This commemorative patch marks the Mercury Redstone 4 mission of July 21, 1961, the second human spaceflight by an American. In this mission, a Mercury-Redstone rocket boosted Astronaut Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom in his Liberty Bell 7 capsule to the second suborbital flight in NASA's Project Mercury.
Although the first NASA mission patch was created for Gemini V in 1965, designs for earlier missions were created retroactively to allow collectors and the public to commemorate all of NASA's human spaceflights. This patch was made by an unknown manufacturer for commercial sale.
It was donated to the National Collection by Mance Clayton in 1982.
This object is not on display at the National Air and Space Museum. It is either on loan or in storage.