A Needham astronaut takes the town seal aloft

Along with her anti-gravity suit and space helmet, Sunita L. Williams, a Needham High School graduate, wanted a memento from her hometown on board with her when the shuttle Discovery blasted her into the cosmos.

Town officials quickly mailed the item she had requested to Houston, the site of NASA's Johnson Space Center.

On Saturday, when Discovery hurtled into space for a 220-mile trip above the earth, it carried Williams, 41, six other crew members, and a small white flag bearing Needham's town seal.

"How cool is that?" a Needham selectman, John Bulian, said in a telephone interview.

Williams is an engineer who was born in Ohio, but who moved to Needham as a child.

She is scheduled to spend six months at the International Space Station, where her duties will include rewiring the space lab.

Her role in the mission has bolstered pride in the town of 29,000, which is home to the Needham Rockets.

The Rockets are the name of many of the town's sports teams.

"She's riding the school mascot, if you will, up to space," said School Superintendent Daniel Gutekanst , also in a telephone interview.

Williams, who lives in Houston with her husband, two Labrador retrievers and a Jack Russell terrier named Gorby , also took with her a New England Patriots hat, a 2004 Red Sox World Series cap , and a T-shirt from the Needham school district.

But many in Needham were particularly excited by her taking the town flag, which shows two English settlers standing with Chief Nehoiden , who in 1680 sold what became Needham to the settlers for 10 pounds, 40 acres of land, and 40 shillings worth of Indian corn.

The longest documented journey that a town flag had made was in 1933, when a Needham engineer took one with him during Admiral Richard E. Byrd's second expedition to Antarctica.

In September, Polly Attridge , the archivist for the Needham Historical Society , received a call from Newman Elementary School teacher Angela DiNapoli , who taught Williams in the sixth grade and keeps in touch with her student.

Attridge said DiNapoli had told her that Williams had wanted a town flag with her when she went into space.

Attridge said she was thrilled to help. "It gave us a chance to make some history rather than recording it," she said yesterday by phone.

Five days later, the flag was in the mail.

On Saturday, Attridge hunkered down in front of the television to watch the launch.

"To think, there were [seven] people in there, one of them from Needham, with our flag," she said. "We were really excited about it."

Williams is not expected to return until June, but the flag, which will remain in the shuttle, will return with the other astronauts at the end of their 12-day mission.

Laura Rochon , a spokeswoman for NASA, said it is common for astronauts to carry flags of their hometowns or states with them.

Attridge said the flag will be displayed at the society's headquarters in front of the Newman Elementary School on Central Avenue. "We would put it on display along with the flag that was taken to Antarctica," Attridge said. "The two of them would be something."

Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.