Challenger
Point

Challenger Point is a subpeak on Kit Carson Peak's northwest shoulder, unnamed on maps until 1987. Colorado Springs resident Dennis Williams proposed the name that year in memory of the seven astronauts killed when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart on liftoff on January 28, 1986; the U.S. Board on Geographic Names approved it on April 9, 1987. By raw elevation it is the 34th-highest of Colorado's fourteeners, yet whether it qualifies as a peak distinct from Kit Carson has never been settled.

In July 1987, climber Alan Silverstein led an expedition that placed a memorial plaque on the summit inscribed with the phrase "Ad astra per aspera," Latin for "to the stars through adversity." At 301 feet of prominence above its connecting saddle with Kit Carson Peak, Challenger Point clears the standard threshold for separate-summit status by a narrow margin, which is why some published Colorado 14ers lists still treat it as an appendage of Kit Carson rather than a fully independent peak.