_                   
                                                         |_|                  
      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 BACK IN BUSINESS

HALCA's recovery operation took place as scheduled on March 8th, and observing restarted as scheduled on March 15th. Reports from tracking stations and correlators indicate HALCA's performance has not been affected by the shutdown. Observations that had been scheduled but were not able to be carried out are being added back into the long-term schedule. It appears several other space- craft suffered minor glitches around the same time as HALCA's DHU failure, and so it seems a common cause, perhaps stormy space weather, may have been likely.

VSOG REVIEW

Next Monday, 12th April, the VSOP Science Operations Group will undertake an internal review of all VSOP operations. Contributions are solicited from all VSOP investigators and VSOP news readers: What could the VSOG be doing better? How could things be improved? Are there any aspects of the VSOP mission that need attention? All suggestions and comments are welcomed, and those received before Saturday 10th, April will be raised at the VSOG review. The VSOG is significantly under-staffed, and is well aware that not all VSOG activities are able to be carried out in as timely a manner as would be ideal, however, your comments will help focus attention on activities and issues that need to be addressed. All comments should be e-mailed to vsog@vsop.isas.ac.jp .

VSOG MEMBERS

George Moellenbrock's two year Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoc ended at the end of March, and he has returned to the USA to take up a post-doc position at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank. George's many contributions to HALCA calibration, VSOP Survey Program planning, the Polarization Study Team, and his expertise in the how's and why's of AIPS, were of great value to the mission and he is already being greatly missed. George also chaired the regular teleconferences held for all mission elements, and handled the onerous task of keeping abreast of all on-going, and diverse, COMIC concerns with aplomb. George and Karen were farewelled with a lunch under the cherry blossoms at ISAS.

This week saw the departure of Glen Langston, who held a visiting professorship position at ISAS for six months. During his stay, Glen took a fine-toothed comb to the Usuda tracking station to try and track down the cause for offsets in the rates and delays reported in the Time Corrections File (TCF), which is used at correlators to correct the recorded times. As a result of Glen's efforts, the residual rates have been brought within an acceptable range: a big step towards routine correlation at all correlators of Usuda tracking station data.

                Editors: Phil Edwards and Hirax Hirabayashi