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[b]Space Cover #622: Conestoga 1 – Commercial Spaceflight Precursor[/b] 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!
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