_                    
                                                         |_|                   
      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  ***                        <)                     
 

USUDA TESTING

The Usuda 10-m Tracking Station underwent a series of tests this week, with the VSOP satellite simulator, VSOP terminal and recorder, and a host of sub-contractors on hand for the event. Tracking schedules were prepared to simulate a series of passes, and data recorded for checking at the Mitaka correlator. A number of bugs were detected: these creatures are always more evident in the summer! To celebrate the end of the intensive, and very productive, week, a small party was held where attention turned from BERs (Bit Error Rates) to BEERs...

VSOP LAUNCH

Efforts to repair the problem with the laser gyro, which was the cause of the delay of the launch of the VSOP satellite, are continuing. In parallel, a conventional gyro is being readied in case the problem with the laser gyro is intractable. Discussions are continuing on the launch window, with the five week period from the last week of January seeming most likely at present.

KSC

The Muses-B satellite will be launched from the Kagoshima Space Center (KSC) at Uchinoura, on the southern tip of Kyushu, and the S-band (2.3 GHz) satellite commanding and telemetry will be carried out from here also, as is the case with ASCA and Yohkoh, other ISAS satellites. Routine commanding and telemetry sessions were interrupted on July 17th when a typhoon hit Kyushu. Power lines to KSC were seriously damaged, and operations for July 18th were cancelled, however regular operations had recommenced by the following day.

`GINGA ALE'

The Asahi Brewing Company has released a special canning of their `dry' lager for the summer, with one side of the can taken up by an optical image of a galaxy, and the words `ginga renpo'. `Ginga' -- pronounced with hard g's (as in `get') -- is Japanese for galaxy (which is why the third of ISAS's series of X-ray satellites was given this name). A `renpo' is a union or federation, and the ginga renpo consists of five towns in Japan that have connections with ISAS: Sagamihara, Usuda, Uchinoura, Noshiro and Sanriku. (The Ginga renpo in fact have their annual summit meeting today and tomorrow, with the venue for this year being Usuda.) The galaxy pictured on the can is not just the work of some artist's imagination, but is clearly an image of Andromeda, with related galaxies NGC 205 and NGC 221 also easily visible. The can has quickly become something of a collectors item, and, as a special offer to VSOP news readers, for a nominal fee, we will arrange for a can to be air-mailed to you anywhere in the world. For the purposes of reducing payload mass and postage, we will do the hard work of emptying the can for you...

 
 
       Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi