HALCA
Full Name: Highly Advanced Laboratory for Communications and Astronomy
Phase: Past
Launch Date: February 12, 1997
Mission Project Home Page: http://www.vsop.isas.ac.jp/
The Space VLBI mission VSOP was launched on February 12, 1997. After successful deployment, the VSOP mission was renamed Highly Advanced Laboratory for Communications and Astronomy (HALCA). HALCA, a project led by Japan's Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, allowed imaging of astronomical radio sources with a signficantly improved resolution over ground-only observations.
Haruka (meaning "far away") is the post-launch name of the Japanese Muses-B radio astronomy satellite. The spacecraft carries a wire mesh dish antenna 8 m in diameter as one part of a radio astronomy interferometer, with the other part being any one of a number of ground-based radio telescopes. It carries detectors which operate at 1.6, 5 and 22 GHz (18, 6, and 1.3 cm, respectively), and will be able to make radio images with very high spatial resolution (the highest yet in very-long baseline interferometry) and permit precise measurements of quasar jets and galactic maser sources. Its planned lifetime is 3-5 years.