In Spring of 1986, when the university had not yet named the building in his memory, students nailed a sign with the name 'Jarvis Hall' onto the side of the building as a show of support for the deceased astronaut. The East Engineering building on University at Buffalo (SUNY) north campus was renamed Jarvis Hall after Gregory Jarvis' death. Jarvis was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Pacific Ocean. On April 15, 1986, on the last scheduled attempt to recover wreckage, it was rediscovered and returned to shore. During salvage operations to raise the crew deck from the ocean floor, his body escaped from the wreckage, floated to the surface, and disappeared back into the sea. Jarvis' body was discovered in the lower mid-deck along with McNair and McAuliffe. The remains of all seven astronauts from the Challenger disaster were discovered in the crew decks on the ocean floor.

The entire STS-51-L crew died on January 28, 1986, when Challenger broke up during launch. Judith Resnik, and fellow civilian payload specialist Christa McAuliffe. The crew on board the Orbiter Challenger included Commander Dick Scobee, pilot Michael J. Jarvis was Payload Specialist 2 on STS-51-L which was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 11:38:00 EST on January 28, 1986. His flight was rescheduled for early January 1986, but he was again replaced – this time by U.S. Jarvis was originally scheduled to make his shuttle flight in April 1985, but his spot on that flight was replaced by U.S. He planned to conduct experiments regarding the effects of weightlessness on fluids.

In June 1984, Jarvis was one of two Hughes Aircraft employees selected as candidates for the Space Shuttle program.

Gregory jarvis