From: UFO UpDates - Toronto <updates@globalserve.net>
Date: Wed, 01 Jul 1998 09:38:17 -0400
Fwd Date: Wed, 01 Jul 1998 09:38:17 -0400
Subject: Re: Contact with SOHO Lost

Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 09:38:23 -0400
To: updates@globalserve.net
From: Sue Kovios <bradford@globalserve.net>
Subject: Contact with SOHO Lost

List,

From: San Jose Mercury News

http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/071860.htm

Breaking News
Posted at 5:54 a.m. PDT Tuesday, June 30, 1998

Contact lost with sun-watching satellite

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- A $1 billion sun-observing satellite is missing
in action a million miles from Earth and scientists don't know
whether they can get it working again.

Art Poland, mission scientist for the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory, said Monday that radio contact with the craft --
which has already exceeded its two-year operational lifetime --
dropped out suddenly last week while it was going through an
alignment procedure that involved firing control jets.

``We have had no communications with SOHO since last
Thursday morning,'' said Poland.

He said engineers have determined the craft is spinning and has
lost its alignment with the sun. Exactly how it is spinning and the
rate of spin is not clear, Poland said.

``We are not certain about what went wrong,'' said Poland. He
said engineers are trying to restore the SOHO signal and to stabilize
the craft, but added: ``There is a real fear that we won't get it back.''

European and American engineers are hoping that solar panels on
the craft will generate enough power for the satellite to receive and
act on stabilizing commands from the ground.

Its battery holds only a one-hour charge.

SOHO is a joint project of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration and the European Space Agency. NASA provided
about $477 million of the total $1 billion cost of the craft, said Bill
Steigerwald, a spokesman at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

The satellite was designed for a two-year operational lifetime and
was launched on Dec. 2, 1995.

SOHO was placed in what is called the L-1 point, a position 1 million
miles from the Earth that is gravitational neutral. Objects placed at
such points tend to maintain the same Earth-sun position instead
of orbiting around the Earth as do most satellites.

Instruments on SOHO were able to take pictures of the sun in
several different spectra, or light wavelengths. The satellite also
could measure and analyze particles and magnetic fields generated
by the sun.

EOF

How convenient ;)

The attached photo is from the LASCO site.  I did a screen shot
as I closed the picture which tends to highlight prominent features
in the picture.  This is the sun on June 24, 1998.  The other
pictures from my cache have disappeared.

Sue Kovios