Kenya has achieved a major breakthrough in space technology as it has built its first satellite to mainly observe farming trends and monitor the coastline. The tiny 10 by 10cm cube nanosatellite is to be launched in April or May from the International Space Station (ISS).
The satellite was developed by the University of Nairobi in collaboration with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and largely funded by Japan.
The University of Nairobi said the satellite will also be used to test technologies for the launch of a larger earth observation satellite in the future.
The launch, if successful, will earn Kenya a position in the small club of African countries engaged in space technology. In Africa, only South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria, and Egypt have satellites in space.
Koichi Wakata, the Japanese agency’s ISS programme manager, said Kenya’s satellite will be delivered to the ISS in March. It will be launched from a robotic arm known as Kibo in April or May
University of Nairobi engineer Dr Jackson Mwangi, who was involved in the satellite development, said it was handed over to Jaxa in Japan on Tuesday last week.
“The 1KUNS-PF ( 1st Kenyan University Nano Satellite Precursor Flight) is the first satellite to be developed by Kenya and first satellite to be operated by a Kenyan university,” he said.
It comes in a new form, a nanosatellite. It’s extremely small, a 10 by 10-centimetre cube, with a volume of one litre. Miniaturised satellites increasingly perform commercial missions that previously required larger satellites.
Kenya’s first satellite was developed through a programme known as KiboCUBE, launched in September 2015 by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and the Jaxa.
The programme offers educational and research institutions from developing countries the opportunity to deploy cube satellites from the ISS.
