What is UNBSS ?
The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, through the IHY secretariat and the United Nations Basic Space Science Initiative (UNBSSI) is assisting scientists and engineers from all over the world in participating in the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007. A major thrust of the IHY/UNBSSI program is to deploy arrays of small, inexpensive instruments such as magnetometers, radio telescopes, GPS receivers, etc. around the world to provide global measurements of ionospheric and heliospheric phenomena. The small instrument program is a partnership between instrument providers, and instrument hosts in developing countries. The lead scientist will provide the instruments (or fabrication plans for instruments) in the array; the host country will provide manpower, facilities, and operational support to obtain data with the instrument typically at a local university. Existing data bases and relevant software tools can be identified to promote space science activities in developing countries. Extensive data on space science have been accumulated by a number of space missions. Similarly, long-term data bases are available from ground based observations. These data can be utilized in ways different from originally intended for understanding the heliophysical processes.
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