Chaffee, Roger Bruce

Born Feb. 15, 1935, in Grand Rapids, Mich.; died Jan. 27, 1967, on a launch pad at Cape Kennedy. US astronaut and pilot; lieutenant commander in the US Navy.

Chaffee graduated in 1957 from Purdue University with a degree in aeronautical engineering and then served at a naval air station in Florida. He entered the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, in 1963. That same year, Chaffee was among a group selected for astronaut training by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He was chosen with V. Grissom and E. White to be a crew member on the first flight of the Apollo spacecraft. Chaffee died with Grissom and White in a fire that swept through the command module of the spacecraft during a launch rehearsal. A crater on the far side of the moon has been named for Chaffee.