The consignment deadline is nearly upon us for Heritage's fascinating Space Exploration Auction and they've let it be known that they have an amazing group of rare and important space relics and memorabilia ready.

For a start, another astronaut has chosen to become a consignor: American space hero, Rusty Schweickart.

He was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 9, the first manned flight of the lunar module. Flight testing this spacecraft was a critical milestone in the race to a manned moon landing.

Schweickart has dug deep into his personal collection of space mementos and will be offering a number of interesting and historical lots to space collectors in our upcoming sale. Let's take a look at just a few of these exciting relics.

Apollo 9 was incredibly important in that it tested flight procedures and equipment that would be required for a successful accomplishment of the Apollo program's goals.

At this point in time, the missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle of a lunar landing and takeoff was the spacecraft needed to accomplish that feat, the lunar module. This mission was the first manned "field test" of the LM, in this case nicknamed Spider.

Heritage is proudly offering the flown Spacecraft Identification Plate to LM-3 given to the mission's Lunar Module Pilot Rusty Schweickart by Grumman.

Apollo 9 Lunar Module Flown LM-3 Spacecraft Identification plate

It's a piece that is worthy of inclusion in a major museum or institutional collection, but could certainly end up in your personal collection come November 30th.

Another of these pieces of equipment so important to the future of space travel was the PLSS, the self-contained Portable Life Support System that was worn as a backpack to the spacesuit.

It is what allowed the astronauts to traverse the lunar surface without being tethered to the lunar module. Rusty Schweickart was the first to test and use this device in space and we have the three patches removed from this very first PLSS unit in our auction.

There are many more exciting lots from Rusty Schweickart that are currently being processed, described, and photographed. Space collectors should watch this space for more news on this exciting auction.