STS-51G - Swissartex

Submitted by liem on Fri, 04/12/2013 - 23:53

STS-51-G was the eighteenth flight of NASA's Space Shuttle program, and the fifth flight of Space Shuttle Discovery. The seven-day mission launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 17 June 1985, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 24 June. Sultan Salman Al Saud of Saudi Arabia was on board as a payload specialist; Al Saud became the first Arab, the first Muslim, and the first member of a royal family to fly into space.[1] It was also the first Space Shuttle mission which flew without at least one astronaut from the pre-Shuttle era among its crew.

The Swissartex is a single-piece patch identified by the rounded-edge tab and stitching in the Wright Flyer trail.

There are two versions of this STS-51G patch manufactured by Swissartex Emblem Inc. The first has a waxy matt plastic coated backing, & the other has a shiny vacuum sealed backing. The modern version of this patch was manufactured by Eagle Crest Emblem Inc. in Taiwan.