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Author
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Topic: Prime recovery ship and tracking station covers
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Mike_The_First
Member Posts: 436
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2014
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posted 11-23-2014 10:07 PM
   
Were the prime recovery ship (PRS) covers onboard the ships at the time of recovery or were they more "ceremonial" cancels?Also, what's the significance of tracking station covers? |
yeknom-ecaps
Member Posts: 660
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005
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posted 11-24-2014 10:14 AM
From Apollo 16 onwards, all hand cancellations for the PRS on the date of recovery were postmarked in Hawaii and not aboard the PRS because of the large volume of requests from collectors and lack of personnel on the ship to process.However, mail from the crew or recovery teams could and was cancelled on board, on the recovery date, so "it depends." The cancels were still "official" as they were the actual hand cancels from the ship and provided by the navy postal units so I would not consider them as ceremonial. Tracking stations are mixed as well. Many of the stations play an actual (and extremely important) role as part of the missions — for example, the deep space network stations provided all the communications links to the Apollo spacecraft outside of earth orbit, the MSFN/STDN stations provided earth orbit communications with the spacecraft, stations on Ascension Island, Antigua, Bermuda, Eglin AFB, etc. provided launch data capture and data relay, weather units provided weather updates to mission control for launch and recovery go/no go decisions, etc. Other "tracking stations" (e.g. astronomical observatories) are commemorative in nature. |
Mike_The_First
Member Posts: 436
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2014
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posted 11-26-2014 08:43 PM
Thank you for the information! Just to clarify with regard to the PRS covers: - PRS covers from missions prior to Apollo 16 were onboard the ship at the time of recovery.
- PRS covers from Apollo 16 and on were, for the most part (with a few exceptions), not on board the ship at the time of recovery.
Is that accurate or are there some nuances that I'm missing?With regard to Tracking Station covers, are there any particular date/station combinations I should look for or are they all about equal? Thanks again! |
yeknom-ecaps
Member Posts: 660
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005
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posted 11-27-2014 10:42 AM
You are correct - Apollo 15 and before the covers were on the ships. For Apollo 16 onward if you specifically want covers on the ship look for "day after" postmarks - e.g. Skylab 4 look for Feb 9 instead of Feb 8 covers from USS New Orleans since they had not returned to port yet, the covers are assumed to have been on the ship on recovery day.In general tracking covers for a mission are equivalent in terms of value but certainly ones could be considered "more important" to collect. For example, the Deep Space Network stations for moon missions. A specific one would be Honeysuckle Creek station near Canberra in Australia for Apollo 11 as it carried the transmission of Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon. An area I am specifically interested in is the tracking ships - tracking ships were used through the middle of the shuttle program. Also, as a note, for the Project Mercury and early part of Project Gemini astronauts were located at the Manned Spaceflight Tracking Network stations for the flights as Capsule Communicators (CAPCOMs). |
astrobv
Member Posts: 53
From: Geraardsbergen, Belgium
Registered: May 2014
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posted 11-28-2014 04:12 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Mike_The_First:
PRS covers from Apollo 16 and on were, for the most part (with a few exceptions), not on board the ship at the time of recovery.
Can you give the exceptions that were made from Apollo 16 till Skylab mission? |
Ross
Member Posts: 472
From: Australia
Registered: Jul 2003
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posted 11-28-2014 07:05 AM
For Apollo 11 tracking stations, I might mention an important station that is often overlooked, Parks in NSW Australia. It was originally to be a backup tracking station but when the lunar mission was changed to add a rest period before the first EVA, Parks became a Prime tracking station due to the position of the Moon relative to the station for the EVA. When it was decided to add TV coverage, Parks became even more important and was responsible of broadcasting Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon. Honeysuckle Creek also received the signals but Parks was considered of superior quality and was used by NASA and thus the various TV networks for the rest of the EVA. It's also interesting that Australian TV viewers saw the first step fractionally before the rest of the world as the Parks' coverage was sent direct to Australian TV networks while it had to pass through Goldstone for US and world viewers. |
yeknom-ecaps
Member Posts: 660
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005
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posted 11-28-2014 10:30 AM
quote:
Originally posted by astrobv:
Can you give the exceptions that were made from Apollo 16 till Skylab mission?
