Dr. YAMAKAWA Hiroshi, President of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Dr. Megan Clark, Head of Australian Space Agency (ASA), signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) on July 7, 2020. The Australian Ambassador to Japan, His Excellency Mr. Richard Court and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Australia, His Excellency Mr. TAKAHASHI Reiichiro were in attendance. The signing ceremony was organized online between Tokyo and Canberra. The conclusion of the MOC between JAXA and ASA was welcomed by the Prime Ministers of Japan and Australia during the Summit Meeting held on July 9, 2020.

Based on this MOC, JAXA and ASA will consider cooperation in areas such as (1) space applications, (2) space technologies, (3) space environment utilization, (4) space science and space exploration and (5) space education and outreach.

Through further cooperation in the space field between Japan and Australia, JAXA and ASA, as significant partners, will contribute to invigorating space-related activities in the Asia-Pacific region.

At exactly 31 minutes and 00 seconds past 2 o’clock on the morning of May 21, 2020, the H-II Transfer Vehicle known as "KOUNOTORI9" (HTV9), the cargo transporter to the International Space Station (ISS), was launched aboard H-IIB Launch Vehicle No. 9 (H-IIB F9) from the JAXA Tanegashima Space Center.

We express our sincere appreciation for all the frontline workers fighting coronavirus (COVID-19), the people in the Tanegashima Island, and all of you supporting for this launch.

JAXA has been addressing global precipitation-related issues under the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission by utilizing the 3D precipitation product "Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR)" onboard GPM core observatory and multi-satellite precipitation product "Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP)".
We are pleased to inform that the new website called "JAXA Climate Rainfall Watch" is now available, which provides information about extreme heavy rainfall and drought over the world (Fig. 1). You can easily monitor global extreme weather and climate by displaying accumulated rainfall in some temporal scale (daily, pentad, weekly, 10-days and monthly), indices related to extreme heavy rainfall (percentiles*) and drought (SPI**). A specified date after April 2000 can be selected.

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Fig.1 Graphical User Interface of the "JAXA Climate Rainfall Watch" website
(Monthly precipitation in February 2020)

Australia has naturally faced many droughts and bushfires, but conditions have been unusually severe this time. Sometime around September 2019, the bushfires continuously occurred around the state of New South Wales in southeast Australia. The fires had been spreading on a larger scale, and a number of massive fires had merged into a "Mega Fire" that was out of control. The fires are unlikely to end entirely even at the end of January 2020.

Figure 1 (left) Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) in Australia calculated by GSMaP precipitation amount in a month (December 2019), (right)SPI calculated by GSMaP precipitation amount in three months (October-December 2019) in a same way. The relations between SPI value, the range of drought and frequency of phenomenon were classified by WMO (2012). In case SPI value becomes "-1.5 to -1.99", it indicates the situation of "Severe dryness" which happens "once in 20 years". In case SPI value becomes less than -2.0, it corresponds "Extreme dryness" which happens "once in 50 years". These condition shows the possibility of severe drought occurrence which leads to a big social impact.