_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      V   V   SSSS   OOO   PPPP                 \__      |_|      __/         
      V   V  S      O   O  P   P                   --____/ \____--            
      V   V   SSS   O   O  PPPP                    _ _ _ --- _ _ _            
       V V       S  O   O  P                      |_|_|_|  @|_|_|_|           
        V    SSSS    OOO   P                             o-o                  
                                                          /                   
      ***  N    E    W    S  ***                        <)                    

VSOP AO3

A total of thirty proposals were received in response to the third Announcement of Opportunity. As there were 95 proposals for the year-long AO2 period, 30 proposals for the nominally four-month AO3 period is in line with expectations. Most proposers opted to submit their Scientific and Technical Justifications by e-mail, an option allowed for the first time with AO3, and there were only a couple of minor hitches resulting from this change. All proposers will be contacted this week with their AO3 proposal code and details of the review process.

There are good reasons for having the VSOP proposal deadline coincident with the VLBA and EVN deadlines, however, as anyone trying to submit more than one proposal knows, it tends to make the last few days before the deadline rather busy! There has been local VSOG discussion about offsetting the VSOP proposal deadline by a few days from the ground array deadlines, and comments on this idea are welcomed.

HALCA STATUS

Future Announcements of Opportunity are of course contingent upon HALCA remaining in good health, and unfortunately HALCA last week encountered a problem with one of the four reaction wheels used for attitude control. This program is currently under investigation, with observing put on hold while this is done. There is built-in redundancy with the use of four reaction wheels, but it is yet to be determined whether HALCA will switch to a three-wheel mode of attitude control or whether the fourth wheel can be relied upon in the future. It is thought that a minimum of two weeks will be required before observations can be resumed. Re-scheduling of observations postponed in the meantime will start as soon as the recovery planning is sufficiently advanced.

VSOP SYMPOSIUM

The first abstracts for the VSOP symposium have already been received: others intending to give presentations at the symposium are reminded that the deadline for abstract submission is Friday, October 15th. The latex template for the abstracts is available from /astro/halca/vsop/symposium.html.en .

It was announced this last week that Japan will introduce a 2000 yen banknote during the year 2000, to complement the current 1000, 5000 and 10000 yen notes. Unfortunately, VSOP symposium participants will be too early to see the note in circulation -- it is scheduled for release just before the Group of Eight summit in Okinawa in July 2000.

                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi