The Angolan government recently highlighted the country's leadership in Satellite Sharing Program of SADC, which involves having a common strategy for the region and launching and joint management of satellites.
According to the Minister of Telecommunications, Information Technologies and Social Communication (MINTTICS), Mário Oliveira, the Angolan delegation leading the program at the National Space Program Management Office (GGPEN).
"The sector has long invested heavily in the training of young people in the area of Telecommunications and Information Technologies, Meteorology, and more recently, in the Space area, with results visibly observed in the SADC working groups, where Angola leads the technical team which studies the operationalization of a Satellite Sharing System for the SADC Region and responds to the countries of the region at the International Telecommunications Union in Space matters", said.
From what was revealed by Mário Oliveira, Angola is hosting the ITU administration to represent SADC Member States, in order to manage the organization's Regional Shaped Beam archive.
To this end, a Project Management Office (PMO) was created in Luanda, a management structure that aims to standardize processes related to the SADC Satellite Sharing Program and facilitate the sharing of resources, methodologies and tools.
Its job is to define and maintain standards for managing projects in the SADC Satellite Sharing Program, such as, for example, identification and analysis of orbital resources, interference analysis and technical assistance in frequency coordination, etc. The PMO will prepare documentation that will offer guidance on the execution of the action plan and develop metrics on its management practice and execution. Therefore, it will monitor and report at the highest level on the progress of different SADC project actions in ways that promote strategic decision-making.
BUT: Angolan delegation leads the space program in the SADC zone
The team created is made up of Members of the SADC Expert Committee, a project monitoring team (directors of GGPEN and INFRASAT) and executing technicians from GGPEN and INACOM.
According to the latest figures from GGPEN, Angola currently has 5 doctorates, 22 masters and 33 engineers graduated in the most diverse aspects of space engineering, and there are three more pursuing their doctorates in France and an engineer who completed his training in Russia and who will return to the country.
This entire national spatial structure is recognized internationally, where in 2020 and 2021 Angola won the Top category in Africa for engineers under 30 years old. The recognition of a class of young people trained, for the most part, in engineering in our country, but who will then complement their training in the space area abroad – Japan, the United States, France and Russia are some of the countries – for a year.
Training is structured over a period of six months at the academy and then 7 months at companies in the sector, which means that when they return they are ready to guarantee a high professional level in the performance of their duties.
