_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      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  ***                        <)                    

IAA AWARD to VSOP TEAM

The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) awarded its Laurels for Team Achievement Award for 2005 to the VSOP Team. The award was presented at the 56th International Astronautical Congress in Fukuoka, Japan, on October 16th, and VSOP Project Manager Prof. Hisashi Hirabayashi gave a lecture entitled "Space VLBI, A Radio Telescope Bigger than the Earth" at the IAA Plenary Session that preceded the awards dinner. The award citation noted that the VLBI Space Observatory Programme had realized the long-held dream of radio astronomers to extend VLBI baselines into space, by observing celestial radio sources with the HALCA satellite, supported by a dedicated network of tracking stations, and arrays of ground radio telescopes from around the world. On behalf of the entire VSOP Team, the award highlighted the astronomers and engineers who made key contributions to realizing, and operating, the VSOP mission: Hisashi Hirabayashi (ISAS/JAXA), Haruto Hirosawa (ISAS/JAXA), Peter Dewdney (DRAO), Edward Fomalont (NRAO), Leonid Gurvits (JIVE), Makoto Inoue (NAOJ), David Jauncey (ATNF), Noriyuki Kawaguchi (NAOJ), Hideyuki Kobayashi (NAOJ), Kazuo Miyoshi (Mitsubishi Electric Corp.), Yasuhiro Murata (ISAS/JAXA), Takeshi Orii (NT Space), Robert Preston (JPL), Jonathan Romney (NRAO) and Joel Smith (JPL).

The Laurels for Team Achievement Award was created in 2001 to recognize extraordinary performance and achievement by a team of scientists, engineers and managers in the field of Astronautics. The previous recipients are the Russian Mir Space Station Team (2001), the US Space Shuttle Team (2002), the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Team (2003), and the Hubble Space Telescope Team (2004).

VSOP-2 PROPOSAL

The VSOP-2 proposal was submitted to ISAS at the end of September. The ISAS Science Steering Committee has established an Evaluation Sub-committee to review and rank the two submitted science missions, VSOP-2 and the X-ray mission, NeXT. A decision will then be made between the successful science mission and the Solar Sail engineering mission for the next ISAS mission. A launch in 2011 is assumed.

VSOP-2 MEETING AT URSI

A VSOP-2 meeting will be held during the URSI General Assembly, which will be held at New Delhi from October 23rd to 30th. The VSOP-2 meeting will take place from 10am on Wednesday morning as part of the J02 session. All URSI GA participants are welcome to attend.

ISAS NEWS

On the 24th of August, the ISAS satellite INDEX (INnovative technology Demonstration EXperiment) was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome as a piggy-back mission on a Dnepr launch vehicle. The 70 kg satellite, which was named Reimei ("dawn") after the successful launch, will undertake observations of aurorae, and test a number of technologies.

Prof. Koichiro Tsuruda stepped down from the post of ISAS Executive Director at the end of September. In his farewell remarks, Prof. Tsuruda noted that he had become Director just before the launch of MUSES-C (Hayabusa), and so it was quite fitting that his term had come to an end just as Hayabusa reached its target minor planet, Itokawa. The new Executive Director is Prof. Hajime Inoue, a member of the X-ray group at ISAS.

                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi