typhoon

[WHITE@LHEAVX.GSFC.NASA.GOV (Nick White, HEASARC/ASCA-GOF NASA/GSFC)]

ASCA operations have been suspended for a few days because of a typhoon. 
The following is a message sent my Fumiaki Nagase to the ASCA team...



Dear ASCATeam Members:

I guess everyone already knew the news of the big typhoon that hit
Kyuushuu region. The typhoon was one of the biggest class in the last
50 years and affected serious damage in whole Kagoshima area.
Our KSC also had damages which affected ASCA operation.

Due to the wheather forecast on the typhoon, we rewrote the PC (
programmed commands) on the 5th pass of September 2 (Thu.) for the
next two days, and had cancelled the operation of September 3 (Fri.).
At present, the typhoon moved to the coast of Honshuu in the Japan Sea
side, but it was found electric power line got damage everywhere in the
Kagoshima region. Hence the comercial electric power is not available
at present (Kyuushuu E.P. Co. stated that it is impossible to 
deliver electric power within the day but honestly speaking they 
have no estimate for the recovery), and the power generator at KSC
is not enough to operate whole system for long time.

Another serious problem is that the door of the 20 meter antenna
was blew away and the room of the driver/tylistor was swampped.
We need to dry the room at least for one day after getting the comercial
electric power for air conditioner. The telemetry room was also
partly swampped and is needed to dry up before testing the system.

Taking all these situation we have cancelled today's operation,
do not operate on Sunday, and we prepare commands for Monday's operation.
I have, however, somehow pessimistic view of the Monday's operation
and esimate that we may be able to operate ASCA on Tuesday's morning
(September 7) in the earliest case when everything recover smoothly.

ASCA should be safty for the few days without operation. High voltages
of GIS should be regulated normally by the flag of RBM (radiation belt 
monitor). The satellite is now pointing toward the ROSAT SNR, 
RX04591+5147 and the sun angle towards the direction become better 
for a week, thus the power consumption of ASCA should keep safely.
Observations of these two weeks will be very tentative.
Those targets that are cancelled by this event will be reallocated
in the span of later weeks. Presumably, we must rearrange the whole
lest timeline since some of the cancelled targets cannot slip to 
the October-Novenber span due to the sun constraint.