posted 12-31-2011 03:01 PM               

Space Cover #142: The Space Shuttle's Final Flight

Beginning with STS-1 in April 1981 and after 135 flights and about 21,000 orbits of the earth, NASA's Space Shuttle made its final flight on STS-135 in July 2011.

Five orbiters, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour, carried out these 135 flights, with OV Enterprise accomplishing the preliminary approach and landing test flights (ALT) at Edwards AFB, CA.

Featured here this week are five covers that commemorate the final flight and are the handiwork of longtime space collector-dealer Ken Havekotte.

The top cover bears the space Shuttle Program insignia and is canceled for the first flight, STS-1, and the final flight, STS-135: the spectacular and promising beginning; and the somber finale.

The next cover bears the STS-135 crew patch/emblem cachet and is canceled for launch and has a "Final Shuttle Flight" Zazzle stamp.

Next down is one of Ken's novel 4-cancel launch covers for STS-135 bearing hand cancels from four KSC-area post offices all on the day of launch.

The fourth cover is one of the well-designed 5-orbiter cacheted covers, with cancels for STS-135 launch and landing.

Finally, is a 5-orbiter cacheted 10-inch launch/landing cover bearing five of the Space Achievements stamps issued in 1981, including a space telescope stamp representing perhaps the shuttle's greatest achievement: the deployment, repair and servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope.

posted 01-01-2012 11:41 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by albatron:
I wonder if anyone had the foresight to get an STS-1 cover cancelled on the last day of STS-135 as well?

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Al, I certainly intended to have an STS-1 launch cover canceled for the STS-135 landing and even had the ideal stamp for it, but not being the go-getter I used to be, failed to carry through. What a perfect stamp it would have been to have used; what an opportunity missed.

posted 01-01-2012 03:59 PM               

It should also be noted that Astrophile editor, graphic designer Jim Roth, designed the special "5 orbiters" cachet cover for my firm. Thanks, Jim, for the superb design artwork depicting an illustrated highlight history of the shuttle program.

There were a few first shuttle landing covers from EAFB, mostly with the shuttle program logo as cachets, that were cancelled a second time for the final shuttle landing at KSC--and if I recall--a very limited few with dual cancels for launch of STS-1 and landing of STS-135.

posted 01-02-2012 06:36 PM               

On half of the covers I had the mission emblem printed and on the other half I had a picture that I took of the launch printed making some unique covers. On all of them, I added a notation on the back that they were at Launch Complex 14 for the historic launch.