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Kennedy Space Center post office closing after 58 years of postmarks

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NASA's mail will continue to be processed, but philatelic requests will be directed to and returned with a Titusville, Fla. postmark.

a stamp that reads "kennedy space center"
The post office at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is set to close by the end of September 2023. The closure ends 58 years of providing Kennedy Space Center postmarks. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com)

The Kennedy Space Center post office has been, well, cancelled.

The contract facility, which was established at NASA's Florida spaceport on July 1, 1965, will close permanently "near the end of the fiscal year," or sometime before Sept. 30. Since 2013, the post office has been operated for NASA by Post Masters Mail and Print Services, a division of the nonprofit Anthony Wayne Rehabilitation Center (AWRC).

The agency's mail will now go through Cocoa Beach to Orlando for processing. But with the closure of the office, the public will no longer be able to request that stamped envelopes (called philatelic "covers") be postmarked with a cancellation device displaying the location of Kennedy Space Center.

Collectors' requests will instead be directed to Titusville, the next closest office to the space center, according to a notice from AWRC. Submitted covers will receive a Titusville postmark.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) will also not service covers using the Kennedy Space Center postmark through its fulfillment center in Kansas City, Missouri.

Related: Facts and information about NASA's Kennedy Space Center

A July 1, 1965 cover postmarked for the first day of service for the Kennedy Space Center Post Office. (Image credit: American Astrophilately via collectSPACE.com)

Philatelic covers are stamped envelopes postmarked on the dates of significant events. Since the first rocket left Florida's Space Coast more than 70 years ago, collectors have had covers serviced at the post office nearest the site of the launch. In addition to Titusville, there are post offices today in Merritt Island, Cape Canaveral and at the Patrick Space Force Station.

Thomas Spaur, supervisor of the Kennedy Space Center post office, told Linn's Stamp News that the office recently averaged about 5,000 postmark requests each year. Since the 1969 launch of Apollo 12 and the end of the space shuttle program in 2011, drop boxes had been available at the spaceport's visitor center (today, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex) for the public to have their envelopes submitted for servicing, but those bins are no more.

The notice from the Kennedy Space Center Post Office informing users of its permanent closure before the end of the fiscal year. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com)
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Collectors' requests for postmarks dated for the last day of service should be submitted to the Kennedy Space Center post office by Friday (Sept. 15). Self-addressed stamped envelopes (or stamped envelopes addressed to others of the sender's choice) should be placed into a larger envelope addressed to:

US Postal Service/CPU
KMSC-003/Clerk In Charge
Kennedy Space Center, FL 32815-9998

Collectors and the public can also send stamped envelopes and postcards without addresses for postmark, so long as they supply a larger self-addressed envelope with adequate postage. After applying the postmark, the post office will return the covers (with or without addresses) in the addressed larger envelope.

After the Kennedy office closes, cover requests should be addressed to: Titusville Post Office, Attn: Supervisor, 2503 S. Washington Ave., Titusville, FL 32780.

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Robert Z. Pearlman
Robert Z. Pearlman
collectSPACE.com Editor, Space.com Contributor

Robert Pearlman is a space historian, journalist and the founder and editor of collectSPACE.com, an online publication and community devoted to space history with a particular focus on how and where space exploration intersects with pop culture. Pearlman is also a contributing writer for Space.com and co-author of "Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space” published by Smithsonian Books in 2018. He previously developed online content for the National Space Society and Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, helped establish the space tourism company Space Adventures and currently serves on the History Committee of the American Astronautical Society, the advisory committee for The Mars Generation and leadership board of For All Moonkind. In 2009, he was inducted into the U.S. Space Camp Hall of Fame in Huntsville, Alabama. In 2021, he was honored by the American Astronautical Society with the Ordway Award for Sustained Excellence in Spaceflight History.