News Mails - 2010
ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL SPACE AGENCY FORUM
Newsletter -No.066, 10/Feb/2010
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APRSAF-16 Successfully Closed in Bangkok, Thailand 26-29 January
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The sixteenth session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF-16), under the main theme entitled "Space Applications: Contributions towards Human Safety and Security" successfully closed its 4-Day programme on 29th January 2010, at the Sofitel Centara Grand Bangkok, in Bangkok, Thailand.
Jointly organized and co-sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Thailand, the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), APRSAF-16 saw a gathering of 310 participants from 27 countries and region and 10 international organizations.
At the Plenary session on Day-3, following the two Opening Remarks by Dr. Khunying Kalaya Sophonpanich, Minister of Science and Technology (MOST) of Thailand and Dr. Tetsuhiko Ikegami, Chairman of the Space Activities Commission, MEXT of Japan, the two Key note addresses were expressed by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Somchet Thinaphong, Chairman of Executive Board, Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) and Mr. Hitoshi Goto, Vice Minister, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and the special speech was delivered by Mr. Shigeru Mochida, Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), respectively.
The results of APRSAF-16 including the Recommendations (shown below), adopted by all the participants and presentations are now posted on this page:
http://www.aprsaf.org/annual_meetings/aprsaf16/meeting_details.php
Photo reports of APRSAF-16 are now placed here:
http://www.aprsaf.org/annual_meetings/aprsaf16/photo.php
It was agreed at the plenary that the next Session, APRSAF-17, will take place at the end of this year in Australia.
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Recommendations of the sixteenth session of APRSAF
(Adopted on 29 January 2010, Bangkok, Thailand)
Recognizing that the space technology and its applications substantively contribute to development human safety and security in the Asia-Pacific region,
Recognizing that the importance of regional cooperation to cope with disaster management, environmental issue, capacity building, quality of human life, health, and other regional issues,
Hereby affirm that we, the participants of APRSAF-16,
[Sentinel Asia]
1.Confirm that the activities of the Joint Project Team for STEP 2 are going well and welcome the new STEP2 Web-GIS will be replaced from the STEP1 system from April 2010;
2.Confirm that utilization of WINDS“KIZUNA” was steadily started to transmit images rapidly;
3.Welcome that KARI and GISTDA started to provide images along with JAXA and ISRO, then let's call "Sentinel Asia Constellation" as a generic nick name for their satellites;
4.Welcome the new working group called the Glacial Lake Outburst Flood Monitoring WG (GLOF-WG), was launched at the last JPTM held last July;
5.Welcome that Asian Disaster Reduction Center (ADRC) acting as a point of contact of emergency observation requests for Sentinel Asia, established an UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office (RSO) from last June, and also welcome that collaboration between Sentinel Asia and International Disaster Charter to enhance capability for disaster response in the Asia-Pacific region was agreed;
6.Desire that utilization of Sentinel Asia shall be increasing used by disaster management organizations with support of UNESCAP and so on;
[STAR Program (Satellite Technology for the Asia-Pacific Region Program)]
7.Confirm that STAR program started at JAXA Sagamihara campus in June 2009, and the 2nd STAR program technical workshop was held to report the progress in Bangkok;
8.Welcome that the steady progress of development of Micro-STAR satellite and system study of EO-STAR satellite;
9.Welcome the STAR Program Coordination Group (SPCG) was established to coordinate and decide programmatic issues for the STAR program, consisted by STAR program participating organization;
10.Encourage to dispatch their staffs continuously and long term from the participating agencies for the STAR program at JAXA Sagamihara campus and concurrent engineering works at each agency;
11.Encourage the organizations concerned to provide launch opportunity for the Micro- STAR satellite, ground station operation resource, and necessary instruments;
[SAFE (Space Applications For Environment)]
12. Appreciate to see the successful story of that the SAFE prototyping activities in Vietnam ready to complete successfully as a success story of SAFE prototyping, and expect to ready to discussion to develop into practical usage
13.Confirm the progress of ongoing four SAFE prototyping and the approval of two new proposals (Sri Lanka: sea level rise and Indonesia: potential drought) as SAFE prototyping;
[Earth Observation]
14.Recognize that the participating countries and international organizations have various needs for space applications to cope with the climate change adaptation and mitigation issues , disaster management and climate change affected issues such as health, water management, biodiversity, forest cover change, and encourage SAFE prototype activities to expand their scopes and applications as well as making a bridge to practical use;
15.Realize the value to continue information exchange with private sectors and encourage their participation to implement space applications to support climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as disaster monitoring and mitigation in Asia Pacific countries by sharing their space application expertise.
[Communication Satellite Applications]
16.Recognize the importance of continuing development of applications regarding tele-education, tele-medicine, disaster management and mitigation, and healthcare issue in the Asia-Pacific region;
17.Agree to promote the Asia-Pacific regional cooperation by sharing the experiences and the opportunities such as the WINDS satellite experiments and working on the creation of new applications;
18.Welcome the successful completion of the first regional workshop on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), and expect to launch the Multi GNSS demonstration campaign as a new initiative for sustainable development of the Multi GNSS applications including QZSS utilization in this region in APRSAF-17.
[Space Education and Awareness]
19.Recommend that all countries and international organizations that participate in APRSAF should support space education efforts, to enhance the quality of education for young people at all educational levels and to contribute to human development at individual level;
20.Agree that efforts should be further strengthened to provide support to school teachers to facilitate the integration of space subjects and materials into the school curricula by, among other things, increasing the availability of educational materials in local languages and providing more training opportunities for teachers in space education;
21.Agree that through APRSAF, space education activities should be expanded in terms of participation, type and funding sources and that those activities should contribute to global initiatives undertaken by entities of the United Nations system and other international organizations in areas relating to space education and awareness;
[Space Environment Utilization]
22.Welcome the completion of Japanese Experiment Module "KIBO" and the success of KIBO assembly after quarter century efforts, and the success of the first HTV mission;
23.Appreciate the realized and enhanced opportunity of KIBO utilization based on 2 years operations, and recognize that education activities and outreach to public, as well as scientific experiments, are promising mission for successful "KIBO" utilization among APRSAF participating countries;
24.Recommend to expand the task force activities to realize a joint “KIBO” utilization for education and outreach to public, such as “KIBO Hi-vision EarthView” program;
25.Encourage to further promote bilateral cooperation activities among APRSAF participating countries;
[UN COPUOS]
26.Wish that the outcomes of the APRSAF-16 will be presented by the Chairman of UNCOPUOS at the meetings of the UNCOPUOS as well as its Scientific and Technical Subcommittee at their meetings in 2010;
27.Recommend the Chairman of UNCOPUOS to present the outcomes of APRSAF-16 as regional cooperative structures to other region such as Latin America and Africa in order to promote inter-regional cooperation as mandated by UN General Assembly.
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Copyright 2009 The APRSAF Secretariat
APRSAF Newsletters are distributed to update the readers on recent developments in space-related activities in the Asia-Pacific region.
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