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Advances in Space Research 34 (2004) 2190–2193

Promoting north–south partnership in Spaceresearch and applications

Daniel Hernandez *

DPI, CNES, 18 Avenue E. Belin, 31401 Toulouse Cedex 9, France

Received 6 January 2003; received in revised form 12 June 2003; accepted 21 July 2003

Abstract

Space has the potential to help the economical development of regions or countries through its capacity to serve at a time very

wide areas without expensive and long to install ground equipments. Space is also offering a possible shortcut to scientists wishing to

develop first plan scientific expertise and certainly Space is also a very useful tool for countries desiring to modify their image in the

world and in their citizens spirit, and willing to participate in global enterprises. Several countries in the world possess today a strong

expertise in Space technology and have agreements with other countries to help them in accessing to or improving their know-how in

Space techniques; most space countries are open to cooperation of various types at the level of governments or individuals. We

describe a number of possible cooperation tools or programs and some of the benefits countries will find in developing their Space

activities in cooperation or in sharing their knowledge with less advanced ones.

� 2004 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Space technology; Cooperative space research and applications; International space programmes

1. Introduction

It is fascinating to observe that Space has been, sinceits very beginning, both a field for competition and, at

the same time, a field for cooperation. In Appendix A, a

list of major events that have marked the first paces of

Space in the world shows both aspects of the activity.

Competition among the nations, and among the sci-

entific laboratories, among the industrial companies, has

been driving the race. Remember, for instance, the

Russian and American race for the first satellite, forthe first man in orbit, for the first on the moon,. . . or thecompetition between the European launcher ARIANE

and its American competitors such as the Space Shuttle

or the expendable launchers, to capture the commercial

market.

Today the basis for decision of a mission or an R&D

activity is a call for proposal, then a selection of the best

proposals, i.e., another competition.

* Tel.: +33-561-27-4017; fax: +33-561-28-3084.

E-mail address: daniel.hernandez@cnes.fr (D. Hernandez).

0273-1177/$30 � 2004 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reser

doi:10.1016/j.asr.2003.07.0570273-1177/$30 � 2004 COSPAR. Published by

But consider at the same time that the same countries

or organisms competing are with great pleasure and

success developing programs together. The internationalprogram for Search and Rescue ‘‘Cospas-Sarsat’’, the

Astronomy and Planetology programs or the Earth

sciences satellites, the programs for Man in Space and

the necessary infrastructure on the ground and in or-

bit,. . . and many more activities have developed because

of, or thanks to, the international cooperation. Today

one has difficulties to imagine what would be Space if it

were not done through both competition and coopera-tion. Do you think the programs would be the same and

at the same level of funding? Do you think ISS would

have been done with similar ambition, performance and

timing?

But, of course, one can imagine improvement in this

international competition/cooperation which certainly

has a certain degree of non useful duplication, for in-

stance, in the overall capacity in GEO launch or satellitesupply. At the same time, we globally are lacking a

number of technologies and infrastructure such as, for

instance, additional deep space ground stations for

ved.

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D. Hernandez / Advances in Space Research 34 (2004) 2190–2193 2191

astronomy or additional space systems to help disaster

monitoring and prevention.

2. Utilization of space systems for development of services

Satellites systems have for long proved to be able to

offer invaluable services in various fields, such as:

• Telecommunications for telephony, data collection

and distribution (for instance, Internet or distance

monitoring and control), distance activities (learning,

medicine, work, etc.).

• Television broadcast.

• Meteorology.• Navigation.

• Earth remote sensing for cartography, vegetation and

crop monitoring, seas surveillance, fishing activities,

etc.

• Search and rescue.

• Tracking of goods and animals, etc.

It should be noted that satellites systems have the

enormous advantage over alternate solutions mostlybased on ground infrastructure, i.e., the fact they offer

services over vast areas (regions, countries, etc.) indi-

stinctively of the population density, its educational le-

vel, its richness. For instance, it has been considered

impossible to cover the whole France with television

when HF relays on top of mountains were the only so-

lution (or at least it is still considered not economically

feasible to offer a large choice of channels). With satel-lites reception possible in every place under the sun (if

you can see the sun at noon on the equinoxes, you can

see the geostationary orbit and most probably receive

geostationary satellites), you have access, normally, to a

number of services such as TV reception, meteorology

images, etc.

