_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      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  ***                        <)                    

HALCA STATUS

HALCA experienced a loss of attitude control earlier this week. The RCS thrusters were fired and attitude control regained, but then lost again several days later. HALCA is now tumbling, similar to its condition between December 1999 and February 2002. The experience gained in recovering from that loss of attitude control will be valuable in recovering control this time. For the next few weeks HALCA will be monitored as the recovery steps are planned.

MEETINGS

The year is only one month old, but already two meetings with important consequences for VSOP-2 have been held in Japan. First, the Space Science Symposium was held at ISAS, at which the status of all current and planned future space missions were presented and discussed. The VSOP-2 mission was described in talks by Murata-san and Natori-san, and in poster contributions. SELENE-B, a lunar lander mission in collaboration with NASDA, has been proposed, and several other missions, including a hard X-ray mission and a solar sail mission, are being planned on a similar timescale to VSOP-2.

Secondly, a domestic VLBI symposium was held at Mitaka from January 14th to 16th. Support from the domestic VLBI community is essential for VSOP-2 to go ahead (just as support from the international community will be) and the meeting provided a forum to discuss VSOP-2 and other projects underway or planned, including VERA (http://veraserver.mtk.nao.ac.jp/) and RISE/SELENE (http://www.miz.nao.ac.jp/rise_selene-e.html).

GRAVITATIONAL DEFLECTION

VSOP Science Operations Group member Ed Fomalont (NRAO) has been in the news recently with a nice result concerning the bending of radio waves by Jupiter. In collaboration with Sergei Kopeikin (Missouri-Columbia) -- a collaboration which began in Japan! -- Ed used the VLBA and Effelsberg to observe the quasar J0842+1835 (a VSOP Survey Program source) as Jupiter passed within 3.7' on September 8, 2002. The 8 GHz, two-source phase-referencing observations allowed the deflection of the radio waves from the quasar due to Jupiter's gravitational field to be measured to an accuracy of about 10 microarcsec. At this accuracy, the experiment measured the part of the bending associated with the motion of Jupiter, as well as the much larger normal radial deflection term. This additional bending term depends on v/c? where v is the velocity of Jupiter in the plane of the sky. Sergei and Ed believe that c? should be the speed of gravity, whereas others believe the c? is the speed of light. The reason why there is a difference of opinion is involved with how to generalize Einstein's theory of relativity to incorporate a speed of gravity which is not necessarily the speed of light.

                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi