posted 12-27-2022 08:47 AM               

Space Cover of the Week #682: Gemimi 6 Scrub Tracking Ship?

With the recent anniversary of the first rendezvous in space between two orbiting spacecraft, I wanted to highlight a recent acquisition that comes with a question.

We all know that Gemini-6A preformed a rendezvous with the orbiting Gemini 7 spacecraft on Dec. 15, 1965. Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford brought their spacecraft to within a foot of Frank Borman and Jim Lovell who were spending their 11th day aboard Gemini 7 to complete the first rendezvous of two orbing spacecrafts. They were not able to dock but were station-keeping for some time before Gemini 6A separated from Gemini 7 to continue on with their flight leaving Gemini 7 to continue on with their own record-breaking 14 day mission. This rendezvous completed yet another incremental step in learning what was needed to go to the moon. But it almost didn't happen.

Gemini 6 was supposed to launch on Oct. 25, 1965 on an ambitious mission to complete the first rendezvous and docking of two orbiting spacecraft. It was to include multiple dockings with the Agena Target Vehicle that would be launched about 90 minutes before Gemini 6. The Atlas booster that launched the Agena preformed as expected but when the Agena separated from the Atlas and fired its engine all telemetry was lost and multiple targets were tracked indicating that there was a catastrophic failure on ignition. With no target to rendezvous or dock with Gemini 6 had no mission so they scrubbed the launch and stood down. Discussions later lead to the idea of launching Gemini 7 on its original long-duration mission and having Gemini 6, now referred to as Gemini-6A, launch and at least complete the rendezvous part of the mission. And as they say the rest is history.

The cover pictured above is postmarked for the Agena launch/Gemini 6 scrub. It is postmarked in Cape Canaveral which is a somewhat scarcer postmark. Though they aren't rare by any stretch of the imagination, Cape Canaveral cancels do seem to be harder to find than those with the official NASA cachet postmarked at Kennedy Space Center.

The interesting thing about this cover is the Coastal Crusader rubber stamp cachet. Costal Crusader was a Missile Range Instrumentation Ship that was used in some of the early Gemini missions. However, it was not assigned for either Gemini 6, Gemini 6A or Gemini 7 which of course begs the question of why this cachet is there. Usually tracking ships have some sort of cachet and usually include the ship's address corner card.

If anyone has any explanations for this cachet on this cover please let us know!