Cover Service

The JPL Stamp Club provides cover servicing for events with which JPL is connected. Most of these events are Space Mission Launches or occasions of rendezvous, landing, orbiting, etc. the various objects in the Solar System that we explore. Other events we might celebrate include significant anniversaries and First Day of Issues involving JPL or Caltech. We continue to service covers for Shuttle launches, even though JPL no longer participates in tracking STS missions, except in an emergency. We don't service landings.

Most of our covers are cancelled on the day of the event in Pasadena. On occasion the event will be at a remote site, with no significant operations activity at the Pasadena campus, so we will then arrange for an appropriate cancellation near the event site. For instance, when the FIDO rover was tested in the Mojave Desert, we arranged for the Post office on the Marine base at 29 Palms to cancel covers for us.

We will service up to four covers per person per event. The requester must send in self-addressed stamped envelopes (up to 4 for each event), with first class postage to the destination noted in the address. Service usually entails providing a special rubber stamp cachet describing or representing the event, with the appropriate cancellation on that day. If a special canceller has been provided by the Postal Service for that event, we will use it. The rubbers stamp designs are often provided by the project involved, but sometimes we design them ourselves.

There is no additional charge for the service and usually there will be 15-20 requests, with around 50 covers serviced.

Rubber Stamp Cachet Service Requests can be sent to

Dr James R Rose MS 156-206
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4800 Oak Grove Dr
Pasadena CA 91109