A final decision on whether Taiwan's national flag or any image representing Taiwan may be placed on the launch vehicle, which is operated by the US Air Force, for FORMOSAT-3 satellites will be made early next month, following discussions by officials from Taipei and Washington, the National Science Council said yesterday.
The council's Deputy Minister Shieh Ching-jyh (
"So far, the US has not officially rejected our proposal. After all, having the national flag on launch vehicles is a tradition. Besides, we share 80 percent of the cost of building the rocket and the launch service," Shieh said, quoting Chen's report.
When Taiwan launched its first two satellites, ROCSAT-1 and ROCSAT-2 in 1999 and 2004, the national flag was painted on the commercially operated launch vehicles. For FORMOSAT-3, however, the launch vehicle will be operated by the US Air Force. The launch is scheduled for the end of next month.
Also called COSMIC, for Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere and Climate, the NT$3.3 billion (US$100 million) project is under the supervision of the National Space Organization in Taiwan and the Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) in the US. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) is also supportive of the project because of potential scientific developments in the field of meteorology.
Shieh said that while the US sees the issue as a political one, a final decision will be made prior to the Mission Readiness Review meeting for FORMOSAT-3, which will be held on March 2 in Colorado, where the UCAR headquarters is located.
"If both sides fail to reach an agreement on the issue at the meeting, that means the launch project will not be ready and the launch might be delayed," he said.
Before the meeting, Shieh said that the council will work with diplomatic officials closely to facilitate communication with the US.
"The failure of FORMOSAT-3 might also damage both the UCAR and NSF. That's the last thing we want to see," Shieh said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift