_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      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

There have been a couple of minor hiccups with HALCA over the last month, mostly related to the pointing of the 15 GHz band antenna pointing. If this link antenna does not correctly point to the allocated tracking station there is no way to get the reference signal up to the satellite, or the science data down to the ground! The observations adversely affected by these problems have been rescheduled.

VSOP IMAGES

The VSOP Image Gallery -- /astro/halca/vsop/general/images.html.en -- has had several recent additions. Investigators wishing to add their images to the collection should contact vsog@vsop.isas.ac.jp for more details.

COSPAR

After some to-ing and fro-ing, Symposium E1.3 of the COSPAR meeting has reverted to all day Friday and Saturday morning. A revised agenda will be placed on the VSOP WWW site next week.

MITAKA CORRELATOR

Several important steps towards full operating efficiency have been made in recent weeks at the Mitaka correlator. The correlator had been struggling to find fringes to HALCA in data recorded at any other tracking station besides Usuda, but important break-throughs were made last month with the detection of fringes to HALCA via the Goldstone and Tidbinbilla tracking stations. This was followed by significant progress with the VLBA-->VSOP tape translator, which has enabled a start to be made on reducing the backlog of mixed format observations to be correlated at Mitaka.

NEXT ISAS LAUNCH

HALCA was the first launch of ISAS's M-V rocket, and the second M-V launch will be made in early July, when the Planet-B satellite is started on its way to Mars. The Planet-B satellite finished final integration testing at the ISAS main campus in Sagamihara last week, and has since been transported to the Kagoshima Space Center.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

In the writing and proof-reading of AO2 proposals it was noted by several people that references to "HALCA images" or "VSOP system temperatures" are not uncommon. VSOP (the VLBI Space Observatory Programme) is the name of the dedicated Space-ground VLBI system, and HALCA (the Highly Advanced Laboratory for Communication and Astronomy) is the name of the orbiting radio telescope, i.e. the VSOP satellite, and so the two examples above are, more correctly, "VSOP images" and "HALCA system temperatures". (Rest assured that the correct usage of these acronyms will NOT be one of the criteria used by the Scientific Review Committee in their grading of proposals!)

 
                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi