_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      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 MISSION STATUS

NASA funding of the NRAO Space VLBI Project ended on May 7, terminating NRAO's support of the VSOP mission. The NRAO Space VLBI Project took part in the observing, correlation, validation, archiving, and release, of over 350 VSOP observations, and we thank all those associated with the Project for their contributions to the VSOP mission.

NOBEYAMA CELEBRATION

The Nobeyama Radio Observatory is celebrating its 20th birthday today! Attaining the age of 20 years is said to mark the passage to adulthood in Japan (Coming of Age Day in January is celebrated by all those who had turned 20 in the previous year). Twenty is also the age at which alcohol can legally be consumed, and so fittingly NRO's birthday will be marked with toasts to those who have contributed to its successes over the years. Further details of the NRO can be obtained from http://www.nro.nao.ac.jp/index-e.html, and a shorter introduction including a number of pictures can be seen at http://spaceboy.nasda.go.jp/note/Tentai/E/ten114_nobeyama_e.html .

VSOP-2 WEB PAGE

A web page has been established for VSOP-2, the follow-up mission to the VSOP project currently being planned. The page, /astro/halca/vsop/vsop2, has links to several papers and technical memos related to VSOP-2 and will be regularly updated as further progress is made.

WORLD CUP SOCCER

The 2002 World Cup is being hosted jointly by Korea and Japan, with the first match being played in Seoul on May 31st, and the final being played in Yokohama on June 30th. A total of 64 games will be played, with 32 teams competing. (Although purists insist the game is called "football", we adopt the Japanese tradition of referring to the game as "soccer".)

UPCOMING MEETINGS

The importance of the World Cup to radio-astronomers can be judged from the fact that extended lunch breaks have been scheduled during the 6th European VLBI Network Symposium on New Developments in VLBI Science and Technology to allow participants to watch the semi-final matches! The Symposium will be held at the Gustav-Stresemann-Institut, Bonn, Germany, from June 25-28 (see http://www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/div/vlbi/evn2002 for more details). The IAU 8th Asian Pacific Regional Meeting will be held in Tokyo from July 2nd to 5th (http://www.astro.isas.ac.jp/conference/aprm2002/). And a meeting on New Technologies in VLBI will be held from November 5-8 in the historical city of Gyeong-ju, Korea (http://www.trao.re.kr/~ntiv).

                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi