_                    
                                                         |_|                   
      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  ***                        <)                     
 

FINAL INTEGRATION TESTING

Last week the countdown started for the last hundred days until the nominal launch date. The final integration and testing of the MUSES-B satellite has resumed at ISAS, following a three month hiatus. The main antenna and sub- reflector are currently being packed for the final time after a series of deployment tests at the Mitsubishi factory, and they will join the rest of the satellite on the 18th of this month. Integration testing is scheduled to finish at ISAS on the 24th of December, by which time the satellite will have been safely packed (and wrapped, and placed under the Christmas tree of all good radio-astronomers!). The cargo will be transported to the Kagoshima Space Center, on the southern island of Kyushu, early in the new year and final launch preparations will then start in earnest. The M-V rocket has already been transported to the KSC, and final assembly and testing is underway.

OLIVE

Earlier this year funding was awarded for the construction of optical fibre links between Usuda, Nobeyama, Mitaka and ISAS, to allow real time data transfer from the Usuda 64m and Nobeyama 45m to the Mitaka correlator, and from the Usuda Tracking Station to the correlator and the ISAS Operations Center. The optical fibre link will be available from the beginning of December. Funding has also been received from the TAO (Telecommunication Advancement Organization of Japan) for a second near real time fringe detector and for three post-doctoral positions. The project has been dubbed OLIVE -- the Optical Linked Interferometer VLBI Experiment. It is expected that all the branches of the OLIVE tree will produce fruitful results...

VSOP TEST RUNS

The third in the series of VSOP test runs was held on October 16th. The aim of the test runs is to duplicate as closely as possibly the interfaces, operational procedures and time-scales that will be encountered during routine VSOP observing. The previous two test runs (in February and June this year) revealed deficiencies in many of the interfaces, which were to a large extent ironed out in the third test run. The third VSOP test run (named vt004, since the second test run comprised two separate tests, vt002 and vt003) included observations in all three VSOP observing bands, and in VLBA, VSOP and S2 formats. Correlation will take place partly at Socorro and partly at Mitaka.

Further tests will take place next week. The first test with the first of the MkIV recorders to be installed, vt005, will be carried out on the 13th with EVN and VLBA telescopes. A mixed S2 and VSOP format test will take place on the 16th between Hobart, Shanghai, Tidbinbilla and Usuda. Further tests of all formats are planned for December.

 
 
Contributors: P. Edwards, H. Kobayashi & Hirax Hirabayashi