Short Bytes: The United Nations has decided to dedicate a global satellite for earth observation and disaster risk reduction — UN Kalam GlobalSat — proposed under the UN framework to the late president of India Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam as a tribute.
The UN-led UN Kalam GlobalSat is intended to provide a common platform that will allow sharing of space and data segments, with an ability to serve individual nation’s disaster management and development needs.
In an interview, Mr.Milind Pimprikar, Chairman of CANEUS (CANada-Europe-US-ASia) Organization on Space Technologies for Societal Applications, said that the goals of UN GlobatSat are the same as those of Kalam. In his ‘World Space Vision-2050’ Mr. Kalam had envisioned space faring nations coming together to combat issues like natural disasters, energy and water scarcity, health-care, education and weather prediction.
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Mr. Pimprikar hoped the renaming will inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers and space explorers to foster innovation and entrepreneurship and pooling of resources to find low-cost solutions to major problems facing mankind. This recommendation will be formally adopted at the UN session in New York that will be attended by more than 150 nations including India.
“Respecting India’s leadership, other nations from across the globe will support it wholeheartedly to seek formal UN endorsement of ‘UN Kalam GlobalSat’,” he said.
The eventual goal of UN Kalam GlobalSat, he said, “is to establish a public/private partnership that would create a low-cost, internationally shared data collection and distribution backbone in space with no barriers to entry for participating nations.”
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