Day 5 (11 March 2016) in Taipei, Taiwan

Today is the last day of the conference, and as usual my jetlag still alive and I woke up at 3:15am. The morning joint session talks were so nice, followed by round table discussion before the conference officially adjourned just before lunch. 
At 1230pm, the bus were outside, waiting for those of US who would like to visit the NSPO of Taiwan. This is the place where they built all the satellites the country has launched so far, FORMOSAT 1, FORMOSAT 2, FORMOSAT 3 (six of them). Currently the country is preparing two other missions; FORMOSAT 5 ready to be launched in June this year, and FORMOSAT 7 (twelve of them) to be launched in early 2017. During our visit we saw the engineers were busy working on FORMOSAT 7 satellites. We also had a chance to see their mission control room, the place where they track their satellites. It is very fascinating to see how the country really advanced in building technologies. We also see their animation room, mainly for public outreach purpose but also tell how the country has developed in producing such hightec equipments.

The first satellite (FORMOSAT 1) the country had developed and launched it in 1999!

Heading to International Space Station :)

 

Part of the group who visited the site with me!

Humm! see how global warming is real!

Part of the country outside Taipei!

Finally we drove back to our hotel. It is about excess of an hour drive. This actually gave me a chance to look at the country's structure outside Taipei, which I would say is well developed but highly populated. According to Wikipedia Taiwan is one of the most populated country in the world, i.e., 649 people per square km.
My Friday in Taipei concluded by having dinner with group of people from UCAR, Australia, Poland, and Taiwan. The Taiwan guy was the supper star of the night.