United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

29 June 2010 - UN Programme on Space Applications was invited to present its Basic Space Technology Initiative (BSTI) at a conference organized by the Universida de Vigo, Fundacion Caixagalicia and the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion of the Government of Spain.

Following the conference, representatives of Calpoly, CRECTEALC-Campus Mexico, European Space Agency (ESA), International Astronautical Federation (IAF), UNOOSA and Universida de Vigo met to discuss progress on the planned HUMSAT Nano-satellite constellation.

The HUMSAT constellation will provide messaging services through small user terminals and is open for international collaboration with organizations developing nano-satellites. The project has been presented at the UN/Austria/ESA Symposium on Small Satellite Programmes for Sustainable Development, held in 2009, and is endorsed by the Basic Space Technology Initiative, implemented by the Office for Outer Space Affairs in the framework of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications.

At the UN/Austria/ESA Symposium on Small Satellite Programmes for Sustainable Development: Payloads for Small Satellite Programmes, to be held 21-24 September 2010, a special session will be dedicated to the HUMSAT project.

3 June 2010 - The United Nations Programme on Space Applications is conducting a comprehensive survey of world-wide academic programmes in aerospace engineering and small satellite development. The purpose of this survey is to compile a directory which will allow Member States to assess the availability of relevant education opportunities and to help prospective students - including those from developing countries and emerging space nations - to select suitable programmes they may wish to apply for. Relevant academic institutions are invited to complete the survey.

Please visit BST page for more details.

Click on photos to enlarge them

19 May 2010 - The 3rd Governing Board meeting of the African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in English Language (ARCSSTE-E) was held in Abuja, Nigeria on 23 March 2010. Representatives from 10 African countries participated in the meeting. Various issues related to the work of ARCSSTE-E were discussed.

Dr. Takao Doi, UN Expert on Space Applications, visited the ARCSSTE-E located on the campus of Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria on 24-25 March and had opportunities to talk to students and staff members. This year 27 students from 7 countries are taking university courses in remote sensing and geographic information system, satellite communication, and basic space and atmospheric science. The students at the ARSSTE-E performed their studies with great enthusiasm and dedication. They also considered the further development of manned space flights as very important for the future of their nations.

Please click here to get more information on activities of the Regional Centres for Space Science and Technology Education, affiliated to the United Nations.

16 March 2010 - The Office for Outer Space Affairs, as the Executive Secretariat for the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG) and the Providers' Forum, organized the ICG Working Group on "Enhancement of performance of GNSS services" special meeting on "GNSS User Positioning Integrity" on 8 March 2010 immediately preceding the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit 2010, 9 - 11 March 2010, Munich, Germany. The meeting was devoted to a discussion on the technical solutions being considered to address the problem of user positioning integrity and in particular the benefits that multi-constellation interoperability would bring to these solutions. Presentations made at the meeting are available at the ICG Information Portal at www.icgsecretariat.org

17 January 2010 - Since 1991, the UN Programme on Space Applications and the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) have been working jointly on organizing a series of annual international workshops on space science and technology applications for benefit of developing countries. The theme of the 20th workshop in the series is "GNSS Applications for Human Benefit and Development", and it will take place from 24 to 25 September, 2010, in Pague, Czech Republic, in conjunction with the 61st International Astronautical Congress (IAC).

Each year co-organizers of the workshop provide a number of qualified applicants from developing countries with financial support needed to attend the workshop and the Congress. In addition to this assistance, in 2009 IAF started Youth Grants Programme that supports participation of students and young professionals in IAC, the UN/IAF workshop and other events associated with the Congress. The Grant Programme is open to individuals between the age of 21 and 33, who are interested in pursuing careers involving the development, application and use of space systems, space science research, the policy, legal, social and cultural aspects of space activities, international cooperation on space programs and other similar subjects, and who would not otherwise be able to attend the Congress due to financial reasons.

The announcement of grant opportunities for 2010 and detailed information on application requirements are available on IAF website: http://www.iafastro.org/index.html?title=IAC2010_Youth_Grants_Programme

http://www.astronomy2009.org

7 January 2010 - The International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) has been successfully concluded.

The UN Programme on Space Applications, through its Basic Space Science Initiative (UNBSSI), supported IYA2009 as an Organizational Node and disseminated information on that activity world-wide and specifically to state Members of UNCOPUOS. A final review of the Programme's contributions to IYA2009 was undertaken as part of the UN/ESA/NASA/JAXA Workshop on Basic Space Science and the International Heliophysical Year 2007, hosted by the Korea Institute for Astronomy and Space Science (KASI) in September 2009 ( http://bssihy.kasi.re.kr/unbssw1.aspx).

4 January 2010 - The first, inaugural, issue of the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI) Newsletter is out!

