The shuttle commander killed in the Challenger explosion, the first American woman to walk in space, the first American to live aboard Russian's space station Mir, the first African-American to command a space mission and the commander of the first mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope were inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame on Saturday.

The late Francis "Dick" Scobee, represented by his wife June, Kathryn Sullivan, Norm Thagard, Fred Gregory and Richard Covey were inducted during a ceremony held at Kennedy Space Center's Saturn 5 Center.

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Induction ceremony
Norm Thagard Norm Thagard, the first American to live aboard the Russian space station Mir, is inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame by shuttle commander Bob Crippen. (15min 07sec file)   PLAY		Dick Scobee Represented by his wife, June Scobee, the late Francis "Dick" Scobee, commander of the ill-fated 1986 Challenger mission, is inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame by Barbara Morgan, the back-up teacher-in-space for the STS-51L mission. (9min 22sec file)   PLAY
Kathryn Sullivan Kathryn Sullivan, the first American woman to walk in space, is inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame by John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. (13min 48sec QuickTime file)   PLAY		Fred Gregory Fred Gregory, the first African-American to command a space mission, is inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame by shuttle commander Dan Brandenstein. (18min 27sec file)   PLAY
Richard Covey Richard Covey, commander of the first Hubble Space Telescope repair mission, is inducted into the Astronaut Hall of Fame by shuttle commander Joe Engle. (14min 48sec file)   PLAY

This year's inductees were selected by a blue-ribbon committee composed of former NASA officials and flight controllers, journalists, historians and other space authorities in a process administered by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

To be eligible for induction, an individual must be a U.S. citizen and a NASA astronaut and must have been out of the active astronaut corps at least five years. Committee members consider not only an astronaut's accomplishments in space, but how he or she contributed to the advancement of space exploration both before and after his or her mission.

This is the third group of Space Shuttle astronauts selected for induction into the Hall of Fame. Once inducted, they will increase the number of space explorers enshrined there to 57. Earlier inductees came from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz programs.

Scobee was the pilot aboard Challenger in 1984 on the world's first mission to repair a satellite in orbit. The shuttle was launched on a week-long journey in pursuit of the Solar Max sun-study satellite, which had been disabled in orbit for three years. The satellite was snared, refurbished and set free to resume its study of the sun.

Scobee was aboard Challenger again on January 28, 1986, this time as commander with six crewmates, when it lifted off on a frigid day. Seventy-three seconds later, a tongue of flame burst through a solid fuel booster rocket, igniting a reaction that destroyed the Shuttle and its seven crew members.

Sullivan, as America's third female astronaut, made history as the United States' first woman spacewalker during her 1984 inaugural Shuttle flight when she and David Leetsma slipped into Challenger's open cargo bay to practice techniques for refueling out-of-gas orbiting satellites. On two later missions Sullivan helped launch the Hubble Space Telescope and made an extensive study of Earth's resources.

After serving in various capacities on 1983, 1985, 1989 and 1992 Shuttle flights, Florida native Thagard rode into space in a Soyuz spacecraft launched from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome. The spacecraft docked at the Mir space station, where Thagard spent 115 days, working on 28 different experiments before returning to Earth aboard Shuttle Atlantis.

Gregory flew on three Shuttle missions, the first as pilot of Challenger which shot into orbit in 1985 with a crew of seven and a menagerie of 24 rats and two squirrel monkeys who were along to test cages designed for future animal research in space. He became the first African-American to command a space mission when he guided Discovery in 1989 on a secret Defense Department flight and again commanded a military mission with the 1991 launch of Atlantis. Since leaving the astronaut corps, Gregory has held various positions within NASA and is now the agency's second in command.

A four-time Space Shuttle astronaut, Covey distinguished himself as both commander of the Hubble Space Telescope repair mission and as pilot of the Shuttle program's critical return-to-flight mission following the 1986 Challenger disaster.

While he also flew on Discovery in 1985 and Atlantis in 1990, much more visible was Covey's 1993 command of Endeavour on the most difficult space repair mission ever attempted. He was also in a high-profile position as pilot of the Discovery in 1988, when he and four other veteran Shuttle fliers were the first to fly in the redesigned spacecraft following the Challenger incident.

Covey currently serves as co-chairman of the Stafford-Covey Return to Flight Task Group, which is making an independent assessment of NASA's implementation of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Space Shuttle return to flight recommendations.