On July 27, 2015, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) in Taiwan signed an agreement concerning ALMA, following the conclusion of a prior agreement concerning the operations and development of ALMA which was entered into as of July 21 between the National Institutes of Natural Sciences of Japan (NINS) and Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan. These agreements will further strengthen cooperation between Japan and Taiwan for the operations of ALMA.

Japan and Taiwan have been working on various joint programs since the conclusion of an agreement for collaboration concerning construction of ALMA in 2005. One of the achievements made by such joint efforts was the ALMA East Asia Front-End Integration Center (EA-FEIC) in Taiwan where all the receiver cartridges for 16 parabola antennas developed by NAOJ were fabricated into a vacuum cooling container called “cryostat” and evaluated (see “ALMA EA-FEIC Completed the Last ACA Receiver System” , posted on January 30, 2012). Also, in the areas of scientific research using ALMA and future development of ALMA, Japan and Taiwan have jointly held workshops to have discussions on various programs.

These new agreements were made along with the transition of ALMA from the construction phase into operations phase. Since Korea, another ALMA EA consortium member state, already signed an agreement concerning operations of ALMA in 2014 (see “NINS and KASI Sign Agreement on ALMA”, posted on August 20, 2014), the agreements with Taiwan provided a firm base for the East Asian ALMA cooperation framework among Japan, Taiwan and Korea.

The picture below shows the attendees at the signing ceremony held in NAOJ Mitaka. From left: Shin’ichiro Asayama (EA ALMA Future Development Program Manager), Satoru Iguchi (EA ALMA Project Manager), Tetsuo Hasegawa (NAOJ Chile Observatory Director), Masahiko Hayashi (NAOJ Director General), You-Hua Chu (ASIAA Director), Patrick Koch (ASIAA ALMA Project Manager), Ciska Kemper (ASIAA ALMA Project Manager), and Ted Huang (ASIAA ALMA Band 1 Project Manager).