The Scientific and Technical Subcommittee of the UN-COPUOS, beginning at its session in 2010, will consider a new agenda item entitled "International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI)" under a three-year work plan with specific focus on the effects of space weather on the Earth. Major elements of ISWI will be dissemination of information on the ground-based world-wide instrument arrays through an ISWI Newsletter and through the ISWI Website http://www.iswi-secretariat.org/. The ISWI Newsletter is published by Kyushu University, Japan.

Subscription to the Newsletter is available by sending a blank email to ISWInewsletter-on@mail-list.com. On an exceptional basis, the inaugural issue of the ISWI Newsletter has also been distributed as hard copy.

31 December 2009 - Since 1988, the Office, through the United Nations Programme on Space Applications, supports the establishment and operation of UN-affiliated Regional Centres for Space Science and Technology Education. Such Regional Centres exist for Asia and the Pacific in India, for Africa in Morocco and Nigeria, and for Latin America and the Caribbean in Brazil/Mexico. Regional Centres are organizing, on an annual basis, nine-month post-graduate courses in remote sensing and GIS, satellite communications, satellite meteorology and global climate, and space and atmospheric science.

At the 14th Governing Board Meeting of the Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP), New Delhi, India, 7-10 September 2009, the first ever comprehensive report on Performance Assessment and Outlook for the Future for a UN-affiliated Regional Centre was published.

CSSTEAP was inaugurated in 1995 and the report contains full information on all achievements and issues that have been encountered by CSSTEAP in the past 15 years. Hard copies of this report are available on request to oosa@unoosa.org.

16 December 2009 - UN-OOSA took part in the work of the UN Climate Change Conference which took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, from 7 to 18 December 2009. Following decisions of 2007 Conference in Bali, the Copenhagen Conference was expected to conclude a strong international climate change deal, which was to cover the key issues of mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions), adaptation (coping with the inevitable consequences of climate change) and finance and technology (needed to help developing countries to step up actions to limit the growth of their emissions and adapt to climate change impacts).

The Conference attracted a huge number of participants, including 8,000 delegates from parties, 750 participants from the UN Secretariat and specialized agencies, 700 participants from intergovernmental organization, and more than 20,000 registered participants from NGOs. In addition to plenary events of COP, CMP, SBI and SBSTA, the Conference featured more than 300 side events (seminar-like meetings, each event attracted around 100 participants in average), as well as a large exhibition.

During the first week of the Conference, the Office and PSA were presented at plenary meetings of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA), as well as PSA representative participated, as panelist, in the UNCCD-organized side event on the role of land under the new climate change policy framework.

World-map showing ISWI instrument distribution, most of them GPS supported http://www.iswi-secretariat.org/

25 November 2009 - The Programme co-organized the Workshop to Establish Scientific and Instrument Collaborations for Observing the Consequences of Space Weather from Morocco. The meeting took place from 18 to 24 November 2009, and it was hosted, on behalf of the Government of Morocco, by the University Mohammed V in Rabat, Morocco. Formal presentations from IHY/ISWI instrument providers (CALLISTO, GPS-Africa, MAGDAS, RENOIR, SCINDA, SID/AWESOME) were made to prospective instrument hosts at Moroccan Universities. Tentatively two magnetometers (MAGDAS), two GPS receivers (GPS-Africa and SCINDA), and one radio spectrometer (CALLISTO) will be transferred to Moroccan observational sites. The UN-affiliated African Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in French language, located in Rabat, will participate in the operation of the two GPS receivers. The Moroccan Academy of Science and Technology Hassan II and the ISWI Secretariat entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with regard to the development of distributed ionospheric observatories in a number of universities of Morocco.

UNCOPUOS, at its fifty-second session in 2009, noted the importance of continuing to build upon the success of the International Heliophysical Year 2007 and noted with satisfaction that the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee will consider a new agenda item entitled International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI) under a three-year work plan with specific focus on the effects of space weather on the Earth and its impact, inter alia, on satellite communications and satellite positioning, navigation, and timing.

8 November 2009 - Since 1990, the UN Programme on Space Applications leads the United Nations Basic Space Science Initiative (UNBSSI) by contributing to the international and regional development of astronomy and space science through annual UN/ESA/NASA/JAXA workshops on basic space science, International Heliophysical Year 2007 (IHY 2007), and the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI). The programme also coordinates the development of IHY/ISWI low-cost, ground-based, world-wide instrument arrays.

One of such instruments - Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance Monitor (SID) - has been recently installed at UNOOSA exhibit to demonstrate how data on solar activity are received and processed in real tome.

