Space Postmarks 2009

A German Postmark
The following postmarks will be issued during the International Year on Astronomy in Germany.

1) A stamp commemorating Johannes Kepler will be issued during the IBRA/NAPOSTA Stamp Fair/Exhibition on 7 May 2009. The usual First Day of Issue postmarkers at Berlin and Bonn and a pictorial postmarker at Essen will be used.
2) Pictorial postmarker with a mobile sales stand of the German Postal Service will be available on the same day (7 May) at Weil der Stadt, Kepler's birthplace near Stuttgart. The illustration of the postmarker will show a portrait of the astronomer and an image of the Herschel satellite.

An international „Philatelic Task Group“ will assemble all IYA activities worldwide. For details, see this web portal: http://www.astronomy2009.org

Details on the activities mentioned afore are available from:
Dr. Eckehard Schmidt, Postfach 4616, 90025 Nürnberg, Germany
Tel. / Fax 0911-4720978
eMail: info@wissenschaftsreisen.de http://www.wissenschafts-reisen.de/philatelie
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Jürgen P Esders

An Austrian Postmark
7.3.09: 8010 Graz/Austria

Pictorial cancel: "Sojus-28-Mannschaft auf der Marke + Münze" (Soyuz 28 crew on Marke + Münze Stamp and Coin Fair).

Ill.: Soyuz spacecraft.

Send your stamped covers within 14 days of the event to:
Österreichische Post AG
Postfiliale 1010
Fleischmarkt 19
1010 Wien
Austria

Note: there will be cacheted covers with personalized stamps and a rocket mail cover for this postmarker.
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Jürgen P Esders

More German Postmarks
Cancels used on the occasion of the 16th Astrophilately Meeting at Hoyerswerda, Saxony, Germany, on 9 March 2009:

a) Postmark Permit Meter Slogan type of cancel (German Post) used at 85748 Garching. "75. Geburtstag Juri A. Gagarin" (75th Birthday Yuri A. Gagarin).

Ill.: profile portrait of Gagarin in spacesuit, Vostok spacecraft, Gagarin autograph, stars

Cacheted envelopes available for 2 Euro from the organizer.
b) Pictorial postmarker to be used on private mail company stamps; cacheted envelopes.

Contact: Ralf Schulz, Postfach 1219, 02962 Hoyerswerda, Germany.

c) An "Infopost" machine cancellation was used by Deutsche Post (German Postal administration).
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Jürgen P Esders

A Russian FDI Postmark

A German postmark for 40th anniversary first moon landing
Date: 6 June 2009
Place: 32052 Herford, Germany
Serial number: 09/178
Text: "Zu neuen Zielen - 40 Jahre Mondlandung 1969 2009/Tag der Jugend/Stadtjugendring Herford" (Towards new targets - 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing/Youth Day/City Youth Council Herford)

Ill.: Astronaut in white spae suit; footprint on the Moon, "Youth in @ction" logo.

Send your stamped covers to:
Deutsche Post AG
Niederlassung Brief
Sonderstempelstelle
53253 Bonn
Germany

Cacheted covers: Stadtjugendring Herford, Wolfgang Sander, e-mail: bw.sander@t-online.de

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Jürgen P Esders

A Italian postmark for Space missions Herschel and Planck
Pictorial postmarker to commemorate the launch of the two astronomical satellites launched from Kourou today (14 May):

14.5.09: 00044 Frascati;
Pictorial postmarker Nr. 511 "Missioni spaziali Herschel e Planck" (Space missions Herschel and Planck);

Image: satellites Herschel and Planck; ESA and ASI logos.

Send your covers to:
Poste Italiane
Filiale di Roma
Servizio Commerciale/Filatelia
Via Terzilio Cardinali, 11
00173 Roma
Italy

A US postmark for X-15 Rocketplane 50th Anniversary

Requests for the June 8 cancel should be sent to:
50th Anniversary Station
Box 9998
Edwards AFB, CA 93523-9998

Ordinarily requests for special postmarks are honored for 30 days after the event, so there is still time to send in stamped covers.

Two US postmarks for STS-125/Hubble Servicing Mission

Two US Postmarks from Huntsville
Two show cancels at Huntsville:

6.6.09: Huntsville, AL 35801

“Huntspex Sta. 1959-2009 Mercury 7 Astronauts”

7.6.09: Huntsville, AL 35801;

“Huntspex Sta. 1969-2009 First Lunar Landing”

Send your stamped covers to:
USPS Postmaster
Huntspex Station
3408 Wall Triana Hwy.
Huntsville, AL 35813-9998

Cacheted covers at $1.50 ea. (plus SASE) from:
Huntsville Philatelic Club
Heinrich Hahn
P.O. Box 4395
Huntsville, AL 35815-4395
USA.

