Story Musgrave Signed STS-6 Launch Cover — Grumman Bethpage Cachet, 1983 View Watchlist >
Seller Accepts Credit Cards
Payment and pickup instructions will be available on your invoice (under "My Account") at the conclusion of this auction.
Pickup
$0.00
($0.00 as additional item)
Signature Confirmed Shipping
$12.90
($12.90 as additional item)
Lot # Nasa46
System ID # 29230460
Start Date
End Date
0 Watching
Story Musgrave Signed STS-6 Launch Cover — Grumman Bethpage Cachet, 1983
April 4, 1983. The Space Shuttle Challenger lifted off on STS-6, her maiden flight — a mission that carried the first Tracking and Data Relay Satellite to orbit and produced the first spacewalk of the Shuttle program. One of the two astronauts who performed that EVA was mission specialist F. Story Musgrave, and this commemorative launch cover carries his signature in pencil across the face.
The cover is a Grumman Aerospace Corporation cachet, postmarked BETHPAGE, N.Y. — APR 4 1983, the launch date, in violet from the Bethpage USPO. Grumman built the Shuttle's wings at its Long Island plant, and the envelope proclaims it: rubber-stamped "GRUMMAN AEROSPACE CORP. BETHPAGE N.Y." and "BUILDER OF THE SHUTTLE WING" in blue, with the "STS-6 LAUNCH" cachet in purple at upper left. The franking is the USA 20¢ Explorer II 1935 stratospheric balloon airmail stamp (Scott C54), tied by the Bethpage cancel. A red-and-blue airmail border frames the whole.
The Signer
Story Musgrave is among the most accomplished astronauts in NASA history — the only person to have flown all five Space Shuttle orbiters, with six spaceflights spanning from 1983 to 1996. He was lead spacewalker on the 1993 Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission. STS-6 was his first flight, making a signed cover from this mission an early-career artifact from a singular career.
Significance & Rarity
The combination is what gives this cover its weight: an authentic Musgrave signature, the STS-6 launch-date Bethpage postmark, and the Grumman "Builder of the Shuttle Wing" cachet tying the piece directly to the contractor that fabricated Challenger's wings on Long Island. It is a space-collectible and a Grumman industrial artifact in a single envelope.
Authenticity
NM Estate Auctions will issue a Certificate of Authenticity for the Story Musgrave signature with this lot.
CONDITION
Very Good. The cover is clean and bright with crisp cachets and a fully legible postmark; the pencil signature is clear across the face. Minor handling to the edges and faint offset show-through on the reverse, consistent with age. Stamp is sound and well-tied.
DIMENSIONS / SPECIFICATIONS
- Cover: 3 5/8" × 6 1/2"
- Mission: STS-6 (Challenger), launched April 4, 1983
- Postmark: Bethpage, N.Y. USPO, April 4, 1983
- Stamp: USA 20¢ Explorer II 1935 (Scott C54)
- Signature: Story Musgrave (pencil, face)
- Includes: Certificate of Authenticity from NM Estate Auctions
