 | ||
This article lists verifiable spaceflight-related accidents and incidents resulting in fatality or near-fatality during flight or training for manned space missions, and testing, assembly, preparation or flight of manned and unmanned spacecraft. Not included are accidents or incidents associated with intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests, unmanned space flights not resulting in fatality or serious injury, or Soviet or German rocket-powered aircraft projects of World War II. Also not included are alleged unreported Soviet space accidents, which are considered fringe theories by a majority of historians.
Contents
- Astronaut fatalities
- Astronaut fatalities during spaceflight
- Fatalities during spaceflight training or testing
- Non fatal incidents during spaceflight
- References
As of 2016, there have been 18 astronaut and cosmonaut fatalities during spaceflight. Astronauts have also died while training for space missions, such as the Apollo 1 launch pad fire which killed an entire crew of three. There have also been some non-astronaut fatalities during spaceflight-related activities.
Astronaut fatalities
(In the statistics below, "astronaut" is applied to all space travellers to avoid the use of "astronaut/cosmonaut".)Astronaut fatalities during spaceflight
As of 2017, in-flight accidents have killed 18 astronauts, in four separate incidents.
NASA astronauts who died on duty are memorialized at the Space Mirror Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Merritt Island, Florida. Cosmonauts who died on duty under the Soviet Union were generally honored by burial at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow. No cosmonauts have died during spaceflight since the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991.
Four fatal in-flight accidents have occurred on missions which were considered spaceflights under the internationally accepted definition of the term, as well as one on the ground during rehearsal of a planned flight. In each case, all crew were killed. To date, no individual member of a multi-member crew has died during a mission or rehearsal.
Fatalities during spaceflight training or testing
In addition to accidents during spaceflights, 13 astronauts, test pilots, and other personnel have died during training and test flights.
Non-fatal incidents during spaceflight
Apart from actual disasters, a number of missions resulted in some very near misses and also some training accidents that nearly resulted in deaths.