Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the United Nations Workplace for Outer House Affairs (UNOOSA), speaks in an unique interview with Xinhua at Vienna Worldwide Centre in Vienna, Austria, on April 16, 2024. (Xinhua/He Canling)
VIENNA, April 18 (Xinhua) — Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the United Nations Workplace for Outer House Affairs (UNOOSA), has hailed China’s achievements in area exploration and its shut cooperation together with her workplace in leveraging area applied sciences to profit all humankind.
Holla-Maini made the remarks in a latest unique interview with Xinhua earlier than she heads to China later this week to attend a sequence of area occasions.
“China has at all times been on my radar,” Holla-Maini stated. An area knowledgeable with over 25 years {of professional} expertise, she described China as a “well-respected spacefaring nation, all the best way from its launcher and its satellite tv for pc navigation system to newer developments” equivalent to its lunar exploration challenge and its personal area station.
China’s Tiangong area station, whose building was accomplished in 2022, has entered the appliance and improvement stage, with varied scientific experiments carried out by astronauts on board. The experiments embody the worldwide cooperation tasks collectively chosen by UNOOSA and the China Manned House Company in 2019.
In accordance with the China Nationwide House Administration, China is presently implementing the fourth section of its lunar exploration program, with the principle goal of build up the essential mannequin of the Worldwide Lunar Analysis Station. As a part of the fourth section, the Chang’e-6 lunar probe is scheduled for launch within the first half of this yr to gather samples from the far facet of the moon.
“That is why it is crucial that I be taught extra about it (China),” she stated, including that she appears ahead to collaborating within the occasions marking the upcoming House Day of China on April 24, when the primary China-Latin America and the Caribbean House Cooperation Discussion board will likely be held within the central Chinese language metropolis of Wuhan.
She stated she expects to interact with Chinese language area officers and consultants in her first-ever go to to China to additional improve her workplace’s partnership with the Chinese language area neighborhood.
Within the interview, the UN area chief spoke extremely of UNOOSA’s “robust collaboration” with China in constructing capability, decreasing catastrophe threat, fostering worldwide area cooperation and serving to all nations, particularly the growing ones, acquire entry to area.
Holla-Maini famous that China is house to the Regional Heart for House Science and Know-how Schooling in Asia and the Pacific. The UNOOSA-affiliated regional training and analysis establishment will have a good time its tenth anniversary later this yr.
China additionally hosts an workplace of the UN-SPIDER, a program geared toward facilitating the usage of area know-how for catastrophe administration and emergency response, significantly for the growing nations, she added.
Wanting ahead, she stated she hopes China’s area station and its deliberate lunar analysis station will contribute to worldwide area exploration and analysis, which “will likely be in the end shared with all people for the good thing about humankind.”
Holla-Maini additionally expressed hope to deepen cooperation with China in guaranteeing entry to area information for local weather change mitigation and sustainable improvement, significantly for nations within the World South.
The UN area chief instructed Xinhua that she “welcomes” the China-proposed World Safety Initiative and World Growth Initiative, as she sees the 2 initiatives as “an essential contribution” to advancing the achievement of the UN Sustainable Growth Objectives.
In June 2023, Holla-Maini took the helm at UNOOSA, a UN company devoted to selling worldwide cooperation within the peaceable use and exploration of area. ■
A mannequin of China’s lunar rover Yutu is pictured at Vienna Worldwide Centre in Vienna, Austria, on April 16, 2024. (Xinhua/He Canling)
