The National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) and the Joint Project Team for Sentinel Asia Step-3 (JPT-3) signed a Cooperation Agreement in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on 25 January 2019. The purpose of this Cooperation Agreement is to set forth the contributions of NARLabs to Sentinel Asia concerning Sentinel Asia regional cloud servers.
From the beginning, NARLabs has been one of the most active contributors of Sentinel Asia, in particular, through its “Formosat series satellites” and has provided Fomosat series’ data to Sentinel Asia in response to more than 80 emergency observation requests. At the Joint Project Team Meeting (JPTM), held in Awaji, Japan on 1 and 2 November 2018, NARLabs showed its willingness to further commit itself to Sentinel Asia, by offering to provide Sentinel Asia with the cloud server resources for the next Sentinel Asia System, through cooperation with its partner, Academia Sinica. JPTM welcomed the offer with appreciation and recommended that the Sentinel Asia Secretariat enter into a specific agreement with NARLabs for and on behalf of all JPT-3 members in order to realize the offered contribution.
The signing event coincided with the workshop on small satellites hosted by the National Space Organization (NSPO) of NARLabs, in Hsinchu, Taiwan. The Cooperation Agreement was signed by and between Dr. Chun-Liang Lin, Director General of NSPO, and Dr. Shirou Kawakita, acting Executive Secretary of the Sentinel Asia Secretariat. From now on, technical and administrative matters under this Cooperation Agreement will be conducted jointly by NSPO and the Sentinel Asia Secretariat.
Sentinel Asia has evolved stepwise from the pilot project phase into the current operational phase, “Step-3”, and at this Step-3 phase, Sentinel Asia aims at “joint implementation”, in which each member of JPT-3 is recommended to share its resources in order to achieve more effective and sustainable operation. This contribution by NARLabs is a perfect match with the ideal of Step-3 and is expected to be a model case.
