Lunar craters named for space explorers

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Fourteen craters on the Moon have been named after astronauts and cosmonauts who have died as part of a space mission. Most craters are on the far side of the moon.

Four craters were named after the Apollo 1 astronauts and a Soviet cosmonaut of the Soyuz 1 mission, all four of whom died in 1967:

• Virgil I. Grissom
• Edward H. White
• Roger B. Chaffee
• Vladimir Komarov

Subsequently, three craters were named after the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts, who died June 30, 1971:

• Vladislav Volkov
• Georgi Dobrovolski
• Viktor Patsayev

Since then, seven craters have been named after the Space Shuttle Challenger astronauts who died on the January 28, 1986 launch of that orbiter.

• Dick Scobee
• Gregory Jarvis
• Ronald McNair
• Ellison Onizuka
• Judith Resnik
• Michael J. Smith
• Christa McAuliffe

The astronauts of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster are memorialized in the Columbia Hills on the planet Mars, with names expected to be approved by the IAU.