KOSMONAUT YURIY GAGARIN
Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:06 pm
The last stamp issued by Russia in 1981 is not named in Stanley Gibbons Collect Ships on Stamps, but I believe she is also the KOSMONAUT YURIY GAGARIN, she was the only control and monitoring vessel in the Russian merchant fleet with four disk aerials. And compare the vessel depict on the stamp with photo’s she look alike. The satellite is the Saljut 6.
Built as Space Control/Monitoring Ship under yard No SMN 71-310S by the Baltiyskiy Zavod at Leningrad for the USSR Government, managed by the USSR Black Sea Shipping Co.
Launched under the name KOSMONAUT YURIY GAGARIN named after the Russian cosmonaut Yuriy Alekseyevich Gagarin (1934-1968).
Tonnage 32.291 gross, 5.247 net, 31.299 dwt. Dim. 231.77 x 31.02 x 10m., length bpp. 214m.
Powered by two steam turbines geared to two shafts, turbines manufactured by Kirov Works, 19.000 shp, speed 17 knots.
June 1971 completed.
She was the largest vessel ever built for this task for the Russian space program.
She was very recognizable by her very large disk and parabolic aerials, the largest did have a diameter of 25 meter, and when directed in an unfavorable wind direction did slow the ship down two miles.
She worked on the Soviet-American Apollo-Soyuz Test program.
1992 Transferred to the Academy of Sciences in the Ukraine.
1996 Sold for breaking up to Bangladesh, she passed the Sea of Marmara 05 July 1996 under the name AGAR for her last voyage to the breakers.
Cuba 1973 30c sg 2027, scott 2027.
Kampuchea 1988 1r sg 894.
Mongolia 1977 30m sg 1066. scott C86
Russia 1979 10k sg 4952, 1979 15k sg?. 1981 15k sg?
Marine News 1997/291. Soviet Merchant Ships by Ambrose Greenway. Log Book.