posted 08-28-2019 08:40 AM               

Space Cover #529: First postmaster in space

In 1978, cosmonaut Georgi Grechko was officially named to be the First postmaster in space by Moscow.

Grechko, as a graduate student, had calculated the amount of fuel needed to put Sputnik 1 in orbit and he also calculated the orbit for this flight. Flying aboard Soyuz 28, he and cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko docked with the Salyut 6 space station on March 8, 1978, joining the crew of Soyuz 27: Alexei Gubarev and Vladimer Remek.

Grechko added three rubber stamps to the cover and he and the other three cosmonauts all signed it. It was cancelled again in Baikonur on March 16th, when he landed. This was one of the covers that he processed at the Salyut station, employing a stamp honoring the link up of the earlier Soyuz 17 with the Salyut 4 space station. That stamp pictured Grechko, from that earlier mission as well.

I purchased this cover directly from Grechko who wrote the following on the flap for me:

The Board Cancellations on this envelope were applied by me, the first official postmaster of this postal department, on board the Soyuz 27-Salyut 6 – Soyuz 28. 8-3-78 [March 8, 1978].

In addition to being a unique space cover, it is also an amazing piece of postal history for those interested in that facet of our philatelic hobby. Grechko explained that the grayish ink was lighter due to the type of air within the space station which caused that reaction to the ink.