posted 08-08-2024 10:31 AM               

Shepard then did the honors for Grissom on his MR-4 flight.

While autographs of most astronauts who have served as capcoms are well-known and relatively easy to find, material they signed as capcoms is not overly common, maybe even seldom seen. We will show a number of examples starting with Scott Carpenter serving as John Glenn's launch capcom on America's first crewed orbital spaceflight, Mercury-Atlas 6.

Scott Carpenter made one of spaceflight's most famous comments upon the lift-off of Glenn on MA-6, wishing Glenn a safe and successful fight by stating: "God Speed, John Glenn." This first image shows both Glenn's lift-off and Carpenter's famous quote in his hand.

Now continuing with an Apollo 11 first day of issue cover autographed by Bruce McCandless who was the Apollo 11 EVA capcom. He stating just prior to Armstrong placing mankind's first step on the moon: "Okay, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now." Wish I had asked him to add that.

Dan Brandenstein (ascent), Joe Allen (entry) and Hank Hartsfield (orbit) served as the primary capcoms during the space shuttle's first flight, STS-1, and this STS-1 launch cover is autographed by them with each nicely adding their capcom position.

These four space shuttle covers display an impressive assortment of autographs of NASA astronauts who served as capcoms on four different shuttle flights. Of special note is that almost all added their capcom position. The STS-6 cover was autographed by six capcoms, while both STS-22 and STS-27 were signed by eight.

posted 08-12-2024 09:26 AM               

The above multi-signed cover at middle-left depicts an early Neil Armstrong signed tracking station cover for Gemini 3 (GT-3). The future first man on the moon had just been selected as a NASA Gemini astronaut two and a half years earlier. His assignment as as astronaut capsule communicator (CAPCOM) was his first for a manned spaceflight mission. The Air Force/NASA Kokee Station on Garden Isle of Kauai, Hawaii, was ideal as a strategic location in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for tracking an orbiting space capsule overhead. The station had been operational since 1961 for Project Mercury as part of NASA's global Spacecraft Tracking & Data Network.

During all the NASA human spaceflight missions of Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, and the earlier space shuttles, besides the astronaut prime and backup crews, NASA had selected additional support crews. Most astronaut members of the support teams would also work as CAPCOMS as part of their support crew responsibilities.

Take for instance Apollo 11 as there were three support team astronauts, as with all the Apollo missions, but the assigned capsule communicators could vary in numbers from three to ten depending on the flight's duration. For humanity's first lunar landing in 1969, there were many CAPCOMS assigned (Lovell, Anders, Duke, Haise, Evans, McCandless, Schmitt, Mattingly, Garriott, and Lind). But for the ill-fated Apollo 13 aborted lunar landing, there had only been three working Mission Control Center spacecraft communicators assigned (Brand, Lousma, and Kerwin). Another low-numbered CAPCOM team was for Apollo 14 with Evans, Haise, Fullerton, and McCandless.

Those CAPCOM signatures below represent several of the Apollo, Skylab, Apollo-Soyuz, and a couple of highlight shuttle teams. They are Bill Pogue, Jerry Carr, Charlie Duke, Ron Evans, Bruce McCandless, Don Lind, Joe Allen, Karl Henize, Robert Parker, Gordon Fullerton, Tony England, Bob Overmyer, Hank Hartsfield, Richard Truly, Karol Bobko, Bob Crippen, and eleven CAPCOMS of key shuttle flights STS-1 and STS-26. There is also a Buzz Aldrin signed photo at very top as CAPCOM for GT-5 in 1965. Please note that the majority of signatures contain either a "CAPCOM" notation and/or "Astronaut Support Crew." There are many others not included for now.