posted 06-15-2025 06:45 AM               

Space Cover 810: SA-10 - The Second KSC Official Cachet

We are coming up on the 60th anniversary of the KSC Post Office applying cachets to covers postmarked on launch days. The very first KSC Official was for the opening of the KSC Post Office on July 1, 1965, and was covered a long time ago in Space Cover of the Week 60. And we looked at the third (Gemini 5 on August 21, 1965) and subsequent KSC Officials in Space Cover of the Week 577.

Let's take a look at the second KSC Official, the oft-overlooked SA-10 pictured above. SA-10 was the tenth and final launch of a Saturn 1 launch vehicle (not to be confused with the later Saturn 1B). Werner vonBraun's rocket team had had a string of nine successful Saturn 1 flights, and the objective of this final flight was to continue the demonstration of the guidance system and evaluation of its' accuracy. The Apollo command module was Boilerplate BP9A. The boilerplate Apollo service module had a test installation of the Apollo reaction control system attached and the Pegasus 3 micrometeroid satellite stowed inside.

SA-10 was launched on July 30, 1965, and successfully injected its' payload into a 324x333 mile orbit. The boilerplate command and service modules successfully separated from the upper stage, and Pegasus 3 (bolted to the upper stage) unfurled its micrometeroid detecting panels and began taking data. The boilerplate command/service module stayed in Earth orbit, finally decaying in 1975.

The KSC Post Office selected this launch for their second KSC Official Cachet, and processed 8240 covers that day. When I was still a fairly new collector, in Texas in the late '80's, my Texas mentors (Jane Beville, Ray Cartier, and Bob Boyd) all considered the SA-10 as the "Holy Grail" of KSC Officials (e.g. – very hard to find). Since it wasn't a manned mission, not many of the SA-10 cacheted covers seem to have been saved. I remember one get-together in Ft Worth in the late '80's where a very senior collector (Willard Jackson) brought a SA-10 KSC Official that he was selling for $295. Someone in the group (I don't remember whom) whipped out their checkbook and wrote Willard a check for the full amount right then and there! I got mine in the mid '90's in a trade and unfortunately don't remember what I gave up for it. Prices have mellowed since those days, and I've seen three SA-10 KSC Officials sell on eBay since 2022 for an average of $80 each.

So, bottom line – SA-10 wasn't a high-profile manned mission, and its' KSC Official cachet isn't as flashy as some of the printed cachets for this flight. But the SA-10 KSC Official is hard to find, and well worth laying in whenever you have a chance!