 Welcome to the World Radio Communication Conference 2023, WRC 23 being held in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Well, I've got the great pleasure of being joining the studio today. I'm Miss Artie Holler-Mainey, who is the director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, or UN-USA. Artie, welcome to the studio. Thank you for having me again, Max. Well, it's my pleasure. And this time as director of UN-USA, and as I say, the Office of Outer Space Affairs, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about what USA does. Sure, I'd be happy to. So the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs is the part of the United Nations secretariat with a dedicated mandate solely on space. And our task is twofold. On the one hand, we act as the secretariat for COPUS, which is the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space. And COPUS has been the birthplace for all of the treaties, principles, guidelines and resolutions, which today underpin the space economy as we know it. But we also are responsible for capacity building within the member states. So we are the United Nations custodians of space for the SDGs, if you will. And that's an area where member states have very high expectations on us now. So let me ask you, Artie, why is it important for UN-USA to be here at the World Radio Communication Conference? And what are the spectrum areas that USA would like WRC to address? And how will they impact your work? Yes, Max, to the extent that we care about all things space and satellite, we also care very much about some of the deliberations that are going on at the World Radio Conference right now. One of the areas that particularly concern our work is the deliberations on the 10 GHz SAR band, which may potentially become available for IMT5G services. This band is really important for disaster risk reduction and it goes directly to our work in the field of providing satellite imagery for disasters and emergency response. We have an initiative called UN Spyder, which does precisely this. We use that kind of imagery and we work with UN member states to ensure that they can have access to it and that they know how to use it when they need it. Now, using radar satellites is nothing new, but what is special about this band is that it enables high-resolution imagery and it was in fact, thanks to a WRC decision in 2015, that we're able to have imagery which is high-resolution using this band. That decision decided to allocate 600 extra MHz of capacity to the band so that now we have 1200 MHz and that enables high-res. Now, why is high-resolution important? I mean, we hear these words thrown around. It doesn't necessarily mean something, but let me give you an example. When we look at Earth from space, you can see everything. You can see the weather. You can see when countries end. You can see borders and so on. And when it comes to climate change, something we're discussing just down the road at COP right now, you can see, for example, the shrinking of lakes. Take Lake Chad in Africa. Over the years, it has consistently decreased and decreased and decreased. That you can see with, you don't need high-resolution imagery for that. But you cannot see the single road which has been deforested in order to drive deforestation equipment into the forest before they start deforestation at mass. So that is the kind of application which is enabled by high-resolution imagery. And by having access to this, we empower member states to take real climate action. So that is a deliberation which is happening here. We believe it's very important to remain consistent. As I said, it was the decision of WRC-15 supported heavily by the World Meteorological Organization, WMO, a partner of both USA and ITU, which enabled that decision. And we really don't want that decision to be reversed because we won't be able to carry out the mandate that we have within USA. But it also goes directly to so many of the sustainable development goals, whether it's biodiversity protection, deforestation, reforestation, precision agriculture. I mean, you can actually see with high-resolution imagery when a blade of grass is at its three-shoot stage, which is when it is the most optimum in terms of feed and nutrition and so on. So that's really to drive home the importance of the decisions here. Of course, delegates have been working in a technical context for the last four years, but it's important to us that through the conversations with you and other means that they understand that the decisions they take will have real-world consequences and will affect the sustainable development goals. Well, you talked about partnerships there. Let's talk a little bit about the collaboration and cooperation between USA and ITU in view of the radio communication assembly's new resolution on space sustainability, which aims to facilitate long-term sustainable use of radiofrequency spectrum and associated satellite orbit resources used by space services. Let me just take one step back before we answer that question, leading off of what we just said about sustainable development goals and the data and all of that. I think, of course, the cooperation on the sustainability side is fundamental. We will talk about that, but it's also important to us that the right hand and the left hand of one organization know what they're doing. So right now we have ITUR, which is taking this vital decision on a high-resolution imagery, for example, but we have ITUD, which clears very much with its work and its mandate about the sustainable development goals, including the role of space in delivering on them. So I think part of our collaboration will be to work together to ensure that the delegates who participate in the ITUD study groups and meetings are really well informed. I know you will have a great cooperation already with Jisua where I was before, but that's only about the satellite communications, where USA can come in and support, and this is, I think, a great avenue also for collaboration is to provide the broader insights on the other areas of space and how they deliver on the sustainable development goals. But coming to your question on the resolution of the RA, we really welcome this. I think the RA resolution did a few different things. One, it raised very welcome awareness on an issue which is long-pending and needs to be addressed, and you can never talk about these issues enough. So it really raised awareness on that. I think it helped bring some clarity, which was much needed on the role of different entities and show where are the dividing lines, but also it really highlighted the need for cooperation and alignment. And let's discuss why. So the ITU convenes the national telecoms regulators. UN, USA, through COPUAS, convenes the space agencies and other space experts, which sit either in foreign ministries or ministries of science and education or in the permanent missions and so on. But they don't necessarily talk to each other, right? So that's where we're going here. Now, ITUR cares very much about space sustainability in that it needs to ensure the rational, the efficient, the economical use of spectrum, but avoid also harmful interference between systems, the risk of which is increasing manyfold with all of the hundreds and thousands of satellites that are being launched and are set to be launched in the future. Telecoms regulators have been consulting in recent years with the broader ecosystem. They want to know how should they license non-geostationary satellite services within their territories in order to manage the risks which are associated with space sustainability. So they want to regulate, but they don't necessarily know what the rules are that they should put in place. And it's precisely those areas, those rules, where the COPUAS delegates have been reflecting long and hard for the last decade, essentially. And you can see various angles, whether it's in data sharing or safer launches or so on and so forth. They're captured in the long-term sustainability guidelines which were adopted by consensus in 2019. As we say, silos unfortunately exist. It's not necessarily obvious for a telecoms regulator nationally to be speaking with a space agency. So here there's a really big mutual responsibility on both the ITU and USA to bridge the gap, bridge the gap at institutional level between our various entities, but also to bridge the gap between our respective interlocutors and stakeholders who do not necessarily speak with each other. I think it's up to us to take the lead here and to show that we can be more than the sum of our individual parts by overcoming silos and working together. Well, Arty, thank you so much for sharing these valuable insights on your work and on the work that affects us and will be affecting us for many years to come. And we look forward to catching up with you again very soon. Thank you. And if you've enjoyed this interview, which I'm sure you will have, then do check out our other interviews on our YouTube channel, as well as our podcasts on SoundCloud, Spotify, or wherever you hear your podcasts. And for further information, visit our website at www.itu.int. Thanks for tuning in.