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Voyager

Launch

The Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977, and 16 years later are still providing data about the regions at the very edge of the solar system. In this period, there have been many spectacular events of discovery of the nature and character of the solar system. The stamp club provided six different cachet designs for the launches, Jupiter flyby and Saturn flyby of Voyagers 1 and 2. In addition, we provided covers for the Voyager 2 flybys of Uranus and Neptune by embellishing the Staurn and Jupiter covers for Voyager 2 with added cachets. For many other events, we provided rubber- stamp cachet service as is described in chapter 12.

Taking as precedent the launch cover designs for the Viking and MVM missions, Don Burcham developed a cachet design for launches of Voyager B and A from the project logo. The difference in the two cachets is, as it was on Viking, a difference of color of the written legends on the covers. A curiosity of this mission was that the first spacecraft to launch was the slower of the two, such that it actually arrived at Jupiter after the second launch. Thus Voyager A, which became Voyager 2 because it was second at Jupiter, was launched on August 20, 1977 (13b), and Voyager B (Voyager 1) (13a) was launched September 5.

Jupiter and Saturn Encounters

The success of the Viking mission event covers, with the four-color project art reproduced on the covers, led to the decision to do the same with the Voyager encounters with the primary science targets, Jupiter and Saturn. From the wealth of beautiful artwork available, four attractive representations were selected, clearly showing the uniqueness of the planets. These were adapted into cachet designs for each mission event as the time for that event approached. This occurred over 2½ years time. Voyager 1 encountered Jupiter (15b) on March 5, 1979, and flew by Saturn (16b) on November 12, 1980. Jupiter closest approach for Voyager 2 (15a) was July 9, 1979, and Saturn (16a) wasn't reached until August 25, 1981. Despite the long intervals, the covers Don designed have a very similar and complementary appearance.

The biggest variable over these years was the canceller used by the postal service, and the people operating them at the time we brought the covers in for cancellation. The model G canceller which had been used on the Mariner 10 and HELIOS covers was in mothballs, since the fellow who could keep it running cleanly had retired. The Mark 2 facer-cancellers in use at the time of the Voyager cover events were automated, 4-position cancellers, and the quality of the cancellation depended on the amount of cleaning and set-up the operators could do for us, and still not impact their heavy work load.

Also, the ink in use was changing from time to time. The Voyager 2 Jupiter cancels were done with an ink which was watery, and the cancels bled on almost all covers, while the cancels on the Voyager 2 Saturn covers were very neat and distinct.

Uranus and Neptune Encounters

Before the Saturn flybys, the results obtained from the Jupiter encounters were so encouraging to the program people and the public that the hoped-for extended mission to flyby Uranus and Neptune was approved. Thus Voyager 2 was targeted to Saturn on such a path that the subsequent trajectory lined up with the positions of the two outer planets in the so-called "Grand Tour". This opportunity was known from the beginning to be available in this mission, and not again for more than 170 years.

The four Voyager encounter covers were not an immediate sellout like the preceding Viking covers. The plan was evolved therefore, to use 250 of each of the Voyager 2 Jupiter and Saturn encounter covers, and add rubber stamp cachets for the Uranus encounter. These then would be cancelled a second time on the encounter date. These 250 sets of two covers were in demand before the events, so an additional 100 sets of covers for the Uranus Encounter were produced using the rubber stamp cachet on Saturn and Uranus encounter cacheted envelopes that had not been serviced for those events. Thus dual- cancelled (18a-b) and single-cancelled (19a-b) cover sets were available for Uranus encounter.
*Chuck - do you think we could group each group of covers above single images of two covers each? Also below for Neptune.
The last Voyager event celebrated by the stamp club, 12 years after launch, was investigation by Voyager 2 of Neptune on August 24, 1989. For this event, the last 250 pairs of Voyager 2 encounter covers were used to again provide Neptune encounter dual cancellation covers (20a-b). A rubber stamp was again produced for this event and applied to the covers. In this case, the RSC was a reduced-size version of the rubber stamp used to service cover requests from collectors submitting their own covers for cancellation.

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