News Mails - 2011
ASIA-PACIFIC REGIONAL SPACE AGENCY FORUM (APRSAF)
News Mail -No.080 Mar/31/2011
http://www.aprsaf.org
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**CONTENTS
1. News on APRSAF
- APRSAF-18 to be held in Singapore, December 2011
- APRSAF-17 outcomes by working group co-chairs
- APRSAF questionnaire closed
- SEAWG poster calendar published
- 7th Sentinel Asia System (SAS) operation training held in Nepal, Feb-Mar
- 4th JPTM to be held in Malaysia, July
2. Observation on earthquake in Japan
3. LAPAN and UKSA sign MOU on RS
4. COMS-1 images open to the public in April
5. Event Calendar
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1. News on APRSAF
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- APRSAF-18 to be held in Singapore, December 2011
The eighteenth session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum will be held from December 6 to 9, 2011 at the Marina Mandarin Hotel in Singapore. Further information will be posted on our website in due course. We look forward to seeing you in Singapore.
- APRSAF-17 outcomes by working group co-chairs
Co-chairs of the APRSAF-17 working groups provided us with their comments on the outcomes of the session. Please visit the following website to read their comments:
http://www.aprsaf.org/interviews_features/features_2011/feature_119.php
- APRSAF questionnaire closed
A questionnaire for further improvement in APRSAF was closed. More than 130 responses were received. We, the APRSAF Secretariat, would like to express our gratitude for your cooperation.
- SEAWG poster calendar published
The APRSAF Poster Contest Calendar for 2011–2012 was published on the APRSAF website. The drawings and paintings presented in this calendar were selected from the entries received from children in the age group of 8 to 11 for the fifth APRSAF Poster Contest. The topic for the contest was "Space Technology to Help the Earth," and the posters were displayed during the seventeenth session of APRSAF, held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, in November 2010.
http://www.aprsaf.org/interviews_features/features_2011/feature_118.php
- Seventh Sentinel Asia System (SAS) operation training held in Nepal, Feb–Mar
The seventh Sentinel Asia System (SAS) operation training was held from February 28 to March 4, 2011, in Kathmandu, Nepal. Twenty-five people from 19 organizations of 13 countries participated.
The agenda as well as training materials are available at the Sentinel Asia website:
https://sentinel.tksc.jaxa.jp/sentinel2/capaBuild.action#
- Fourth JPTM to be held in Malaysia, July
The fourth Joint Project Team Meeting for Sentinel Asia Step 2 will be held from July 12 to 14, 2011 in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Further information will be posted on the Sentinel Asia website:
https://sentinel.tksc.jaxa.jp/announce/2010/08/03/SECRisis0001201008030001/index.html
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2. Observation on earthquake in Japan
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On the afternoon of March 11, 2011, an earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 9.0 hit the Tohoku (northeastern) area of Japan, which triggered massive tsunami. After the disaster, in addition to the earth observation images from ALOS (Japan), images of the devastated area have been provided by FORMOSAT (Taiwan) and THEOS (Thailand) through Sentinel Asia as well as SPOT-5 (France), RADARSAT-2 (Canada) and Worldview-2 (US) through the International Charter "Space and Major Disasters." The Japanese government and people sincerely appreciate your prompt support.
- Observation images
*Sentinel Asia
https://sentinel.tksc.jaxa.jp/sentinel2/emobSelect.action?subset_name=Emergency Observation
*International Charter "Space and Major Disasters"
http://www.disasterscharter.org/web/charter/activation_details?p_r_p_1415474252_assetId=ACT-359
*ALOS
http://www.eorc.jaxa.jp/ALOS/en/index.htm
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3. LAPAN and UKSA sign MOU on RS
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The National Institute of Aeronautics and Space of Indonesia (LAPAN) announced that LAPAN and the UK Space Agency (UKSA) had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for increasing mutual cooperation, on February 1, 2011. According to Adi Sadewo Salatun, the head of LAPAN at that time, the two agencies will especially cooperate in developing remote sensing technologies. In addition, further discussions between the two agencies for cooperation in the development of an earth observation satellite to monitor climate change and help in disaster mitigation.
Subsequently, on March 2, 2011, LAPAN announced that Mr. Bambang Setiawan Tejasukmana, Deputy Director General for Science, Research, and Information Aerospace of LAPAN, had been appointed as the head of LAPAN after Adi Sadewo Salatun retired.
Reference:
LAPAN News (Indonesian)
http://www.lapan.go.id/doc_news/SA01-02-11.htm
http://www.lapan.go.id/doc_news/02-3-11.htm
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4. COMS-1 images open to the public in April
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The Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) announced, on March 8, 2011, that images acquired by the Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite 1 (COMS-1), which had been launched on June 26, would be made available to the public from April 1. COMS-1 obtained meteorological and ocean images after reaching its operational orbit and recently completed the in-orbit test. It is reported that the COMS-1 images will be provided every 15 min, which enables organizations involved in meteorological and related fields to monitor clearly the meteorological phenomena such as yellow sand, concentrated downpour, heavy snow, and typhoon occurring around the Korean peninsula, and the reliable monitoring will help in issuing early warnings. The COMS-1 images are available at the KMA website at http://web.kma.go.kr/eng/index.jsp On the other hand, according to the YTN news, on March 10, 2011, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) stated that the Russian military communication satellite, Raduga 1-7 (launched on March 27, 2004, operated at 85 degrees of east longitude), had approached within a distance of a few kilometers to COMS-1, and therefore, an emergency avoidance of COMS-1 was carried out and consequently, the distance between the two satellites became more than 10 km. It is also reported that Russia took an avoidance measure after this incident.
Yonhap News - March 8, 2011 (Korean)
http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/society/2011/03/07/0701000000AKR20110307193800004.HTML
Yonhap News - March 9, 2011 (Korean)
http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/economy/2011/03/09/0303000000AKR20110309003600063.HTML?template=2088
YTN News –March 10, 2011 (Korean)
http://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0105_201103100300430797
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5. Event Calendar
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- 34th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment
(10-15 April 2011, Sydney, Australia)
http://eblast.arinex.com.au/eblasts/view/20100319_34th_international_symposium_on_remote_sensing_of_the_environment
- Annual Central Asia GIS Conference- GISCA 2011
(19-20 May 2011, Almaty, Kazakhstan)
http://gisca11.aca-giscience.org/home
- The 31st Meeting of the CEOS Working Group on Information Systems and Services - WGISS-31 meeting
(23-27 May 2011, Tsukuba, Japan)
http://stage.tksc.jaxa.jp/wgiss-31/index.html
- Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space: 2011, Fifty-fourth session
(1-10 June 2011, Vienna, Austria)
http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/COPUOS/index.html
- 2011 International Conference on Space Science and Communication (IconSpace2011)
(12-13 July 2011, Pahang, Malaysia)
http://pkukmweb.ukm.my/ispace/
- 2011 IEEE International Symposium on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (IGARSS 2011)
(1-5 Aug 2011, Sendai, Japan)
http://igarss11.org/
- 11th Australian Space Science Conference
(26-29 Sep 2011, Canberra, Australia)
http://www.nssa.com.au/ocs/index.php?cf=13
- 2011 IGNSS Society Conference and Exhibition
(15-17 Nov 2011, Sydney, Australia)
http://www.ignss.org/Conferences/2011Conference/tabid/63/Default.aspx
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Copyright 2011 The APRSAF Secretariat
APRSAF News Mails are distributed to update the readers on recent developments in space-related activities in the Asia-Pacific region.
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