News Mails - 2007
1. [First Announcement] The 14th Session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF-14), Bangalore, India, Nov 21-23 2. The 4th Sentinel Asia Joint Project Team Meeting (JPTM-4) , Philippines, Sep 5-7
3. Malaysian Astronaut to Go into Space
4. UN/ESA/NASA Workshop on "Basic Space Science and the International Heliophysical Year 2007", Japan, June18-22
5. Activities in India at the Center for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP)
6. South Korean Space Development Promotion Plan
7. [[Event Information and APRSAF Website Updates - July- August - September 2007]]
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1. [First Announcement] The 14th Session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF-14), Bangalore, India, Nov 21-23
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The APRSAF-14's first announcement has been distributed. The forum will be held in Bangalore, India, and jointly be organized and co-sponsored by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
While the APRSAF is designed to be an active forum to promote concrete cooperative activities to address common issues at the regional level, the APRSAF-14 will be held under the main theme of "Space for Human Empowerment" with the aim to strengthen and enable the countries of the Asia-Pacific region to improve the quality of life of their people through enhanced use of space-based systems, activities and services.
Following the APRSAF-13 which was held in December 2006 in Jakarta, Indonesia, the APRSAF-14 will focus, among others, on the Sentinel Asia Project which was initiated as the first step to build a disaster risk management system in the Asia Pacific region and has been steadily growing with strengthened cooperation among relevant agencies in the region since its initiation. The summary report of the Project will be presented at the APRSAF-14 and participants will discuss next steps towards this goal with special emphasis on capacity building for exploitation of space-based imagery.
The first Announcement of APRSAF-14 has been posted on the APRSAF website:
http://www.aprsaf.org/annual_meetings/aprsaf14/meeting_details.php
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2. The 5th Annual Mekong Flood Forum, Vietnam - May 17 - 18
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The 4th Joint Project Team Meeting for "Sentinel Asia" - the Disaster Management Support System in the Asia-Pacific Region - will be held from September 5 to 7, 2007 in Manila, the Philippines, organized by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in cooperation with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) and be co-sponsored by the Science and Technology Coordinating Council-Committee on Space Technology and Applications (STCC-COSTA) of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the Office of Civil Defense-National Disaster Coordinating Council (OCD-NDCC), and the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (MAMRIA) of the Department of Environment and National Resources (DENR).
The objectives of JPTM-4 are to evaluate the results of enforcing Sentinel Asia, which is being carried out as activities for 2006 - 2007 (STEP-1) of the disaster management support system for Asia and the
Pacific, and to examine an enforcement design and make plans for next step.
The first Announcement of JPTM-4 is available at::
http://www.aprsaf.org/data/jptm4_pdf/JPTM4_1st_Announcement.pdf
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3. Malaysian Astronaut to Go into Space
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Malaysia is to send its first angkasawan (the Malay word for astronaut) to the International Space Station (ISS) this year under the Malaysian-Russian space cooperation program. Dr. Mustafa Din Subari, the Deputy Director General of the National Space Agency of Malaysia said, "Two angkasawan candidates, selected from close to ten-thousand applicants, have been undergoing training at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, Star City, Russia since September last year. The selected angkasawan will be on a Russian Soyuz spaceship with two other astronauts scheduled to be launched on October 6, 2007. During the eight-day stay at the ISS, the angkasawan will conduct several micro-gravity experiments prepared by Malaysian scientists".
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4. UN/ESA/NASA Workshop on "Basic Space Science and the International Heliophysical Year 2007", Japan, June18-22
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To set up a chance to present the latest research results on astronomy and space science and to spread and promote the knowledge of them to developing countries, the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), organized an annual workshop on Basic Space Science (BSS) and the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007, hosted by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). There are 78 participants gathered from 28 countries all over the world.
Prof. Kazuhiro Sekiguchi of NAOJ , who is the organizing secretary of this workshop, said, "I think this workshop helped to create a close network of international researchers in the filed of space science and to build confidential relationships".
