posted 06-18-2015 06:42 AM               

I don't know the exact number, but around 20 ships took part in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project operations.

Primary Command and Control – Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and Academic Sergey Korolev controlled the link-ups. Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov (Mediterranean) controlled the reentry.

Regarding the telemetric communication vessels, at least four were deployed – Morzhovetz, Kegostrov, Bezhitsa and Spassk.

Search and rescue ships were deployed along the route of the last dozen (12-16) revolutions of Soyuz 19 (and any other spaceship) in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, from the Northern hemisphere to equator. Ships were from Black sea and Pacific fleets (no need to mention the exact units) and several support ships from Baltic fleet. Meanwhile, I cannot identify exact military vessels for the ASTP, but it looks to be the most of the ships in the list, that took part in the operations from late 60s till 80s. Some of them were dedicated to space programs, some were just assigned to specific tasks, like destroyers in Japanese sea, because they could gain speed. I am not sure, you need this list, but in case I have it.

Another issue, rescue training, Soyuz 19 crew trained for splashdown on the Black Sea, possibly using Sevan or Taman vessels from the Black Sea fleet – these vessels were supporting cosmonaut splashdown trainings during 70s.

Now comes the tricky part – postmarks and covers. I just started to glide into the subject and came in touch with the people who served on the space support ships. In general, the Soviet science ship postmarks do not include any dates, just the formal round stamp of the ship and maybe several various rubber marks indicating the ship and name. All the correspondence, taken from them passed through the land-based post offices, thus the only way to fix it, by taking a cover with specific dates and then cancel it on the ship via friends. I know at least a couple of such covers for ASTP, cancelled on Academic Korolev. Note that all the space support ships were under military jurisdiction, as the whole Soviet space program, so no public mail was accepted.

Regarding military ships – due to enormous secrecy in USSR, no military unit had any kind of postmark – just a roundel of "field post" or the triangle stamp indicating that this is a military sponsored letter. I still study the issue, as the military units had a roundel stamp with a unique number on it (military unit ID) – of course there is a vague chance to get the particular roundel, from the cruisers, destroyers or rescue vessels...

The information on the Soviet maritime space support operations is very foggy and incomplete, there are a couple of good sites on the issue, but none of them gives the complete picture. Military operations are covered even less. I am quite sure, that western collectors have almost no chance to uncover the issue.