_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      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

Original predictions for the evolution of HALCA's spin axis were not met, and so in recent weeks one of the Reaction Wheels has been spun up for short periods in an effort to shift the spin axis to a more favorable orientation. In the current attitude, RW-D is starting to warm up again, and it is hoped that it will be able to be restarted once it reaches around 20 C.

SURVEY PUBLICATIONS

The VSOP AGN Survey is a 5 GHz survey of 294 flat spectrum AGN with total flux densities at 5 GHz greater than 1 Jy. Around 250 survey sources have been observed as part of General Observing Time or Survey observations, and analysis of these data is continuing. The next three papers in the "The VSOP 5 GHz AGN Survey:" series have recently been accepted for publication: "II. Data Calibration and Imaging" by Lovell et al. and "III. Imaging Results for the first 102 Sources" by Scott et al. will both appear in ApJSupp, and "IV. The Angular Size/Brightness Temperature Distribution" by Horiuchi et al. will be published in the ApJ main journal. The papers will also be available from astro-ph and the VSOP website's Survey pages.

VSOP-2

VSOP-2 paper "The VSOP-2 Project: A Second Generation Space-VLBI Mission Ranging to mm Wavelengths", by Hirabayashi et al., was presented at the SPIE hosted Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation symposium held in Glasgow from June 21st to 25th.

The VSOP-2 project plan was presented to the Radio Astronomy Committee of NAOJ on June 15th during a special four-hour review, and at the National Committee for Astronomy on June 29th. A meeting of the Science Steering Committee of ISAS/JAXA was held on June 28th, and the issue of the need for a long term space science plan (see last VSOP news) was the most important topic discussed. VSOP-2 must be placed in this long term plan to be realized.

FIRST FRINGES

First fringes were successfully obtained this week using the Uchinoura (formerly Kagoshima) Space Center's 34m antenna and a newly installed hydrogen maser. Fringes were obtained between the USC 34m and the Kashima 11m antenna, using the NICT (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, formerly CRL) disk-based recorder and Kashima software correlator.

OPEN DAYS

The ISAS Open Day will be held this year on Saturday August 28th, with the VSOP team again sharing the New A Building 2nd floor conference room with the X-ray and infra-red groups. The Nobeyama Radio Observatory Open Day will be held the preceding weekend, on Saturday August 21st.

                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi