After 2011 with the end of the Space Shuttle program all the manned flights were performed by three modifications of Soyuz spacecraft – TMA, TMA-M and MS. So on one hand there are less US designed covers to collect, from the other Soyuz dedicated inventory has been greatly improved with the appearance of “new guys in the block” – Russian cachet makers. The postmarks remain the same – Baikonur for launch, Korolev and Houston for mission control and Araklyk for landing, not to forget about Star City for the after-flight welcome event.

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Flown space covers have been always a first priority but they cannot be commercialized openly due to the legal issues and therefore are hard to obtain. Energia and Roscosmos covers are sent to ISS in quantities of 50-60 per flight as well as privately designed covers. Sometimes I succeed to grab one or two, sometimes not. Since 2011 a new turn appeared in flown postmarks – ISS special cancellations, starting with the one dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin flight.

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I have been started to collect astrophilately from around 2014 and became a real fan of private cachets in 2015, thus there are many gaps associated with earlier Soyuz launched but they will be filled with the course of time. Autographs have never touched me but I try to obtain at least one set for each crew/mission for the sake of astophilatelic coverage.