Categories: MissionsMoon

Challenger Astronauts Memorialized on the Moon

Craters in the center of Apollo basin named after Space Shuttle Challenger astronauts. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University.

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Shortly after the loss of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986, seven craters on the eastern rim of the Apollo basin were named after the crew: Gregory Jarvis, Christa McAuliffe, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Judith Resnik, Dick Scobee, Michael Smith. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Wide Angle Camera recently took this image of the region. Below is a video from the Kaguya spacecraft flying over the area.

According to OnOrbit, the crater “Onizuka” is incorrectly identified in this video. Rather, “Onizuka” is the crater next and to the right of the one labeled in the video as “The Onizuka”.

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The Apollo Basin is not where I would have guessed — the area around the Moon’s equator on the near side where all the Apollo landings took place — but instead is a 524 km-diameter impact basin located within the center of the the giant South Pole-Aitken basin, (36°S, 209°E).

See more about the image and explore the entire region with LROC’s “zoomify” feature at the LRO website.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/