The exceptions were regular mail sent by members of the crew would have been onboard the ship. ALL covers mailed to the address provided by the Navy for recovery cancellations went to Hawaii.In general, the ship's post office was CLOSED on the recovery date so cancels from the "day after" are the ones to look for. |
yeknom-ecaps
Member Posts: 660
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005
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posted 11-28-2014 10:46 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Ross:
For Apollo 11 tracking stations, I might mention an important station that is often overlooked, Parks in NSW Australia.
Slight correction - it's Parkes not Parks. Since Parkes could only receive and not transmit, it was regarded as an auxiliary station to Honeysuckle Creek and was assigned the honorary designation of station number 23 in the Manned Space Flight Network (MSFN). |
Ross
Member Posts: 472
From: Australia
Registered: Jul 2003
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posted 11-30-2014 06:57 AM
Tom is, of course, correct regarding the spelling. What was I thinking  And to think I'm Australian.  While it is true that Parkes can be considered an auxiliary to Honeysuckle Creek, it's designation was still upgraded to a Primary Tracking Station for Apollo 11. In fact, the initial idea was for Parkes to be the secondary receiving station to Tidbinbilla for the Lunar activities. This changed a number of times throughout the last few weeks and days of mission planning. A fire at Tidbinbilla one day into the mission changed everything and it's role was transferred to Honeysuckle Creek. Parkes was then designated as the Prime receiving station for Lunar activities. The Tracking Station at Carnarvon in Western Australia was also involved in the mission. |
yeknom-ecaps
Member Posts: 660
From: Northville MI USA
Registered: Aug 2005
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posted 11-30-2014 01:56 PM
The auxiliary status to Honeysuckle Creek was strictly due to Parkes receiving only transmission status... if it would have been able to transmit to Apollo then it would have been a fully designated MSFN station.It was a full prime tracking station from the mission perspective. |
cvrlvr99
Member Posts: 139
From: Arlington, TX
Registered: Aug 2014
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posted 12-06-2014 09:30 AM
On the covers aboard the PRS, Apollo 15 covers are ambiguous. A rule came down to send the mailed in covers to Pearl Harbor. Some were sent there, others were cancelled on board the PRS and two sacks of mail were thrown overboard by someone who misunderstood the instructions. There is no way I've run across that differentiates covers on the PRS from those in Hawaii. Know also that a very few covers exist with a machine cancel on Apollo 16 and Apollo 17. The machine cancellation machine was left aboard the PRS even though that Post Office was officially closed on the recovery date. Next day machine cancels and Return to Port machine cancels exist. |
Ross
Member Posts: 472
From: Australia
Registered: Jul 2003
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posted 12-07-2014 07:35 AM
I wonder if the two different postmarkers that were used are an indication of the on board versus on shore cancellations. The other possibility is that there were more than two postmarkers. |
cvrlvr99
Member Posts: 139
From: Arlington, TX
Registered: Aug 2014
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posted 12-10-2014 04:20 PM
I think that we can be pretty certain that the Apollo 15 flown-to-the-moon covers that had the added pair of Decade of Achievement stamps added to the already adequate postage, were cancelled aboard the PRS. Therefore, other covers that have that identical cancel should have been cancelled aboard the PRS as well. It's good to note that the Phases of the Moon flown-to-the-moon covers were once written up as being "identical" to unflown Phases of the Moon covers. The cachets were identical but the unflown covers do not bear the PRS cancel nor the additional two Decade of Achievement stamps which were flown to the PRS for adding to the flown covers. Of the variety of flown covers on Apollo 15, the misunderstanding has kept the prices of the flown Phases of the Moon covers lower than other flown covers. Buy one now before they go up to the prices charged for the others. |
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