ABOUT ORBITAL ARTIFACTS
Orbital Artifacts specializes in the sale of vintage collectibles from the early US and Soviet/Russian space programs. While many sites sell memorabilia, we focus on actual artifacts from human spaceflight, including flown items, technical documents, training-used items, and space flight hardware.
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Space collecting can be a tricky business. Our goal is to provide a worry-free source for authentic space artifacts. Everything we sell is extensively researched and vetted for authenticity.
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All items come with an Orbital Artifacts Certificate of Authenticity that provides full provenance information. Everything we sell is backed by a 14-day return policy and a lifetime guarantee of authenticity.
PROPRIETOR
The proprietor of Orbital Artifacts is Kevin P. Groark, Anthropologist and son of an Apollo Launch Team member. Although he grew up immersed in Apollo and Shuttle, his passion for space collecting was ignited by a chance encounter with Buzz Aldrin (which turned into a long drive through the Arizona desert talking about space exploration, scuba diving, and many other things—it's a long story...)
Kevin is an admin/moderator on two large and active space collectibles groups on Facebook (NASA & Space Memorabilia Buy/Sell and Soviet & Russian Space Memorabilia Buy/Sell). If you’re not a member of these groups, check them out! They’re a great resource for collectors…
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Kevin has deep personal ties to manned space exploration. His father, Frank Groark, was Supervisor of CSM Telemetry and Communications on the Apollo Test & Launch Team at Kennedy Space Center. He was responsible for checkout and integrated testing of the Apollo spacecraft for both the early "boilerplate" flights as well as all manned missions (later transferring to the same role on Shuttle).
(Images—Right: Jan 1968 Apollo CSM Test Team Member Certificate; Bottom Left: Silver Snoopy award for work on instrumented tiles on Shuttle; Bottom Right: Receiving the "Buck Trimmer" award for cost-saving innovations in testing and checkout on Apollo - Dad is on the right).
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