Bearing a high importance among the themes that philatelists show a high interest for, Astrophilately is to be found again this year in the philatelic issues programe through the philatelic issue Space Exploration, that Romfilatelia introduces into circulation. The three stamps mark half a century since the first attempts to begin an elaborated space exploration and research program and to verify survival conditions for human crew on board of space ships.
In 1958, the United States of America launched the first space mission, Explorer I that was to reveal a fundamental discovery for space explorations: due to its magnetic poles, the Earth is surrounded by a radiation belt, thereafter called "Van Allen".
The Sputnik program implied a series of space missions with no human aboard, conducted by the Soviet Union, during late 60’s and its purpose was to emphasize the feasibility of artificial satellites. The name "Sputnik" actually means "satellite" or "travel companion". The first attempt to launch the Artificial Earth Satellite Sputnik 3 on February, 3rd 1958 was a failure but the second one, dating May 15th was a real success and managed to transport an important number of devices to be used in geophysical research into space. The magnetic recorder on board went out of order and any research data registration on the Van Allen radiation belts, just four months previously discovered by the American satellite Explorer I, became accordingly impossible.
In December 1958, the United States Army launched the Jupiter AM-13 missile, having the monkey Gordo aboard. This mission was devoted to biological research. Unfortunately, upon landing, the monkey died because of a failure of the parachuting system of the missile.
The stamp with the face value of Lei 1.00 presents the Explorer I space mission.
The stamp with the face value of Lei 2.40 presents the Sputnik 3 space mission.
The stamp with the face value of Lei 3.10 presents the Jupiter AM-13 space mission.
The issue is completed by a set of 3 maxicards.
