APRSAF-20

Recommendations

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Recommendations of the Twentieth Session of
the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF-20)
3 - 6 December 2013
in Hanoi, Vietnam

Recognizing "Values From Space: 20 Years of Asia-Pacific Experiences" as the overall theme of APRSAF-20,

Recognizing the importance of regional cooperation to cope with disaster management, environmental issues, capacity building, quality of human life, health, and other regional issues on the basis of utilization needs,

We, the participants of APRSAF-20;

<APRSAF Initiatives>

[Sentinel Asia]

1.

Confirmed that Sentinel Asia Step 3 began in 2013 to support mitigation/preparedness, response and recovery activities, while utilizing many and various satellites including earth observation, communications and navigation satellites, based on the human network and further joint operation by the Joint Project Team;

2.

Confirmed that frequent catastrophic disasters in the Asia-Pacific region, e.g. recent Typhoon Haiyan, and that we, who would like to enhance our efforts to mitigate the risk and damage caused by disasters, look to turn this desire into action, and that we arrive at the conclusion to evolve Sentinel Asia further and to establish a task force team to develop a plan of action and report it to JPTM 2014 and APRSAF-21;

[SAFE (Space Applications For Environment)]

3.

Welcome two new SAFE prototypes with important societal benefits for the region, namely: Coastal Erosion (Vietnam) and Flood Forecasting (Vietnam): and recognizes the good progress of the ongoing SAFE prototypes;

4.

Congratulate the Central Environmental Authority (CEA), Sri Lanka on the completion of their SAFE prototype on Wetlands Mapping and welcomes the interest of donor agencies to move forward to implement operationally;

5.

Approved the new SAFE management procedure for evaluating compatibility with donor agency projects from the outset, to increase appeal to donor agencies and to promote emergence of sustainable applications of SAFE results; Instructs the SAFE secretariat to put this procedure into effect for management of the SAFE prototypes;

[Climate R3 (Regional Readiness Review for Key Climate Missions)]

6.

Welcome the increasing cooperation between APRSAF EOWG and global initiatives such as the Group on Earth Observation's Global Agricultural Monitoring (GEO GLAM) and the Global Forest Observation Initiative (GFOI); Encourage all APRSAF participated agencies with ambitions in these domains to participate in these GEO initiatives. EOWG affirms its willingness to serve as a regional coordination body to ensure Asia-Pacific interests are best served in these initiatives;

7.

Endorsed proposed Continuity of Earth Observation Data for Asia-Pacific (CEOD-AP) survey template of CSIRO, and the distribution of the survey to identify key Earth observation data requirements and priorities at the regional and national level. Invites feedback on the survey to Australian colleagues per their request. Recognizes the step–by-step progress of the CEOD-AP Survey in developing a broad understanding and evidence base for APRSAF EO activities;

[Kibo-ABC (Asian Beneficial Collaboration through Kibo utilization)]

8.

Recognized the great educational effectiveness of synchronous space-ground mission like SSAF2013 and the necessity of its continuation;

9.

Recommend to open proposal for CubeSat Joint Project deployed by ISS. LAPAN is interested in coordination for integration and testing;

10.

Recommend to conduct simple experiment projects using Kibo facility. Activities will be proposed and coordinated by the member countries;

11.

Recommend to establish an effective mechanism, including utilizations of other resources such as social networking services, to facilitate knowledge sharing and mutual information exchange among members.

<APRSAF Working Groups>

[Earth Observation (EO)]

(General)

12.

Recognized that the EOWG mid-annual meeting was successfully organized in Nagoya and the necessary tasks have been accomplished; Welcomes the proposal to have individual meetings associated with each initiative in future, synchronized with relevant international/academic conferences, instead of an EOWG mid-annual meeting;

(Climate change adaptation and mitigation using space technologies)

13.

