posted 07-19-2015 09:36 AM               

Space Cover #326: ASTP +40: Favorite Flight Covers

Forty years ago this week, the US and USSR performed their first historic docking in space. The cover above is postmarked on the docking date (July 17, 1975) at Star City, USSR. It has one of Bob Rank's spectacular Space Voyager Cachets that were discussed in last week's Space Cover 325. And it was autographed by both crews (upper-left to lower-right: Leonov, Slayton, Kubasov, Stafford, and Brand). This cover came from the late Jane Beville's collection, and with her having been a mentor to this budding space cover collector, it has extra meaning to me.

I've had a hard time narrowing my favorite ASTP flight covers down to one, so please indulge me with one more…

Above is one of Ken Havekotte's ASTP cachets (also discussed in Space Cover 325), postmarked at Merritt Island, FL on the launch date (July 15, 1975). It has been autographed by both the US prime and backup crews for ASTP (top to bottom: Brand, Bean, Lousma, Evans, Slayton, and Stafford). I like it because the autographs span the gamut of US spaceflight history, from Mercury to Gemini to the Moon to Skylab. And then one of those guys went on to fly the Shuttle!

What are your favorite ASTP flight covers? Let's post them here! And as always, if you can't host your cover image I'll be glad to, just email it to me.

posted 07-19-2015 04:27 PM               

These four covers will include another cover signed by the five ASTP US and Soviet crews; a combo cover for the Soyuz launch and US Apollo splashdown; a Soviet cover for the Soyuz launch from Baikonur; and a Beck USN recovery force cover.

Above, the top cover is an official NASA/KSC rubber stamp cacheted cover autographed by both the US and Soviet ASTP crews. Below that is a double canceled cover marking the beginning (Soyuz launch) and end (US Apollo splashdown) of the ASTP US/Soviet manned spaceflight.

The top cover is a Soviet cover canceled in Baikonur, USSR, for the Soyuz launch and autographed by Pete Frank, one of the four US Flight Directors. Below is a Beck USN Pacific recovery force cacheted cover and autographed by Adm. R.S. Wentworth, the commander of the USN Pacific spacecraft recovery force.

The post office was closed on board the PRS US New Orleans on the actual day of the Apollo recovery, so no covers exist canceled aboard the US New Orleans dated July 24, 1975. However covers do exist from the US New Orleans for the day before (July 23) and day after (July 25) recovery.

posted 09-26-2015 09:32 PM               

Saturn trip to the launch pad.

White Sands Missile Range Equipment Test

Missed Handshake over Bognor Regis (UK), despite NASA announcements, the actual handshake occurred over France due to some delays in schedule

US Coast Guard LORAN Station at Marcus island (Minami Tori-Shima), Japan

posted 09-26-2015 09:33 PM               

ASTP Recovery – Astro Covers cachet with San-Francisco cancellations and nice USS New Orleans ship round stamp

Swim Helo cover with Apollo crew signatures and USS New Orleans cancellation (note the stationary seal of the Anti-Submarine SIX on the upper left corner)

Norfolk hand cancellation on a souvenir sheet

Soyuz Landing - Russian Karaganda (Kazakhstan) club cachet on a posted cover

posted 10-27-2015 11:15 AM               

Another issue - I got a couple Goldstone DSS covers - all have DSS-14 stamped cancellations, but signed by directors of DSS-13 (Earl Jackson) and DSS-11/12 (???). Can you please help to read the name of DSS-11/12 station director? Does anyone have a DSS-11/12/13 ASTP cachets (not DSS-14)?

posted 10-27-2015 04:27 PM               

As for informative purposes Goldstone DSS antennas were named:

• DSS-11 Pioneer
  
• DSS-12 Echo
  
• DSS-13 Venus
  
• DSS-14 Mars
  
• DSS-15 Uranus

posted 12-09-2018 09:18 PM               

The cover was actually carried on the U.S. ASTP Saturn 1B launch vehicle and spacecraft rollout of SA-210 at KSC on March 24, 1975.

My long-time Merritt Island neighbor from across the street, at the time, was John D. Luca, a Federal Electric Corp. employee here at Kennedy Space Center. He had been assigned to work on every Apollo/Saturn rollout transport since AS-500F in 1966 as a chief instrumentation and electronics technician.

At my request, from his neighboring high school/junior college student friend, John agreed to carry aboard for me just over 200 postal covers for the final Apollo/Saturn launch vehicle rollout from the Cape's Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B.

Just about all of the 200+ covers were printed with this somewhat primitive black-ink cachet, however, about ten (10) of the covers were of a type-writer "fill in the lines" cachet-type format. In addition, there were even a few ASTP pre-launch related postcards along with the cover stash that Mr. Luca had annotated as being carried.

When the U.S. Apollo-Soyuz crew had returned to KSC in thanking their launch team in Sept. 1975, I had the crewmen sign one of the ten typed-in cachet covers for me during the ceremony, of which I still have, as a memento of that special in-person event and prior rollout activity.

He had placed the stamped envelopes and cards inside a locker unit of the "B" instrumentation level section of Mobile Launcher #1 (ML-1) the day before rollout was to occur. The covers were carried and/or were located inside the mobile launcher platform during the complete 7-hour long rollout voyage from the VAB to launch pad.

To to best of my knowledge, they are perhaps the only carried/located covers to be on an actual Apollo/Saturn rollout vehicle operation at the space center here.