The UN will open a headquarters in the Emirates to promote the sustainability of space projects
The United Nations agency specialized in monitoring space activities worldwide has reached an agreement with United Arab Emirates to open a headquarters in Abu Dhabi in the coming months. In a bid to launch initiatives to prevent the growth of space debris, the agreement between the UN and the UAE provides for the opening of an international project office dedicated to supporting emerging countries with space interests, strengthening dialogue between them and increasing sustainability and good practice in the cosmos.
The agreement was signed by the Director General of the Emirate Agency, Mohamed Nasser Al Ahbabi, and the Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), Italy's Simonetta Di Pippo.
The first bilateral commitment formally agreed by the Emirates Space Agency through videoconference, the creation of the UNOOSA centre in the Gulf country, has several reasons. One of them is to increase the application of the sustainability standards defined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in space activities, at the national, regional and global levels. Another reason Simonetta Di Pippo and Mohamed Nasser Al Ahbabi agree is to "ensure that society can derive socio-economic benefits from the peaceful use of space".
It is also the result of the growing role of the Emirates and its Space Agency in promoting space-derived technology, which is evident through the Krypto Labs Global Innovation Center based in Abu Dhabi. Thanks to the launch of the so-called Krypto Labs Global Space Industry Accelerator, dozens of courses and seminars now in telematic format are being held to boost the interest of young emirates in science, research, technology and space applications.
As a consequence of the policies and regulations emanating from the Emirates Government and its Space Agency, the aforementioned Space Accelerator collaborates with the authorities in the training of "young new talent and entrepreneurs, especially in innovation initiatives," notes the Director of Policy and Regulation of the Emirates Space Agency, Naser Al Rashedi. It also has the task of promoting the creation of new companies and startups linked to the space sector, an important way to diversify the country's economy towards a sector with a high technological component and in constant growth.
In making the decision, UNOOSA valued the contribution of the Emirates Government to space exploration. Specifically, the Al Amal mission -meaning "Hope"-, the Martian spacecraft that will take off from Japan next mid-July to reach the Martian orbit at the beginning of 2021 and study the atmosphere of the Red Planet.
Secondly, the launch of the second astronaut selection process, which has managed to capture 4,305 emiraties of all ages, one in three of whom are women.
Both UNOOSA and the Emirates are aware that the world space market is a very dynamic sector, whose main aspects - exploration of the Universe, satellite communications and Earth observation - have a direct impact on the development of the peaceful use of space for the benefit of humanity and space exploration.
Evidence of the growing interest of countries in benefiting from space applications is that since 1957, more than 80 nations on five continents have placed many thousands of satellites in orbit, of which about 2,500 are still operational according to UNOOSA estimates.