Recognized the potential and necessity for satellite Earth observations to support the insurance and re-insurance industries and their role in a market-based solution to climate change mitigation, and the multiple potential application areas such as agriculture, disaster, extreme weather etc. for satellite data; Climate financing mechanisms may support exploration of this potential and the EOWG recommends that these opportunities be studied by APRSAF;

(Integrated water resource management)

14.

Welcome the continuous knowledge sharing and technical development in integrated water resource management through collaboration with the Asian Water Cycle Initiative of GEOSS, where projects are being successfully operated with donor agencies like JICA;

15.

Recognized the demand for near-realtime rainfall product like GSMaP and highly anticipates the new datastream capabilities provided by the GPM mission to be launched in 2014;

(Agriculture and food security, Asia-RiCE crop monitoring)

16.

Recognized the progress of the GEOGLAM Asia-RiCE team, including the provision of rice crop outlook to FAO AMIS using agro-meteorological information provided by JAXA and others from October 2013. This activity in collaboration with ASEAN+3 Food Security Information System (AFSIS) Project will improve the coordination of rice crop monitoring from space and includes rice crop outlook, rice crop area estimation, and rice growth monitoring;

(Utilization of geostationary/polar orbiting satellites)

17.

Recommend exploration of a new programme for development of novel applications and services for benefit of APRSAF countries, exploiting Himawari-8/9 data stream in conjunction with polar orbiting missions such as GCOM-C;

(EOWG accomplishments and future)

18.

Recognized the long heritage of accomplishments in the EO domain during 20 years of APRSAF and across multiple societal domains, including successful pioneering regional collaborations, disaster response (Sentinel Asia), climate (Climate R3), water and food security (SAFE) amongst many others;

19.

Agreed to promote further partnerships, knowledge sharing and capacity building within the region, including with APEC Climate Centre, GEOSS Asia Pacfic; and to explore collaborative projects with donor agencies such as ADB and international cooperation agencies in Asia Pacific region. The EOWG aims to serve as the peak body for coordination of EO matters in the Asia-Pacific region;

20.

Agreed to study the possibilities for evolution of the EOWG in the context of an evolving APRSAF and to ensure success in the above ambitions;

[Space Education and Awareness (SEA)]

21.

Encourage to further enhance education activities by widely spreading space education materials among the field of education through various medium, including Information Technologies and collaboration with international cooperation agencies;

22.

Encourage promoting the awareness of space education by continuing current activities including water rocket events, poster contests, teacher seminars, etc. and introducing age appropriate advanced space science programs such as CanSat or advanced rocket competition for the development of the youth;

[Space Environment Utilization (SEU)]

23.

Encourage SEU WG participants to widely publicize the activity and the benefit of Kibo-ABC activity, and invite new members to join the initiative;

24.

Encourage SEU WG participants to take the lead in planning and implementing new joint missions to produce beneficial outcome, by sharing the results, lessons learned and know-hows obtained through the activities including the student's parabolic flight program;

25.

Recommend to add more educational materials on space environment utilization;

[Communication Satellite Applications (CSA)]

26.

Confirmed to focus on the discussion about the approach to technical cooperation for not only "communications satellite" but also satellite related technologies into the future;

27.

Encourage to build a cooperative relationship with the aim of expansion of the space-based Automatic Identification System (AIS) for ship monitoring;

28.

Welcome the sound progress of the Multi-GNSS Demonstration Campaign and look forward to sustainable development of the Multi-GNSS applications;

<APRSAF Related Projects>

[Asia Oceania Multi-GNSS Demonstration Campaign]

29.

Welcome the active progress such as the endorsement of additional Multi-GNSS Joint Experiments by Multi-GNSS Asia (MGA) which is an international organization to promote the Multi-GNSS Demonstration Campaign and encourage organizations in the Asia-Pacific region to participate in the MGA;

[UNIFORM (University International Formation Mission)]

30.

