posted 04-24-2011 08:37 AM               

Space Cover #106: Saturn S-II Stage Test

Well, much like Tom Steiner did in SCOTW #67, I just found a Saturn test cover buried in a bunch of cheapo covers! This cover was postmarked at Bay St. Louis, MS on April 23, 1966 for the first static test firing at the Mississippi Test Facility (MTF - now known as The NASA Stennis Space Center). The firing that day was a 15 second test of the "all systems" test model of the Saturn V S-II second stage, designated S-II-T.

This particular stage was the first test model that contained all of the S-II systems and was completed by North American Aviation on February 9, 1965. It was static fired at Santa Susanna in California on April 24, 1965, with a full-duration firing there on August 9, 1965. It was then shipped to the all-new MTF in October, 1965 for static testing in the A-2 test stand. As mentioned, the cover above was postmarked for its first firing at MTF, April 23, 1966. Several more firings commenced through May, with a full duration firing on May 20. Another full duration firing attempt was cut short on May 25 when fires erupted near some liquid hydrogen valves and also in the engine area. On May 28, the test crew pressurized the liquid hydrogen tank to search for the cause of the fires. Due to an operational error, the tank was over pressurized and ruptured, sending five men to the hospital and destroying the S-II-T test stage.

Anyway, I'm not sure of the heritage on the cachet - does anyone out there know who may have processed the covers and applied the cachet?

posted 02-03-2024 07:00 PM               

I like the cover's overall rubber stamp fill-in-the blank cachet spaces with three ink used colors. Maybe the engine test firing covers were created within NASA's Stennis Space Center by their own employees during the peak years of the Apollo development and test programs. Perhaps there had been a small "on-center" stamp club that provided the cachet covers as I believe there were about 6,000 workers at Stennis. But we may never know how they came about in the Bay St. Louis area of the nation's largest rocket engine propulsion test site.

posted 02-04-2024 05:15 PM               

Both are addressed to people in Bay St. Louis, which would support your thought that there was a local stamp club doing these covers for their members.

posted 02-05-2024 06:14 AM               

I did purchase a couple of space collections from at least two retired employees at Stennis a few years back, but I can't recall if my May 1966 cover came from one of those. One had a great collection from his widow of VIP folders, a dozen(+) photos, some pins, manuals, and lots of original used and working test papers, etc. as a chief propulsion engineer. He even had a lovely engineering model of test stand A-1 or A-2 that I gave to a local collector-friend.

posted 02-19-2024 07:53 PM               

So far we have three covers, all three addressed to people in Bay St. Louis, and two different dates.