Space Cover 650: MARS HOPE tracking covers.Emirates Mars Mission, also called Al-Amal spacecraft, Hope as translated in English was launched from Tanegashima Space Center on Jul 19, 2020 atop of an H-II rocket. It was the first time that an Arabic nation launched a space mission to Mars planet.
NASA supported this Mars mission with the DSN stations whose antennas are located in Goldstone, CA, Canberra (Australia) and Robledo (Madrid, Spain).
A very good Spanish friend asked me how he could create Spanish space covers to commemorate this space event and I advised him about this Hope spacecraft. I recommended to search a logo for the mission, apply correct postage (even if stamp was not devoted to space activities but linked in some way with the postmark place and/or space tracking place) and finally I suggested to use this beautiful Robledo pictorial postmark (in Spain this kind of postmarks are known as touristic postmarks) with exact date.
If date was not correct, then it would not be an astrophilatelic cover but a topic cover. For this reason, I remarked him the importance of the date in the postmark.
Although launch was on Jul 19, 2020 (21:58 UTC in Japan), in Spain were 8h more. So, 05:58 UTC on Jul 20, 2020 in Spain when Hope launch succeeded and was tracked from Robledo NASA tracking station.
He surprised me with the top cover: Hope logo, but also MHI (stands for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, main contractor) and text in Spanish language translated as Launch of spacecraft Hope from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan.
He applied postage by using an A rate stamp which covers domestic letters up to 20 gr and the Robledo touristic postmark. Stamp applied with the letter M refers to Madrid, the province where Robledo de Chavela is located.
Sincerely, I would have preferred to see two postmarks on the cover. One in the stamp and another one in any place of the cover but as the postmark is so clear and readable, it does not matter.
In addition, another surprise comes with the previous cover. He created a second and different cover with another image, same text, same postmark but different Spanish stamp. In this occasion, he used a 1 EUR stamp devoted to Science and Cosmos Museum in Tenerife (Canary Is). Image on this stamp is more appropriate to space topic meanwhile the postage is a complementary fee for some Spanish post services.
Again only one postmark was applied on the cover but again the postmark is so readable that really no needed a second one.
Moreover, some months later he repeated this action with Hope mission by creating the below cover.
This time he used a different image, Spanish text translated as Hope spacecraft enters in Martian orbit 9-February-2021, A rate stamp and Robledo touristic postmark.
I know he created three copies of each cover. One for himself, one for me (as a thank you for my advices) and one for another friend of his who I do not know.
Time has passed and now I am aware that nobody made other Spanish space covers to mark both space milestones: launch and Mars orbit.
It is a pity that nowadays no interest exists in recording such space events because current space hits will be forgotten in astrophilatelic terms.
By the way, I am still searching for a space cover postmarked in Tanegashima Jul 19, 2020 to commemorate this space launch. Anybody has this cover? If so, I would like to see an image posted here. Thanks.
posted 05-15-2022 02:45 AM
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