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Status Report on the United Nations Basic Space Science Initiative (UNBSSI)

Since 1990, the UN Programme on Space Applications leads the United Nations Basic Space Science Initiative by contributing to the international and regional development of astronomy and space science through annual UN/ESA/NASA/JAXA workshops on basic space science, International Heliophysical Year 2007, and the International Space Weather Initiative. Space weather is the conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere and thermosphere that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems and can endanger human life or health. The programme also coordinates the development of IHY/ISWI low-cost, ground-based, world-wide instrument arrays. To date, 14 world-wide instrument arrays comprising approximately 1000 instruments (GPS receivers, magnetometers, spectrometers, particle detectors) are operating in more than 71 countries. The most recent workshop was hosted by the Republic of Korea in 2009 for Asia and the Pacific. Annual workshops on the ISWI have been scheduled to be hosted by Egypt in 2010 for Western Asia, Nigeria in 2011 for Africa, and Ecuador in 2012 for Latin America and the Caribbean.