SPACE SHUTTLE DISCOVERY: STS-41D MISSION
Commemorative Envelope signed by all six crew members of Discovery's maiden voyage: Hartsfield, Coats, Mullane, Hawley, Resnik and Walker
Commemorative Envelope signed: "Hank Hartsfield", "Michael L. Coats", "Steven A. Hawley", "Judy Resnik", "Mike Mulland", "Charles Walker/Electrophoresis/Operations/STS 12" 6½x3½. Envelope postmarked Kennedy Space Center, April 10, 1984. Space shuttle mission STS-41D, the twelfth orbital flight and the first flight of Discovery. (Walker's ink note calls this STS-12, the original - and more logical - name for the mission.) It was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on August 30, 1984 and landed at Edwards Air Force Base on September 5. This mission deployed three communication satellites and a solar array, the largest object deployed to date. The six-person flight crew consisted of HENRY W. HARTSFIELD, JR., commander, making his second shuttle mission; pilot MICHAEL L. COATS; three mission specialists - JUDITH A. RESNIK, RICHARD M. MULLANE and STEVEN A. HAWLEY; and a payload specialist, CHARLES D. WALKER, an employee of McDonnell Douglas. Walker was the first commercially-sponsored payload specialist to fly aboard the Space Shuttle, operating - as he notes here - a Continuous Flow Electrophoresis System, using living cells. This was the second space flight for Hartsfield, and the first for the other crew members. Coats, Mullane and Walker would make two more shuttle voyages each, and Hawley would make four. Resnik's next mission would be a tragic one: the explosion of the ill-fated Challenger (January 18, 1986). Fine condition.