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Expo 2020 Dubai: UAE, Estonia expand space collaboration

Dubai - Meeting between two sides explores potential for greater collaboration in all space-related fields.

The UAE Space Agency has held high-level bilateral talks with a delegation of senior government and business officials from the Republic of Estonia to accelerate collaboration and the transfer of space-related technologies and services.

Salem Butti Salem Al Qubaisi, Director-General of the UAE Space Agency, met with Kristi Talving, Deputy Secretary-General for Business and Consumer Environment, at Estonia’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications at the Estonia Pavilion.

Taking place on the sidelines of Expo 2020 Dubai’s Space Week, the meeting between the two officials explored the potential for greater collaboration in all space-related fields.

This included opportunities to strengthen ties across science, technology, engineering and mathematics and facilitate new partnerships between the public and private sector to drive economic growth and human progress.

Al Qubaisi said, “Estonia and the UAE have an important bilateral relationship that is taking on a new dimension as we enhance collaboration in all space-related fields. There are great opportunities for enhanced cooperation in areas such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, the fourth industrial revolution, outer space research, satellite production and the expansion of entrepreneurship and private enterprise. Our meeting provided a constructive platform to build on our shared ties as we create a competitive, innovation-driven economy for the next 50 years.”

Estonia and the UAE have enjoyed meteoric success in the space arena in recent years. Estonia, a full member of the European Space Agency since 2015, took a giant leap forward in the industry this year. On January 11, 2021, it was announced that Estonia would provide stereo cameras to Maxar Technologies for NASA’s Artemis lunar programme. The cameras will provide an important part of a major new mission to send humans back to the Moon in 2024 and one day establish a lunar settlement.

The UAE recently announced a new mission to explore Venus and an asteroid belt between Venus and Mars. Scheduled to launch in 2028, the 3.6-billion-kilometre journey into deep space will test the scientific and technical capabilities of the UAE more than ever before and is one of the country’s new Projects of the 50 – a series of economic and development initiatives for social and economic transformation.