KARACHI, April 19: The Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) Chairman Lt Gen Raza Hussain on Monday said Pakistan will have two communication and weather satellites in space within next four to five years , which will be a source of inspiration for the other Islamic counties.
"Suparco is performing an admirable job in fulfilling the goals and objectives of a peaceful and comprehensive space program, both at national and international levels," he said, while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of a training course on "Applications of Satellite Remote Sensing Technology and Geographic Information system," at Dr A.Q Khan Institute of Behavioural Sciences (IBS) here.
The course is being organized jointly by the Inter-Islamic Network on Space Sciences and Technology (ISNET) and Suparco, from April 19 to 30, and participants from OIC-member countries, including Bangladesh, Iran, Malaysia, Mozambique, Sudan and Syria, are expected to attend the course.
Let Gen Hussain, while welcoming the OIC participants, expressed the hope that Suparco would be contributing more to development efforts by sharing knowledge and experience with other Islamic countries.
He was optimistic that the trainees would learn a lot during the course and return to their countries with an enhanced vision and experience with regard to applications of the Remote Sensing GIS technologies.
"I'm confident that technical sessions coupled with workshops at this training course would be very beneficial for participants from OIC member countries in providing them hands-on experience in using these vital technologies for the better management of their resources," he added.
He was of the views that the endeavours being made under the ISNET were a manifestation of the increasing realization among the Muslim countries to achieve collective capability and self-reliance in major areas of space sciences and technology.
Earlier, ISNET Executive Director Muhammad Nasim Shah, in his speech, highlighting the importance of the Satellite Remote Sensing (SRS) technology, said it offered an innovative means of surveying, mapping and monitoring natural resources and it had evolved as the most potent information source, particularly for the time-critical applications.
While the Geographic Information System (GIS) was designed to work with the data referenced by spatial or geographic coordinators, he said, adding that in other words, GIS was both a database system with specific capabilities for spatially referenced data as well as a set of operations for working with data.
He maintained that the ISNET was making efforts for organizing short as well as long-term training courses for the benefit of scientists, engineers, policy and decision-makers from OIC-member countries and for the development of skilled manpower in Islamic countries.
"Objectives of this course are to create quality manpower in Islamic countries in applications of SRS and GIS technologies in various fields, including agriculture, water resources, geology, land use and cover, forestry, snow cover and related river sun-off, flood monitoring, land degradation, coastal zone studies and natural hazards and monitoring," he said, adding that the SRS data was being used quite effectively in these areas all over the world.
Later, head of the SRS Applications Division of Suparco, Jawed Ali, introduced the participants to Suparco chairman. -PPI