ROOM
59
Astronautics
The South African
TshepisoSAT Team.
Map showing
distribution of the space
industry across Africa,
showing the major and
minor players and
number of missions.
South Africa
Za-AeroSAT.
with other key players including Morocco, Kenya,
Tunisia and Gabon.
Funding is always an important determinant of
space technology development - and the lack of
funding has been a major problem for the fledgling
African space industry. As such, attention has been
diverted to small satellite development (nano-
satellites) with countries like South Africa, Nigeria,
Ghana and Kenya investing heavily in this. On 21
November 2013, South Africa made history by
becoming the first African country to launch its
own cubesat, the TshepisoSAT, into space. Another
South African cubesat, named ZA-AeroSat, was
launched in April 2017.
The University of Nairobi, Kenya, is working on
a cubesat project called IKUNS-PF, which is to
be used for monitoring agriculture and coastal
areas. This huge project has been accepted into
the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs
KiboCube programme.
The Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Satellite
project, or the ‘BIRDS Project’, is a cross-border
interdisciplinary satellite project supported by
Japan with participation from countries including
Africa’s space
industry has
progressed
with millions
of dollars
invested
and about
21 satellites
launched by
six nations
NASA
