God Bless America

Feb. 28 2000

Greetings All,

While the second item may not be making world headlines in the normal media, and is a sort of repeat of CMDR Constance Sanders 02 Feb 2000 RSN brief. [SEE: Real Space News Brief: Asteroid Eros 2/20/00], it would be good to keep a heads up on this.

As we deplete Earth's resources, asteroids are going to become a large, if not necessary, part of our future.

* SOHO discovers 100th new comet 
* NASA satellite enters orbit around asteroid (ESA due to follow later this decade) 
* ESA competition to name 4 satellites

**08 Feb 2000: Calculations completed today confirm that a comet spotted by a Lithuanian astronomer on 4 February is a previously unknown object, making it the 100th comet discovered with the SOHO spacecraft.

More at:
 http://sci.esa.int/newsitem.cfm?TypeID=1&ContentID=9271&Storytype=12 

**17 Feb 2000: On Valentine's Day, NASA's NEAR satellite achieved a notable 'first' when it entered orbit around a near-Earth asteroid named 433 Eros. While this romantic rendezvous should provide a host of new information about the potato-shaped little world, Eros is just one out of many millions of asteroids roaming the Solar System.

Further insights into the nature of these ancient rocks will be gained later this decade when ESA's Rosetta spacecraft encounters two contrasting asteroids which inhabit the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Full story:
http://sci.esa.int/missions/newsitem.cfm?TypeID=11&ContentID=9411 

**22 Feb 2000: The European Space Agency (ESA) is launching a public competition to find the most suitable names for its four Cluster II space weather satellites. The quartet, which are currently known as flight models (FM) 5,6, 7 and 8, are scheduled for launch from Baikonur Space Centre in Kazakhstan in June and July 2000.

Read more about this competition at:
http://sci.esa.int/missions/newsitem.cfm?TypeID=8&ContentID=9491 

or go directly to the competition webpages at:
http://sci.esa.int/cluster/competition 

LL&P, 
Lt. Steven Fredette 
C.O. USS DeGaulle NCC-6365 
Deputy Chief, Starfleet Command's Space Activities Committee

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