Maintenance

Launch of Kenya's first satellite: "For us, it's a step, a stepping stone"

The Kenyan satellite will take off aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from the American company Space X (illustration). AP - John Raoux

Text by: Florence Morice Follow

3 min

Named "Taifa-1" (Nation 1, in Swahili), the first Kenyan observation satellite is scheduled to take off this Tuesday, April 11 from the American base of Vandenberg, California, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket of the American company Space X. Interview with Colonel Brig Hillary Kipkosgei, acting director of the Kenya Space Agency (KSA).

Advertising

Read more

A small object – 10 cm by 10 cm wide and 30 cm long – but a great moment for the Kenyan space agency. Kenya'sfirst observation satellite is scheduled to take off at 6:48 GMT on Tuesday morning and deploy an hour later. In 2018, the country had already launched a first nanosatellite, but only on an experimental basis. The one that is to reach space will be the first operational observation satellite, in other words the first to be able to collect and transmit, in real time, satellite data.

Taifa-1 was designed and developed in Nairobi by a team of Kenyan engineers at an estimated cost of 50 million shillings (about 350,000 euros), in collaboration with the Bulgarian company Endura Sat which took care of the manufacture and testing of some parts of the satellite. Kenya hopes to start receiving data from August. In the meantime, it must complete the manufacture of the ground receiver and give Taifa-1 time to stabilize and the teams to configure it. It will be the 46th African satellite to be placed in orbit, 25 years after the first, an Egyptian satellite launched in 1998. According to the Kenyan authorities, the data collected should improve the management of the country's natural resources and help the agriculture sector.

RFI: What will the data collected and transmitted by Taifa-1 be used for?

BrigHillary Kipkosgey: This will allow us to monitor, for example, our forest cover. Are we losing forests or is our reforestation policy increasing our forest area? In terms of water resources, this can be used to monitor whether we are losing water or if volumes are increasing, or even to detect sources of pollution.

Will it also help you fight drought?

Drought? To some extent. But to monitor drought, a satellite that provides images is not enough. We also need sensors on the ground and a larger satellite that, from these sensors, can assess whether there is a decrease in soil moisture levels and therefore a risk of drought.

Our satellite, because it is small, does not have that capability. But for us, it's a step, a stepping stone. We are learning how to build satellites. We started in 2018 with a satellite three times smaller than this one, and since then we've made progress.

What are the next steps?

Already, we want to show what we are capable of. We have reached a certain maturity. Secondly, we want to continue learning with this satellite. This is our first operational satellite, so there are things to learn about managing a space operation, about managing a receiver on the ground. When it comes to data acquisition and processing, we also have things to learn.

And then we want to use this knowledge to launch other satellites... Three, four, five and maybe even six satellites that will work together and form a constellation. The objective is to have varied sources of information that complement each other and that can be compared.

Finally, little is known about our space program. People don't know our capabilities and the opportunities it represents. So we want to take this opportunity to raise awareness and get their support so that we can invest in other programs in the future.

Newsletter Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

Read on on the same topics:

• Kenya
• Space
• Our selection