The International Symposium for Applications of "Kizuna" of Wideband InterNetworking engineering test and Demonstration Satellite (WINDS) was held on December 4 (Tuesday), 2007 at Meiji Kinenkan in Tokyo.

There were 6 Addresses, including "ICT based e-health and disaster mitigation management system" by Professor Utoro Sastrokusumo (School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Institut Technologi Banding (ITB), Indonesia), and 5 Speeches. Shigeo Yoden (Kyoto University) participated in the Panel discussion "WINDS Application Experiments Now Needed in the Asia Pacific Region" as one of 6 panelists, and presented our international research activity, "An experimental down-scale numerical weather predictions in Southeast Asia with the aid of WINDS".

The "Kizuna" is a communications satellite that enables super high-speed data communications of up to 1.2 Gbps to develop a society without any information availability disparity, in which everybody can equally enjoy high-speed communications wherever they live ( http://www.jaxa.jp/countdown/f14/index_e.html ). The "Kizuna" was launched at 5:55 p.m. on February 23, 2008 (JST) successfully with H-IIA F14 from the Tanegashima Space Center. The multi-beam antennas had been successfully deployed at 8:35 p.m. on March 1 (JST) and the critical operation phase was completed. The "Kizuna" will further drift into the geostationary orbit at about 143 degrees east longitude in March. The initial functional verification of the onboard equipment will be done for about four months.

Our proposal for test use of the "Kizuna" has been accepted to transfer ensemble forecast data and adaptive observation data for downscale numerical weather predictions. We hope we can also use the "Kizuna" for teleconference between Kyoto University and ITB in the second International Workshop on Prevention and Mitigation of Meteorological Disasters in Southeast Asia, which will be held in March, 2009 in Bandung, Indonesia.

• Symposium leaflet [pdf]
• Symposium program [pdf]

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