STS-41-D Maiden Flight Signed Cover — Steven A. Hawley, Grumman Aerospace

August 30, 1984: the countdown reaches zero, the main engines ignite — and then nothing. A computer abort at T-4 seconds halts the first launch attempt of Space Shuttle Discovery. The pad clears. The crew walks off. Two months of delays follow. When Discovery finally lifts off on August 30th, it carries with it the weight of every scrub, every hold, every engineer who had spent years making the machine ready. The wings it flew on were built in Bethpage, Long Island, by Grumman Aerospace Corporation — and this cover is theirs.

A commemorative postal cover issued by Grumman Aerospace Corp., Bethpage, N.Y., marking the maiden flight of mission STS-41-D. The face carries bold blue rubber-stamp cachets — MAIDEN FLIGHT OF DISCOVERY STS-41D, the Grumman corporate identification, and BUILDER OF THE SHUTTLE WING — a point of pride from the contractor whose fabricated wing structures carried the orbiter through every mission in its 27-year career. Franked with a 20¢ U.S. Flag over Supreme Court definitive and cancelled with a Bethpage, NY USPO postmark dated June 25, 1984, placing it in the tense window between the original scrubbed launch attempt and the eventual successful flight. The cover is hand-signed in bold black ink by mission specialist Steven A. Hawley, with "STS 41-D" notated in his hand below the signature.

Steven A. Hawley is one of the most consequential figures in the history of human spaceflight — not through command, but through his hands. A Harvard-trained astronomer who joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1978, Hawley flew five shuttle missions over a career spanning two decades. His most defining moment came on STS-31 in 1990, when he operated the robotic arm to deploy the Hubble Space Telescope from Discovery's payload bay — placing into orbit the instrument that would fundamentally reshape humanity's understanding of the universe. He returned to Hubble on STS-82 to assist with the first servicing mission. On STS-41-D, Discovery's maiden flight, he served as mission specialist alongside Commander Hank Hartsfield, Pilot Mike Coats, and fellow specialists Judith Resnik, Mike Mullane, and Charlie Walker — a crew that endured a dramatic pad abort before finally reaching orbit. Hawley's autograph on a piece tied to that specific mission, issued by the contractor who built the wing, connects two origin stories at once: the birth of an orbiter and the beginning of a career that would help birth modern astronomy.

The signature is hand-signed in black ink directly on the cover face. NM Estate Auctions will issue a Certificate of Authenticity for this lot.

CONDITION

Very Good. Clean, bright cover stock with crisp cachet impressions and a bold, unfaded signature. Postmark strikes slightly soft, as struck. No creasing, soiling, or edge wear of note.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• Size: 3 5/8" × 6 1/2"
• Postmark: Bethpage, NY USPO — June 25, 1984
• Franking: 20¢ U.S. Flag over Supreme Court definitive
• Signed: Steven A. Hawley, "STS 41-D" notation below signature
• COA: Issued by NM Estate Auctions