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Jürgen P Esders

Another two Italian postmarks for 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11
1) 27.6.09: 33017 Tarcento (UD);

Pictorial postmarker No. 873
"40th Anniversario Primo Uomo sulla Luna/XXVI Mostra Filatelica" (40th Anniversary 1st Man on the Moon/26th Stamp Show)

Send your stamped covers to this address:
Poste Italiane
Servizio Commerciale/Filatelia
Filiale di Tolmezzo
Via Carnia Libera 1944, 3
33028 Tolmezzo (UD)
Italy

2) 18. July 09 at 87046 Montalto Uffugo (CS);

Serial no. 955
Text: "40 Anni dallo sbarco sulla Luna"

Send your stamped covers to:
Poste Italiane
Filiale di Cosenza
Servizio Commerciale/Filatelia
Via Veneto, 59
87100 Cosenza
Italy

UK postmark for 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11
In the United Kingdom:

Date: 20.7.09
Place: Jodrell Bank, Manchester

Special handstamp, serial number 11407
Text: "40th Anniversary of Man on the Moon/The Eagle has landed"

Send your covers (stamped with 62p (to 10 g) or 90p (20 g) to the US; 56p to Europe, 39p within the UK to:
Northern England Special Handstamp Centre
Royal Mail,
South Shields D.O.,
Keppell Street,
South Shields NE33 1AA,
United Kingdom

USA postmark for 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11
No image yet, but the post office in Wapakoneta, Ohio plans a special cancellation for the 40th Anniversary.

Monday, July 20
40th Anniversary Cancellation of the Commemorative First Day Cover, Armstrong Museum

The Armstrong Museum will sell its specially designed covers from 9:30 am. to 5 pm. The Post Office will hand cancel these and other stamped envelopes with the 40th Anniversary postmark from 10 am to Noon only (with hand cancellations at the Post Office in the afternoon).
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Robert Pearlman

Updated
Here are the details:

Date: 20 July 2009
Location: Wapakoneta, OH 45895

Text: "Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Moonwalk/First to the Moon"

Send your stamped covers to:
USPS Postmaster, Armstrong Museum Station, 12 South Willipie Street, Wapakoneta, OH 45895-9998.

More UK postmarks for 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11
Two more cancels in the UK:

Date of both cancels: July 21, 2009 (local time of the Moon Landing in Europe)

Location: London SW1;
Serial no. 11410 "40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing/Buckingham Palace Road"

Send your covers to:
Royal Mail, London SHC, Mount Pleasant, Farringdon Road, London EC1A 1BB, United Kingdom.

Location: Leicester;

Serial number: 11412
"40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing/Exploration Drive"

Send your covers to:
Royal Mail, Midland SHC, Birmingham Mail Centre, St. Stephens Street, Birmingham B6 4AA, United Kingdom.

Another USA postmark for 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11
And there is another one:

Date: 20.7.09
Location: West Point, NY 10996-9998

Text: "Buzz Aldrin Station/Apollo 11 First Men on the Moon/1969 - 2009 40th Anniversary"

Send your stamped covers to:
USPS Postmaster, Buzz Aldrin Station, P.O. Box 9998, West Point, NY 10996-9998.

Two more USA postmarks for 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11
Late, but not too late: two pictorial postmarkers used at the Kennedy Space Center. The grace period has been extended to 60 days.

Date: 16 July 2009
Text: "First Man on the Moon 40th Anniversary Blast Off Station"
Ill.: Astronaut in front of the lunar landing module, Earth rise in the background.

Address to send your stamped covers to:
USPS POstmaster, First Man on the Moon 40th Anniversary Blast Off Station, Officer in charge, P.O. Box 9998, Merritt Island, FL 32953-9998, USA.

Date: 20 July 2009
Text: "First Man on the Moon 40th Anniversary Landing Station"
Ill.: as above.

Address to send your stamped covers to:
USPS Postmaster, First Man on the Moon 40th Anniversary Landing Station, Officer in charge, P.O. Box 9998, Merritt Island, FL 32953-9998, USA.

Czech postmark
The Czech postal administation is commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the death of Czech rocket pioneer Ludvík Ocenasek (pronounce: Ochenáshek) with a personalized stamp and a meter postmark slogan type of cancellation used at the Prague 12 post office.

Both the stamp as the postmarker show a portrait of Ocenasek; the postmarker also carries an image of one his rockets.

Ludvik Ocenasek was born into a poor mining family in Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic) in 1872. He taught himself to be a mechanic, and while working at that trade, succeeded in completing his education in a middle vocational school. At the age of 22, after working in a patent office, he opened his own machine shop in Prague, which in time grew into a medium sized industrial plant.

Creativity marked Ocenasek's entire life, from the merry-go-round he designed and constructed at the age of eight, to the recoil device for firearms for which a patent was awarded to him two days after his death.

In 1905, Ocenasek designed and built an aeronautical rotary engine similar to the famous French Gnome airplane engine. In 1910, he built a monoplane powered by a 50-horsepower rotary engine he had also invented, and on November 30, 1910, he flew it almost 100 feet, a considerable distance at the time.

