The next MEPCO is coming ... to Bulgaria, in early August, 1999!
For details on this astronomical conference just before the total solar eclipse click here!

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New: every page on two servers, in Europe and the U.S.!

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Update # 125 of April 9th, 1999, at 19:15 UTC

Amazing: ISS Service Module ready! It's the message Space Station enthusiasts and politicians alike have been waiting for for years: The Russian-built Russian-financed Service Module, the central section of the International Space Station, has been completed! "The formal rollout and ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Service Module element of the International Space Station will be held April 26 at RSC-Energia in Moscow," NASA has announced today. In Moscow, "top NASA, Russian Space Agency, RSC-Energia and European Space Agency space station officials will hold a press conference immediately before the rollout. After the ceremonies, the Service Module will be prepared for shipment to its launch site at Baikonur, Kazakhstan." An exact launch date is not contained in the message: Whether Sept. 20th holds will depend on upcoming readiness reviews. (NASA Note to Editors N99-18 of April 9)	Related developments: Decision on TransHab nears: Within "a couple of months" NASA will have to decide whether the ISS astronauts will live in a metal tube, similar to the U.S. Lab module - or in a much larger inflatable TransHab module. That idea was first discussed in 1997: see Update #66. (Space News dated April 12, p.1) A future for Mir after all? Now the Russians say that investors have come forward with money offers for continued operation of the old space station beyond September. Still no details, though ...
Titan 4 returns: 4B model launches DoD satellite After a long hiatus following the accident of the last Titan 4A rocket, the most powerful ELV of the U.S. is back: A Titan 4B has launched a DSP (Defense Support Program) missile warning satellite today at 17:01 UTC from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral. According to the USAF the "rocket has completed a very clean flight" and delivered the DSP-19 satellite and its Inertial Upper Stage motor into a 100 x 400 mile parking orbit.	All about the launch and payload. DSP-19 launch journal SpaceViews stories & links.
Stars playing dusty 'lawn sprinkler' Keck yields first interferometric pretty pictures, movie It's one of the most dynamical movies made from astrophysical images ever - and those pictures in turn are the first truly 'pretty pictures' generated with interferometry in the optical. Putting 36 small apertures in front of the Keck I telescope a set of interference fringes was produced, and radio-astronomical software then reconstructed super-sharp images of a bizarre star system and its fast-changing dusty environment. The target was the bright Wolf-Rayet star WR 104 - which is smoking like a chimney. Its stellar wind is extremely dusty, causing it to give off infra-red (or heat) radiation. This dust has caused some headaches for astronomers: The intense radiation from the Wolf-Rayet star should incinerate the dust as soon as it is born; how do these snowflakes of dust survive the furnace? And why does the dust form a rotating spiral, as the Keck near-IR images reveal? The likely explanation: There must be another star lurking in the middle making this a Binary star system, and although the companion is not quite a twin brother to the Wolf-Rayet, it is nevertheless a luminous blue OB star with a strong stellar wind of its own. When the stellar wind from the OB companion meets the wind from the Wolf-Rayet star, a shock front forms which compresses and cools the material from the stellar winds. It is in this ``cocoon'', shielded from the direct glare of the stars, that dust formation may flourish.	A detailled press release with pictures and movies (the smoother one is based on interpolations between the three real pictures) and the full paper! News coverage of the results from ABC, BBC, CNN and MSNBC. In other news from telescopes: The 2nd VLT telescope has delivered its first astronomical images - here are Kueyen's images! More Hubble views: Hodge 301 in the Tarantula Nebula and Uranus in motion. An amateur has reached 24.5 mag! This is a new record for limiting magnitude for a non-professional instrument. And at the Sternwarte Heppenheim a spectacular solar prominence movie was during during a public observing session (click at "Protuberanz vom 2.4.1999").
Mars Express can't be stopped now With the signing of a 60 million Euro industry contract the first European Mars program has advanced to a stage where a cancellation is virtually impossible. Until a few weeks ago it had seemed that the fate of the Mars Express project is resting on whether the ESA science budget gets a boost or not - but now ESA's science boss R. Bonnet has indicated that he will rather delay other science missions than drop Mars Express! The project would not only play a significant role in the international Mars effort of 2003-2005 but also test new management ideas for ESA in general. Meanwhile it has become unclear whether there will be a conference of the ESA science ministers this May (from which the final go-ahead for Mars Express would come) or rather several months later. (AW&ST April 5, p. 62 + Space News issue dated April 12, p. 18)	ESA Press Release on the contract. In other Mars news: New MGS pictures are coming in daily, including this striking view. 'Robot colonies' on Mars are a possible intermediate step between the current Mars Surveyor program and manned missions, a JPL workshop has concluded. (Space News Apr. 12, p.16)
SOHO delays let NASA miss Y2K deadline If it hadn't been for the two major breakdowns of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory's operations and the massive - and ultimately successful - recovery efforts, NASA would have met the March 31st deadline by the U.S. government for 'Y2K readiness'. 99 percent of the space agency's mission-critical systems are already considered resistant to the 'millennium bug', with SOHO's ground controls likely to get ready by the end of June. Ten other federal departments and agencies also missed the March deadline. (Space News April 12, 1999, p.2)	Y2K Information Center. SOHO What's New.

Ken Willcox, 1943-1999: The famous U.S. amateur astronomer and eclipse chaser has died from cancer. Among his lasting legacies is the Southern Skies Star Parties at Lake Titicaca which he started. 40 years ago the 'Mercury 7' were announced: All about the Mercury program. Will there be an all-women shuttle crew? Dan Goldin is thinking about it - and like with Glenn's flight last year one wonders whether this is just a PR stunt or, err, science. Some thoughts from NASA Watch. 800 holes in Hubble: That's what an extremely detailled photo survey of the HST satellite has yielded that was performed during the 2nd Servicing Mission. Most impact craters are small, but the largest one measures 5 cm! All details in a technical journal abstract. Do you understand maps of the cosmic background radiation? If you think so, try the WOMBAT Challenge where you will receive simulated data as they are expected from the MAP and Planck cosmology satellites - and you have to get rid of the noise and find out the cosmological parameters. Beware: This task requires access to a supercomputer...

Will the ST4 comet mission be cancelled? The additional costs following the Chandra launch delays and the decision to fly a special HST Servicing mission could mean that ST4 might be stopped, pending lengthy reviews. SpaceViews reports. Impact glass in Tut's necklace: A glassy Scarab beetle has turned out to be made from Libyan desert glass - which is turn was formed during a meteorite impact. Did the ancient Egyptians know about the 'celestial' origin of the glass? The Discovery Channel reports. NASA's still dreaming about interstellar missions and has pondered futuristic propulsion techniques: Here's a conference report; links at the end lead to many more stories. SETI@home goes public! The SETI program with widely distributed computers (namely your computers) is now beyond the testing stages and has started distributing its software to everyone interested: Here's a story and here's the homepage! Radio hams vs. Swatch and Mir: A strange fight has erupted between the watch maker, the Russian space agency and radio hams around the world: Here's the protest page ...