Tunis (AFP)
It's a small step for aerospace but a big step for Tunisia: the first homemade satellite was launched into space on Monday, opening up new local perspectives to young Tunisian engineers who are expatriating in large numbers.
Tunisia is the first country of the Maghreb, and the sixth African country to manufacture its own satellite, after in particular South Africa, Egypt or Ghana, according to the specialized site Space in Africa.
"Challenge One", intended for the Internet of Things (the ecosystem of connected objects), was built by a team from the Tunisian telecommunications group TelNet, most of whose engineers, trained locally, are between 25 and 30 years old.
"It is a source of pride to have taken part in this project, working in the aeronautical or aerospace sector is a dream," Khalil Chiha, 27, trained at the national school of electronics in Sfax ( center).
"We are very moved, after three years of intense work," said Haifa Triki, a 28-year-old engineer, who from Tunis followed the flight of the Soyuz launcher which carries the satellite.
"Fortunately the atmosphere was good to resist the stress and the challenge of mastering new technologies. We made a lot of sacrifices, but it was worth it."
- "National will" -
The rocket lifted off Monday morning from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, followed live from Tunis by Tunisian President Kais Saied, who joined engineers and journalists at TelNet headquarters.
"Our real wealth is the youth who can face obstacles," said Saied, stressing that Tunisia, entangled in a social and political crisis, did not lack resources but "national will".
"We are proud of our youth" and Tunisian brains "around the world," he said.
Several thousand engineers leave Tunisia each year to work abroad.
The Challenge One team was notably supported by expatriate Tunisian engineers, one of whom took part in the recent NASA mission to Mars.
"It's really a dream come true," Anis Youssef, head of the project at TelNet, told AFP a few days before the launch.
Connected thermometers or pollution sensors, localization chips or humidity sensors: this experimental satellite is intended to collect the data collected by these devices in order to have access to it in real time even in a land area without internet coverage.
It aims to meet the growing need for satellite connection for objects because less than 20% of the earth's surface is covered by the terrestrial internet network.
"It is a big problem for agriculture, connected vehicles", explains to AFP Ahmed El Fadhel, aerospace engineer based in Belgium and president of the Tunisian Association of Space Tunsa.
- Constellation -
If the aerospace industry is in full development in the Arab world and in Africa, where eleven African countries out of 55 have already launched satellites, "the club of those which manufacture them is rather closed", underlined Mr. El Fadhel.
Challenge One must have a transmission capacity of 250 kb / s over 550 km, according to TelNet.
It is one of the first to use in space a data transmission protocol already used on earth, LoRa, which allows existing objects to be connected via satellite by only changing the antenna.
TelNet intends to launch within three years, in partnership with other African countries, a constellation of more than twenty satellites in order to commercially exploit this technology.
"This paves the way for the opening of an innovative service for the region, in a rapidly expanding field," Mohamed Frikha, CEO of TelNet, told AFP.
Beyond technological progress, he underlines "the opening of local employment prospects for Tunisian engineers".
"Job opportunities exist in Tunisia, the problem is to make young engineers want to stay," adds Ms. Triki.
"The ecosystem must follow in order to motivate young people, have other businesses to offer ambitious opportunities, but also better social conditions," she underlines.
Tunisia, hit hard by the social fallout from the pandemic, is paralyzed by a political crisis and affected by numerous social mobilizations, pushing up departures, legal or clandestine.
© 2021 AFP