NASA selects shuttle program patch winner

A shuttle triumphantly blasting off into the vastness of space is the image NASA has chosen to represent 30 years of shuttle flights on a commemorative patch.

NASA today announced the winner of a patch design contest that was open to current and former shuttle program employees: Blake Dumesnil, an employee with contractor Hamilton Sundstrand at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

A five judge panel led by Shuttle Program Manager John Shannon awarded third place to a design by local artist Tim Gagnon of Titusville, which showed a shuttle gliding to a landing at sunset "for a safe landing at the conclusion of it's final mission," he wrote.

Second place went to Jennifer Franzo, an employee at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, La., who depicted an orbiter tipping its wing "just as a cowboy would wave goodbye into the sunset," she wrote.

"The quality of all submissions and the emotion behind the designs showed tremendous commitment and loyalty to the Space Shuttle Program," NASA said in a statement. "The judges were very impressed with the quality and imagination of the designs and found the task of narrowing the choices to only one to be very difficult."

Before its official selection by judges, Dumesnil's design also won the "People's Choice" award, collecting the most votes by NASA employees and contractors. Contests' identities were withheld until today to keep voting impartial.

NASA narrowed 86 contest entries to 15 finalists earlier this year. You can view the first 85 entries here (one was submitted after a December deadline), and the 15 finalists here. The images are accompanied by narratives explaining the designs.

Dumesnil said his diamond-shaped backdrop reflected the shuttle as "an innovative, iconic gem in the history of American spaceflight...As the shape of the patch fans out from a fine point at the bottom to a wide array across the top, this evokes the vastness of space and our aim to explore it, as the Shuttle has done successfully for decades."

The winning design will be flown on Atlantis in a mission targeted for launch in May. All the contest entries will receive a compact disc containing digital copies of their artwork flown on the same mission.

You can read more about the contest in this Florida Today story.

IMAGES: The commemorative patch entries are shown in the order judges ranked them, first to third. First Place, top: Mr. Blake Dumesnil, Hamilton Sundstrand, Johnson Space Center; Second Place, center: Ms. Jennifer Franzo, Michoud Assembly Facility, New Orleans; Third Place, bottom: Mr. Tim Gagnon, Kennedy Space Center, Florida.