A senior researcher of the Solar and Space Division of Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN), Dr. Thomas Djamaluddin said, "This workshop is very important for us scientists. Some data resources such as the Solar Virtual Observatory and Coronal Mass Ejections database and scientific references of NASA Astrophysics Data System, and free data analysis tools (GNU Data Language) are very significant to support the development of space science research in developing countries. We expect the scheme based on international collaboration BSS and IHY Tripod (instrumentation, observation, and education) will encourage space scientists in developing countries to produce a useful result in their research".
UN/ESA/NASA Workshop on "Basic Space Science and the International Heliophysical Year 2007 website:
http://www2.nict.go.jp/y/y223/sept/IHY/IHY-e.html
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5. Activities in India at the Center for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP)
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India is contributing to develop and share knowledge in the fields of space science and has applyed it to both their nation and to the Asia-Pacific region. Affiliation with United Nation, CSSTEAP was established in 1995. Dr. George Joseph, the Director of CSSTEAP introduced the APRSAF secretariat about its activities.
CSSTEAP has been supported by the India's Department of Space (DOS) and is advised by a 15-member international governing board. Its activities cover remote sensing and GIS, satellite communications, satellite meteorology, and space science. CSSTEAP runs postgraduate-level courses in all these disciplines. Since its establishment, more than 650 people from about 30 countries have taken CSSTEAP training courses.
CSSTEAP Website:
http://www.cssteap.org/
More details about CSSTEAP:
http://www.aprsaf.org/interviews_features/features_2007/feature_15.php
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6. South Korean Space Development Promotion Plan
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According to the Policy & International Relations Division of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), the South Korean government plans to spend 3.6 trillion won (about US$3.87 billion) over the next decade to secure its own satellite and rocket technologies. South Korea's 10-year Space Development Promotion Plan aims to build satellites and rockets with the minimum of outside help, and develop the country's know-how and infrastructure in the aerospace sector. The nation has sent six observation and scientific satellites (KOMPSAT (2006), STSAT-1 (2003), KOMPSAT-1 (1999), KITSAT 3 (KAISTSAT) (1999), KITSAT 2 (1993), KITSAT 1 (1992)) into orbit aboard foreign rockets since the 1990s. The budget will be used to build six new observation and scientific satellites (STSAT-2 (2007), COMS (2008), KOMPSAT-3 (2009), KOMPSAT-5 (2009), STSAT-3 (2010), KOMPSAT-3a (2013)) and one launch rocket (KSLV1(under development)), and gain knowledge in how to build space related equipment.
These plans were part of the space development promotion basic plan which was established in June this year under the Space Development Promotion law, which came into force on December 1, 2005.
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7. [[Event Information and APRSAF Website Updates - July- August - September 2007]]
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*July 30 - August 4, 2007
Asia Oceania Geosciences Society, 4th Annual Meeting
Bangkok, Thailand
http://www.asiaoceania.org/aogs2007/
*August 1-3, 2007
7th International Workshop of Geographical Information System
Beijing, China
http://www.cpgis.org/2006website/news/keynews/firstannouncement-iwgis.pdf
*August 14-16, 2007
Map Asia 2007
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
http://www.mapasia.org/
*August 21-22, 2007
Geography 2007 Conference
Petaling Jaya, Malaysia
http://geografi.um.edu.my/bm/persidangan_2007/persidangan_2007.htm
*August 21-25, 2007
International Disaster Reduction Conference (IDRC-Harbin) 2007
Harbin, China
http://www.harbin2007.cn/
*August 28-29, 2007
ISPRS Workshop on Updating Geo-spatial Database with Imagery & 5th ISPRS Workshop on DMGIS
Urumchi, Xinjiang, China
http://isprs-wg41.nsdi.gov.cn/Xinjiang/Urumqi.htm
*August 29-September 1, 2007
2nd Indonesian Geospatial Technology Exhibition
Bakosurtanal;Jakarta, Indonesia
http://www.geospatial-exh.com/
*September 5-7, 2007
The 4th Sentinel Asia Joint Project Team Meeting
Manila, Philippines
http://www.aprsaf.org/data/jptm4_pdf/JPTM4_1st_Announcement.pdf
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Copyright 2007 The APRSAF Secretariat
APRSAF Secretariat