3352 McAuliffe planet was named in memory of Christa McAuliffe (1948–1986), teacher, civilian astronaut and one of the seven crew members who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on 28 January 1986. The minor planets , , , , , and were named for the other crew members of the ill-fated STS-51-L mission. The approved naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 26 March 1986 (). 3352 McAuliffe 3352 McAuliffe (), provisional designation , is a rare-type asteroid and suspected binary system, classified as near-Earth object of the Amor group, approximately 2 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered
1015 Christa inclination of 9° with respect to the ecliptic. The asteroid was first observed as at the Simeiz Observatory in October 1916. The body's observation arc begins at Heidelberg in February 1924, two days after its official discovery observation. In the Tholen classification, "Christa" is a common C-type asteroid, while in the SMASS classification, it is a Xc-subtype that transitions from the carbonaceous C-type to the X-type asteroids. It has also been characterized as a primitive P-type asteroid by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). In April 2005, a first rotational lightcurve of "Christa" was obtained from photometric observations by French