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IAC 2015 - Day Three

Reflections on the International Astronautical Congress 2015 in Jerusalem - Wednesday

The International Astronautical Congress in Jerusalem has entered its second half. Despite the increased security risk caused by threats and attacks, the congress continues very calmly. At the CSO booth representatives of several institutions were welcomed and CSO staff visited several booths as well.

In the morning, an apointment with the Dutch representative and director of HEAD Aerospace was arranged. It followed up on yesterday's discussion about launching the database byHEAD.com. HEAD Aerospace is a Chinese company promoting import and export opportunities in the space sector of the Chinese market. It also and operates the engineering section in Shanghai, which develops and builds small satellites. „The meeting mainly concerned the performance of subsystems and instruments developed in the Czech Republic. One of the cooperation possibilities is the placement of small instuments in satellites of HEAD Aerospace or to contract building the whole satellite. Chinese colleagues were intersted in a practical example of compact radiation detector from the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics CTU. Director of the HEAD Aerospace asked CSO to identify suitable Czech workplaces, whose products could be offered through the byHEAD database in the Chinese market. For the first half of 2016, we have also agreed on a visit of representatives of HEAD Aerospace in the Czech Republic. We would like to include the visit of several Czech organizations," said Josef Šobra of CSO.

One of the interesting companies we have visited were Singaporean Astroscale. This young company founded in 2013, has set itself a difficult task. It intents to be the first to capture and manage the extinction of malfunctioning satellites. First plans include the launch satellite IDEA-1 for mapping of the distribution of very small particles of space debris in selected orbits around the Earth. The launch of the IDEA-1 is scheduled fot the next year with the Russian launcher. The ambitious mission will though start in 2017. The Adras-1 satellite will actively locate the target and synchronizes its orbit, including compensation of otation. Subsequently a small subsatellite will by launched. It will attache to the identified object and lead it to Earth's atmosphere using its thursters using solid propellants," Michal Václavík explained plans of Astroacale. CSO booth had another interesting visit. It was the University of Tel Aviv that expressed the interest in the detector Satram developed IEAP CTU.

Director of the CSO, Jan Kolář, attended a seminar with representatives of space agencies and organisations to discuss their future plans. The Russian state corporation Roskosmos has, in addition to continuing cooperation on the perfrmance and exploitation of the ISS, the plans for mission to the Moon, which had became a priority for the Russian space for the next 10 to 15 years. The Moon research is also actractive to other countries, e.g. for China and India. Roskosmos also have more distant plans for research on Mars, but without human crew. However, Roskosmos admits that the journey to the Moon will be a training for more distant flights. Director of NASA, Charles Bolden, stressed the mission to Mars as the main priority of the United States. Also, he saw an option in American international cooperation in the construction of lunar base. The representatives of space organizations emphasized the importance of international cooperation. It turns out, however, that the most serious problem will be, in addition to scheduling a unified concept and method of implementing missions to Mars and the Moon, consolidation of scientists, industry and the PR to present the program to the public, and especially  to politicians, to get their necessary support," said Director of CSO.

Michal Kuneš of CSO attended the meeting KMCT committee of knowledge management. Committee members represented the major global agencies like NASA, JAXA, ESA, DLR and CNES and discussed their activities to share their knowledge. Recent days, Michal Kuneš has also attended meetings of other IAF committees. "I participated the IPMC committee on project management in space sector. Thanks to membership in this committee, the CSO sent twice a year project managers from the Czech Republic to NASA to attend the course of international project management. Meetings of two other committees,  I attended, concerned student activities and the activities of young professionals," explained briefly Michal Kuneš. CSO's involvement in the IAF committees is very important, because it allows the constant contact with other organizations. Also, the CSO also introduced an interactive presentation on supporting project management in the space in the Czech Republic.

Michal Kuneš is involved in the activities of the Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC). At Wednesday's working meeting it was agreed to organize a workshop in Budapest in mid-February 2016. The workshop will be the first European regional workshop of SGAC. In other regions, these workshops have already taken place, but has never been organised in Europe yet. The day was ended by a reception for students and young professionals, which was a great opportunity to make new contacts and get to know interesting people of World, such as Buzz Aldrin. „At the reception, I discussed possible international cooperation between Czech Space Network and similar foreign and international organizations. Furthermore, we talked about experiences in establishing national networks or groups of students and young professionals," Michal Kuneš summed up the benefits of this social event.