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Africa will launch its first private satellite into space
It was built by schoolgirls
CNN
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They may be teenagers, but 17-year-old Brittany Paul and 16-year-old Sesam Mengkingkiswa have big ambitions – to launch Africa’s first private satellite into space in 2019.
They are part of a team of high school girls from Cape Town, South Africa, who have designed and built payloads for a satellite that orbits the Earth’s poles to survey the surface of Africa.
Once in space, the satellite will collect information on agriculture and food security within the continent.
Using the transmitted data, “we can try to identify and predict the problems that Africa will face in the future,” explains Paul, a student at Pelican Park High School.
“Where our food grows is where we can grow more trees and plants and also how we can monitor remote areas,” she says. “We have a lot of bushfires and floods but we don’t always get out on time.”
The information received twice a day will be devoted to disaster prevention.
It is part of a project of South Africa’s Meta Economic Development Organization (MEDO) working with Morehead State University in the United States.
SKA courtesy
Africa has been slow to embark on space travel. But new projects on the continent look promising. South Africa’s ambitious Square Kilometer Array project aims to build the world’s largest radio telescope that will help scientists paint a detailed picture of some of the deepest regions of outer space.
Pictured here: A composite image of the MeerKAT satellite and the Square Kilometer Array (ASKAP) satellite.
Pictures and colon Africa’s journey into space
Courtesy of SPDO / Swinburne Astronomy Productions
The Karoo Desert in South Africa will be home to the Square Kilometer Array, a group of 3,000 satellite dishes operating in tandem over an area of one square kilometer.
Africa’s participation in the project will be enhanced by the remote stations located in Botswana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia. “class =” gallery-image__dam-img “height =” 1536 “/>
Pictures and colon Africa’s journey into space
SKA courtesy
SKA is an international affair. It is headquartered in the UK while the telescope itself has a “dual” location in Australia and South Africa.
Africa’s participation in the project will be enhanced by the remote stations located in Botswana, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia.
Pictures and colon Africa’s journey into space
Courtesy of SPDO / Swinburne Astronomy Productions
Scientists hope the project will shed more light on the mysteries posed by the likes of quasars, dark matter and black holes.
Pictures and colon Africa’s journey into space
SKA Africa
Pictured: The first photographs from MeerKAT. The telescope assembly currently consists of 16 dishes that will eventually become part of the Square Kilometer Array.
SKA Africa
The first photocopy of MeerKAT. Each white dot represents the intensity of the radio waves recorded with 16 dishes from the MeerKAT telescope in the Karoo Desert.
More than 1,300 individual objects – galaxies in the distant universe – are seen in this image.
Ronald Martinez / Getty Images North America / Getty Images
The Nigerian government has announced its plans to launch an astronaut into space by 2030, as part of an ambitious space programme.
Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
Pictures and colon Africa’s journey into space
SSTL
Nigeria has already launched five satellites into space. The first – NigeriaSat-1 – was launched on a Kosmos-3M rocket from the Russian spaceport of Plesetsk in 2003.
Pictures and colon Africa’s journey into space
SSTL
The Nigerian Space Agency claims to have trained 300 employees at doctoral or bachelor’s level, and has ambitious plans to expand the industry, promoting space programs across the continent.
Pictures and colon Africa’s journey into space
GSSTC
Ghana has created a new space center as part of the country’s embrace of high-tech industries.
Pictures and colon Africa’s journey into space
AFP/Getty Images
Egypt has one of the oldest space programs on the continent, having launched several satellites aboard Russian rockets.
The girls (14 in total) are being trained by satellite engineers from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, in an effort to encourage more African women to STEM.
If the launch is successful, it will make MEDO the first private company in Africa to build a satellite and send it into orbit.
“We expect to receive a good signal, which will allow us to receive reliable data,” said Mngqengqiswa, from Philippi Secondary School. “In South Africa, we’ve had some of the worst floods and droughts that have hit farmers hard.”
Drought and the environmental effects of climate change have continued to plague the country in recent years. The drought caused by the El Niño phenomenon has led to a shortage 9.3 million tons in maize production in South Africa in April 2016, according to a United Nations report.
“It has caused our economy to deteriorate… This is a way of looking at how we can boost our economy,” says young Mngqengqiswa.
Initial experiments involved the girls programming and launching small CricketSat satellites using weather balloons at high altitudes, before eventually helping to form the satellite payloads.
Small satellites are low-cost ways to quickly collect data on the planet. Tests so far have involved collecting thermal imaging data, which is then interpreted for early detection of floods or droughts.
“It’s a new field for us [in Africa] But I believe that through this we will be able to make positive changes in our economy,” says Mngqengqiswa.
Ultimately, it is hoped that the project will include girls from Namibia, Malawi, Kenya and Rwanda.
Mngqengqiswa comes from a single parent household. Her mother is a domestic worker. By becoming an astronaut or an astronaut, the teen hopes to make her mother proud.
“Exploring space and seeing Earth’s atmosphere, it’s not something many black Africans have been able to do, or don’t have the opportunity to consider,” says Mngqengqiswa.
The student is right. In half a century of space travel, no black African has ever made a trip to outer space. Mngqengqiswa says, “I want to see these things for myself, I want to be able to experience these things.”
And her teammate Paul agrees: “I want to show my fellow girls that we don’t need to sit back or limit ourselves. Any career is possible – even in aviation.”
