NASA's Day of Remembrance 2025: Honoring the Astronauts and Test Pilots Lost

Each January, NASA holds a Day of Remembrance for every member of the NASA family who died in the pursuit of exploration and discovery — among them test pilots and the crews of Apollo 1 and the space shuttles Challenger and Columbia. On January 23, 2025, the agency paused to honor them and to reflect on why a strong safety culture matters.

The names

NASA's 2025 remembrance film pays tribute to each by name, in this order:

• Theodore C. Freeman
• Charles A. Bassett II
• Elliot M. See, Jr.
• Clifton C. Williams Jr.
• Virgil "Gus" Grissom
• Edward H. White, II
• Roger B. Chaffee
• Michael J. Adams
• Robert H. Lawrence, Jr.
• Francis "Dick" Scobee
• Michael J. Smith
• Judith A. Resnik
• Ellison S. Onizuka
• Ronald E. McNair
• Gregory B. Jarvis
• S. Christa McAuliffe
• Manley "Sonny" Carter Jr.
• Rick D. Husband
• William C. McCool
• Michael P. Anderson
• Kalpana Chawla
• David M. Brown
• Laurel Clark
• Ilan Ramon

The film closes by promising to carry the spirit of NASA's fallen explorers forward as the agency pushes the limits of what's possible in the cosmos.

Sources

Based on "NASA's Day of Remembrance 2025," a film from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA Image and Video Library), and its narration; a work of the United States government in the public domain.