Vietnam, Japan reach deal on satellite data exchange

PSNews – With this agreement, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will provide its ScanSAR ALOS-2 images capturing the Vietnamese territory and research projects. 

The Vietnam National Space Centre (VNSC) under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) signed an agreement on satellite data exchange in Hanoi on September 18, with the aim of supporting the DataCube programme in Vietnam -  a large data platform programme of the Earth’s observation satellites in order to develop related applications, such as rice, forest and water quality monitoring, as well as to promote the use of satellite data in the field of Earth observation.

Representatives of Vietnam and Japan at the signing ceremony. Photo: VNSC
Representatives of Vietnam and Japan at the signing ceremony. Photo: VNSC

With this agreement, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will provide its ScanSAR ALOS-2 images capturing the Vietnamese territory and research projects.

ALOS stands for advanced land observing satellite, and its ScanSAR mode indicates a broad area with observation width of 350km or 490km, and resolution of 100m or 60m respectively.

The agreement also provides a framework for the two sides to expand their cooperation in research and application development through the use of Earth observation (EO) products, not only from the ALOS-2 satellite, but also others, as well as data already available in the DataCube system.

The VNSC will operate and maintain the Vietnam DataCube system to store ALOS-2 data, promote the use of ALOS-2 data in related application areas, implement research, apply programmes and accelerate the use of EO products by other satellites, especially Japanese satellites, and data available for Vietnam’s socio-economic development activities.

The cooperative articles under this agreement will take into effect just after its signing from September 2017 to September 2019.

The signing of the agreement is part of the activities within the framework of the 10th Asia-Pacific Global Earth Observation System Conference (GEOSS-AP 10), which opened on the same day in Hanoi, under the theme of “Accelerating the realization of the SDGs with Earth Observations: Lessons from the Asia-Oceania region". 

By Linh Bui

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