United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs

United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs
United Nations Office at Vienna, location of UNOOSA since 1993
Abbreviation	UNOOSA
Formation	1962
Type	Office of the Secretariat
Legal status	Active
Head	Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of the Office for Outer Space Affairs
Website	www.unoosa.org

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is a part of the United Nations Secretariat, located at the United Nations Office in Vienna. In March 2014, the Secretary-General appointed Simonetta Di Pippo (Italy) as the new Director of the Office.

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs was initially created as a small expert unit within the United Nations Secretariat in New York to assist the ad hoc Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space established by the General Assembly in its resolution 1348 (XIII) of 13 December 1958. It became a unit within the Department of Political and Security Council Affairs in 1962, when the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space met for the first time, and was transformed into the Outer Space Affairs Division of that Department in 1968. In 1992, the Division was transformed into the Office for Outer Space Affairs within the Department for Political Affairs and was relocated to the United Nations Office at Vienna in 1993.

The Office implements the decisions of the United Nations General Assembly and of the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. The office has the dual objective of supporting the intergovernmental discussions in the Committee and its Scientific and Technical Subcommittee and Legal Subcommittee, and of assisting developing countries in using space technology for development.

The mandate was several times adjusted allowing the Office, among other tasks, the coordination of the inter-agency cooperation within the United Nations on the use of space technology - UN-Space (resolution 3234 (XXIX)), implementing the United Nations Programme on Space Applications (resolution 2601A (XXIV)) and the UN-SPIDER Programme for disaster risk management and emergency response (resolution 61/110).

In addition the Office is maintaining coordination and cooperation with space agencies and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations involved in space-related activities and on behalf of the United Nations Secretary-General, the Register of Objects Launched into Outer Space. The office has also been helping poor nations suffering from climate change related problems by helping them access satellite images for free.