| 100% | CHALLENGER | 10 | Space Shuttle —, orbiter that exploded 73 seconds after lift-off in January 1986 |
| 100% | CHALLENGER | 10 | Space Shuttle —, orbiter that exploded 73 seconds after lift-off in January, 1986 |
| 59% | CHALLENGER | 10 | NASA's space shuttle that broke apart 73 seconds after take off in 1986 |
| 29% | TITOV | 5 | Second Russian in space, after Gagarin |
| 26% | CHALLENGER | 10 | NASA's second Space Shuttle orbiter constructed by Rockwell International |
| 25% | XFL | 3 | Org. that kicked off again in 2020 after a 19-year hiatus |
| 24% | MAIN | 4 | After "Park," the second-most popular street name in the US that isn't an ordinal number |
| 24% | MIR | 3 | Orbiter that fell in 2001 |
| 23% | DISCOVERY | 9 | Space shuttle that took many flights |
| 23% | SKYLAB | 6 | Orbiter that fell to Earth in 1979 |
| 23% | ENTERPRISE | 10 | NASA's first Space Shuttle orbiter constructed by Rockwell International |
| 23% | ATLANTIS | 8 | NASA's fourth Space Shuttle orbiter constructed by Rockwell International |
| 23% | NOT | 3 | Negating word that, if parsed with a space after the second letter, may help to understand nine Across answers |
| 23% | FERRARI | 7 | ___ 250 GT, sports car that was featured in the Matthew Broderick starrer 1986 film "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" |
| 22% | KALPANACHAWLA | 13 | Indian American astronaut aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003 who was on her second mission on the same shuttle: 2 wds. |
| 22% | MOONRAKER | 9 | Space shuttle used in James Bond's 1979 movie |
| 22% | KRAKATOA | 8 | Volcanic Indonesian island that exploded in 1883 |
| 22% | MIR | 3 | Space station launched in 1986 |
| 22% | RESNIK | 6 | Second American woman in space |
| 22% | PINATUBO | 8 | Volcano that exploded in the Philippines in 1991 |
| 22% | DISCOVERY | 9 | NASA space shuttle in service from 1984-2011 |
| 22% | FIREWORKS | 9 | Celebratory rockets etc, that explode in the sky |
| 22% | SKYLAB | 6 | Space station that crashed in 1979 |
| 22% | ALUMS | 5 | Those involved in after-school activities? |
| 21% | STARSHIP | 8 | Elon Musk's rocket that exploded in April 2023 |
| 21% | MIR | 3 | Space station launched by USSR in 1986 |
| 21% | ALIENS | 6 | 1986 Sigourney Weaver sequel set in space |
| 21% | MIR | 3 | Space station that was deorbited in 2001 |
| 21% | YOKOHAMA | 8 | Second largest city in Japan, after Tokyo |
| 21% | LAHORE | 6 | Second largest city in Pakistan, after Karachi |