by STAR REPORTER
19 December 2019 – 19:56
In Summary
• Ethiopia’s first-ever satellite, ET-RSS1, is going to space tomorrow Friday.
• According to him, the 70kg multi-spectral remote sensing satellite will blast off into space from China, with its ground station located in Ethiopia at the Entoto space observatory facility.
Ethiopia’s first-ever satellite, ET-RSS1, is going to space tomorrow Friday.
Ambassador Meles Alem on Thursday said the satellite will be launched at at 03:21 GMT.
According to him, the 70kg multi-spectral remote sensing satellite will blast off into space from China, with its ground station located in Ethiopia at the Entoto space observatory facility.
“Once launched into space, the satellite is expected to monitor the environment and weather patterns for better agricultural planning, drought early warning, mining activities and forestry management,” he said in a statement.
The satellite was built in collaboration with Ethiopian engineers, who were trained from the scratch, and has made way for the exchange and transfer of knowledge and technology between Ethiopia and China.
Last year Kenya launched its first space satellite which is being used to observe farming trends.
It was launched from an International Space Station in Florida, the United States on April 2.
The satellite was developed by the University of Nairobi in collaboration with the University of Rome.
“This is a milestone in Kenya’s exploration into space,” Foreign Affairs CS Monica Juma said.
The selected team was first announced during the TICAD VI, as a beneficially of the first round of the KiboCUBE Programme.
KiboCUBE is an initiative that offers educational and research institutions from developing countries, the opportunity to deploy cube satellites (CubeSats) from the Japanese Kibo module of the International Space Station (ISS).
The Kenyan Cube Satellite was developed under the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, which is Japan’s national aero-space agency.
It was delivered to JAXA on January 16, 2018, in preparation for its deployment into space.
The University of Nairobi christened it as “First Kenya University Nano Satellite-Precursor Flight (1KUNS-PF).”