________________________________________________________________________________________________
In its resolution 50/27 of 6 December 1995, the General Assembly endorsed
the recommendation of the
Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space that, beginning with its thirty-ninth session, the Committee would
be provided with unedited transcripts in lieu of verbatim records. This record contains the texts of speeches
delivered in English and interpretations of speeches delivered in the other languages as transcribed from taped
recordings. The transcripts have not been edited or revised.
Corrections should be submitted to original speeches only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record
and be sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned, within one week of the date of
publication, to the Chief, Conference Management Service, Room D0771, United Nations Office at Vienna,
P.O. Box 500, A-1400, Vienna, Austria. Corrections will be issued in a consolidated corrigendum.
V.06-55990 (E)
*0655990*
United
Nations
COPUOS/T.551
Committee on the Peaceful
Unedited transcript
Uses of Outer Space
551
st
Meeting
Wednesday, 7 June 2006, 3 p.m.
Vienna
Chairman: Mr. G. Brachet (France)
The meeting was called to order at 3.17 p.m.
The CHAIRMAN
(interpretation from
French): I call the 551
st
meeting of the Committee on
the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space to order.
This afternoon, we will continue our
consideration of agenda item 5, General Exchange of
Views, and we shall begin our consideration of agenda
item 6, Ways and Means of Maintaining Outer Space
for Peaceful Purposes.
Attendance by non-members of the Committee
Before we return to our examination of item 5,
I should like, distinguished delegates, to inform the
Committee that I have received a request from Tunisia,
seeking permission to attend the current session of the
Committee as an observer. I, therefore, suggest that, in
conformity with past practice, we invite the
representative of Tunisia to attend the current session
and to address the Committee as appropriate.
This is, of course, without prejudice to further
requests of this nature and this does not involve any
decisions of the Committee concerning status. Might I
recall that it is a courtesy that we customarily extend to
such delegations.
Do I see any objections?
I
see
none.
It is so decided.
General exchange of views (agenda item 5)
We, therefore, return to our examination of
item 5, General Exchange of Views, and I would like
to continue our consideration of this agenda item.
And I recognize the distinguished
representative of Malaysia, the first speaker on my list,
Mr. Mustafa Subari.
Mr. M. SUBARI (Malaysia): Thank you Mr.
Chairman. Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates, I
would like to join other member States in expressing
our delegation’s great pleasure in congratulating
France in the Chair of this meeting, and Hungary and
Burkina Faso as First Vice-Chairman and Second
Vice-Chairman, respectively. We are also indebted to
you for giving Malaysia the opportunity to chair the
forty-fourth session of the Scientific and technical
Subcommittee.
We would also like to express our deep
appreciation to the dedication and efforts of the Office
for Outer Space Affairs, under the able leadership of
Dr. Sergio Camacho-Lara for their untiring efforts in
ensuring the smooth running of this meeting.
Before we begin our statement, we would like
to express heartfelt condolence to the people of the
republic of Indonesia on the recent earthquake in the
region of Central Java, which has killed and injured
thousand of innocent life and making thousands more
homeless and reprieved of basic necessities of life.
The Malaysian Government has responded to this
tragedy by sending the search and rescue SMART team
plus the medical team for aids but we felt that this
effort is insignificant compared to the real amount of
assistance that was needed.
COPUOS/T.551
Page 2
Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates, within
the same breath, my delegation would like to highlight
on the infrastructure, the early warning system for
tsunamis generated in the Indian Ocean, South China
Sea or the Pacific Ocean that we have reported last
year, has been put in place. This system, the National
Tsunami Early Warning System, is maintained by the
Malaysian Meteorological Department of the Ministry
of Science, Technology and Innovation. The system
consisted of a network of seismological stations
throughout the country and three data buoys with
seabed-mounted tsunami detection modules deployed
at strategic locations in the North-West Straits of
Malacca, South China Sea and Sulu Sea.
We have also, Mr. Chairman, on 27 and 28
April of this year, organized a Roundtable Discussion
of Earthquake and Tsunami Risks in the South China
Sea with the cooperation of the Intergovernmental
Oceanographic Commission, IOC, of UNESCO.
Within this important issue also, Mr.
Chairman, we would like to express our full support to
the effort organized by Japan on the Sentinel-Asia
project for establishing Disaster Management Support
System in the Asia-Pacific Region. We would
definitely be more than ready to contribute to this
important endeavour.
Mr. Chairman, distinguished delegates, our
Mission Operations Facility at the National Space
Agency, has been completed and operational in
December 2005. With the Telemetry, Tracking and
Control in place, we have been able to participate in
LEOPs of the GIOVE-A, a test-bed satellite for the
Galileo, a European Union Global Navigation Satellite
System currently under development. The Image
Receiving System has also been completed and
operational, which currently is being configured to
receive MODIS data from the Terra and Aqua
satellites. It is a bit unfortunate, though, Mr.
Chairman, that our Earth observation satellite, the
RazakSAT launches has been postponed to early 2007,
due to some technical problems of the launcher.
The planning of our Assembly, Integration
and Test, AIT, Facility
and Space Science Lab at the
Malaysian Space Centre is progressing well. The
calibration lab that consists of the Integrating Sphere is
now operational. RazakSAT’s camera will undergo
calibration in the next few weeks. Upon completion of
the AIT Facility, it will have, among others, a large
thermal vacuum chamber, acoustic chamber, EMC
facility, large and small electrodynamics shaker and
mass property measurement system. With these
facilities in place, we will be then able to fabricate and
test our satellites system.
The National Observatory at Langkawi,
Malaysia, which will become an important
infrastructure within our space science research
activities, has been completed in May this year. We
are currently in the process of connecting the facility
with the global networks of remotely operated
observatory.
It is also a pleasure for us to announce that in
June 2007, we will be hosting the International Young
Astronomers School, ISYA2007, 6 to 27 March 2007,
in collaboration with the International Astronomical
Union, IAU, as part of the International Heliophysical
Year, IHY, 2007 celebrations. This established
international programme will be attended by about 30
young astronomers from the Asia-Pacific region with
12 renowned scholars of astronomers from abroad.
Mr. Chairman, we are happy to announce here
that Malaysia will be hosting the Third United Nations
ESCAP Ministerial Conference on Space Applications
for Sustainable Development in the Asia-Pacific on 5
to 10 February 2006. For that, we would like to extend
our invitation for member States within the region to
participate in this important meeting.
Thank you for now, Mr. Chairman. Our
delegation will provide
more information under the
coming relevant agenda items.
Thank
you.
The CHAIRMAN
(interpretation from
French): I should like to thank you Sir for your
statement and the information that you have conveyed
to us on the state of advance of your space activities in
Malaysia with regards to setting up a tsunami
prevention or alert network and also your information
on the Malaysian satellite. And we wish you all the
best for the launch due to take place in 2007. Thank
you again for your contribution Sir.
I now recognize the Russian Federation, Mr.
Gonchar.
Mr. D. V. GONCHAR (Russian Federation)
(interpretation from Russian): Thank you Mr.
Chairman. First of all, let my delegation congratulate
you on your election to this position of great authority.
We wish you every success in your work.
Further, we would like to express our sincere
gratitude to the outgoing Chairman of the Committee,