The Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) was established in 1993 in response to the declaration adopted at the Asia Pacific International Space Year Conference (APIC) held in 1992, to enhance the development of each country’s space program and to exchange views toward future cooperation in space activities in the Asia-Pacific region. The APRSAF has held fifteen annual meetings organized jointly by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and co-host organizations of countries participating in the APRSAF, to discuss current space-related issues and possible cooperation among countries mainly in the region. The co-host countries have been Mongolia, Malaysia, the Republic of Korea, the Kingdom of Thailand, Australia, the Republic of Indonesia, India and Vietnam. APRSAF features to promote concrete regional cooperation on space-related matters through open and voluntary participation. To reflect a broad range of views and voices, the APRSAF intends to ensure wider participation of space agencies, government entities, regional and international organizations and institutions responsible for space applications.

While the APRSAF has been an active forum to promote concrete cooperative activities to resolve common problems at the regional level, the APRSAF-16 will be held under the main theme of “Space Applications: Contributions towards Human Safety and Security” with the aim to contribute toward solving problems not only of the Asia-Pacific region but also of the entire world as well as to exploit space technology developed and utilization for sustainable development of countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The sixteenth session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF-16) will be held from 26 to 29 January 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand. The APRSAF-16 will be jointly organized and co-sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of Thailand, the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) of Japan and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The Plenary session will take place in the third and fourth days of the APRSAF-16. In addition to the Plenary session, it is proposed to have parallel sessions of four working groups (WGs): Earth Observation (EO) WG, Communication Satellite Applications (CSA) WG, Space Education and Awareness (SEA) WG and Space Environment Utilization (SEU) WG in the first and second days of the APRSAF-16. The concept paper of each working group will be provided to you in due course.