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      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                   
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      ***  N    E    W    S  ***                        <)                     
 

The VSOP satellite was successfully launched from the Kagoshima Space Center (KSC) at 13:50 JST on Wednesday February 12th. The launch, which had been scheduled for February 11th, was delayed by one day due to strong winds at the site. All four M-V-1 rocket stages worked as scheduled, and 478 seconds after lift-off the MUSES-B satellite separated from the fourth `kick motor' stage. The Launch Update page of the VSOP WWW site now includes a direct link to the ISAS M-V Quick Report page, which has several images of the launch.

The satellite was tracked from the NASDA stations in Katsuura (Chiba Prefecture, about 60km south of Narita Airport) and on the Ogasawara Islands (almost 1,000 km south of Tokyo), and from Goldstone, Wallops Island, Santiago (Chile) and the Syowa base in Antarctica. The satellite was successfully placed in an orbit with an apogee height of 21,250 km and a perigee height of 220 km -- slightly better than the predicted values.

Following the launch, the satellite was given the name `HALCA', an acronym for `Highly Advanced Laboratory for Communications and Astronomy'. The two-way Ku-band communications between the satellite and the ground tracking stations, used for uplinking the reference phase signal and downlinking the radio astronomical data in real-time, represents one of the main new technologies included in the mission. `HALCA' is rendered in Japanese as `Haruka', a word meaning `far away', which aptly describes the satellite at apogee. (ASCA has a similar `pair' of names: it is the acronym for the Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics, and in Japanese is `Asuka', or `flying bird'.)

Our thanks to all those who sent their best wishes before launch and congratulatory faxes and e-mails after the successful launch was announced, and our apologies for not being able to reply individually!

HALCA's first pass over KSC occurred 6.5 hours after launch. During the pass it was confirmed that the solar paddles and Ku-band antenna had deployed correctly -- leaving the satellite looking something like that pictured above, with the sub-relector and main antenna still undeployed. The first perigee- raising maneuver occurred in the very early hours of the 14th February JST, when the satellite's apogee coincided with a KSC pass. The maneuver was a complete success, raising the perigee to around 360 km.

It was noted in the last VSOP news that Setsubun, which is celebrated on February 3rd, is said to herald the coming of (the northern hemisphere) Spring. Coincidentally, `Haruka' can be interpreted as meaning `Is it Spring?' in Japanese. Furthermore, as a result of the relatively mild winter, visitors to KSC noted that the first cherry blossoms are opening there. And it is not too many more days before a golden 8m diameter flower will bloom...

 
 
       Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi