By IANS
Bangalore : Japan is working on a framework to extend its official development assistance (ODA) to space projects in the Asia-Pacific region, a Japanese minister said here Thursday.
“We want to expand science and technology cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region by extending ODA to countries for implementing space projects in mapping, disaster management and area observation,” Japanese vice-minister for science and technology Yoshitsugu Harada disclosed at a space conference.
Addressing the 14th session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) on “Space for Human Empowerment”, Harada said countries in the region could make use of the data from Japanese earth observation satellites, including its latest advanced land observing satellite Daich, for space programmes, disaster observation, general observation and natural resource observation.
“Though the budget for the ODA framework is yet to be approved, we look forward to promoting the use of data from Daich with our regional partners. We will also provide equipment, training and experts as part of the assistance,” Harada told about 150 delegates from the region participating in the three-day event.
“We will also strengthen Sentinel Asia to gather observation data from additional satellites launched recently by India, Thailand and South Korea for disaster management. Observation data is also being used in a variety of contexts, including studies on vegetation, land use changes in coral reefs, evolution of subsidence, earthquake damage and floods,” Harada pointed out.
The Sentinel Asia project, set up in 2004 by space-faring nations in Asia-Pacific region, is a network of earth observation systems for disseminating information as early warning before a disaster occurs or as a post-disaster data to assist recovery operations.