posted 11-15-2019 08:25 PM               

If there are any earlier Viking Mars related cover issues in 1969-70, I would love to see them along with any other different pre-launch issues, but I have no covers noted before October 1970. While most Viking Mars pre-launch covers were produced between 1972-75 (before Aug. 20, 1975), 1971 was a mystery year with hardly no Viking covers on record to my knowledge.

As an avid Viking Mars enthusiast and astrophilately collector since my high school teenage years, I've tried to collect just about anything I could get my hands on involving America's first soft-landings on the Red Planet in 1976 and even beforehand with the twin Viking launches and other events.

Depicted here are two display panel presentations, but they're not Viking launch, Mars landing, flight control, or post-flight events. I'll leave those historic activities using highlight postal covers for a future display panel, perhaps one for the Viking A/B launches from the Cape and another for landing events and in-flight control related covers in a few months. I've got many to show with all of the covers signed along with several "one of a kind" issues. But for now, the few covers displayed here are of a limited representation of different cachet and cancel types, of which are only in commemoration of pre-launch events before the year-long Viking 1 flight to the Martian landing site area of Chryse was launched in Aug. 1975.

The second display panel, while not philatelic, consists of pre-launch Viking Mars memorabilia such as badges, early-issued brochures, pinback buttons, and original-era "working" papers. Included are a few KSC-NASA internal or "on base" working Viking letters and papers throughout 1974-75. One of the NASA work-project Viking letters, dated in April 1975, had been signed by D. C. Sheppard for providing a draft of a proposed Radiological Recovery Plan in case one of the Viking probes had a failure during launch. That same Viking official, as Chief of the Viking Orbiter and Lander spacecraft, KSC's Support Operations Division, even signed one of the above shown Viking spacecraft pre-launch covers in Feb. 1975, completely unrelated to his actual "work" content letter.

posted 01-11-2020 01:38 PM               

This part of the series only pertains to "launch day" Viking Mars autographed covers, for the most part, of both NASA/ U.S. Air Force Titan IIIE/Centaur missions. Most of the signatures depicted on the covers above represent the major Viking launch vehicle program agencies and contractor companies that took our nation to Mars so many decades ago. During the 1970's, the Titan IIIE launch vehicle was the most powerful unmanned rocket to fly, except for the Skylab-1/Saturn V that only flew once in 1973.

The twin 160-foot high Viking Titan/Centaur vehicles were produced for the Air Force by Martin Marietta Aerospace in Denver, CO, which was also the booster integration contractor for the 3-stage Titan IIIE. The high-energy Centaur D-1T upper stage, that housed the Viking planetary probes at top, was built by General Dynamics in San Diego, CA. Several of the signed covers contain those Viking autographs of key Titan IIIE program officials and personnel teams from those locations across the country.

The signatures of top NASA launch team and development folks are also represented nationwide, such as the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (with a pair of flown launch support helicopter covers), NASA's Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, OH, the Viking tracking of the Centaur and Mars spacecrafts from the Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena, CA, along with the Goldstone Space Communications Station at Barstow, CA, just to name a few of the major players.

Many of the covers received Viking space agency and seldom-seen company rubber stamp cachets, along with some other markings, in commemoration of their proud Viking program participation. Look for them by Martin Marietta, the NASA space centers at Kennedy and Langley, and Goddard's Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network in Greenbelt, MD.

posted 03-13-2020 09:16 AM               

The one-billion dollar Viking program was America's most ambitious unmanned space venture. The year-long 505-million-mile journey provided a closeup study of our nearest planetary neighbor and provided a better understanding of our own planet on which we live on.

The Viking twin landers were more than 200 million miles from earth when they became the first operational robotic spacecrafts to successfully land on another planet. After more than four decades, the Viking missions are still legendary. Looking back to 1976, our nation's 200th birthday, the Viking flights to Mars injected a new life into our space program for this 20-year-old college student.

It should be pointed out, though, that Viking 1 was not the first soft landing on the Red Planet. Russia's Mars 3, a lander and orbiter mission like Viking (but not as sophisticated), launched in May 1971 and arrived at Mars six months later. While the Russian lander did touchdown on the Martian surface, it worked for only a few seconds before failing, in which no further contact was possible after repeated attempts.

The display panel below contains Viking postal covers and other related memorabilia pertaining to mainly the Mars orbit insertions and actual landings themselves in 1976. Most of the covers represented were autographed by top NASA and other key Viking program officials, including most all the Viking science teams, from all across the country that played a vital role in getting America on Mars.

Included are signatures of the most influential scientists on the Viking team, such as noted biologist Norman Horowitz of Cal Tech, top scientist Gilbert Levin, world-renowned astronomer Carl Sagan, and biology team leader Harold Klein of "NASA Ames," just to name a few.

Some of my favorite Viking covers depicted had been carried inside the Viking Mission Control and Computing Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. The covers had been carried and stored inside the Viking flight control center by top officials while at their own console stations when monitoring and working the lander touchdowns. After being signed, many of the Viking cover signers included in their own hand, remarks and/or observations of the "real time" history-making achievements unfolding before their own eyes. As an end result, almost all of the "carried inside" covers received "on-site" landing day postal cancels at Pasadena.

Other covers included have official Viking-related rubber stamp cachets added by NASA space centers at Kennedy, Langley, Goddard, and Ames. In addition, there are other rubber stamp and printed cachets by Martin Marietta Aerospace, RCA, TRW (though mostly unofficial) and an unusual NASA Third Century America Bicentennial Exposition cover issue with a "Live Mars Data" printout.

In all, the Viking orbiters and landers returned more than 50,000 photo-images along with lots of information and data of the fourth planet from the sun in our solar system. The orbiters themselves mapped 97% of the Martian surface and the Viking 1 lander held the record for the longest surface mission (over 6 years or 2245 solar days), until that record was broken by the U.S. Opportunity Mars Rover in May 2010. It should also be noted that each Viking vehicle worked far beyond their design functions.

The Viking 1 spacecraft also performed the first Martian soil sample analysis using its robotic arm with a special "built-in" biological laboratory.

While it found no direct traces of Martian life, Viking 1 did help to better characterize Mars as a cold alien world. The Red Planet has volcanic soil, along with a thin dry carbon dioxide atmosphere, and a striking evidence for ancient river beds and vast flooding.

posted 03-13-2020 03:52 PM               

The thing that strikes me now is how primitive and "analog" the information was shared from the missions. I listened to the TV and read the papers, but you had to wait days if not weeks for a comprehensive report and photos to be issued (I still have some Voyager Mission Status Bulletins somewhere). Now, of course, everything is available at the touch of a finger or swipe on your PC or iPhone.

posted 04-10-2020 02:22 PM               

It pertains to the SPED (Supersonic Planetary Entry Decelerator) mars chute test of a "parasol popping" experiment study at Wallops Islands, VA, on Oct. 9, 1970. This was the first known pre-Viking launch cover to appear on the space cover market in 1970.

The airmail cover below is for the same test event, but it has a different cachet and with a hand cancel from the Wallops eastern coast launch site. The cover was produced by Andromeda with this issue being Cover No. 18 of that space cover firm.

While we did know of the same SPED test cover event by Ed Hacker of Centennial Covers of Huntsville, AL, this makes a second known cover for it by another space cover producer. Still, though, are there no other Viking events in 1969-71 out there?