Invitation

Dear Principal Investigators (PIs) of all ALOS Data Nodes,

Since Jan. 24 2006, ALOS has been on the orbit for more than 14 months in good condition and monitoring the globe with high resolution optical and microwave daily. Global data acquisition of 3000 scenes daily made ALOS now one of the world important satellites for disaster mitigation, topographic measurement, resource finding, and regional observations.

Four ALOS Data Nodes (ADNs) and one Sub-Node of JAXA, European Space Agency (ESA), Alaska Satellite Facility of University of Alaska Fairbanks (ASF), Geoscience Australia (GA), and Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) fully collaborate and have now functioned as data dissemination body for both scientific and commercial purposes in each responsible area in the world. Activity regarding the Research Announcement (RA), or Announcement of Opportunity (AO), is also defined within the Node framework. Thus, ALOS data are now being handled by PIs of RA/AO and their data analysis are being in progress.

In order to exchange views on the technical and scientific issues on the data, the satellite and the research progresses, we would like to propose the first (for the ADN PIs and third for JAXA PIs) joint international ALOS PI symposium in Kyoto (this is the 1st PI symposium after the ADN establishment), from November 19^th (Monday) to 23^rd (Friday & National holiday), 2007.

Kyoto is the Japanese oldest capital, and it is a very good season to visit Kyoto in this time of the year. And the main hall of the venue is the historical place that the Kyoto Protocol Conference was held. I hope everyone enjoys the stay in Kyoto and the fruitful discussion at the symposium. I am looking forward to seeing you at the symposium.

Truly yours,

Masanobu Shimada
ALOS science project manager
Earth Observation Research Center