The first operational satellite of the Kenya was put into orbit by a SpaceX rocket that took off from California, United States, according to images from the American space company.
The launch, initially scheduled for Monday night in the United States, was postponed several times this week due to bad weather conditions.
This Saturday (15), a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket took off at 06:48 GMT from the American base in Vandenberg (California), having an hour later put several dozen satellites into orbit, including the Kenyan Taifa-1 (“Nation-1 ”, in Swahili language).
Conceived and developed by a team of Kenyan researchers, this satellite should provide data in the areas of agriculture and environmental monitoring in Kenya, valuable for the future of this East African country, which is currently experiencing a historic drought.
In a joint statement last week, the Kenya Ministry of Defense and the Kenya Space Agency (KSA) announced "an important step" that should boost "Kenya's burgeoning space economy".
"We directly benefit from space exploration, we will be able to improve our food security“, said KSA Pattern engineer Odhiambo, who participated in the project, in statements to the French news agency AFP.
As he explained, through the images of the multispectral camera of the satellite it will be possible to obtain “high-quality Earth observation data, which will help predict crop yields".
Kenya sent its first nanosatellite into space in 2018.
By 2022, more than 50 African satellites have been sent into space, according to Space in Africa, a Nigerian company that tracks African space programs, Egypt being the first country on the continent to do so in 1998.
