_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      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  ***                        <)                    

CORRECTING THE CORRECTION

Last weeks VSOP News contained an error in the instructions for correcting the Penticton correlator normalization error in AIPS: The correction factor of 0.82 is in fact a baseline correction, not an antenna-based correction; therefore, to properly make the correction via AIPS CL tables, antenna-based correction of 0.906 must be applied (0.906*0.906 = 0.82). Thus CLCORPRM=0.906,0 must be used. Please see the VSOP web-site's Data Reduction page for more information.

HALCA RE-BOOT

HALCA's recovery operation is scheduled for this coming Monday, March 8th. The Data Handling Unit (DHU) failure has meant that, although the downlink signal strength can be monitored, the down-link telemetry cannot be locked onto (and thus, it cannot be "read"). During Kagoshima passes the 15 GHz downlink antenna is moved to a fixed position and the downlink beam allowed to drift across a ground tracking station antenna (usually Usuda). By off-setting the downlink antenna position on either side of the nominal position and recording the received signal power levels, HALCA's attitude can be monitored.

USUDA SYSTEM TEMPERATURES

Nominal Usuda system temperature information has been available from the Ground Telescope Calibration page for some time: recently a link to a file containing actual measured values for all experiments until last December was added to the same www page. In the near future these will be split into one file per experiment and placed on the Mitaka ftp site. Access details to the regional ftp sites used for storing logs and Tsys information are available on request to vsog@vsop.isas.ac.jp. Should the expected files be missing from the appropriate ftp site, the VSOG should also be notified.

JAPAN's ROCKET SCIENCE PIONEER

The father of rocket science in Japan, Hideo Itokawa, died last month at the age of 86. In 1955, Itokawa launched the "pencil rocket", measuring 1.8 cm in diameter and 23 cm in length, at the Institute of Industrial Science at Tokyo University. A ceremony marking the 40th anniversary of this beginning of Japan's space age was noted in VSOP news no. 17, April 1995. The development of the pencil rocket was not without its setbacks: while Itokawa was eating in Ginza one time the blueprint for the rocket was stolen from his car!

 
                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi