On 17th December, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright became the first humans to achieve powered flight. Orville's first 40-metre hop attained an altitude of no more than two metres. Today, the highest humans are those in the International Space Station, orbiting the Earth at an altitude of 354km.

To celebrate a century of powered flight, Planetary Visions is releasing a collection of computer-generated images simulating the view from the International Space Station as it passes over key sites in the history of aviation.

From left:
(1) Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the site of the Wright Brothers' first flight in 1903.
(2) The English Channel, first flown by Louis Bleriot on 25th July 1909.
(3) County Galway in Ireland is where John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown landed after the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic on 14th June 1919.
(4) Baikonur Cosmodrome at Tyuratum, Kazakhstan, launch site for the first manned space flight, by Yuri Gargarin in April 1961.
(5) Cape Canaveral, Florida, is the location of the Kennedy Space Centre, launch site for the first manned landing on the Moon in July 1969.

These simulated views from orbit were generated using Planetary Visions' cloud-free Satellite Imagemap. Global coverage is at a pixel size of 1km, and regional coverage is available at 250 metres. More 3D-rendered images are available from our Digital Image Collections and from our stock photo agents, the Science Photo Library.

For further information, contact Andrew Wayne on +44 (0)20 7679 2093