Richard O. "Dick" Covey Signed NASA Portrait — Hubble's Rescue Pilot, STS-26 Return-to-Flight Commander

December 1993. The crew of STS-61 rendezvoused with the Hubble Space Telescope at 360 miles — and fixed it. Not adjusted it. Fixed it. The telescope that had launched to ridicule, its primary mirror ground to the wrong prescription by a fraction of a human hair, had spent three years returning blurred images and embarrassing NASA before the world. The man who flew the orbiter to that rendezvous, who held Endeavour steady through five consecutive spacewalks across eleven days while his crew performed the most complex repair operation in human spaceflight history, was Richard O. "Dick" Covey — and when the corrective optics locked in and Hubble finally saw the universe in focus, he was at the controls.

This is the official NASA color portrait of Covey, issued on agency letterhead stock bearing catalog number JSCIL-315. He appears in his light-blue flight suit beside the American flag, flight helmet in hand, the STS-51-I crew patch on his chest — his first Shuttle mission, 1985. Across the upper right field he has signed and inscribed in bold black marker: "To Toshia — Best Wishes, Dick Covey." The reverse carries the standard NASA no-copyright-asserted release block. Covey flew four missions total: STS-51-I (1985), STS-26 (1988, the first post-Challenger return-to-flight), STS-38 (1990), and STS-61 (1993). He later chaired NASA's Return-to-Flight Task Group following the Columbia accident — the agency's institutional memory for how to come back from the unthinkable, twice over.

Covey's career arc runs through every defining moment of the Space Shuttle era. He was in the cockpit for the mission that proved NASA could fly again after Challenger — STS-26, September 1988, a flight the agency had spent thirty-two months earning back. Five years later he commanded the crew that transformed Hubble from a national embarrassment into the instrument that would rewrite cosmology. Few astronauts of any generation carry two résumé entries of that weight. The portrait here dates to his early career — the STS-51-I patch places it to 1985 — but the signature connects all of it. This is not a commemorative reproduction. It is a NASA-issued portrait sheet, signed by hand, personally dedicated.

The signature and inscription are hand-applied in black marker directly to the portrait surface. The dedication — "To Toshia — Best Wishes, Dick Covey" — confirms in-person or direct-contact signing rather than a printed or secretarial facsimile. Mesilla Valley Estate Sales will issue a Certificate of Authenticity with this lot.

CONDITION

Very Good. The portrait sheet is clean and bright with strong, even color saturation throughout. Signature and inscription are dark, bold, and unsmudged. Light handling consistent with storage as an unframed sheet; no creasing, tears, or foxing noted.

DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS

• 10" × 8"
• Format: NASA-issued color portrait, single sheet
• Caption code: JSCIL-315
• Inscription: "To Toshia — Best Wishes, Dick Covey"
• COA: Mesilla Valley Estate Sales Certificate of Authenticity included