When energy from a solar flare reaches the Earth, the ionosphere suddenly changes its physical characteristics, most notably in the way it reflects radio waves from terrestrial sources. Travelling with speed of light, the radiation reaches Earth in eight minutes and can disrupt radio communication and navigation system. The SID monitor measures the effect of these sudden disturbances on very low frequency radio wave transmissions and stores the data on an attached PC for uploading to the Solar Center at Stanford University where analysis and comparison to other sites in the SID worldwide network takes place. The graph at the left shows data collected during a twenty four hour period with marked changes in the signal strength as flares occur during day time.

20 October 2009 - This year's UN/IAF International Workshop, organized by UN-PSA in cooperation with IAF and ESA, was held in Daejeon, Republic of Korea, from 9 to 11 October 2009, as a part of the International Astronautical Congress (IAC). The workshop discussed a wide range of space-related technologies, services and information resources available for analysis and prediction of climate change.

The co-sponsors provided financial support required for the participation of 23 individuals from 21 developing countries. Overall, more than 70 participants from 40 countries that had registered for this event have attended the workshop; representatives of a number of international organisations/institutions and NGO, such as COSPAR, ESA, GEOS, IAF, SGAC and the United Nations were also present.

The Programme of the workshop included 3 technical sessions: (i) on international and regional initiatives and cooperation, and on capacity building in the area of the space technology and climate change; (ii) on application of space-based information and space technologies for observation/monitoring climate change; and (iii) on space technologies and information resources for monitoring, prediction and early warning of climate change induced disasters and environmental hazards. Overall, 26 oral technical presentations were delivered during two days course of the technical sessions, and 9 papers were submitted for poster sessions. Technical sessions were followed by the Round Table discussion, which took place on the second day of the Workshop. On the third day, participants of the Workshop had a technical visit to the facilities of KARI, KAIST and Satrec-I.

The Round Table discussion was moderated by Dr. Takao Doi, head of the UN-PSA, and it included 6 panelists that were top managers of space agencies and other relevant institutions from the following countries and international organizations: Brazil, Canada, Ghana, Republic of Korea, Vietnam and ESA. Prior to the Round Table, two Working Groups were established in order to summarize critical issues/focal themes identified in the presentations delivered at the technical sessions of the Workshop for addressing those to the panelists. The first Working Group focused on issues related to capacity building and international cooperation, and the second one discussed practical aspects of space technologies and information application for vulnerability assessment and for mitigation and adaptation to climate change. The conclusions of the Round Table discussion were presented to the IAC Plenary Event No.5 devoted to this topic (14 October 2009), and served as an input to this event discussion.

The annual international workshop on Small Satellites in the Service of Developing Countries was organized by UN-PSA in cooperation with International Academy of Astronautics as a part of IAC, and it was held on 13 October 2009. One of the main objectives of this workshop was to review the benefits of small satellite programmes, with particular emphasis on the contribution that small satellites could make to supporting scientific, Earth observation and telecommunication missions. Emphasis was placed on international cooperation, education and training and the benefits of such programmes for developing countries. Among those attending the Workshop were several participants of previous workshops, who provided valuable continuity and were able to assess the progress that had been made in the course of the workshop series.

This half-day event was attended by about 70 registered participants of the IAC, and it featured 10 technical presentations dealing with the use of space technology for the benefit of developing countries. The support of Member States and their participation in the Programme on Space Applications are vital. It is only through the commitment of all nations that the Programme can achieve its primary objective of putting space technology to work for sustainable economic and social development, not just in individual countries but on a global basis.

18 September 2009 - United Nations/Austria/European Space Agency Symposium on Small Satellite Programmes for Sustainable Development was organized by the Office for Outer Space Affairs, in cooperation with the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs and the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology of Austria, the state of Styria, the city of Graz and ESA and supported by the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) and Austrian Academy of Sciences (OAW). The symposium was held at the Institute for Space Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Graz, Austria, from 8 to 11 September 2009. It was the sixteenth in the series of symposiums organized as part of the United Nations Programme on Space Applications in cooperation with those co-sponsors since 1994.

This year's symposium was the first one in a series of three annual consecutive symposia that are being organized with objective to enhance access to space applications tools for sustainable development through building indigenous institutional capabilities in basic space technology, and primarily in small satellite technology. The current meeting mostly considered the issues related to small satellite mission planning and implementation, with practical exercises in mission design. The second symposium in 2010 will consider scientific and engineering issues, with training in payload/instruments/sensors design. The third one in 2011 will focus on operational and regulatory issues.

The symposium featured four thematic sessions: (i) utility of small satellites for capacity building; (ii) establishing a small satellite programme: policy, planning and implementation; (iii) launch opportunities for small satellites and regulatory issues; and (iv) hands-on training on mission design. A technical visit to the ground station and satellite facilities in Graz was organized for participants as well. Overall, 41 presentations were delivered by invited speakers from both developing and industrialized countries, and 8 papers were presented at poster session.