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REMARKS FOR THE PRESS BRIEFING ON THE KIBOCUBE PROGRAMME BY SIMONETTA DI PIPPO
DIRECTOR
UNITED NATIONS OFFICE FOR OUTER SPACE AFFAIRS
INTERNATIONAL ASTRONAUTICAL CONGRESS (IAC)
1 October 2018
Bremen, Germany
Honourable guests,
Dear Mr. Nakagawa, Mr. Wakata, Mr. Shoji, Mr. Suddhoo and Mr. Gunadi, colleagues and friends,
Ladies and gentlemen,
On behalf of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, I am honoured to welcome you all here today to celebrate the latest achievement in the third round of the United Nations/Japan Cooperation Programme on CubeSat Deployment from the International Space Station Japanese Experiment Module, "KiboCUBE".
The KiboCUBE programme was launched jointly by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA, and UNOOSA in September 2015. The programme strives to offer educational and research institutions in developing countries the opportunity to deploy cube satellites - CubeSats - from the International Space Station's Kibo Module.
KiboCUBE is a dedicated collaboration between the United Nations and Japan and is part of UNOOSA's Human Space Technology Initiative, which aims to involve more countries in human spaceflight and space exploration activities, and to increase the benefit from the outcome of such activities through international cooperation. KiboCUBE uniquely facilitates direct access to space for developing and non-spacefaring countries by offering deployment opportunities from the ISS free of charge. This contributes to making space exploration a truly international endeavour.
After a competitive selection process with numerous promising applications, a team from the Surya University in Indonesia were selected by UNOOSA and JAXA as the second successful candidate - together with Mauritius - in the third round of KiboCUBE to benefit from the programme.
Surya University's cube satellite - Surya Satellite 1- is a historic achievement as the first cube satellite developed by an Indonesian University to be launched into space. The cube satellite will be equipped with an Automatic Package Reporting System (APRS) that works on amateur radio frequencies. This will enable it to transmit APRS messages to ground stations. Furthermore, SS-1 will be designed for two-way communication use for educational and disaster mitigation purposes, which can be carried out by anyone with a valid amateur radio callsign. The deployment of Surya Satellite is a remarkable example of how UNOOSA's worldwide capacity-building efforts contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including Goal 4 on "Quality Education" and Goal 9 on "Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure".
Surya University will join distinguished winners from all previous rounds of the KiboCUBE initiative, namely teams from the Mauritius Research Council, the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, and the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
We are pleased to recognize that representatives from the Mauritius Research Council, the other successful candidate of the third round of the KiboCUBE programme, announced at UNISPACE+50 in June, are also here with us today. Through KiboCUBE, the Mauritius Research Council will deploy the first Mauritian satellite "MIR-SAT1". The satellite will include a longwave infrared thermal camera enabling it to collect thermal infrared images of Mauritius and its surrounding areas. The team also aims to test the onboard communication capabilities of the CubeSat by studying the satellite's capacity to transfer information via satellite radio wave frequency.
We are proud to commemorate both winners from Indonesia and Mauritius today, and are grateful they could be with us here at the International Astronautical Congress. Their achievements through KiboCUBE are a testament to the immense potential benefits of space exploration and international collaboration in the peaceful uses of outer space. We wish them the best for the progress of their experiments and look forward to their contribution to bringing the benefits of space to everyone, everywhere.