posted 05-25-2017 12:43 PM               

Space Cover #419: Helios-B Launch

This week's Space Cover commemorates the launch of the HELIOS-B spacecraft aboard Titan Centaur launch vehicle #5 on January 15, 1976.

The Helios Project was a joint project with Germany. The cost of two Helios missions including spacecraft and launch vehicles was about $180 million. Germany paid all spacecraft costs, which included the price of two flight units, a prototype and thermal, structural and engineering models. Germany provided seven experiments plus command and data acquisition costs for the German ground stations.

The United States paid for the two launch vehicles and their support, tracking and data acquisition services, the three U.S. experiments and other support for a total of about $80 million.

The cover shown above was autographed by U.S. Helios Project Manager, Gilbert Ousley; Assistant Program Managers, Charles White and William Witt and Project Scientist, James Trainor. The Goddard Space Flight Center Stamp Club serviced 800 covers for this mission and sold out.

posted 05-26-2017 01:50 PM               

A cover issued by JPL stamp club pmk in Pasadena and signed by Dr. Albert G. Opp, Helios Program Scientist.

posted 06-15-2017 06:46 PM               

Below are "official-type" covers in some way or another for both the Helios flights, with the first launch of Helios-1 on Dec. 10, 1974, more than 13 months before the Helios-2 launch.

Three of the depicted covers with the black rubber stamp "HELIOS" impression are from KSC-NASA and considered official NASA cachets. Only 1400 of them were processed at the KSC HQS Bldg. postal station on Dec. 10, 1974. The special rubber stamp cachet release was not publicly announced by NASA's Mail and Distribution Services in advance, therefore, the incident did cause a space agency or federal investigation concerning certain philatelic practices here at Kennedy Space Center.

I believe regular contributor Bob McLeod may have already ran a SCOTW column or feature about the official Helios cachet affair. If so, my apologies to Bob for bringing up the topic again. But there is another story to be told about the Helios cachet affair at Kennedy, perhaps though, it could be shared at a later time.

The blue rubber stamped cover was mainly provided by a German aerospace company along with the American ITT firm, both working together on the Helios project, in creating their own "official" contractor cover.

Another "official-type" cover would be the colorful Helios emblem cachet. It's a cover issue of MBB, the spacecraft builders in West Germany at the time, for the Helios-B launch. The printed covers were mainly provided by MBB and their partner DFVR company of the West German space agency. About 500 of them were distributed to U.S. Helios-involved personnel by the German workers when preparing the twin probes for launch here at the Cape.

The twin solar probes, the first probes built outside the U.S. and Soviet Union at the time, set a maximum speed record among spacecrafts at 157,078 mph (Helios-2) in April 1976 and were the closest to fly near the sun.

Over a 10-year period both deep space probes collected important data and made new observations about the solar wind and of the particles that make up the interplanetary medium and cosmic rays.

posted 07-17-2017 02:36 PM               

A Spanish cover cancelled in Madrid where tracking for Helios B launch was operated.