Asia Pacific

The President of the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), Jean-Yves Le Gall, met with Chau Van Minh, President of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) at the CNES head office in Paris on 27 May 2019, in the presence of Pham Anh Tuan, Director of the Vietnam National Space Center (VNSC), and Bui Trong Tuyen, Director of the Space Technology Institute (STI).

UK's Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) welcomed Customer Engineers from Thailand's Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) to its premises in Guildford, UK, to participate in the THEOS-2 SmallSAT Earth Observation project.

The UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have signed a joint statement on their wish to cooperate on the challenge of space debris.

On the occasion of the meetings between CNES’s Directorate of Innovation, Applications and Science (DIA) and the Government of Kerala, India, on 16, 17 and 18 May 2019, the Centre national d'études spatiales (CNES), through its Connect-by-CNES programme (CbC), and the Kerala Start-Up Mission (KSUM) signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to foster collaboration between French and Indian innovation ecosystems in the domain of New Space.

The President of the French national space agency (Centre national d'études spatiales - CNES), Jean-Yves Le Gall, and Lim Cheol-Ho, President of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI), in the presence of Agnès Pannier-Runacher, Secretary of State to the Minister of the Economy and Finance, and Fabien Penone, France’s Ambassador to South Korea, opened the third France-Korea Space Forum in Seoul on 17 May 2019.

Kacific has won the award for Best Digital Inclusion at the 2019 Pacific ICT Awards held by the Government of Vanuatu on 17 May.

China has successfully launched a further satellite to augment its Beidou satellite navigation system on 17 May. Beidou-2G8  was launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan Province on a Long March -3C/G2 launch vehicle.

Private Chinese company, LandSpace, has successfully tested an oxygen-methane engine. Called TQ-12, the 80-tonne thrust engine completed the 20-second test and has the third highest thrust level in comparison with the same engine type, in the world.

ZTE Corporation has verified its commitment to the ICT industry against cybersecurity threats by launching its first cybersecurity lab in Nanjing, China.

Representatives of Japan's Hokkaido University recently visited Myanmar to discuss the possibility of building a small Earth observation satellite with counterparts at the Myanmar Aerospace Engineering University, according to an English-language report in the Myanmar press.