Talks Between Japan and Norway

Japan and Norway signed a Letter of Intent in 2007 with the aim to increase the use of sounding rockets in atmospheric studies, and two important projects have been conducted since then:

• The Norwegian sounding rocket ICI-2 launched in 2008 with japanese guest instruments onboard
• The Japanese Delta-2 sounding rocket launched from Andøya in 2009

The bilateral conference talked about future missions such as Delta-3 and ICI-3, and the fact that scientists now are seeing a closer connection between traditional meteorology and middle and upper atmosphere research.

- Meteorologists depend more and more on data from the upper atmosphere to produce more accurate long term forecasts for the weather, says professor Patrick Espy from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Space Weather
The scientists also wants to gear up the activity around the expected solar maximum in 2012/2013. Space weather effects is also important to understand for the new European satellite navigation project, Galileo.

Norway is heavily involved with Galileo, and part of the ICI-project is to investigate how space weather processes influence the satellite navigation signals. The Japanese Delta-3 is planned for launch in 2012/2013.

Contact

Mr Kolbjørn Dahle, Head of Marketing Dept, ARR.