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[b]Space Cover #99, Rockwell Space Division Stamp Club Covers[/b] On September 17, 1976, at the Rockwell assembly plant in Palmdale, CA, Orbiter Vehicle 101 (OV-101), much better known as Enterprise, was rolled out and officially presented to the media and public. Also on that day, members of the Rockwell Space Division Stamp Club (RSDSC) began their long series of multi-colored cacheted covers to commemmorate events and tests in the Space Shuttle Program. The issurance of these well-designed covers would continue for a number of years and mainly commemorate Space Shuttle launches and orbiter events, such as ferry flights and orbiter debuts. Six of RSDSC's many covers are featured here, starting with Cover #1: the Palmdale OV-101/Enterprise Rollout. The next cover marks the first ALT/Enterprise Free Flight (with the 2nd cancel marking the fifth and final Free Flight). The third cover marks the first 3-engine Full Duration SSME Firing at NSTL (later Stennis Space Center). The fourth cover marks the launch of Columbia on STS-1. Cover number five marks the launch of STS-2 and the final and bottom cover marks the Rollout/premier of new orbiter Discovery at its assembly plant in Palmdale. These handsome covers were also appropriate and useful for extra cancels and autographs, and this rollout cover was also canceled at KSC for Discovery's first launch, STS-41D, and later autographed by Discovery's first crew. Through my many years of collecting, I've not seen many of these RSDSC covers, nor have seen much discussion about them. They are handsome and well-done covers and marked most of the early Shuttle milestones and deserve recognition and are certainly worthy of collecting.
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