_                    
                                                         |_|                   
      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  ***                        <)                     
 

`Akemashite omedetou gozaimasu. Kotoshi-mo yoroshiku onegai shimasu.' A Happy New Year to readers of the VSOP news!

EXPRESS LAUNCH

The Japanese-German EXPRESS (EXPerimental REentry Space System) mission is due for launch this Sunday, the 15th of January. The satellite will be launched from the Kagoshima Space Center at Uchinoura, on the southern tip of Kyushu (the southernmost of Japan's four main islands). Several observers from the VSOP team will attend the launch, which is scheduled to be the last M-series rocket launch before the launch of the VSOP satellite, MUSES-B, in the second half of next year. MUSES-B will be the first launch with the new ISAS M-V rocket, which has been under development since 1990.

MUSES-B TESTS

Testing of the attitude control system and on-board radio-astronomy system are continuing on schedule, with no serious problems having been encountered to date.

MITAKA CORRELATOR

Good progress is being made with the VSOP correlator. Tape synchronization running tests were successfully completed at the Fujitsu factory earlier this week. The next stage of testing is checking of the correlator hardware. From the 25th of this month, thermal testing of the hardware will commence at the Fujitsu factory at Numazu. The ten station correlator is due for installation at the National Astronomical Observatory in Mitaka at the end of February. Currently seven playback units have been constructed, with extra units planned for the future.

WORLD WIDE WEB

The finishing touches are being put on the VSOP project's home page. It is hoped that the URL (Uniform Resource Locator) will be ready for release in the next issue of the VSOP news.

BEWARE WILD PIG!

The New Year is, in some ways, the Japanese equivalent to Christmas, inasmuch as it is when families get together and eat too much! The first three days of the year are holidays for most workers, with people returning to work on the 4th. The Japanese use a 12-year cycle, based on a similar Chinese system, which associates an animal with each year. 1995 is the year of the wild pig: which must make it a good year for politicians to do some pork-barreling... As this year will bring us within a year of launch, the VSOP team will be continuing to make progress with preparations in order for the mission to "bring home the bacon"...

 
 
       Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi