Third International Symposium UNIVERSAT-2009: UNIVERSITY SATELLITES IN SPACE SCIENCES EDUCATION is canceled

Dear colleagues,

With great regret we have to inform you that the Third International Symposium UNIVERSAT-2009: UNIVERSITY SATELLITES IN SPACE SCIENCES EDUCATION scheduled to take place 28 September, 2009 - 4 October, 2009 in Moscow, Russia, has been canceled by the Organizing Committee.

The International Symposium requires a huge commitment of diverse resources - from financial agencies, from contributors and from their institutions. And, at a time when world economy is moving into its second year of a recession, the Organizing Committee and essentially the institutions of the interested participants are not in a position to provide UNIVERSAT with the attention and resources required to make the Symposium the success it needs to be for our attendees. The majority of participants who has presented the remarkable and significant thesis not only applied for proposed financial support in the form of a fee waiver, but also were forced by the circumstances in their institutions to request the additional support for free accommodation and airfare compensation with denote that they have no other possibility to visit the Symposium. Being not in a position to meet these requests we very well understand that in this situation it will not be the right decision to rely only on reports of "cash people" from the space community. We recognize the importance of space science education and by all means will continue to work on organizing the meeting in the future.

On behalf of UNIVERSAT-2009 Organizing Committee,
Mikhael Panasyuk
Serge Krasotkin

E-mail for righteous indignations and merciful empathy: universat2009 (at) gmail (dot) com cosmos.msu.ru/universat2009