sts-2

This version of the STS-2 path from Swissartex has the distinctive white embroidery near the nose of the shuttle. This patch was produiced fro 1983 and on.

STS-2 was the second Space Shuttle mission conducted by NASA, and the second flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. The mission launched on 12 November 1981 and landed two days later on 14 November. STS-2 marked the first time ever that a manned, reusable orbital spacecraft left the Earth for its second mission and returned to space.

The AB Emblem STS-2 patch has a plastic coated back. This example is enclosed in a Swissartex / Kennedy Space Certer packet. This is because Swissartex who had the contract with the Kennedy Space Center, could not supply their own version of the STS-2 patch so they bought in around 1,000 patches from AB Emblem to cover the short fall. There is a rubber stamp on the back of the card header which says: EMBLEM MFG. IN USA PACKAGED BY SWISSARTEX EMBLEM INC. (Other AB Emblem patches were bought in to cover short falls during this contract between 1983 - 1988, along with patches manufactured by Cape Kennedy Medals). 

STS-2 was the second Space Shuttle mission conducted by NASA, and the second flight of Space Shuttle Columbia. The mission launched on 12 November 1981 and landed two days later on 14 November. STS-2 marked the first time ever that a manned, reusable orbital spacecraft left the Earth for its second mission and returned to space.
In the early planning stages of the Space Shuttle program, STS-2 was intended to be a Skylab reboost mission. However, delays with the shuttle's development, and the deteriorating orbit of Skylab, made the mission impossible. Skylab ultimately de-orbited in 1979, two years before the launch of STS-2

The MAPS instrument measures the distribution of carbon monoxide in the Earth's lower atmosphere (3 to 10 kilometers above the surface), from latitude 57 degrees North to latitude 57 degrees South. The MAPS instrument has flown aboard the Space Shuttle four times: in November 1981 (STS-2), as the first science payload on the Space Shuttle, in October 1984 (STS-41G), and in April 1994 (STS-59) and October 1994 (STS-68).

The second flight of the Space Shuttle (STS-2) carried the first scientific payload OSTA-1 (Office of Space and Terrestrial Application 1). The instruments from the OSTA-1 payload were designed to perform remote sensing of the earth's atmosphere, oceans, and land resources.