SB NEWS @ AMSAT $SPC0824 * SpaceNews 24-Aug-98 * BID: $SPC0824 ========= SpaceNews ========= MONDAY AUGUST 24, 1998 SpaceNews originates at KD2BD in Wall Township, New Jersey, USA. It is published every week and is made available for non-commercial use. * NASA FIRE DAMAGES SPACECRAFT PARTS * ====================================== An Associated Press report indicates that parts of two spacecraft, including panels that are to be installed in the Hubble Space Telescope, were damaged in a fire at the Goddard Space Flight Center, officials said last Friday. Phillip Z.Tapper, emergency coordinator for the NASA center, said heat protection panels for the telescope and for another spacecraft were exposed to smoke and water last Thursday afternoon when a fire in an adjacent structure spread into a laboratory building where the panels were being processed. Tapper said the exact damage to the spacecraft panels has not been determined, "but we don't expect there will be any mission impact." [Info via Bill Ford, WB5SXK] * RS-12 NEWS * ============== There's lots of DX to be found on the RS-12 satellite. Rusty, NM1K, reports working CY9AOE, EB8BTV, D44BS, TF3TK, XE1EWC, and XE2YVW via the RS-12 satellite over the past two weeks. * PHASE 3D BANDPLAN URL * ========================= Peter Guelzow, DB2OS, reports that the current version of the official AMSAT P3D Bandplan for Uplink, Downlink and Beacons may be found at the following URL: http://www.aball.de/~pg/amsat/p3dqrg.html * AMSAT-ARGENTINA WEB SITE * ============================ Sergio Gorgone, LW7DXF, reports that AMSAT-Argentina now has a Web site. The Web site may be found at the following URL: http://members.xoom.com/Amsat_LU/ * KITSAT-OSCAR-23 NEWS * ======================== Satellite users have reported that KO-23's downlink recently went silent. Kyung-Hee Kim, HL0ENJ, a KITSAT satellite command station reports that the transmitter "tripped" and went off the air on 1998-Aug-18. It was returned to service after 1998-Aug-20. The reason for the "trip" is not yet known, and HL0ENJ has asked that any stations who received KO-23 telemetry data between the 18th and 20th to please send that data to: khkim@satrec.kaist.ac.kr * NEW COMET DISCOVERED * ======================== The European Southern Observatory recently announced that a new comet was discovered on 1998-Aug-10 by amateur astronomer Peter Williams of Heathcote (near Sydney, Australia). Having received information about this, other observers on that continent sighted the new object the following day. Official announcement of this discovery was sent to all observatories by the IAU Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams on IAU Circular no. 6986. The comet, provisionally designated as C/1998 P1, is seen in the southern constellation Circinus (The Compass) and the magnitude is estimated at about 9.5. This corresponds to about 25 times fainter than what can be seen with the unaided eye. The comet is easily visible in small telescopes. The orbit (and therefore the current distance) is not yet known. The coma diameter is at least 6 arcmin and is almost spherical, with a slight asymmetry on the tailside. A very thin and quite faint plasma-tail points in the lower left direction (position angle = 1170 = "8 o'clock"), which is most likely close to the radial direction opposite to the Sun (but this can only be confirmed when a first orbit has been computed). The visible plasma tail extends at least 6.5 arcmin (beyond the field of view) and is produced by the emission of light from CO+ (carbon monoxide ions) originating from sublimating ice of the cometary nucleus. The presence of this tail indicates that the comet is probably less than 1.5 AU (about 225 million km) from the Sun. [Info via Ralph, DL2YED] * THANKS! * =========== Thanks to all who recently sent messages of appreciation to SpaceNews, especially: GM2ASV N2GJ N8DDV * FEEDBACK/INPUT WELCOMED * =========================== Comments and input for SpaceNews should be directed to the editor (John, KD2BD) via any of the paths listed below: WWW : http://www.njin.net/~magliaco/ PACKET : KD2BD @ KS4HR.NJ.USA.NA INTERNET : kd2bd@amsat.org, magliaco@email.njin.net SATELLITE : AMSAT-OSCAR-16, LUSAT-OSCAR-19, KITSAT-OSCAR-25 <<=- SpaceNews: The first amateur newsletter read in space! -=>> <<=- Serving the planet for over 10 years -=>> /EX