Inspired by reports of successful rocket experiments performed by Dr. Robert Goddard, engineer Max Valier, and professor Herman Oberth, with whom he corresponded, Ludvik Ocenasek turned his creative endeavors to rocketry and jet propelled boats, beginning systematic rocket research in 1928. He hoped to use liquid propellants such as alcohol or hydrogen and oxygen, advocated by both Goddard and Oberth, but ultimately used solid propellants instead. One of Ocenasek's ultimate goals was to utilize rockets for delivering postal mail via high altitude trajectories between continents.

On March 2, 1930, in a field near Prague, Czechoslovakia, Ocenasek held his largest public demonstration, launching a variety of rockets. One of his two-stage rockets reached 4,700 feet, a remarkable altitude for rockets at that time. All of these rockets were propelled by gunpowder. He also developed a ground-launching apparatus to aid in overcoming obstacles in rapid rocket acceleration.

Ocenasek later tried out reaction propulsion on riverboats, and even envisaged rockets launched from aircraft, the principle used half a century later by Orbital Sciences Corporation for their Pegasus launcher. If not for the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, his research would have undoubtedly developed more innovative products and techniques. Ludvik Ocenasek died on August 10, 1949. Asteroid 61404 Ocenasek is named in his honor.

To obtain one of the cacheted covers produced on this occasion, contact Julius Cacka at julius@atlas.cz

Another German Postmark

UPDATE : It appears that the cancel to be used at Sindelfingen has been cancelled. The competitive stamp exhibition it was to be used for has.

Another one in Germany:

Date. 23.10.09
Place: 71065 Sindelfingen;
Identification number: not yet known.

Text: “Internationale Briefmarken-Börse 23.-25.1009/Rang 3 Ausstellung/ Briefmarkenfreunde Kornwestheim/40 Jahre Mondlandung Apollo 11" (40th Anniversary Moonlanding Apollo 11/International Stamp Fair/Regional stamp exhibition)

Ill.: Lunar Module, Astronaut in his space suit, lunar base.

Send your stamped covers to:
Deutsche Post AG
Niederlassung Philatelie
Sonderstempelstelle
92627 Weiden
Germany

Another Italian Postmark
Place: 28069 Trecate (NO)
Date: 20 Sept 2009
Serial number: 1274
Text: "XXXV Mostra Filatelica Numismatica/L'Astronomia è la conquista della luna" (35th Stamp and Coin Show/Astronomy and the conquest of the Moon).

Address to send your stamped covers to:
Poste Italiane
Filiale di Novara
Servizio Commerciale/Filatelia
L.go Costituente, 2
28100 Novara
Italia
A Postmark from Austria
Pictorial postmarker in Austria:

Date: 4.10.09
Location: 1060 Wien;

Text: “50 Jahre Mondsonde Lunik 3/1959-2009/Werbeschau/GWF” (50th Anniversary Lunar Zond Lunik 3)

Ill.: lunar zond Lunik 3.

Send your stamped covers to:
Zentrale Stempelstelle - Philatelie,
Fleischmarkt 19
1010 Wien
Austria.

More Italian Postmarks
two more pictorial cancels (and another one in the pipeline):

Date: 7.11.09:
Place: 31025 Santa Lucia di Piave (TV);
Serial number: N° 1596
Text: "40° Anniversario Sbarco Primo Uomo sulla luna/4° Centenario Prime Osservazione Astronomiche" (40th Anniversary 1st Man on the Moon/400th Anniversary of the first astronomical observations).

Send your covers to:
Poste Italiane,
Filiale di Treviso,
Servizio Commerciale/Filatelia,
Piazza Vittoria 1,
31100 Treviso
Italy.

Date: 9.11.09:
Place: 23100 Sondrio Centro;
Seriel N° 1612
Text: "40° Anniversario Allunaggio 1969-2009/Mostra Filatelica Numismatica "Uomo sulla luna - I soldi sulla terra" (40th Anniversary Moon Landing 1969-2009/Stamp and Coin Show "A man on the Moon - the money on Earth"

Send your covers to:
Poste Italiane,
Filiale di Sondrio,
Servizio Commerciale/Filatelia,
Viale Veneto 40,
23100 Sondrio,
Italy.

Another Italian Postmark

... and here the other one, already mentioned in the previous post:

Date: 14.11.09:
Place: 10020 Pecetto Torinese (TO);
Text: “Giornata della Filatelia/40° Anniv. Primo Uomo sulla luna/Omaggio a Giovanni Riggi di Numana” (Stamp Day/40th Anniversary First Man on the Moon/Honoring Giovanni Riggi di Numana, Astrophilatelist)

Ill.: an Eagle, landing on the lunar surface; mothership Columbia.

Note: Chris Calle designed this one.

Send your covers to:
Poste Italiane,
Filiale di Torino,
Servizio Commerciale/Filatelia,
Via Alfieri, 10,
I-10121 Torino,
Italy.

The organizing club ASITAF has illustrated postcards for this event. Contact Umberto Cavallaro at: ucavallaro@alice.it
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General Note: Much of the above information was first reported on collectSPACE