The Plenary thanked Dr. Bizzarri and the other Task Force members for their dedicated work during the past two years.
CEOS Establishes New Analysis Group,
At the 10th Plenary, CEOS
agencies agreed to establish a new Analysis Group, comprising both provider
and user agencies, to address how well existing and planned space missions,
programs, and products satisfy foreseen user requirements. User requirements
to be addressed will include those of the Affiliates and those of Members'
and Observers' nations and agencies. The analysis is to identify deficiencies
and suggest changes that could resolve them. The Analysis Group will work
closely with the IGOS Strategic Implementation Team(SIT). The Analysis
Group is open to all Members, Observers, and Affiliates.
Mr. Yukio Haruyama, of STA/NASDA, agreed to serve as Chair of the Analysis
Group. Mr. John Morgan, chairman of the Global Observing System Space Panel(GOSSP),
will serve as the Affiliates' point of contact for the group, in addition
to direct participation by Affiliate representatives.
The purpose of the Analysis Group is to supply CEOS agencies and the
SIT with an analysis that can be taken into account in individual agency
plans and can be used by the SIT to develop recommendations for coordinated
CEOS agencies' action to address gaps and undesirable overlaps in observing
programs. The Analysis Group will use the CEOS data base, developed by
the former CEOS Task Force on Planning and Analysis, as a key reference
for its work.
The first meeting of the AG is planned for March 1997 in Europe, but
much work is already underway to develop the Teams of Reference, coordinate
with the SIT, and coordinate a draft work plan. Workshops are planned for
July 1997 in Japan and September 1997 in the U.S. leading to a report at
the 1997 CEOS Plenary in Toulouse.
(continued from page 1)
10th CEOS Plenary
time intercontinental relay of satellite information. The Hatoyama ground station near Tokyo instantly relayed incoming data from the Japanese ADEOS satellite, to a screen at Canberra's National Convention Centre. ADEOS was launched on 17 August from Tanegashima Space Centre. Mr. Chu Ishida of NASDA presented the demonstration; as ADEOS orbited south over Russia and down the Asian east coast, the image on the Canberra viewscreen kept updating, making the viewer fell they were on the satellite looking down at Earth.
Catalogue Displays
In addition to the two main CEOS demonstrations, CSIRO and the Cooperative
Research Center for Advanced Computational Systems arranged continuous
web-catalogue demonstrations. Space agencies from China, India and Japan
showed how processed satellite images could be viewed, ordered and downloaded
across the World Wide Web. Australia's Bureau of Meteorology also displayed
the Australian Integrated Forecasting System.
Commemorative mural
Participants in the 10th Plenary - the first to be held in Australia,
and only the second in the southern hemisphere - helped Aboriginal artist
Les Huddleston to create a permanent reminder of the occasion, by painting
a commemorative mural, the large three-part canvas(total size about 2m
X 5m). A map-like effect showed the international nature of space co-operation,
and the different paths taken by representatives from different parts of
the world to reach the Plenary.
Other Outcomes
Apart from its internal business, the 10th CEOS Plenary agreed to encourage
use of interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, including for validation;
and to develop contact with commercial agencies. CNES, the French Space
Agency, was confirmed as the next Chair, to be follow by the Indian Space
Research Organization in 1998 and EUMETSAT in 1999.
The 10th CEOS Plenary in Canberra
