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Blake Dumesnil who works for Hamilton Sundstrand at the Johnson Space Center won the competition to design a commemorative patch to mark the end of the Space Shuttle Program. He explains the concept of his design:

"To celebrate the upcoming 30th anniversary and retirement of the Space Shuttle Program, I aimed to design a patch that captured the visual essence and spirit of the program in an iconic and triumphant manner.

"As the Space Shuttle Program has been an innovative, iconic gem in the history of American spaceflight, the overall shape of the patch and its faceted panels are reminiscent of a diamond or other fine jewel. 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 outlined blue circle represents the Shuttle’s exploration within low Earth orbit, but also creates a dynamic fluidity from the bottom right around to the top left to allude to the smoothness of the Shuttle orbiting the earth. The diagonal lines cascad- ing down into the top right corner of the design form the American Flag as the Shuttle has been one of the most recognizable icons in American history over the last three decades.

"In the top left and right panels of the design, there are seven prominent stars on each side which represent the 14 crew members that were lost on shuttles Challenger and Columbia. Inside of the middle panel to the right of the Shuttle, there are five larger, more prominent stars that signify the five Space Shuttle vehicles NASA has had in its fleet throughout the program."