More African satellites to be launched in 2023
Space in Africa
The Authority on News, Data and Market Analysis for the African Space Industry.
Botswana and Zimbabwe announce plans for new satellites in 2023
2022 has witnessed the launch of several African satellites, and there's much more to come. For example, Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi recently announced that the country's first satellite, Bot-Sat-1, which was kicked off in December 2020, is set to be launched in 2023 during his State of the Nation Address last Monday. According to the president, the satellite will be utilised to generate valuable data to solve developmental challenges in Botswana, especially in the communications, internet, weather forecasting, agricultural, land resources mapping, television broadcasting, and tourism industries which will be the backbone of the knowledge economy within Vision 2036 and the Reset Agenda of Botswana.
Similarly, Zimbabwe, off to a strong start as a space-faring country, is gearing up to launch its second satellite, ZIMSAT-2, a communications satellite next year. According to President Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, the recent landmark deployment of Zimbabwe's satellite ZIMSAT-1 is part of an ongoing strategy to see the country launch more satellites. And the ZIMSAT-2 will give the country additional capabilities, including in the critical communications field. Furthermore, the satellite will enable total national connectivity, thus making ICT and other communication applications pervasive in National Development. You can read more about Zimbabwe's satellite intentions here.
Planet and Justdiggit enable nature-based solutions to regreen Africa
Justdiggit is utilising Planet Lab's high-resolution satellite imagery data feeds to quantify, evaluate, and scale their regreening projects in sub-Saharan Africa. Justdiggit aims to scale its program to millions of farmers. As a result, they and their partners are making significant strides to regreen Africa, support sustainable livelihoods, and combat the climate crisis.?Read more.
South Africa and NASA renew lunar exploration partnership
The South African National Space Agency and NASA have renewed their partnership in lunar exploration with the groundbreaking new communications facility to help the Artemis missions return humans to the Moon.
Growing the African space ecosystem from the ground up; a case study of South Africa
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Africa faces an immense technological gap, which makes economic growth in various industry sectors difficult. This article expands on how South Africa addresses this challenge through context-specific awareness, its national space strategy, capacity development initiatives and information campaigns.
Microsoft and Planet partner to provide AI and satellite data for African climate adaptation projects
Through an expanded collaboration between the Microsoft AI for Good Lab and Planet Labs, Africa-based data scientists will have access to satellite imagery from across the African continent to address climate challenges.?In addition, this?new collaboration will help extend this usage to the Global South to make geospatial data commonplace in responding to natural disasters like wildfires, hurricanes and earthquakes.
SpaceX's Starlink is now licensed in Malawi
The Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA) has licensed?Starlink?to provide internet services in the country. This is the first high-speed, low-latency broadband satellite Internet service license issued by the authority.
Register for the NewSpace Africa Conference 2023
Registrations are now open for the NewSpace Africa Conference 2023. The conference will be held in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, from the 23rd to the 26th of April, 2023. The conference will cover active topics on policies, research, trends, future outlooks, and all segments of the African space and satellite industry.?Register?here.
Until next week.