posted 09-12-2021 05:41 AM               

Space Cover #622: Conestoga 1 – Commercial Spaceflight Precursor

In this day of commercial satellites, commercial launch vehicles, commercial ferries for Space Station crewmembers, and now commercial space passenger liners, let's take a look back at an important precursor — the first privately-funded spaceflight.

The cover above was metered in Houston, Texas on September 9, 1982 for the launch of Conestoga 1 from Matagorda Island, Texas and carries a rubber-stamped cachet prepared for this launch. Conestoga 1 was an excess Minuteman ICBM second stage that lofted a 500 kg dummy payload to 313 km altitude, making it the first privately-funded rocket to reach space. The project was a demonstration flight performed by Space Services Incorporated of America (SSIA) whose headquarters was in Houston.

SSIA was formed in 1980 by space entrepreneur David Hannah with the goal of drastically reducing space launch costs. Their first efforts focused on a liquid fueled launch vehicle design called Percheron. Unfortunately, a Percheron engine exploded during a test on August 5, 1981, at Matagorda. The company re-focused on using solid propellants resulting the departure of their chief engineer. They then hired a recent retiree from NASA, one Donald K. Slayton (yup, the same Deke of Original 7 fame) to be their chief engineer. It all came together with Conestoga 1 as described above!

SSIA next launched a modified Black Brant sounding rocket in 1989. In 1990 they were bought out by EER and started developing a line of potential launch vehicles using different clusters of Castor solid rocket motors. Their first try at an orbital flight, Conestoga 1620, was launched from Wallops Island, Virginia on October 23, 1995, and broke up 46 seconds into the flight. The company got out of the rocket business after that — one of many tough starts for commercial spaceflight.

Got any more covers for SSIA launches? Let's post them!

posted 09-12-2021 06:30 AM               

As quoted in your post, a first Percheron rocket was launched from Matagorda, TX on Aug 5, 1981. Below my space cover for this launch.

And also the information I have:

A very similar cover for Conestoga 1 launch also exist. This one postmarked at Matagorda, TX on Sep 9, 1982.

Finally, I was always curious with the selection of these rocket's names.

Percheron is any of a breed of powerful rugged draft horses that originated in the Perche region of France.

Conestoga is a large wagon with broad wheels and an arched canvas top; used by the United States pioneers to cross the prairies in the 19th century.

posted 09-14-2021 10:42 AM               

Space Services Inc. of America (SSI) was indeed the first "real" U.S. company to offer commercial opportunities in space technology applications.

With SSI's first successful Conestoga 1 suborbital flight in 1982, SSI made another historical maiden flight of their new Starfire 1 launch vehicle on March 29, 1989 as Antoni pointed out. It had been the first commercial spaceflight operated under the U.S. Department of Transportation's licensing authority. Over 140 materials processing experiments were conducted during the seven minutes of microgravity flight conditions.

To to best of my knowledge, Dennis and Antoni, I am not aware of seeing too many Conestoga and Starfire cachet cover types from Texas. I have the same C-1 depicted covers above, which I believe, were printed by Rand Philatelic Bureau in the Houston area, which also was the headquarters location of SSI throughout the 1980's. If I recall, their mission emblem cachets were quickly printed and not rubber stamped.

While I was successful in acquiring a lot of Deke Slayton's personal papers and file folders of his tenure with SSI, I have yet to see any Conestoga launch cover signed by him as SSI Vice Chairman of the Board and mission flight director nor company founder David Hannah. His many papers, with hand-written notes, letter drafts, reports, etc. do contain autographs of Hannah and other SSI personnel, but with no postal covers signed. If any are out there, I would love to see them posted here. Other top mission team signatures would be Charles Beers, Ernest Foglesong, George Kometani, Karl Zdarsky, and Gary Gartner, along with some other board director members.

Going forward to Nov. 1988, six years after Conestoga 1's epic flight, another private space company (E'Prime Aerospace Corp. of Titusville, Florida), launched their first LOFT-1 rocket that became the first commercial rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Fifty two cachet stamped covers were placed in the rocket's nose cone that had been retrieved at sea by its primary recovery boat "SCARAB-1."