELAB was ESA's reusable space laboratory, brought into orbit and back in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle. Following its first flight in 1983, Spacelab flew a further 21 missions. After the final
Spacelab flight, the Neurolab mission in April 1998, one of the two flight modules was returned to Europe in 1999 to be housed in a museum exhibition hall at the Bremen airport. The other flight module, which flew on Spacelab's maiden mission in 1983, will be placed at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
ESA's GIOTTO space probe, launched in 1985, met with comet Halley and took unique images of its nucleus. Through Giotto scientists made many discoveries about the composition and origin of comets. The mission was named after the Italian painter Giotto di Bondone, who used Halley's comet to depict the Star of Bethlehem.
