Philatelic Snippets

Postage Stamp for First Danish Satellite

On Wednesday 13th January, 1999, the Danish Post Office authorities issued a 4 Kr pictorial stamp, showing an artists impression of Denmark’s first scientific satellite poised high above Earth in lasting tribute, writes Bert Van Eijck.

The following day from the American Vandenberg Base in Southern California the artificial moon was sent into space via a Delta rocket. The satellite is equipped with five scientific instruments designed to measure and map the Earth’s magnetic field. The measurements will be used for amongst other things, the study of The Northern Lights (aurora borealis).

The artificial moon has been named "Örsted" after the Danish physicists Hans Christian Örsted (1777-1851) who in 1820 discovered the magnetic field associated with an electric current. The postal authority had already featured Denmark’s famous son on a stamp in 1951 to mark the one hundredth anniversary of his death.

The Örsted Project had started way back in 1993 as a co-operative undertaking by Danish research institutes and the space industry of Denmark. A network of more than fifty bodies scattered around the world pick up and analyze the scientific data flowing from the satellite. Funding for the project comes from a number of sources with the USA, France and ESA being some of the main contributors.

The Örsted satellite weighs 60kg, has a height of 69 cm, a width of 45 cm and is a mere 34cm deep. Once operational in space this tiny artificial moon reaches a respectable eight metres length as you can see on the detail of the stamp, through the gradual opening out of a mast rolled into two sections of six and two metres. During the launch the flexible mast is coiled into a spiral which once in orbit proceeds to slowly unfold to its full length.

The scientific findings are transmitted from space to a ground station in Copenhagen. At the same time control signals for the following orbit are sent to the satellite. Back-up stations in Aalborg and Ballerup can eventually take over this task.

Back to Copenhagen, where on 13th January 99 a first day postmark was used for the Danish Örsted stamp. The circular design shown is an international symbol representing Earth’s magnetism, which is precisely what the satellite research, is all about.

Interbol Project

Of course research into the magnetic fields around the Earth started quite some time ago in terms of the space age it was in right at the start, with very often both the East and the West participating jointly.

An example is Interbol, a project to which Russia as well as Europe and USA contributed manpower and funding. Magnetic fields and solar wind research were the one focus of the Interbol Project. Russia went as far as issuing two items of postal stationery to mark this joint venture.

An illustrated postcard (11.11.93) carried a 40 rouble imprinted stamp showing the magnetic fields and two Interbol probes and an envelope (not illustrated) similar to the card but with the additional illustration of an Interbol probe studying the solar wind.

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I.S.S. at Last!

 

No one interested in space flight can have missed it, delayed, behind schedule, but on 20.11.98 we had the start of the International Space Station, the most complex space project yet, it wont be fully operational until 2004, at the earliest. The venture is certain to bring about an abundance of philatelic novelties in the coming years.

The flight control centre in Houston Texas brought out a special postmark for the new station in May 1998 which incorporated in the design the smaller and very first American space station Skylab.

The Arbeitsgruppe Philatelie in the N.E. German City of Neubrandenburg issued on 31.10.98 their own illustrated postal cover to celebrate Space Flight Day. It has a 100pf imprinted stamp showing Elizabeth Scwarzhaupt and in addition to the left of the cover an artists impression of the new space station. The special postmark shows the Russian space station the ageing MIR, stilling circling Earth against all the odds!

Only 200 copies of this attractive item have been released, but you might still get one by writing to former ASSS member Ralf Schulz, whose address is on the shown cover.

The franking impression(in red in fact) comes also from Hoyerswerda in Germany. The postmark was issued on 20.11.98 the launch date of the Russian-built Zarya (Dawn) module, the first of Russia’s contributions to the ISS, to be followed by an American crew linking up in the unity module, a long six-porthole connecting passageway (see the following illustrative cachet):

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Glenn Stamps from Tiny States

Three states in the Pacific Islands Balau (formerly Palau), Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands still associated with the US brought out their own stamps to mark the return to space by Glenn on launch date 29/10/98.

Balau chose a sheet of eight stamps showing Glenn the Senator and in training for the shuttle flight. Micronesia’s sheet of eight stamps is an interesting selection or shots relating to Glenn’s first mission in 1962.

The Marshall Islands produced something that excited attention—a booklet of six stamps showing Glenn, the launch and flight in 1962 and 1998. Included on a separate sheet is a reproduction of the American Mercury stamp (Glenn’s 1962 orbital flight and the wording "The Right Stuff Again", a reference to Tom Wolfe’s famous book about the first American astronaut’s flight into space.

The pictorial cover of the booklet has an illustration of the 1998 space shuttle Discovery whilst the 1962 Mercury decorates the back. "Hero in Space" is written in bold letters on both sides. Definitely a must-have!

(This article first appeared in Mijn Stokpaardje in February 1999 and was specially translated for Orbit by Mrs. Angels Paterson of Elgin, Scotland).

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