Austria

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the General Assembly in 1959. Since its establishment, the Committee's membership has continued to expand. The Committee is the only committee of the General Assembly dealing exclusively with international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, and its role as a forum to monitor and discuss developments related to the exploration and use of outer space has evolved alongside with the technical advancements in space exploration, geopolitical changes, and the evolving use of space science and technology for sustainable development.

The overall mandate of the Committee and its two Subcommittees aims at strengthening the international legal regime governing outer space, resulting in improved conditions for expanding international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space. The mandate also specifies that the Committee should supports efforts at the national, regional and global levels,…

The International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) is an international organisation created with the aim to promote international collaboration and knowledge exchange on the domain of Digital Earth. To achieve this goal, ISDE regularly convenes international symposia that bring together world-class scientists, engineers and educators engaged in the fields of digital earth, earth observation, geo-informatics and relevant applications. The theme of the 12th Symposium on Digital Earth (ISDE12) is "Digital Earth for Sustainable Societies". ISDE12 will aim to support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by harnessing the world’s data and information resources to digitally represent our planet, and to monitor, measure and forecast natural and human activities on Earth.

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the General Assembly in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security and development. The Committee was tasked with reviewing international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, studying space-related activities that could be undertaken by the United Nations, encouraging space research programmes, and studying legal problems arising from the exploration of outer space.

The Committee meets annually in Vienna, Austria, to discuss questions relating to current and future activities in space. Some topics for discussion include maintaining outer space for peaceful purposes, safe operations in orbit, space debris, space weather, the threat from asteroids, the safe use of nuclear power in outer space, climate change, water management, global navigation satellite systems, and questions concerning…