posted 10-05-2022 08:30 AM               

Space Cover 670: Shuttle-Mir docking postmarks

Here is a brief overview of Shuttle-Mir pictorial postmarks issued in USA between 1995 and 1998.

The program started back in 1992 that lead to the launch of STS-60 in 1994 following STS-63 next year, but the first postmarks have been applied on the date of the STS-71 docking, June 29, 1995. The above postcard shows the dual cancellation of KSC and Baikonur, while the below cover shows the Houston, TX postmark.

Need to mention that KSC postmarks were issued for each of nice docking missions. Here is a collage of all nine from my collection.

The second Houston postmark that I call ‘Mir closing’ postmark can be found in several colors and date placements.

The last in my list is a Downey, CA. The cover below is marking the last docking mission – STS-91.

Just to mention that another interesting subject connected to Shuttle-Mir venture is cachets, both stamped and printed. They cover the whole story from STS-60 to STS-91.

posted 10-07-2022 01:35 PM               

The cancel design depicted on many of the covers and one of the cards shown included change-out cancel dates that were mainly used for a Shuttle-Mir launch, docking, undocking, and landing at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The pictorial cancel devices themselves, however, were not available on KSC-NASA grounds, but rather at a sub-postal station in Titusville with Launch Complex 39 visible right across the Indian River from the back of the post office.

Here are a bunch more with many of Joel's cancel design. All of the covers below are from June/July 1995 for the shuttle's first docking mission with the Russian space station Mir. That was Mission STS-71/ Atlantis, the 69th shuttle spaceflight, that marked a number of historic firsts in human spaceflight travel. Besides the first Mir docking, STS-71 became the 100th U.S human spaceflight, first shuttle-Mir joint on-orbit operations, largest spacecraft ever in orbit with Atlantis and Mir joined together, and the first on-orbit changeout of a shuttle crew.

Most of the below STS-71 emblem crew and Mir cachet covers were produced by my firm (SCCS) along with the Rockwell Space Division "100 Human Space Flight" cachet design and the McDonnell Douglas issue. Some of the other cachet covers depicted were of a joint space cover dealer partnership with SCCS.

posted 10-08-2022 09:32 AM               

It's nice to see space cancels highlighted here in a SCOTW, as they, like cachets, are an important part of the interest and fascination with space covers for us.

posted 10-08-2022 12:53 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Ken Havekotte:
Besides Mir, maybe this topic could post all the known space station pictorial cancel designs from Salyut, Skylab, Mir (already mostly covered), and the International Space Station (ISS).

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