Space Cover 765: Coqui campaigns at TortugueroOne my favourite space topics are launch sites, especially temporary, small or little known launch sites.
In 1992 one Nike-Tomahawk and eight Black Brant IX sounding rockets were launched from Camp Tortuguero (former Vega Baja Airdome), on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, between San Juan and Arecibo, near the town of Vega Baja.
The Coqui campaign lasted from May 25 to July 12, 1992 had the goal of studying the ionosphere. Sounding rockets carried payloads to study the electrically conducing ionosphere layers.
These experiments were developed by Cornell University, Naval Research Laboratory, Geospace Research Inc, Air Force Geophysics Laboratory, Clemson University and Science Applications International Corporation.
Coqui name is after a small frog native of Puerto Rico.
Unfortunately, the cover above has not a correct date (according encyclopedia astronautica’s source) for any of sounding rockets launched although it is postmarked in between the dates of the Coqui campaign.
It was the first time Camp Tortuguero launch site was used since 1966 and 1967 launches. I have not seen any cover for these years. Maybe someone could have something to show.
The Coqui II campaign lasted from February 20 to March 25, 1998 with the launching of eleven sounding rockets (Black Brant VC, Black Brant IX, Terrier improved Orion and Taurus Orion) to study the Solar wind, the Earth’s magnetosphere, ionosphere and atmosphere, and on weather and climate.
Below cover is postmarked on maiden launch of a Black Brant VC sounding rocket for Coqui II (also called Coqui Dos) campaign.
Please, if you have any other Coqui space covers different to shown here, be so kind to upload the images. Thanks.
posted 08-04-2024 01:59 AM
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