Many countries in the world have been able to

develop, in a small number of years, telecom, television,or other services over their whole territories. INSAT

(India), ANIK (Canada), Arabsat, Brasilsat, just to

mention several examples, have been able to offer to

widely spread territories, distance learning, medical as-

sistance, telephony or television. No doubt that this has

contributed to the development of remote area that it

would otherwise have been difficult to connect to ser-

vices. It has, therefore, been possible to improve theequal treatment of populations, question that is often of

importance to governments as it makes people feel

united in the same country and as it helps in the devel-

opment of these remote areas.

Another example, in another domain, of satellites

application is the mapping of countries: the availability

of accurate maps is often possible in remote areas only

through the use of satellites, other means such as air-planes or terrain measurements are sometimes too long

and too expensive to cover such places.

With space techniques, it is then possible to rapidly

transform a country by means of new services offered

to the maximum number of inhabitants on non-

discriminatory basis.

3. Utilization of space technology to boost technological

development

Space is making use of advanced technology but not

necessarily the most advanced ones, because Space re-

mains a place where the quantities of items produced are

small if not only produced as prototypes. It is, therefore,

possible to establish synergies between the Space do-main and other domains such as for instance consumer

products, electronic or aeronautic. The image of Space

remains good among the younger generations and it is

not too difficult to attract the bests for development of

the Space activity if a clear political will and vision exists

offering as a consequence good perspectives for a sus-

tainable development of Space.

In many countries, where an important Space activityhas developed, it has attracted brains and investments.

However, it has generally been done with strong help of

governments like subsidies to the activity and/or special

advantages, in general tax reductions.

One of the best solutions noted for developing

space programs has been to start the activity with

scientific programs: Universities and scientific labora-

tories develop programs in cooperation with exchangeof students and teachers and progressively build an

expertise. If at the beginning it is essentially paper

studies and processing of data, it soon can become

realization of additional experiments (for instance,

local measurements of the atmosphere composition

complementing the satellites measurements), then

participation to design and development of satellite

payloads.It may not be the will of every country to be able to

access by its own means to the orbit or to build space-

craft, but being able to participate in international

programs, for instance through processing of data for a

local need, could be very valuable. In addition, it may

develop an expertise in a dedicated field that can be later

offered to other regions.

4. Utilization of space technology for development of

international relationship

No doubt that at some period of time Space, like the

Olympic games, has been a vector for development of

international relations between the countries. During

the cold war period, for instance Space cooperation wasnot stopped between East and West and years ago I had

the pleasure to chair the Cospas-Sarsat board and on

2192 D. Hernandez / Advances in Space Research 34 (2004) 2190–2193

that occasion to have both Beijing and Taipei repre-

sentatives at the same table. It was, I think, the first

international organization, after Olympic games, to

have that accepted.

Better knowledge between ourselves allows decreas-

ing the fear of the other; things done with success incommon develop the proudness of having overcome

difficulties. The example, in Europe, of cooperation in

Space, and in some other fields, has certainly played a

role and contributed positively in the setting up of the

European Union.

5. North–south cooperation: a win–win situation

Of course in international relationship there are

disinterested aspects but even if this is not always the

case, in Space there is a benefit for both parties to

cooperate.

5.1. Possible benefits for developed countries

Note. Developed countries or countries in develop-

ment mean in this text countries that have already or

that are willing to have an important Space program.

Through cooperation with new comers to Space, a

number of positive points are noted for developed

countries, such as:

• Access to new brains, new ways of thinking, new cul-

ture. One of the difficulties, for long established activ-ities, is the possibility of renewing them. After

sometime, habits install – good and bad – and some

ideas are accepted for granted and some other admit-

ted as wrong for ever, some lobbies are driving the ac-

tion . . . and it becomes necessary to inject new blood,

i.e., new ways of thinking, new people, with less pre-

conceptions. ‘‘L’ennui naquit un jour de l’unifor-

mit�e’’ said de la Motte-Houdar, a french writer. Bythe same principle, working with always the same in-

dustrial suppliers, the same scientists, etc. leads to a

similar solution.

