STS - 35 NASA - JSC; Brand Hoffman Lounge Parker Gardner Durrance ASTRO1 Parise

Diameter of the pin is approximately 2.25 inches. The pin has some wear and soiling. The background is white and around the outer border at the top is STS - 35 and at the bottom is NASA - JSC. In the center are to circles, the center one shows a Shuttle departing earth and entering a star-filled space. The out circle has the names of the crew and its main mission: Brand, Hoffman, Lounge, Parker, Gardner, Durrance, Parise, and ASTRO 1. STS-35 was the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Columbia, the 38th shuttle flight, and a mission devoted to astronomical observations with ASTRO-1, a Spacelab observatory consisting of four telescopes. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on 2 December 1990. Prior to the Challenger disaster, this mission was slated to launch in March 1986 as STS-61-E. Jon A. McBride was originally assigned to command this mission, which would have been his second spaceflight. He chose to retire from NASA in May 1989 and was replaced as mission commander by Vance D. Brand. In addition, Richard N. Richards (as pilot) and David C. Leestma (as mission specialist), were replaced by Guy S. Gardner and John M. Lounge respectively. Fifty-nine year-old Brand was the oldest astronaut to fly into space until F. Story Musgrave, 61 on STS-80 in 1996, and U.S. Senator John H. Glenn Jr., 77 when he flew on STS-95 in 1998. he primary payload of mission STS-35 was ASTRO-1, the fifth flight of the Spacelab system and the second with the Igloo and two pallets train configuration. The primary objectives were round-the-clock observations of the celestial sphere in ultraviolet and X-ray spectral wavelengths with the ASTRO-1 observatory, consisting of four telescopes: Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope (HUT); Wisconsin Ultraviolet Photo-Polarimeter Experiment (WUPPE); Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT), mounted on the Instrument Pointing System (IPS). The Instrument Pointing System consisted of a three-axis gimbal system mounted on a gimbal support structure connected to a Spacelab pallet at one end and the aft end of the payload at the other, a payload clamping system for support of the mounted experiment during launch and landing, and a control system based on the inertial reference of a three-axis gyro package and operated by a gimbal-mounted microcomputer.[4] The Broad-Band X-Ray Telescope (BBXRT) and its Two-Axis Pointing System (TAPS) rounded out the instrument complement in the aft payload bay. The Crew: Vance DeVoe Brand (born May 9, 1931) is an American naval officer, aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut. He served as command module pilot during the first U.S.-Soviet joint spaceflight in 1975, and as commander of three Space Shuttle missions. His flight experience includes 9,669 flying hours, which includes 8,089 hours in jets, 391 hours in helicopters, 746 hours in spacecraft, and checkout in more than 30 types of military aircraft; Guy Spence Gardner (born January 6, 1948) is a United States Air Force officer and a former astronaut. He holds the rank of colonel. He flew as pilot on two Space Shuttle missions, STS-27 and STS-35; Jeffrey Alan Hoffman (born November 2, 1944) is an American former NASA astronaut and a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. Hoffman made five flights as a Space Shuttle astronaut, including the first mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993, when the orbiting telescope's flawed optical system was corrected. Over the course of his five missions (STS-51-D, STS-35, STS-46, STS-61, STS-75) he logged more than 1,211 hours and 21.5 million miles in space; John Michael "Mike" Lounge (June 28, 1946 - March 1, 2011) was an American engineer, a United States Navy officer, a Vietnam War veteran, and a NASA astronaut. A veteran of three Space Shuttle flights, Lounge logged over 482 hours in space. He was a mission specialist on STS-51-I (1985) and STS-26 (1988) and was the flight engineer on STS-35 (1990); Robert Allan Ridley Parker (born December.…