Confirmed that the Satellite Technology for the Asia-Pacific Region Program (STAR program) was successfully completed and succeeded to the UNIFORM project. Last year, the UNIFORM project accepted 6 engineers and researchers from 3 organizations in Vietnam and Brazil. This year, the UNIFORM-1 satellite has been manufacturing by Japanese young engineers. The relation of the next year's long capacity building course has been discussed;

31.

Recognized that one of the main missions of the UNIFORM-1 is wild fire detection; the UNIFORM-1 satellite will be launched, and capacity building course of the UNIFORM-2&3 satellites will be started in 2014;

32.

Encourage young engineers and researchers in the Asia-Pacific region who are interested in developing micro satellites to join the UNIFORM;

33.

Encourage new participants to contribute to the UNIFORM activities to develop the satellites and the ground station network;

[Special Session (Values From Space: 20 Years of Asia-Pacific Experiences)]

34.

Noted with satisfaction that a special anniversary session with the participation of heads of space agencies in the Asia-Pacific region and of former organizers of APRSAF was held as part of the plenary to address the theme of APRSAF-20 "Values from Space: 20 Years of Asia-Pacific region";

35.

Welcome the release of the Joint Statement, which is contained in Annex I, by heads of space agencies in the Asia-Pacific region and former organizers of APRSAF to reaffirm that, through the framework of APRSAF, significant progress in space cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region has been made and that we are committed to continuously expand space activities and their applications for socio-economic development in the region;

[New Cooperation Session]

36.

Welcome the establishment of "New Cooperation Session," organized by the Executive Committee (ExCom), aiming to discover new cooperative projects outside of the framework of existing working groups. These proposals are expected to be discussed by the ExCom or working groups after APRSAF-20, and we look forward to that being reflected in the next session of APRSAF;

[Special Speech]

(Asteroid/NEO Observation and Potential Future Space Exploration)

37.

Encourage continued discussion on possible cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region in the fields of asteroid observation and future space exploration under the framework of APRSAF;

(Space Debris)

38.

Recognized the importance for all countries that utilize outer space to work on issues related to protection of the space environment, such as space debris mitigation;

39.

Encourage continued discussion on the protection of space environment under the framework of APRSAF;

[Special Event (Values From ISS)]

40.

Welcome the message from Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata onboard ISS who had deployed the Vietnamese cubesat "PicoDragon" from the Japanese Experimental Module "Kibo" in the International Space Station (ISS); Confirmed that utilization of "Kibo" is open to every country in the Asia-Pacific region. This special event was moderated by Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa; and Vietnam and Malaysia introduced their space experiments on board;

[APRSAF Executive Committee (ExCom)]

41.

Endorsed further discussion by the ExCom to renovate the framework of working groups toward socio-economic outcome oriented structure, and look forward to that being reflected in the next session of APRSAF;

[APRSAF-21&22]

42.

Welcome the holding of APRSAF-21 in Japan in 2014, and APRSAF-22 in Indonesia in 2015.

End

Annex I: Joint Statement on the Conclusion of the Special Session by Heads of Space Agencies and Former Organizers of Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF)

1.

The Special Session by Heads of Space Agencies and Former Organizers of Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) was held on 5th December 2013 in Hanoi, Vietnam on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of APRSAF.

2.

We reaffirmed the importance of our long-standing friendship and working relationship aiming to promote and expand space activities and their applications for socio-economic development in the Asia-Pacific region. We noted with satisfaction the significant progress in regional space cooperation and acknowledged the progress of APRSAF over the past 20 years as a forum to discuss regional issues.

3.

We reaffirmed our continuous commitment to expand information exchange and contribute to socio-economic development through the framework of APRSAF.

4.

We underscored our intention to achieve a successful outcome from space technologies, integrating with other technologies whilst involving more user organizations and industries, to address global and regional issues and to accomplish a higher quality of life in the region.

5.

We emphasized the importance of capacity building, and we look forward to continuously realizing our cooperative efforts.