• Development of new ‘‘markets’’. Clearly, development

of Space in other countries (or domains) opens new

opportunities for developed countries.

• Improved projects. With the possibility of having

complementary contributions to projects decided bythe developed countries, it makes possible to improve

these projects. Sometimes, the project also requires

installations or measurements in other places than

within the limits of the borders of one country. For

instance, in studying the monsoon in the Indian

Ocean, it has been very useful, if not necessary, to

launch balloons, to moor buoys, to fly airplanes,

etc. from various places around the Indian Ocean.• Political benefits. The cooperation in Space may lead

to better political links between the countries and

further to other cooperation or at least improved re-

lationships and better understanding each other on

topics far from Space.

5.2. Possible benefits for countries developing space

A number of benefits are possible and among others

one could mention:

• Access to transfer of knowledge and technology Par-

ticipation in a project means sharing numbers of

information, documents and data. It also means re-

ceiving advice or assistance from the various partici-

pating parties in the project. This knowledge is thenusable for other projects.

• Access to scientific data and through that access to

original analysis and results of interest to the country,

the region or the whole space community.

• Access to means (resources) not available in the coun-

try.

• Possibility of programs development that would have

been impossible to develop alone, for instance, be-cause of their costs. Two examples of this:

� ISS is available to all members; few of them would

have been able to afford ISS but were able to partic-

ipate.

� Constellations. Satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO)

are visible from a given point on the Earth surface

only 10 min per pass and for a limited number of

passes per day (less than 10 in general). The restof the time the satellite is visible from other points

on Earth. Therefore, it seems reasonable to estab-

lish cooperation through which many ground sta-

tions have access to the satellites when visible. It

seems also valuable to join forces and resources

to develop a constellation to increase the overall

duration of visibility and thus use of satellites. This

is the idea behind, for instance, the Disaster Man-agement Constellation (DMC) developed by SSTL

(UK) and its partners or the ‘‘ITEM: Flying to-

gether’’ project proposed by CNES.

6. Possible cooperation actions

Many developed countries are open to cooperationwith other countries. Many actions are possible such

as:

• Organization, in the country in development (CID),

of course on Space technology.

• Possibility for students from CID to go to developed

countries to receive specialized formation.

• Integration of engineers or scientists from CID in

projects teams.• Access for CID to data provided by satellites.

• Participation in kind for CID in Space projects.

D. Hernandez / Advances in Space Research 34 (2004) 2190–2193 2193

• Embarkment of scientific or technological experi-

ments on satellites or launchers of developed

countries.

• Assistance to CID in their project.

• Possibility for members of CID to attend meetings,workshops, conferences in developed countries, for

instance workshop of agencies to decide on future

programs, etc.

Many more possibilities exist and only availability of

funds limits the development of cooperation, not the

lack of will or the opportunities.

4th October 1957 Launch by USSR of the first a

31st January 1958 launch by USA of the first Am

12th April 1961 First man in orbit – Yuri Gar

20th February 1962 First American in orbit – John

19th March 1962 Signature of agreement establi

14th June 1962 Signature of agreement establi18th February 1963 Cooperation agreement betwee

19th August 1964 Agreement creating Intelsat

20th August 1964 First geostationary satellite – S

18th March 1965 1st extravehicular activity – A

30th June 1966 Cooperation agreement betwee

6th June 1967 Agreement between Germany

20th July 1969 Neil Armstrong and Edwin Al

7. Conclusion

Maybe because from orbit one cannot see that the

borders, Space has been, from the beginning, a privi-

leged domain for international cooperation.Space is also a ground for competition and demon-

stration of know-how is one way of competing.

Space is also an excellent means for countries in de-

velopment to make quick steps in developing services

and technology, in modernizing their image and in

establishing solid relations with other countries.

Appendix A. Some key dates in development of space

rtificial satellite – Sputnik 1

erican satellite – Explorer 1

agin

Glenn

shing ELDO

shing ESROn USA and France for FRl development and launch

yncom 3

lexis Leonov

n USSR and France

and France for Symphonie satellites

drin on the moon