STS-61F

Mission 61-F

This emblem was designed for the 61-F crew who were assigned to launch on May 15, 1986 on the space shuttle Challenger.  The primary payload was the European Ulysses spacecraft - also known as the International Solar Polar Mission (ISPM) - to study the polar regions of the sun.  The most significant aspect of the payload was the first use of the cryogenic Centaur upper stage with the shuttle, which was powerful enough to propel Ulysses directly to Jupiter, whose gravity would be used to propel the spacecraft out of the ecliptic plane and around the sun’s poles.  The patch design reflects both the power of the Centaur and its journey past Jupiter, with the sun rising above the Earth as its ultimate destination.  After the Challenger disaster in January 1986, the Centaur program was cancelled for safety and cost reasons.  Most of this crew was reassigned to STS-26, the first post-Challenger flight, and Ulysses finally launched in October 1990 using an Inertial Upper Stage on space shuttle Discovery on STS-41.

Reproduction of this design from the source material was guided by David T. Pinson working with  the AB Emblem design team.  

Approximately 4"