0191-9067/83 $3.00 + .00 Copyright ® 1983 SUNSAT Energy Council SPACE RESEARCH IN SMALL COUNTRIES J. ORTNER Austrian Solar and Space Agency A-1090 Wien Garnisongasse 7 Vienna, Austria Austria is a small neutral country (with about 7 million inhabitants) which politically always tries to establish a bridge between the East and the West, as well as between the North and the South. Austria is a healthy country having both a low unemployment and a low inflation rate. Space activities can only be performed on a bilateral and multilateral basis. The Austrian Space Agency funded by the Austrian government was created in 1974 by the initiative of the Federal Ministry for Science and Research. The aims and working programme of ASSA are as follows: • coordination of research and development; • establishment of and maintaining contacts with foreign institutions; • advice to the Austrian government; • processing and distribution of information and data; • training of Austrian experts; • public relations activities. These tasks have to be performed without ASSA-owned research facilities. The main purpose is to promote and foster space research and techology in existing scientific and industrial institutions. ASSA became operational 10 years after the establishment of the European Space Research Organisation (ESRO). Until 1974, the space activities of Austrian industry were very limited or hardly existent. As regards space research, the Institute of Communications and Wave Propagation of the Technical University of Graz has already been very active in near Earth space and communications projects at that time. The political interest in space research was great, and Austrian ambassadors have been chairing the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space since its existence. Furthermore, the intellectual potential has always been high and several Austrian scientists and engineers held top positions in foreign space institutions. As mentioned before, international cooperation is essential for a small country like Austria. ASSA established agreements for collaboration with the space agencies of the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Furthermore, cooperative programmes have been carried out with NASA, ESA, and the USSR. One of the highlights of the cooperation between the Space Research Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, situated in Graz, and the Soviet Academy of Sciences was the launching of Austrian experiments to measure the magnetic fields in interplanetary space by means of Venera 13 and 14.
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