Thirty-eight projects on aerospace technology have been approved in Vietnam with a total cost of 236.5 billion VND in the past five years, according to Associate Prof. Dr. Doan Minh Chung from the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST).

Speaking at a conference on September 27 to review the national-level programme on aerospace technology in the 2016-2020 period, Chung, who is head of the programme, said that through the projects, many results and products with high science-technology values and application capability have been produced, greatly contributing to optimising the country’s aerospace technology infrastructure, especially the image data taken by Environment and Disaster monitoring Satellite-1 (VNREDSat-1).

Many products have been applied in reality and transferred to agencies and localities, especially those in the fields of remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS).

Chung highlighted the success of the project of researching, designing and producing the sounding rocket to bring payloads to the space to collect high ozone layer data conducted by the Military Technology Academy from 2018-2020.

In the field of satellite technology, the VAST's Vietnam National Space Centre (VNSC) has successfully produced the NanoDragon under the “Nano-class satellite development, launch and trial operation” project, which was tested in Japan in August and scheduled to be launched in October, Chung noted.

Addressing the conference, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Bui The Duy said that although Vietnam is not among the leading countries space technology, the country has seen positive results in mastering and maintaining the capacity of researching and developing the technology, enabling the country to receive and apply latest technologies in the world to develop its own products.

VAST Vice President Associate Prof. Dr. Chu Hoang Ha said that the academy and the Ministry of Science and Technology are working together in building a coordination programme in the 2021-2025 period, with space technology being an important content.

He expressed his hope that the cooperation will help bring Vietnam’s aerospace science and technology to a new development period./.